by Deborah Yaffee
I was a dyed in the wool “journaler” for most of my life. It’s how I stayed sane. In the evenings, I would prep for the next morning’s musings by mentally reviewing the events of my day and jotting them down. Every morning I would trot out my journal and pen, and proceed to reflect on my life and my responses to it.
Even though there are many exercises for writing without thinking or judgment, words and writing are still very much left-brained activities that trigger the analytical mode and engage the conscious mind in some way. At two particularly difficult and important junctures in my life, I discovered that I simply could not write my way to a place of peace. I knew something was not quite right but my writing mind couldn’t quite see the whole picture. An insistent impatience developed within me, and eventually I was literally drawn to blank paper and markers and paints. I needed to literally SEE what was going on within me. Reflecting and digging around in my psyche with a ballpoint pen just wasn’t enough.
And so I instinctively began to scribble and “draw” in the mornings. I put “draw” in quotes because this is about making your mark on the paper without any intention of making what the harsh self-critic calls “art” per se. This is about literally drawing oneself out into the open so that there can be a direct communication from the subconscious mind, enabling its information to be acknowledged and integrated. Our analytical minds can run circles around our awareness. Give the subconscious mind some time and space, and paper and paint, and it will make you a picture of what it so desperately wants you to know. Of course, you will probably need an interpreter or at least someone to help you learn its language of colors and symbols.
Finding Guidance
My mornings became full of bright markers and sheets of white paper. I dropped my inner critic and just let it flow. Sometimes my arm moved in forceful ways, as if attacking something deep inside that paper universe. Other times, my arm’s movement was gentle, loving, caressing, and I filled the paper with repetitions of large, curvy lines and shapes. After a couple of weeks of this, I noticed that I hadn’t produced any masterpieces but I had begun to feel distinctly better. More curiously, I noticed that I was feeling more integrated and that I was beginning to “see” what was going on in my life in a way that my dry journal writing had never enabled me to do. Writing was still important, but I know understood that I had been denying a whole block of information from my body-mind.
It was at that time that I was in a local bookstore, browsing the Art section, and a book literally fell off the shelf, nearly hitting me in the head! It was a large, slim volume called “Visual Journaling” by Barbara Ganim and Susan Fox. Of course I bought it! And with it I purchased Louise Cappacione’s “Picture of Health” which was parked next to it.
Within the pages of these books I found the guidance I needed to make the conversation with my subconscious mind more understandable …….and more fun. Each of these authors offers a multitude of art exercises along with techniques for dialogue, methods to contemplate the drawings, questions to ask that will facilitate some answers from the subconscious mind as you engage the drawing it has produced for you. The exercises in these books gave my morning sessions a sense of hypnotic ritual that encouraged my subconscious mind to get bolder and bolder about letting me know what I wasn’t seeing about my life.
There were questions to ask my splotches of color and unidentified shapes, and my conscious mind was very happy to jump in to analyze ad nauseum. Using my mind in that way made me feel the way I felt when I journaled. I could feel the limitation.
It was then that an experienced Jungian analyst-art hypnotist friend of mine stepped in to demonstrate the power of working with your own images. Looking through my pictures, she skipped over all the ones that looked like “something”. Leading me deeper and deeper into a natural state of hypnosis, persevering at helping me to put my conscious mind aside, and asking my subconscious mind what this color or mark meant, she was a master! In just a few minutes, the wall of ignorance (i.e., denial) that my analytical mind had built collapsed and I had a sudden realization of what was happening in my life and what I needed to do. Looking back through my other drawings, it became clear what my subconscious mind had been showing me right along….and I had already been responding, integrating the information, and growing more courageous, without my conscious mind being aware of it.
Clearly, integrating simple art exercises with established hypnosis techniques was something for this Synergistic Hypnotist to explore!
An Exercise for Session
Here is a session adapted from the books mentioned above. To date, I have only done this session with established clients. It is more like a workshop-session and so requires a serious time commitment, perhaps 3 hours. You will have already discussed the nature of the session with the client so that she knows what to expect when she arrives. She knows that she will be drawing, and you will have dispelled any traces of performance anxiety about “being an artist” in your pre-talk for this session.
Because the client will be drawing, we do the session at a sturdy table. I generally restrict the art materials to two large pieces of good quality artist’s drawing paper and an assortment of markers, crayons, colored pencils, and colored pens. I keep a glass of water (for drinking) handy for the client and one for myself. Since the session will be long, I have the client sit in a well-padded, non-wheeled office chair.
First, we come home to the body:
In a culture that asks us to sanitize ourselves, to dumb-down or outright ignore our feelings completely, it is no wonder that we’ve become increasingly estranged from our bodies. It becomes necessary to re-acquaint our selves with this house of flesh wherein our body-mind resides. We need to come home to the body.
