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For the first time in my life I feel beautiful inside and out, whole, and powerful. After 25 years of drowning in confusion. I am healed. Surviving rape associated with traumatic sexual abuse and emotional manipulations are extreme experiences. Healing from rape and sexual trauma are complex processes that are deeply linked to the power of the subconscious.
The last few weeks of my healing process have been truly fascinating. I would say that this period has been one of the most fascinating periods of my life. It took me 25 years to even consider that A.T. raped me. Finally, only in the last month I was able to understand and realize that I was drugged and raped by this teacher A.T. when I was 16 years old. It is hardly possible, even impossible, to heal from something you don’t even consciously know happened. My body of course absorbed the terror of this experience and all associated events, and was stuffed with intense negative trapped emotions.
I was starting to feel a little desperate in regard to healing this deep trauma that has been preventing me from experiencing intimacy. I want to experience intimacy. Since I don’t believe in psychotherapy what were my options? I followed my intuition and went to my 1st somatic hypnotherapy session. The hypnotherapist began by a short introduction and cognitive explanation of the process of somatic hypnotherapy. He said: “Don’t try to understand. There is nothing to understand.” Meaning, don’t try to understand how the healing of traumatic events occurs, including how the emotional patterns are dissolved. There is nothing to understand. The hypnotherapist continued with the example of the man who has a spider phobia. The man arrives at the hypnotherapist’s office with an extreme phobia and leaves the office cured for life. How does this happen? It is a process of communicating with the subconscious, the subconscious is just below the conscious mind, and it controls every aspect of our being. The hypnotic process allows the person to communicate with the unconscious subconscious in an enlightened manner.
“Somehow, that force that is empowering your chosen therapy and which stands behind your improvement is nothing but your mind. As you always draw your power from the deepest reality you are aware of, the best results a therapy has to offer always comes out of the therapeutic approach that you trust the most, and, no therapy can push you beyond the limits of your beliefs.
Although you are the creator of your reality, your life reality does not necessarily emerge from your desires. For, although no one wants to be unhappy or sick, there are unhappy and sick people everywhere. Your reality springs from your behavioral programs deeply rooted in your subconscious and governed by your beliefs. Your mind tends to create coherence between what you really believe and the life reality you experience.”[1]
I will now give you the rendering of my somatic hypnotherapy experience. Although my process is truly unique, I hope to give some empirical evidence of my personal process and pragmatic solutions to trauma, rape and sexual abuse. To begin… Alex, the hypnotherapist, told me to sit comfortable in my chair and focus all my attention on one dot on the wall behind him. I followed his instructions. This type of concentrated process was easy for me because of all the yoga and meditation I have been doing, especially in the last few years. A few moments later, he asked me to close my eyes and focus all of my attention on the sounds of his voice. He was whispering. Sometimes he was muttering inaudibly. He began to tell me to relax each and every part of my body…. I am used to doing this in yoga practice, at the end of yoga class some teachers will offer yoga nidra. Yoga nidra is a form of meditation in which all the body part are consciously and intentionally relaxed. And so, we began to move through the various body parts. Alex asked me to relax each and every part. We began with my toes…He said: “Relax your toes, the arches of your feet, your ankles…relax your calves, knees, thighs, relax your pelvis, relax your hips, your belly, relax each and every finger, relax your hands, your arms, your shoulders, your back, your neck…your head, your eyes…” Once my entire body was relaxed. He encouraged me. “Very good. You’re doing great work. Now…You are at the top of a staircase. There are ten steps. First describe your staircase, and then you will count from 10 to 1 as you go down each and every step. So, please begin to describe the staircase you see.” The staircase had large cold white marble steps, with a black metal ramp. The ramp was covered in greenish vines and small flowerlets. I began counting: “Ten, nine…” As I counted, I saw each of my steps, my bare feet alternatively stepping down the staircase on the cold white marble. I slowly counted: “Four, three, two, one.” Then, as I arrived…the hypnotherapist asked me to invite him in a place where I wanted to perform our magical healing ritual. A place that I loved and where I felt safe. I chose Kitsilano beach in Vancouver, close to where I use to live during my masters degree at UBC…on the wilder beach area…On that part of the beach, there is a fallen tree trunk under a big beautiful tree. I used to love sitting there and listen to the chirping birds. The hypnotherapist asked me to use my