by Deborah Yaffee
Spring 2009
Spirit: What’s Love Got to Do with It?
The association between food and our experience of love is more than a metaphor. It is literal: FOOD IS LOVE. We know this with our whole being, beyond the cellular level. Love is Spiritual Substance, food for the soul. It supports and nourishes “us” even before we make our material appearance in the union of sperm and egg. Love is the very essence of our universe, our world and ourselves, so keeping spiritually clean and fit becomes a conscious act of kindness by which we contribute to raising up a spirit of peace in the world.
At the very root, every issue our clients come to us with is a spiritual one. Where there was once wholeness/holiness, there is now an existential angst, a feeling of separation, a hunger that can only truly be satisfied by Love. Your client may or may not believe in a Divine Being. We all need spiritual nutrition for optimal spiritual health.
Spiritual Cleansing:
Forgiveness of self and others is the most effective way to completely purge one’s spiritual system of acidic spiritual toxins like resentment, jealousy, hatred, anger, guilt, and other noxious emotions that destroy our happiness and peace of mind.
It takes courage to choose forgiveness when we’d rather choose to take revenge on the one who harmed us or abandon ourselves in a futile effort to repress what happened. Once developed, the Forgiveness Muscle is the strongest muscle we have. It enables us to take back full control for ourselves in every situation. This power of forgiveness to release and empower the client makes some type of forgiveness work essential to the work we do with them.
For forgiveness work, as with any other personal work we facilitate, it’s best to encourage the client to simply start where they are. It may be that the client never gets to 100% forgiveness for a particular situation. We need to let them know that that’s okay because forgiveness is a process, a journey back to wholeness. What matters is their intention to be willing to undertake this journey of healing and to accept the absolute perfection of moving at their own pace. It is this pure intention that often opens the door of the soul to a sudden influx of healing grace that sweeps through it to cleanse and cauterize even the oldest and most hidden wounds.
We know that educating a client about what hypnosis is and what it isn’t increases their success with it. For this reason, we give the client a thorough pre-talk in the first session. I have found that many people do not have an adult understanding of forgiveness and it is their old erroneous ideas that hold them back from receiving the tremendous gifts it holds for them. So, in the same way that we gave our clients a good hypnosis pre-talk, we assist the forgiveness process by giving the client a “forgiveness pre-talk” at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when you have strong positive rapport, the client has discovered the cause of their limiting belief or behavior, and they have taken responsibility for the acid feelings that are eroding their own happiness. They are ready to free themselves, and have agreed to your assistance.
Most of the time, the client will already be in hypnosis when you give the forgiveness pre-talk. You have established their readiness to be free and this gives you the bridge to explain that forgiveness is the way through the suffering and the hurt to the freedom that is their birthright.
During the forgiveness pre-talk, you must carefully observe your client for any signs that their old ideas are being challenged. A furrowed brow may indicate that the client is struggling to believe what you are saying. Often there may be a tear of relief or the jaw may relax even further or the client may smile as they release an old limiting belief about forgiveness and gladly accept the more adult version you are suggesting.
To set your client on the path of forgiveness, include the following concepts in your forgiveness pre-talk:
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Forgiveness is a choice. You decide to free yourself from the pain and suffering of the past. By forgiving, you release yourself from all the anger and guilt that may be holding you back from your life or contributing to a state of sickness…mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually.
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Forgiveness is for you and therefore is not dependent upon whether or not you get an apology first… or ever.
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Forgiveness is not condoning the behavior. You may forgive and still hold a harmful person accountable in a court of law or circle of peers.
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Forgiveness is a process. You may or may not reach 100% forgiveness today and that’s okay. Even your intention to be willing to forgive is enough to begin the healing that you deserve.
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Forgiveness does not mean forgetting what happened. It does enable you to think of a person or event without experiencing the pain or anger you once felt. This can free your mind to give you even greater clarity about what happened, and enables you to create healing meaning from the experience. It gives you the unaffected space in which to turn a disaster into a resource.
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Forgiveness may or may not include reconciliation. Cutting cords completely, not letting the offender back in your life, or maintaining healthy boundaries are all part of healthy forgiveness choices… and they are totally up to you.
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Forgiveness does not require that you tell the offender you have granted forgiveness.
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It is never too late to give or receive forgiveness.
There are many wonderful and effective techniques that we can use to guide our clients to forgiveness of themselves and others. I have been consistently humbled by the power of the three methods I have used most often: the Forgiveness of Self and Forgiveness of Others techniques developed by Cal Banyan, BCH,CI as part of his 5-Path® advanced hypnosis method, the Forgiveness Pyramid by Michelle Beaudry, and EFT in Four Quadrants by Roy and Joleen Streit. John Weir, BCH,CI has recently offered the photo album of forgiveness method, a wonderful modification of Cal Banyan’s forgiveness protocols, designed to create hypnotic dissociation for the abused or traumatized client for whom this work may be too stimulating.