We begin this healing journey by using the light of our consciousness to become familiar with our body, to become aware of what is going on within. We bring all the faculties of consciousness (sight, sound, smell, knowing, touch and taste) to visit each area of our body….to listen ….. and to love ourselves, deeply……..allowing our bodies to learn that it can trust our Conscious Mind with its sensations, feelings, and messages. The more we attend to the body’s consciousness in this way, the more we strengthen the connection to our body-mind. It is a fundamental relationship that many of us have not nurtured. Instead, we’ve driven the body mercilessly, as if it were a dumb beast fit only to pull our minds about.
And so we begin with a complete Body Scan. After induction and deepening, we ask the client to imagine the light of her consciousness above her head, and to make it her intention to concentrate that light into a focused beam or perhaps a small point of light. She might imagine it as a tiny flashlight or perhaps as a wand with a tiny LED shining so very bright on the end of it. In a moment, you will ask her to allow this light of her awareness to enter through the top of her head, lighting her way as she makes a journey throughout her entire body.
Preparing her for this journey within, we give the client precise instructions on using this Torch of Awareness and how to proceed. The purpose of this scan is to achieve increased awareness, to simply observe the body, to make note of how it feels, what it looks like at each area. We ask her to adopt an attitude of loving curiosity and to maintain the stance of an interested observer. At every stop along the way, you will guide her to use her own Inner Light to help her to simply look at what is going on, to observe, and to ask her body some very basic questions.
The scan is methodical and deliberate. We guide her to move slowly, yet steadily. Because our brains have learned to scan information from left to right, and from top to bottom, we maintain that pattern in the body scan by directing her to move her awareness from left to right as we move down the body….the top of the head, into the forehead; first the left eye, then the right; first the left shoulder and arm, then the right; and so on.
As you guide her to stop at each area, ask appropriate questions. How does it feel? What are the sensations there? Is there a quality of color, lightness or darkness there? Is there heat or coolness? Does the area feel tense and strained, or calm and relaxed? Is there a sense of openness or congestion and constraint? Does the energy or breath move freely, easily, and deeply or is there hesitation and shallowness in the chest? Is a particular area tight, sore, stiff and cramped, or does it feel flexible, light and unrestricted? Notice where the body feels stress and discomfort, if any, and notice where it feels relaxed, open, and comfortable. If it had a voice, what would it say? Would it be shouting or speaking in a soft whisper?
The journey I have found helpful is this:
Top of the head to forehead, moving down to the eyes, the cheeks, the nose and sinuses, the mouth (lips, tongue, teeth, roof of mouth), the chin, the ears, the neck and throat. Left shoulder, into the left arm, following all the way down to the fingers. Right shoulder, into the right arm, following all the way down to the fingers. Then the chest, paying attention to the lungs and breathing, the area of the heart, the breasts, the ribs, the liver and gallbladder area beneath the ribs on the right side. Traveling down and sensing the belly, the navel, then the organs within the abdominal cavity…the stomach, the intestines, the bladder, the genitals. Around to the back, beginning at the top of the spine and traveling down , observing the areas of the back and spine, the lower back, the sacrum, the buttocks, the anus. Into the left hip and proceeding down the left leg, the thigh, and through the knee, the calf, the ankle, to the toes and the bottom of the foot. Then to the right hip, and down through the right leg all the way to the toes and the bottom of the right foot.
Reporting What Is
After the client has finished the Body Scan, we do a simple fractionation (1-2-3 open your eyes, close your eyes, repeat) and instruct her to ask herself: “How does your body feel right now? Notice any and all the feelings in your body that it wishes to communicate to you at this time. Any area of the body that wishes to communicate to you now does so, in its own way. Allow yourself to simply pay attention. (Pause). On the count of three, I am going to ask you to open your eyes and you will remain in hypnosis and I will give you some simple drawing instructions. Is that alright with you? Good. 1-2-3.”
When the client opens her eyes, instruct her to use her non-dominant hand to draw a picture of her body that expresses how it feels. We recommend the non-dominant hand because it is wired to the non-linear part of the brain and is therefore more likely to give an uncontrived report than the dominant hand. Encourage her to feel free to use different colors and to write the names of sensations and feelings that arise in and around the drawing. For example, she might draw a vise squeezing her head, accompanied by some screams. Perhaps she will scribble some spiked lines emanating out of her neck, writing the words “I’ve had it up to here with you!”
