by Deborah Yaffee
July 2006
We are entering a time when the long-abandoned gifts of the labyrinth are being rediscovered and passionately pursued. Labyrinths are springing up everywhere—in backyards, in public parks and playgrounds, in churches and hospitals, on the internet, and certainly in the office of this hypnotist! Walking the labyrinth is indeed an ancient “practice” whose time has come again.
What is a Labyrinth? (hint: it’s not a maze)
The Labyrinth is one of humanity’s most ancient psychospiritual technologies. Several versions of them have been discovered and used by almost every culture around the world but all of them share a fundamental construction which makes them the natural antidote to the complex and frustrating mazes we build for ourselves in linear time, sound and space.
A labyrinth is a unicursal creature whose single pathway leads the Journeyer into its center and out again. Unlike the left brain activity required to navigate a maze, there is none of the anxiousness of having to decide which way to go, no flaying oneself with the razor of self-criticism for taking the “wrong” turn, and no negative consequences for choosing not to enter at all.
A maze challenges our analytical minds and literally puzzles us. A labyrinth invites its traveler to simply rest and keep on truckin’. Its single line is unobstructed by intersections which demand a “correct” choice; it never leads us down maddening dead ends. One is assured that there will be no unpleasant surprises, no getting lost, no being led astray. The path may unexpectedly twist and turn but its detours stimulate excitement, curiosity, and a sense of adventure. There is only one fundamental choice with a labyrinth: to enter and follow its path—or not.
We ourselves are the moving parts of this deceptively simple tool. With mind, fingers or feet, we walk the labyrinth, back and forth, in a meandering spiral toward the center. The labyrinth holds the space and stands as silent witness as we release, seek and find ever more of ourselves within the snug comfort of its loving walls. And just as gently, its path guides us back out into the familiar terrain of our “normal” reality.
Labyrinths may be either left-handed or right-handed. Here is a diagram of the Classic (Cretan) 7-circuit Labyrinth in its left-handed form and in its right-handed form. Take a moment now to enter one of them with your cursor and take the journey to the center and back out again.
As you can see, traversing the labyrinth feels a lot like tracing the curves and folds of your brain. Finding yourself at the center, you realize that you were everywhere on the path, as well. Wherever you go, you are there. And yet, there is a momentous poise of Being, there at the center. Have you returned to the origin of your life, of all life? Are you recapitulating a Big Bang on your way out?
Top Ten Client Benefits of Walking a Labyrinth
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Safety: Occasionally, there will be a walker who experiences some light vertigo, but no one has ever been hurt by walking a labyrinth.
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Self-regulating: The labyrinth confers a self-regulating dose of personalized insight and change to those who walk it.
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Walking the labyrinth is an excellent form of walking meditation and stress reduction. One can expect to experience the well-documented benefits of both.
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Endows client with a satisfying sense of control. Impulses from the brain and nervous system send a clear message of commitment to self-care and love to the BodyMind.
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All the benefits of walking. A Harvard Medical School survey demonstrated that the amount of time spent walking had more essential impact on health than speed and intensity. A good sized outdoor labyrinth can give you the length of a football field to walk every day. And walking a labyrinth that is constructed on soft surfaces like sand or grass burns more calories. Not bad!
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Somatic experience of trust in self and other.
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A sense of accomplishment is neurologically imprinted by literally moving forward in space to the desired goal; the body itself registers sensations and new memories of confidence and joy.
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Fills the fundamental human need for Mystery. (No, you won’t find that in the textbooks!)
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Printed labyrinths can be laminated or set into plastic sleeves. Canvas labyrinths large enough to walk through are available or you can readily draw a nice large one with chalk in a vacant parking lot or playground. Have labyrinth will travel!
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FUN!
Integrating Labyrinth Work With Hypnosis
The Labyrinth is a metaphor par excellence. Seasoned and novice “walkers” alike have observed that everything in and on the labyrinth is metaphor for one’s life, for change, for transformation. It is this feature that makes the labyrinth so ideal for hypnosis work. With or without you, the client may have a mind-body-spirit experience of nested loops, multiple embedded metaphors, parallel realities, deeper and lighter levels of trance, spontaneous collapse of core issues, and powerful kinesthetic anchoring.
The walk to the center is not without meaning, and for each individual who makes the Journey, the meaning is unique, intimate, personal. The labyrinth offers an embodied experience of both the inner male and inner female, of pursuing the Hero’s Journey and of initiating and participating in one’s own Rebirth/Resurrection. Like the mysterious monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, walking the labyrinth can provoke a quantum leap in consciousness. With fingers, feet, mind or pen, your client will literally walk their personal healing metaphor in spite of anything you do. When working with labyrinths, you will serve figuratively as either psychopomp or midwife, always a witness to the emergence of something wonderful and new.
All walks in the labyrinth follow a basic pattern: a spinning out of our story (releasing, letting go, leaving behind), opening our hearts at the center, and a spinning in (of our intention, manifestation). There is a hidden fourth beat to this pattern, a pause at the end, to reflect.
Clients with a natural gift for somnambulism and those of a mystical bent are naturally drawn to the finger labyrinths on my office shelf. I have found the Labyrinth to be a surprisingly effective mediator for analytical clients, clients who are unduly anxious, clients who have been experiencing chronic sadness, and those who still feel dubious about hypnosis even after a solid pre-talk. Curiously, these clients quite readily acquiesce to its kinesthetic induction in a seemingly innocuous game of “play and pray”.
