| "Time heals all wounds." This aphoristic bit of common | | | | happening unconsciously with largely unsuitable results, |
| sense contains very little usable information about the | | | | have elucidated the structure and dynamics of how |
| relationship between time, healing, and woundedness - | | | | we communicate so we can communicate more |
| about how time heals. However, we all probably can | | | | clearly for more beneficial results. To change personal |
| recall situations where this apparent dynamic seemed | | | | history is not to deny your existing memories or to |
| to hold true. An old enemy now is a great friend; an old | | | | suppress them. |
| injustice we swear we'll never forget becomes a | | | | The goal of changing your personal history is to free |
| source of humor and wisdom. But was it just the | | | | your life force from the frozen emotional |
| passage of time that caused these changes to occur? | | | | crystallizations attached to your memories so that this |
| And if, without contemplation, it seemed so, what about | | | | life force -- your very being -- can be available to you, |
| all the old wounds that haven't healed, and are | | | | to live as you, in present time. Dissolving these crystals, |
| managing our lives through habitual avoidance | | | | breaking up the patterning of how you identify yourself, |
| patterns? | | | | your limitations and your potential, is the goal of |
| The secrets of abuse, the dynamics of shame, and | | | | changing your personal history. Consider for a moment |
| the hollowness of the elaborate strategies of | | | | the possibility of changing your personal history without |
| co-dependency are all being revealed as we work on | | | | seeking self deception, or denial, or new avoidance |
| ourselves and share our learnings. Why hasn't time | | | | strategies. |
| healed them without all the work? | | | | In such a process, you are not assuming the internal |
| As we become aware of our past, peeling back the | | | | posture of a victim acquiescing to doublespeak for |
| layers of romanticism ("I had a happy childhood, my | | | | survival imperatives. Rather, you are empowering |
| parents never abused me"), those of us who find that | | | | yourself to be at cause over your life -- even over |
| such cheerful attitudes are part of the spell of denial | | | | your heretofore irrevocable, past. To be "at cause" |
| are faced with some sense of the irrevocable nature | | | | over every aspect of your life is tremendously |
| of the past. We may deeply sense that these things | | | | empowering. To understand it and do it properly (we |
| happened and we are stuck with them -- forever | | | | are not talking about taking the blame for what |
| deprived and deficient. This attitude to a varying | | | | happened to you here) amplifies and accelerates the |
| degree is incorporated into some older forms and | | | | healing process. Your unconscious mind gauges the |
| philosophies of therapy. From their perspective the | | | | reality of what it contacts by its vividness, and the |
| best we can hope for is to become reasonably | | | | unconscious assessment of reality determines your |
| neurotic and accept some sense of bleakness about | | | | emotional relationship to experience. |
| the human condition. And, of course, it is necessary to | | | | If you re-image a past situation with enough conviction |
| spend years of time and great sums of money to | | | | and power, you send instructions to the unconscious to |
| arrive at this version of sanity. | | | | break up the patterning that has held your emotional |
| Fortunately, Eastern religions infiltrated our culture, | | | | energy captive, freeing yourself from the fixed limiting |
| fostering the formulation of more holistic philosophies | | | | ideas that were sustained and perpetuated by that |
| and therapies, and validating the rediscovery of the | | | | captivated, "frozen" energy. You gain new insights into |
| Western mysteries and magic. (For anyone averse to | | | | the situation, new perspectives on yourself and your |
| the suggestion of such a causal relationship between | | | | past. You do not lose any learnings you had gained or |
| the arrival of Eastern wisdom and our own awakening, | | | | any of the information. All you do is break up the |
| it's perfectly acceptable to consider the process as | | | | patterns that kept you restricted, and you learn to |
| auspicious coincidence -- synchronistic). | | | | challenge a very powerful unconscious assumption we |
| With the help of Eastern concepts that elevate the | | | | all share to a greater or lesser degree -- that to keep |
| regard for our humanity, we have come a long way in | | | | our learnings we have to keep the emotions captive; |