The Loving Kindness meditation from Buddhist sources can be a wonderful and gentle way to move toward forgiveness and the hypnotist can create a powerful guided meditation that can be recorded onto a CD and given to the client as a take away from the session. My favorite mentor for this is Tulku Thondup Rinpoche in his book, The Healing Power of Loving-Kindess.
Spiritual Replenishment:
Now that your client has cleared away the caustic thoughts and emotions that have been so negatively impacting them, you can assist them in choosing from the many wonderful “foods” to nourish and refresh their soul. Prayer and Meditation open the gates through which they may enter the banquet hall and sit down to the grand repast in which their own Spiritual Source fills them up with life-giving Bread (Love/Divine Sustenance) and the only Water that can slake their soul’s thirst. Their only investment is time and a willingness to receive Love in any of its forms: art, music, nature, color, friendship, poetry to name just a few.
One simple spiral to inner peace and calm and replenishment is to sit comfortably and allow the following to float gently on the breath:
Be still and know that I am God
Be still and know that I am
Be still and know
Be still
Be
Some of my energy-minded clients also enjoy “spiritually grazing the Rainbow” by imagining their aura/energetic field emanating from their core and out to a few feet beyond their bodies and then imagining that they are energetically drawing all the colors of the rainbow into their auric field, each color tinged with a spiritual quality, one by one, in a seven-course spiritual feast.
Spiritual Tonification:
Nothing keeps us spiritually fit and toned like Gratitude and Giving.
Gratitude asks us to remember all of those beings, past and present, who have contributed to our learning, our happiness and our very existence. Encouraging your client to become aware of who and what they are grateful for is surprisingly easy and profoundly effective in soothing and strengthening them on even the most challenging of days. I suggest to my clients that they give their first waking moments over to quickly contemplating even one thing they are grateful for and to notice how different a day they have tomorrow. I ask them to practice saying “Thank You” right out loud and experience filling their hearts with the powerful energy of gratitude. It takes 21 days to establish a new habit and 90 days to make it permanent, so ask your clients to give themselves a 90 day gratitude makeover.
Reciting well-constructed, compelling affirmations with feeling is another great way to keep spiritually toned. You might ask your clients to create an “appreciation board” to share with you from session to session. You will literally see the suggestions they are giving themselves and it will help you assist them in creating more powerful affirmations and suggestions for themselves. You can also weave their gratitude list into self-esteem and contentment patter during the session.
Giving graciously distracts the mind away from oneself and one’s troubles by placing one’s attention on someone else. Even if it is as simple as offering a prayer for another, giving keeps our spiritual muscles from atrophy. My Buddhist clients have enjoyed practicing Tonglen, the meditation of imagining that they are taking in others’ suffering and giving out relief, peace, happiness in its place. I find that many of my Christian-based clients enjoy offering prayers for others on rosary beads. Some clients like to simply focus on allowing their breathing to carry their prayerful thoughts for others: in with the good, out with the bad.
Volunteer work has been shown to reduce stress and extend one’s life. Volunteering is a healthy way to tonify the spirit. Get to know the non-profit organizations and people in need in your community and keep a list of volunteer opportunities to share with clients who want a little more vigorous spiritual exercise!
I highly recommend that every hypnotist learn, practice and teach their clients Cal Banyan’s spiritually based 7th Path Self Hypnosis® technique. This meditation-powered self hypnosis practice provides an elegant method to spiritually cleanse, replenish and revitalize all in one technique.
Conclusion: What’s on YOUR Menu?
This concludes the three articles in the Hypnotrition series. I hope I have helped you to appreciate that material nutrients are physical “suggestions” we give our bodies, that words, images, affirmations and hypnotic suggestions are nutrients we feed our minds with, and that things like beauty, love, forgiveness, gratitude and giving to others are much-needed food for the soul.
The waltzing heartbeat of a balanced life is sustained by a regular rhythm of Cleansing, Replenishing, and Revitalizing. Cleansing begins with awareness and acknowledgement of what needs to be released or cleansed, and simply accepting it as it is. We then apply methods of cleansing that are safe, appropriate and efficient. After cleansing, we replenish ourselves with all things positive and continue to keep our new life well-oiled and polished by tonifying, or revitalizing, on a daily basis.
Teach and treat your clients with this Life Balancing Formula for delicious whole-person results. Check yourself, too. Have you been on a steady diet of mental, physical and spiritual junk food? Cleanse, replenish and revitalize yourself. Your clients will notice the positive changes in you.
In every moment, you can make a healthy choice. I invite you to change your menu and change your life…body, mind and spirit!
© 2009 Deborah Yaffee, all rights reserved