magical powers to change anything in the décor that would make this place even more comfortable. He said that this was possible because of my magical powers. I magically removed all the boats and beach houses. The setting was now wild, with a green lust coastal forest behind us...Alex asked me to invite him to sit somewhere next to me. He asked me if he could sit to my right or to my left. I asked him to sit with me on the left side of the tree truck. He asked me to use my magical powers to start a ritual fire right in front of the log on the beach. We created a big and beautiful fire. Once the fire was created and we were comfortably sitting on the log, Alex asked me to go back to the most traumatic event of my life. I went straight to the night I was drugged and raped by my French teacher A.T.. Alex told me to let him know as soon as I started feeling negative emotion associated with this event. I began feeling negative emotions as soon as A.T. kissed me in the bar. Alex asked me to locate the negative emotion in my body. The intense negative trapped emotion was located in my throat, my heart, my solar plexus, and my belly. Alex asked me to locate where the feeling was strongest. The sensation was strongest in and around my heart. Alex asked me to begin describing the trapped emotion and sensation. He asked me: “What shape is this sensation? What texture?” Once I had described the trapped emotion, it’s shape and texture…he asked me to use both my hands and remove it from my heart and throw it in the fire. Which I did, taking care of all the details…Alex asked me to be careful as I remove this foreign object from my body and to make sure it was not going to break…Once the trapped emotion was removed from my body, Alex asked me to throw it in the fire and watch it burn. I saw myself hardly being able to walk up the stairs of this man’s apartment. I saw myself being unconscious and raped. I did as I was told. I removed all negative emotions from my body associated to this night when I was drugged and raped.
After the session, Alex told me that most of the work had been done. He told me that I did not need to come back and see him. Although I felt great the day after the hypnosis therapy, I wanted to make sure that I had cleared all negativity surrounding this crazy event. I guess I did not understand how healing that one event was going to trickle and dissolve all related trauma…how the healing process could be so fast. My conscious mind was not convinced…So, I schedule another session a week later, only to come to the realization during the treatment that there was no negativity left there…and that everything had been cleared the first time around. I went through the entire traumatic period the second time around, and as I looked and felt deep inside my subconscious…I couldn’t feel anything regarding A.T. during the second session. Alex was right. We have done most of the work. I am healed.
Now the healing work consists of discovering who I truly am without the negative emotional baggage. The challenge is to be vulnerable and love more than ever before, to offer my heart in ways I cannot explain…without all the emotional baggage and all the fear. Now that I love myself more than ever before. I am ready for LOVE.
[1] http://www.new-hypnotherapy.com/about-beliefs/
The last few weeks of my healing process have been truly fascinating. I would say that this period has been one of the most fascinating periods of my life. It took me 25 years to even consider that A.T. raped me. Finally, only in the last month I was able to understand and realize that I was drugged and raped by this teacher A.T. when I was 16 years old. It is hardly possible, even impossible, to heal from something you don’t even consciously know happened. My body of course absorbed the terror of this experience and all associated events, and was stuffed with intense negative trapped emotions.
I was starting to feel a little desperate in regard to healing this deep trauma that has been preventing me from experiencing intimacy. I want to experience intimacy. Since I don’t believe in psychotherapy what were my options? I followed my intuition and went to my 1st somatic hypnotherapy session. The hypnotherapist began by a short introduction and cognitive explanation of the process of somatic hypnotherapy. He said: “Don’t try to understand. There is nothing to understand.” Meaning, don’t try to understand how the healing of traumatic events occurs, including how the emotional patterns are dissolved. There is nothing to understand. The hypnotherapist continued with the example of the man who has a spider phobia. The man arrives at the hypnotherapist’s office with an extreme phobia and leaves the office cured for life. How does this happen? It is a process of communicating with the subconscious, the subconscious is just below the conscious mind, and it controls every aspect of our being. The hypnotic process allows the person to communicate with the unconscious subconscious in an enlightened manner.
“Somehow, that force that is empowering your chosen therapy and which stands behind your improvement is nothing but your mind. As you always draw your power from the deepest reality you are aware of, the best results a therapy has to offer always comes out of the therapeutic approach that you trust the most, and, no therapy can push you beyond the limits of your beliefs.
