Finding True Magic, the blog

One of my favorite quotes from myself (eye roll!) is,

“We think we live in the world, but we live in our minds.”

Another (double eye roll!) is,

“Once you realize your innocence, you can accomplish anything.”

I am surprised when people don’t have a clue about what I am saying with these statements. (jaw drops)

Regarding the first quote about living in our minds, try entertaining the awareness that the outer world is really a creation inside your mind. We think our mind is in our head and our chattering certainly seems to be located there. But our mind is more than our chattering. Spend some time thinking of your mind containing all your sensory fields.

Don’t mistake this to mean I want you to pretend the outer world is in your head. No, just simply consider that your mind is outside of your head. Consider your mind to be that which contains your body and its chattering thoughts, and everything in the outer world. Relax and sense your mind’s pervasiveness and spaciousness.

That brings us to the second quote: “Once you realize your innocence, you can accomplish anything.” If you have the thought that the above exercise is too strange or difficult to even try…that is a sign of lack of awareness of your innocence. Don’t let yourself miss this opportunity to play with your mind because of some stodgy old judgments. (Stodgy old judgments = opposite of innocence.)

Click on this Podcast Link to hear me discuss my ideas with Greg Voison of Inside Personal Growth.

Greg recently interviewed me about, Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP.

Greg kindly says,  “Jack’s mind blowing, thought provoking ideas you really need to listen to, and take action on. This interview could truly transform your relationship with yourself, and more importantly everyone you love.”

In our talk, greg and I get at the root of most of  our struggles. When you listen you will better understand how hypnosis for pain,  for weight loss, for depression, for phobias and trauma, for anxiety, and virtually any other issue is a tremendous life-enhancing tool.

May we all prosper together.

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success, confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

I am happy to present this insightful article by  Michele Rosenthal, founder of HealMyPTSD. Michele is a trauma/PTSD survivor who now does healing coaching for people suffering from PTSD. We are trading blog posts. Look for my entry, Insights and Strategies for Dealing with PTSD and Profound Challenges, at her HealMyPTSD blog site.

Enjoy Michele’s article:

PTSD makes communication difficult. Many survivors can’t find the words to express what they’re feeling. Even when they do, it’s very normal for them not to be comfortable sharing their experience. Elements of shame, fear, anger, guilt and grief often get in the way of a calm, focused discussion.

Friends and family (and anyone else who is not the source of the PTSD but is standing by while someone attempts to heal) need something that translates PTSD language. Armed with knowledge, insight and awareness you’ll have an easier time knowing how to react, respond and relate to your PTSD loved one during the healing process. The more you appreciate things from the PTSD perspective the more helpful and supportive you can be. Now is the time for empathy, compassion and patience.

#1 – Knowledge is power. Understanding the process of a triggering event, the psychic reaction to trauma, the warning signs and symptoms of PTSD, and available treatment options for PTSD allows you to help recognize, support and guide your PTSD loved one toward diagnosis, treatment and healing.

We need you to be clearheaded, pulled together and informed.

#2 – Trauma changes us. After trauma we want to believe —as do you—that life can return to the way it was; that we can continue as who we were. This is not how it works. Trauma leaves a huge and indelible impact on the soul. It is not possible to endure trauma and not experience a psychic shift.

Expect us to be changed. Accept our need to evolve. Support us on this journey.

#3 – PTSD hijacks our identity. One of the largest problems with PTSD is that it takes over our entire view of ourselves. We no longer see clearly. We no longer see the world as we experienced it before trauma. Now every moment is dangerous, unpredictable and threatening.

Gently remind us and offer opportunities to engage in an identity outside of trauma and PTSD.

#4 – We are no longer grounded in our true selves. In light of trauma our real selves retreat and a coping self emerges to keep us safe.

Believe in us; our true selves still exist, even if they are momentarily buried.

#5 – We cannot help how we behave. Since we are operating on a sort of autopilot we are not always in control. PTSD is an exaggerated state of survival mode. We experience emotions that frighten and overwhelm us. We act out accordingly in defense of those feelings we cannot control.

Be patient with us; we often cannot stop the anger, tears or other disruptive behaviors that are so difficult for you to endure.

#6 – We cannot be logical. Since our perspective is driven by fear we don’t always think straight, nor do we always accept the advice of those who do.

Keep reaching out, even when your words don’t seem to reach us. You never know when we will think of something you said and it will comfort, guide, soothe or inspire us.

#7 – We cannot just ‘get over it’. From the outside it’s easy to imagine a certain amount of time passes and memories fade and trauma gets relegated to the history of a life. Unfortunately, with PTSD nothing fades. Our bodies will not let us forget. Because of surging chemicals that reinforce every memory, we cannot walk away from the past anymore than you can walk away from us.

Honor our struggle to make peace with events. Do not rush us. Trying to speed our recovery will only make us cling to it more.

#8 – We’re not in denial—we’re coping! It takes a tremendous effort to live with PTSD. Even if we don’t admit it, we know there’s something wrong. When you approach us and we deny there’s a problem that’s really code for, “I’m doing the best I can.” Taking the actions you suggest would require too much energy, dividing focus from what is holding us together. Sometimes, simply getting up and continuing our daily routine is the biggest step toward recovery we make.

Alleviate our stress by giving us a safe space in which we can find support.

#9 – We do not hate you. Contrary to the ways we might behave when you intervene, somewhere inside we do know that you are not the source of the problem. Unfortunately, in the moment we may use your face as PTSD’s image. Since we cannot directly address our PTSD issues sometimes it’s easier to address you.