Go Ahead….Talk to Yourself
When the client is finished with the initial drawing of her body and how it feels, ask her to close her eyes, then proceed to deepen the hypnosis. Put the first drawing out of sight. Now guide her through a quicker paced body scan, stopping only at the parts her drawing called attention to. Instruct her to focus on how she WANTS to feel in each of those areas. “That felt a bit dark and scribbly-confused before….that felt angry and red….What would you prefer? What is a positive choice you would like to make instead?”
At the end of this scan, we instruct her to open her eyes and remain in hypnosis, just as she did before. She is again instructed to use her non-dominant hand to draw this new “body of her choice”, and to use colors and words to make them visually tangible. We ask her to tune in on the areas of special attention and make the changes there. The new drawing typically reveals a more energetic figure that is jumping for joy and emanating a sense of lightness and health. Where the first drawing may have shown and named a dark, rigid, confining lower back, the area may now be brightly colored, shouting “I’m free and flexible!.” Perhaps her previous drawing moaned “I’m sooooooooo depressed and down”, in dark, shaky letters that drooped downward off the page…..and the figure she has drawn now is skipping, care-free, singing, “Wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!”
That Was Then, This Is Now…
When the client has finished drawing her preferred state of body and being, she is ready to put the past behind her and boldly claim her chosen future. My clients have greatly enjoyed using Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) for this part of the session. While there is some controversy as to whether or not EFT is a form of hypnosis (see Cal Banyan’s article Is EFT Hypnosis? ), what we do know is that EFT “works”. Thousands of users around the world have found EFT to be just the ticket to rapidly eliminate fears, anxious feelings, cravings, unwanted habits, and negative beliefs about themselves, and to gently, effectively, install how they would prefer to think, feel and respond. (If you are not familiar with EFT, go to the above mentioned article by Cal Banyan for a basic lesson in how to EFT).
We now bring out the first drawing she did, and place it purposefully alongside, on the left, of the new drawing. Remember, your client is still in a state of hypnosis and therefore it is an ideal time to give suggestions to increase the effectiveness of the EFT procedure you are leading her to do. As she looks at both drawings, side by side, we point to the first one and gently say: “This is how you felt when we began.” Pointing to the new drawing, we say, “And this is what you would prefer.” We then offer her the choice: “Would you like to move into this new you now?”
Ready to embrace the picture of radiant health she has drawn for herself, we tap from the past image to the one she wants. The EFT Set Up phrases come from what the client herself has communicated through her drawings. We create a Set Up statement to neutralize each of the unwanted thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations, restrictions, emotions, associations from the drawing on the left, and to make an empowering choice of the preferred conditions expressed in the drawing on the right. Guide the client to look from the old picture to the new picture as she taps away the past and taps in the desired future.
For example:
Even though I’m carrying a huge black chip on my shoulder, I choose to stretch my wings of light and fly.
Even though I have this belly full of big, red angry flames, I choose to enjoy the cooling blueness of a refreshing rain there.
Tap around the points with client’s positive words, as she looks only at her own new picture of health:
That was then, this is now.
I am radiant, filled with joy, light, content, buoyant, resilient, flexible, strong, etc.
At the end of the EFT rounds, we ask the client to again close her eyes for just a moment. Deepen this hypnotic state and then instruct her to imagine her picture of health growing bigger, bigger, bigger, until it is about her size. Then guide her to fully merge with this glowing picture of health and life and joy that she has created. Engage her body-mind to the full experience of being completely bonded with this radiant image. (This is a variation of Michelle Beaudry’s Personal Upgrade technique).
When she indicates that she’s completely merged with the image, it is time to conclude the session. Direct her to now flood her entire being with Love, allowing it to fully activate this wonderful new way of being she has chosen. Fill this time with Direct Suggestions. Then emerge as usual.
Be sure to put the first drawing completely out of sight before you emerge the client. You will give her the new drawing to keep. Perhaps you have written out the positive choices as affirmations that she can tap on while viewing this drawing at home.
Sometimes a client will remember that there was that first “icky” drawing and inquire about its fate. At first, I would hold on to the old drawings, kept in the client’s file. As I learned more about the psychological energetics of holding on to old, negative images and memorabilia, I realized that it was important for me to dispose of the first drawings in a respectful, even sacred, manner. I leave the decision to the client. Would they like me to keep the drawing in their file, or burn it in a sacred ritual? Generally, I burn them and give the ashes a proper send off down the Deerfield River. One would think that the client might benefit from being involved in this ceremony but in my experience, the effect is more powerful when they realize they’ve already released the old image and allow me to dispose of it.
I have used this exercise with health-challenged individuals, with those recovering from disfiguring surgery, weight loss clients, and those who just felt depressed and anxious about their lives. Everyone has enjoyed it immensely….and, so far, no one has asked me to keep their first drawings.
© copyright 2006 Deborah Yaffee
