Past lives... and graveyards as a "safe, happy place"

A favorite topic when someone finds out you're a hypnotist is past lives. Are they real? Where do they come from? Does that mean reincarnation is real?

When I was first starting out, I would avoid that controversial issue by simply saying something like "I don't know where they come from or whether they are real.  All I know is that if I work with them to resolve whatever issue they've presented, it also takes care of that issue or problem in this life. The therapy around the past lives works, and that's all I care about for my client."

And that is true. One doesn't have to believe in past lives to experience them in hypnosis. (See the separate page on past lives that talks about young souls.)  And at the same time, a belief in past (or future) lives doesn't have to conflict with your spiritual or religious beliefs.

For the subconscious mind, all time is NOW.  There is no past and no future.  Everything happens NOW. So when you're experiencing something in hypnosis, you are indeed experiencing it the same as you would at that time, whenever that time exists whether that is in the "past" or "future" to your current perspective. Linear time does not exist in the subconscious mind. (There are techniques to minimize the emotional impact of revisiting a traumatic incident so that you do not have to relive it quite as intensely as the first time around.)

This correlates with some current theories on time as a circular river, where if we could pop our heads up above the waterline, we'd see all of time existing at the same time.   Others tell us that Time and Space is the 4th dimension for our physical 3-D existence.

I don't know whether it is or not. All I know is that often, when the subconscious sees its chance to work on something, it takes it. This happened with my very first paying client many years ago. He came in for a specific problem he wanted to work on; however, his subconscious mind had a different problem in mind. I was guiding him to a "safe and happy place" to do this work----but his subconscious led us to a graveyard! (Of course, I'm thinking OMG! Now what do I do????, but never let him know that.)  Most people go to  a mountain meadow or beach or something.

Graveyard as a "safe and happy place?"  So, I'm cool. I've been taught well and I've been taught to "deal with what emerges" in hypnosis, whatever that may be. So I ask him to find a path in the graveyard and start following it.... That worked until he ran into a WALL and then proceeded to tell me that his Heart Was Buried inside the walled off portion of this graveyard.

Now he was getting agitated, as well as me.  This wasn't what he bargained for, and it wasn't what I bargained for either!  So we did a little work around his heart being buried in here, then we emerged. I gave him some paper and pencil and asked him to draw what he saw. He did. And as he did, we talked a bit more.  It seems that many years before he was an artist, but the "day job" had been keeping him from expressing his creativity, which had been coming out in some other ways --- the original problem he had consulted me about. His daughter had give him a set of drawing pencils for Christmas the year before, but he had not been using them.

Before I sent him on his way, I suggested that he spend some time each week allowing his creativity and artistic talents to express themselves and that it would probably help.  Needless to say, it wasn't what he had expected for his first hypnosis session (me either!) and he didn't return as a client. I only hope that he followed the suggestion to express his artistic drives in a healthier way.

And that was my first lesson on how when the subconscious sees an opportunity (especially if it thinks it won't get another one), it will take it.

until next time... relax, breathe deeply, and exercise those creative impulses in healthy ways. :)
---melodie