Children tend to be absolutely intrigued and delighted with labyrinths. The hypnotist can make use of this in Parts Work. If a young part of your client is feeling rebellious, resistant, or downright stubborn, interjecting a finger labyrinth can be an effective way to bypass whatever is functioning as a type of critical factor of the part’s “conscious mind”. The finger labyrinth is introduced into the session and the client places it on a pillow or blanket on her lap. Continue talking with the young part while its attention is absorbed in wending her way (eyes shut) through the labyrinth with her finger. You will sense when it is time to bring in the question, story or statement that creates the pivotal reframe that transforms the client’s world in a moment. The tactile reality of the labyrinth imparts a solidity to the sense of “safe place” while assuring a fearful or resistant part that it is not losing itself, but instead is being lovingly and respectfully invited to enter into the congruent wholeness of the client’s greater reality.
A labyrinth can also be used as a flexible Age Regression tool. The kinesthetic experience of physically tracing a path back along their own personal time line can evoke memories of significant, relevant events quite rapidly. In effect, this part of the journey becomes an affect bridge. Our intention for the client is that she travel back to the ISE for that feeling, but the labyrinth never pressures: she is allowed to simply arrive at its center with her heart open to exploring and receiving the gifts of any SSE that her subconscious mind chooses to reveal at this time. Informed Child work may be done at this point. You and the client’s GrownUp then walk the Little One back over the labyrinth, through a felt sense of time, to the present. This application of labyrinth work can be extremely pleasurable and satisfying for a client who is using hypnosis as an adjunct to traditional psychotherapy or who is incorporating hypnosis on their spiritual quest.
Exploring the ways to interface this ancient technology with your hypnosis work can be endlessly engaging. Even limiting oneself to the use of a small finger labyrinth, we can work with eyes open or eyes closed, with scripted patter or as a boundless quest, speaking affirmations aloud or treading in silence, walking alone or with someone, guided or unguided. It can be used before, during or after the formal hypnosis session, or as the entire session itself.
I integrate the 7 circuit classic labyrinth with my practice of 7th Path Self-Hypnosis®.
Do Try This At Home!
Here are the hypnotic dynamics of a simple labyrinth walk you can do by yourself or with a client.
Set the purpose and intention of the walk: The purpose of the walk is what you have identified as your goal. The intention is the force of your commitment to pursue that goal. Even before entering the labyrinth, the subconscious mind seems to initiate a healing program as soon as the purpose and intention are set.
Induction: The labyrinth is a metaphysical dojo. I ask my clients to bow (mentally or physically) to the space, a gesture of respect that I learned years ago in karate class. This simple salute serves quite nicely as a sign of their consent to enter hypnosis. Entering the labyrinth and stepping onto its path immediately focuses the client’s attention. Following the sound of your voice, induction is virtually automatic.
Deepening: Deepening happens naturally as the body is “rocked” back and forth and spiraling ever inward through space. I suspect that this has something to do with the rapid fluctuations going on in the loop-shaped structures that lie within our inner ear. With an appropriate sense of reverence, please know that this is our primary organ of balance and its anatomical name is the vestibular labyrinth! Oh, yes, the labyrinth is a metaphor! As above, so below; as within, so without; metaphors upon metaphors spiraling within metaphors within labyrinths where winds of truth endlessly whisper into vestibular labyrinths within our human ears. Is it truly not a wondrous world?
During deepening, the client is walking inward toward the center. You may be audibly guiding the client, closely observing their state, pacing and leading as in any other hypnosis work. There is enough “shock” to the consciousness at each unexpected twist and turn of the path so that these become effective, even powerful, stations where suggestions may be given and received.
Peace at the Center: There is a natural tendency for one’s heart to spontaneously open when we come to rest at the center of the labyrinth. This center is a still and mighty place, a thin place where all the worlds of self and Spirit meet. It is the place where we are most able to practice what St. Benedict describes as “listening with the ear of your heart.” This is a magical space that no hypnotic program can enter. Here, you, also, must wait, and listen with the ear of your own heart, for the instructions of what to do next!
Returning to the Surface: When what needs to be revealed has been received, you can begin to lead your client on the pathway out. It is the same path by which she came into the center, but it is not the same person who now walks the journey out to the surface. Inner transformation of the client or their situation has been set upon a path of manifesting motion. Again, use each twist and turn of the return journey to drive in the suggestions which have been designed to help her be free.
Emerge: As the client comes around the final circuit, we begin our patter to gently help her integrate back into the present place and time, fully alert and refreshed. Again, I ask my clients to bow to the space and offer thanks. As they begin to adjust themselves to the here and now, I lovingly offer the question that Cal Banyan taught us: And you feel good, don’t you?
Shall We Dance?
Did you notice that walking the labyrinth follows a 1-2-3 pattern of walking in, rest at the center, and walking out? One-two-three; one-two-three, like the rhythm of our heart. This pattern makes our journey in the labyrinth a waltz in which our own heart is partnered with the Great Mystery. Each person chooses the level and meaning of the Dance. One-two-three; Conceive -> Believe -> Achieve. One-two-three; Seeking -> Discovery -> Communicating to Others. One-two-three; Naming a Sorrow -> Healing -> Helping Others. One-two-three; Compulsion to Smoke -> Dissolution of Old Anger -> Breathing Deeply into a Smoke-free Life. Whatever your dance is, the labyrinth will take you to its deepest meanings, if you give it permission.
When navigating a maze, we often find ourselves back where we started; sometimes we feel lost or that we’ve been walking round and round in futile circles. The singular path of the labyrinth leads us to the inner temple of our own healing and transformation. Trust it! Try it! Walk the labyrinth—and be a-mazed!