Continue to approach us. We need you to!

Michele Rosenthal is a trauma/PTSD survivor, Self-Empowered Healing Coach and the founder of Heal My PTSD, LLC.

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessionsin Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success, confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.  Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

Recently  a hypnotist friend had a severe health challenge and asked for help from colleagues. Several people recommended various health modalities — acupuncture, chiropractic, Cranial Sacral Release.

I reminded him to try talking to the part of him that was creating the problem. Another hypnotherapist agreed and shared a story illustrating how extraordinary this process can be:

“Long ago I had a stabbing pain between my shoulders. It persisted for over two weeks, 24/7 and was very painful. It caused all kinds of other pains.
Just for fun, I did a parts therapy session on it. Asked it what it wanted. It told me that someone I knew (a business relationship) was stabbing me in the back. It told me what to do, I agreed and it was like RIGHT THEN the knife came out. The pain was gone in about 30 minutes. The pain never came back. And that clever little part was right.  Consciously, I had NO clue.”

In response, I shared this story:

“A single Mom brought her 3-year-old daughter to me because she was having severe asthma attacks in the middle of the night. She had been rushing her little girl to the emergency room in an ambulance every night until the hospital decided to put their equipment in her home so she wouldn’t have to do that anymore. That was all they had to offer! Her daughter’s attacks continued.

When the woman brought her daughter in to see me, I immediately started playing with the little girl, saying silly things and just generally being goofy, which has always come naturally to me. After some silly talk and game-playing the little girl was up on my lap, and I shifted to a focused deeper, though still friendly and playful voice, and I showed her a scar on my thumb.

I talked to her about how my “inside mind” made this scar — not me. I didn’t knew how to make a scar. Then I asked her if she’d ever noticed a cut heal. She had, so I said, “See, your inside mind knows how to do stuff, too!”
Then I explained that our inside mind takes directions from us. If we’re afraid to say how we feel and if we tell our inside mind to stop those feelings, it’ll do that for us. But, I went on to explain, it often does this by pushing the feeling into our body somewhere — like the lungs, which causes us to wheeze and cough and have trouble breathing.

I got the little girl to agree to express her feeling to her Mom on the outside, by drawing, singing, crying, dancing etc. And I got her Mom to promise to be supportive and participate with her when she did this.

Mother and daughter left my office. I never saw them again. Figured it didn’t work. Then one day I got a call from a new client. I asked how she had heard about me. She said from a co-worker, and the name sounded familiar. I asked why she had referred her to me. She said that the co-worker told her she had brought her 3-year-old to me for severe asthma attacks and after one session she never had them again. This phone call was 5 years later!”

Although there are many alternative treatments for asthma, I don’t know of any that erase all symptoms of asthma permanently after one 1-1/2 hour session!

Hypnosis is gaining more and more credibility as such results become more widespread. Respected doctors and hospitals are using it in a variety of ways.

On my website you can learn more about this healing power we all have available to us, right within our own mind. You’ll find useful information throughout the site, but many visitors especially appreciate the Health, Relationships, and Sexuality pages. Here you’ll learn more about how hypnotherapy can help you in any area of life.

More about asthma:

May all beings be happy and free! May our compassion for all beings, ourselves included, continue to increase!

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success, confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.  Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

People who suffer with chronic pain due to injury or illness can begin to feel at the mercy of their body’s nerve responses. This may sound strange, but with hypnosis and hypnotherapy you can actually “talk” to the part of you that is creating your pain. Once you have its attention, you can then discover the purpose of the pain and get it to dramatically reduce, and often stop, sending “hurt signals” to your brain. Hypnotherapy does this by helping this pain-producing part of you to fulfill its purpose in a truly beneficial way — even if you’re one of those sensitive redheads.

At one point my wife was having terrible back pain that prevented her from going to sleep at night. She was allergic to the drugs usually given for severe pain, so she couldn’t take those. Fortunately she’s a trooper and was able to work standing up at a special raised desk. This way she was able to ignore her pain during most of the day while taking Tylenol. But at night the pain would increase dramatically as soon as she lay down in bed. After a few nights of my hypnotizing her, she learned the visualization, remembered my suggestions, and was able to do self-hypnosis to get herself to sleep without  my help.

Of course, according to recent pain research, swearing helps. @#$%, that hurts! But that doesn’t usually solve the problem if it’s persistent.

Besides making for a better night’s sleep, using hypnosis and self-hypnosis to heal chronic pain — or even intense, brief pain such as that associated with dental work or childbirth — teaches a powerful hands-on lesson. I am not the victim of my body’s nerve endings!  It’s possible to train your mind to tune out any kind of unnecessary pain. So actually, it’s better to have a mind than a brain.

In every hypnotherapy session where I’m giving suggestions to reduce or eliminate pain, I always include this message to the mind: Keep the ability to feel any pain that you need. Because pain isn’t the enemy. It has a purpose — to alert us to the fact that there’s something wrong that needs our attention.

But when pain is too intense to bear, or becomes chronic — when we already understand the cause, but the pain continues — that sort of pain is unnecessary. Through direct hypnotic suggestion, and by connecting with the memory of our body in its normal, relaxed and easeful state, we can let the pain go.

Learn about my Finding True Magic audio: Quick & Simple Pain Relief

Learn about the Finding True Magic audio: End Insomnia

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success, confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.  Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.