| redefining our potential, who we are, and what we can | | | | we have to hold on, to be in a sense unforgiving of |
| be. The conviction that we can reveal the truth of our | | | | ourselves and others to keep the intelligence to protect |
| past and heal our past grows daily. But -- change our | | | | ourselves. This simply is not true. |
| past? -- even those at the forefront of the | | | | We learn by learning, not by holding on to our emotions. |
| consciousness movement are shaken by such a | | | | When you re-image a past event vividly, changing your |
| concept. | | | | behavior in that event to include choices you didn't think |
| I have seen a room full of therapists bridle at the | | | | to have at the time, you reprogram yourself to access |
| thought of tampering with our sacred past. (Check in | | | | such new resources in all similar situations, seeing and |
| for a moment here -- doesn't it make you a little | | | | feeling yourself acting with your new choices. The |
| queasy to think of changing your past? Doesn't the | | | | more you work with this process, the more you |
| ground suddenly feel a little less solid underfoot? And | | | | become aware of and free yourself from the subtle |
| do you get a new sense of your past, your bundle of | | | | sense of irredeemability that has plagued you because |
| memories, as just that -- a bundle, a commodity -- the | | | | of the absolute regard in which you held your |
| referent package by which you navigate into the | | | | memories and your relationship to them. |
| future?) But for a moment, let us disassociate from | | | | This process can be one of self-hypnosis. But in the |
| personal histories, and reflect on general history. | | | | same way that you might talk with a friend about an |
| It is very apparent upon reflection that history is not | | | | idea to help give it clarity and power, it can be |
| "real" -- it is a story told by some of us to the rest of | | | | invaluable, especially initially, to do this work with a |
| us. The "some of us" most certainly discriminates, or | | | | skilled hypnotherapist who can keep you focused on |
| has an axe to grind, regarding what facts to include | | | | what you want to create. They will also help you to |
| and how to include them, and the "rest of us" have our | | | | find ways to "move" in the realm of the unconscious, |
| attitudes, discriminations, and axes that determine how | | | | suggesting perspectives that might not otherwise |
| and what we hear. Now, we say, personal history is | | | | occur to you. |
| different, I was there, I know what happened, it | | | | For example, many clients have the experience of |
| happened to me! But, were you, do you, and, did it? | | | | learning something that makes them feel resourceful in |
| Reflect on the selectivity of our own function of | | | | the therapist's office, but lose this resourcefulness |
| memory and how it is affected by attitudes and | | | | when they go out into the world. The simple remedy is |
| beliefs. | | | | to spend a bit of time in the office imagining taking new |
| Haven't our memories contained our shame and guilt | | | | learnings into future situations -- called 'future pacing.' It |
| because of the way we remembered them. Can we | | | | is a crucial and powerful bit of work that is generally |
| not read attitudes and beliefs as "self-or-other induced" | | | | overlooked in a lot of therapy work. I suspect that a lot |
| hypnotic suggestions about what was real and what it | | | | of addictive problems would not recur if the clients, |
| meant? We all have witnessed the insidious side of | | | | having once learned how to change their behavior, |
| efforts to change history - the holocaust never | | | | were taught how to keep the change by allowing their |
| happened, Stalin was a saint, and Iraq was to blame | | | | unconscious minds to prepare them to handle future |
| for 9/11. Those not fooled by such misinformation are | | | | temptations through the use of future pacing. |
| disgusted by it. And it is the element of intelligent | | | | I have briefly sketched the dynamics of a powerful |
| discrimination that rebels against the possibility of a | | | | concept for change. That there exist procedures |
| similar inner violation. But changing personal history, | | | | today that can give you a happy childhood -- that can |
| using hypnotherapy and NLP, is not such a denial | | | | allow you to heal and enrich your past in ways you |
| strategy. | | | | never thought you could give yourself permission to do, |
| Hypnotherapy and NLP, recognizing the pervasive | | | | is a possibility worth investigating. |
| hypnotic quality of all communication and that it is | | | | Copyright, Jack Elias, October, 2003. All rights reserved. |