Although you are the creator of your reality, your life reality does not necessarily emerge from your desires. For, although no one wants to be unhappy or sick, there are unhappy and sick people everywhere. Your reality springs from your behavioral programs deeply rooted in your subconscious and governed by your beliefs. Your mind tends to create coherence between what you really believe and the life reality you experience.”[1]
I will now give you the rendering of my somatic hypnotherapy experience. Although my process is truly unique, I hope to give some empirical evidence of my personal process and pragmatic solutions to trauma, rape and sexual abuse. To begin… Alex, the hypnotherapist, told me to sit comfortable in my chair and focus all my attention on one dot on the wall behind him. I followed his instructions. This type of concentrated process was easy for me because of all the yoga and meditation I have been doing, especially in the last few years. A few moments later, he asked me to close my eyes and focus all of my attention on the sounds of his voice. He was whispering. Sometimes he was muttering inaudibly. He began to tell me to relax each and every part of my body…. I am used to doing this in yoga practice, at the end of yoga class some teachers will offer yoga nidra. Yoga nidra is a form of meditation in which all the body part are consciously and intentionally relaxed. And so, we began to move through the various body parts. Alex asked me to relax each and every part. We began with my toes…He said: “Relax your toes, the arches of your feet, your ankles…relax your calves, knees, thighs, relax your pelvis, relax your hips, your belly, relax each and every finger, relax your hands, your arms, your shoulders, your back, your neck…your head, your eyes…” Once my entire body was relaxed. He encouraged me. “Very good. You’re doing great work. Now…You are at the top of a staircase. There are ten steps. First describe your staircase, and then you will count from 10 to 1 as you go down each and every step. So, please begin to describe the staircase you see.” The staircase had large cold white marble steps, with a black metal ramp. The ramp was covered in greenish vines and small flowerlets. I began counting: “Ten, nine…” As I counted, I saw each of my steps, my bare feet alternatively stepping down the staircase on the cold white marble. I slowly counted: “Four, three, two, one.” Then, as I arrived…the hypnotherapist asked me to invite him in a place where I wanted to perform our magical healing ritual. A place that I loved and where I felt safe. I chose Kitsilano beach in Vancouver, close to where I use to live during my masters degree at UBC…on the wilder beach area…On that part of the beach, there is a fallen tree trunk under a big beautiful tree. I used to love sitting there and listen to the chirping birds. The hypnotherapist asked me to use my magical powers to change anything in the décor that would make this place even more comfortable. He said that this was possible because of my magical powers. I magically removed all the boats and beach houses. The setting was now wild, with a green lust coastal forest behind us...Alex asked me to invite him to sit somewhere next to me. He asked me if he could sit to my right or to my left. I asked him to sit with me on the left side of the tree truck. He asked me to use my magical powers to start a ritual fire right in front of the log on the beach. We created a big and beautiful fire. Once the fire was created and we were comfortably sitting on the log, Alex asked me to go back to the most traumatic event of my life. I went straight to the night I was drugged and raped by my French teacher A.T.. Alex told me to let him know as soon as I started feeling negative emotion associated with this event. I began feeling negative emotions as soon as A.T. kissed me in the bar. Alex asked me to locate the negative emotion in my body. The intense negative trapped emotion was located in my throat, my heart, my solar plexus, and my belly. Alex asked me to locate where the feeling was strongest. The sensation was strongest in and around my heart. Alex asked me to begin describing the trapped emotion and sensation. He asked me: “What shape is this sensation? What texture?” Once I had described the trapped emotion, it’s shape and texture…he asked me to use both my hands and remove it from my heart and throw it in the fire. Which I did, taking care of all the details…Alex asked me to be careful as I remove this foreign object from my body and to make sure it was not going to break…Once the trapped emotion was removed from my body, Alex asked me to throw it in the fire and watch it burn. I saw myself hardly being able to walk up the stairs of this man’s apartment. I saw myself being unconscious and raped. I did as I was told. I removed all negative emotions from my body associated to this night when I was drugged and raped.
After the session, Alex told me that most of the work had been done. He told me that I did not need to come back and see him. Although I felt great the day after the hypnosis therapy, I wanted to make sure that I had cleared all negativity surrounding this crazy event. I guess I did not understand how healing that one event was going to trickle and dissolve all related trauma…how the healing process could be so fast. My conscious mind was not convinced…So, I schedule another session a week later, only to come to the realization during the treatment that there was no negativity left there…and that everything had been cleared the first time around. I went through the entire traumatic period the second time around, and as I looked and felt deep inside my subconscious…I couldn’t feel anything regarding A.T. during the second session. Alex was right. We have done most of the work. I am healed.
Now the healing work consists of discovering who I truly am without the negative emotional baggage. The challenge is to be vulnerable and love more than ever before, to offer my heart in ways I cannot explain…without all the emotional baggage and all the fear. Now that I love myself more than ever before. I am ready for LOVE.
[1] http://www.new-hypnotherapy.com/about-beliefs/
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