My Introduction to Hypnosis, A Restrospective

Back in 1999, I moved from being a deep-sea mariner, whose home was a ship, to someone who lived on land and went to work on the ocean. In the spring and fall of 2000, I decided to use hypnosis to help lose weight. I found a hypnotist in my town, and met with her. As it turned out, her specialty was past life regression, not weight loss. But she gave it a go, and gave me suggestions to want to exercise and eat healthfully. I would lie, reclined, and relax as she spoke and had gentle music playing. I was able to get to a state of deep relaxation (hypnosis) without too much trouble.

The most powerful session I had with her was one that, while I was in hypnosis, she asked me something about my highest self and to describe what was around me. At first I wasn’t sure just exactly what she meant by my highest self. That’s when things got interesting.

 Suddenly I was transported to a totally different place. I was at the sea-coast, on a small point of land, and the weather was dark, windy, stormy, tempestuous, and moody. The air was full of electricity, of energy. There was a house on a bluff that was up above sea level several feet. All around, tall, yellow grass was being blown over by the wind. I was outside near the house, standing with my face in the wind. A big sea was running, with waves crashing down on the rocks. I felt very powerful and big and full of energy. I was reaching out with both arms, soaking up the energy of the wind and air into my whole body. Then I saw a cartoon image of King Neptune coming up out of the ocean with lightning bolts coming from his fists. I chuckled because of his being a cartoon. But, because he was a cartoon, I knew I couldn’t be hurt by the lightning bolts. Then, I realized that I had this power. I was all-powerful (universal), but in no way that would bring harm to anyone or anything. I was compassionate. And then I felt an overwhelming sense of being loving.

 Afterward when I was talking about this with my hypnotist, I said the strongest feelings I had were a universal power with compassion and love. Those words reminded me of how God is supposed to be. My hypnotist reminded me that God is in all of us, and today I guess I truly felt, experienced, that highest part of me that is part of God. What an amazing thing to feel. It was as if I always knew I had these feelings and qualities, but I needed to be reminded of them.

Did I lose weight using hypnosis? Well, I joined Weight Watchers, and using both tools, I lost 45 lbs. However, I never truly conquered the emotional part of being an emotional eater. So, with some large life stresses and over the past 10 years, I gained it all back and then some. Still working on it.