La Hipnosis y el Arte

Como todo en la vida, para convertirse en un profesional que sobresale de los demás, hay que haber estudiado la teoría, saber las técnicas y haber practicado mucho. Pero que es lo que realmente hace a la cantante de opera cantar con fluidez, entonando cada nota con precisión, su cuerpo un instrumento que transporta la música a lo mas allá del publico? Cual es la “magia” de un actor carismático que atrae un publico enorme? Que es lo que sucede cuando nos “perdemos” en un cuadro de un pintor y porque? Porque hay ciertos músicos que nos transportan a un viaje de fantasía con su música?

Para responder estas preguntas tenemos que entender más de lo que es la hipnosis. “La hipnosis es esencialmente un estado psico-fisiológico de concentración focal, despierta, atenta y receptiva con una disminución correspondiente en conciencia periférica.” (David & Herbert Spiegel, 1978)

La hipnosis involucra entonces mente y cuerpo, y lo mas que hay concentración focal en forma despierta, atenta y receptiva, menos hay distracción del alrededor. Ese “alrededor” incluye los pensamientos lógicos, analíticos que nos pueden distraer en lograr una meta. Por ejemplo: Si el pintor estuviese pensando analíticamente cuando pinta, nunca pudiese terminar la pintura. Si la cantante esta analizando su voz mientras que canta, la fluidez de su expresión esta interrumpido. Un actor que se preocupa de su actuación pierde el encanto para el público.

La hipnosis predispone la hipnosis. Quiere decir que para hipnotizar a otra persona o un público, uno mismo tiene que estar en hipnosis. Es entonces que todo fluye y el tiempo se pierde. Para ser un gran artista es necesario ser muy sensible y muchos artistas sufren de nerviosismo por eso. La hipnosis les ayuda en transformar la energía de un sistema nervioso excitado (=nerviosismo) en la concentración focal que se necesita para sobresalir de la masa y hipnotizar su publico. Usualmente los artistas conectan más rápidamente con su mente subconsciente, porque es esta mente subconsciente donde salen las ideas creativas, los sueños y el arte.

Visiting the Shadow
By Petra Meedt, CHt, IACT chapter leader Aguada
Blog about Jungian Psychology: www.petramera/wordpress.com

Picture this – A wise woman is visiting an old friend. The house of her friend is dirty, all sorts of nasty kritters run over the piles of dirty dishes, no food to offer and the toilet is clogged. As she is a wise woman, she takes no offense, as her beloved friend obviously did not even know she was paying a visit. If she cares at all, she might feel compassion for her friend or maybe even feel a little sad for her to live in this kind of environment, but surely she would run to embrace her friend anyways. But what about the friend with the dirty house – would she be able to appreciate the visit?

Very unlikely. If she even opens the door at all (“Come back some other day, I am not feeling well”, etc.), chances are that she will be so embarrassed that she will cut down the visit to as few excruciating shameful minutes as utmostly necessary. And even these moments she will spend on finding excuses for how and why and by who (the husband, the kids, her good deeds for other that leave her no time to even breath, etc.) this mess was brought about.  Or how about blaming the visitor for never coming by and then not even giving any advance notice? Or even better – while moving about busily (“I was just about to clean up this whole mess”) – throwing in some candid details of the most recent local scandal to divert the attention to other “sinners”. Or, if she knows some sore points in the visitors history, a simple question (“how have you been, are you still together with XY? Why did you stop your diet? etc.) can invert the focus towards the visitor´s shortcomings. This approach has a double nemesis effect: Not only does it help to forget our own dirty house, thinking about somebody else´s dirty dishes, but it also makes a dirty house look so much more desirable if you compare it with somebody elses miserable life.

So what will our wise woman do? If she is a beginner, she will offer her help to clean up the mess – sharing time with her friend while helping her to live a better life. “Thank you, that is so kind of you, but it really is not necessary. If you really want to do something for me…” (there comes an allusion to some long overdue repay – some book that the visitor forgot to return, a promise made years ago, etc.).
If the wise woman was less wise, she would offer advice about how to keep your house clean or on how to manage others to help maintaining a healthy environment. Only to the avail of insulting her friend deeply, because it would add to the internal shame the external acknowledgement of her failure to perform the necessary cleaning. The probable response to such an insensitivity would be defensive anger, throwing it back to the visitor how easy it is to talk about cleaning, if you do not have a house/a husband/ children / animals, etc.

A good try on the wise woman´s part would be to focus the attention towards something beautiful in the environment or about her friend (“look at your beautiful flowers, I wish I had your gift to grow plants.”). This might work, if it is an absolutely sincere expression and if the friend is able to switch channel. Unfortunately, often the wise woman will not win the Super Ball with her positive attitude. Especially if her friend already failed her final judgement about herself to be a horrible, negligent, unworthy person. Then, anything positive about her, will not only be disqualified in the process, but it will also discredit the author of such an erroneous impression as hypocrite or liar.

The only strategy that might really show some potential in lowering the level of anxiety of the friend with the dirty house is to “take down the house with a wall”, assuring the friend that at home it looks so much worse or claiming all the blame by repeating how sorry she is to show up like this without a present and without even calling before knocking the door.

So what is the morale of this story and how does it connect to (hypno)therapy and the shadow? In quite some way, a hypnotherapist is a visitor to the realm of the soul, an ample house with many hidden chambers and often quite some mess, mental and emotional kritters and digestive paralysis or mal-function on an emotional and/or mental level. ENTER?”

The first challenge for any therapist is to be allowed to enter into the “house of the soul” and a second challenge is to pass the entry room, which often is prepared nicely for representational purposes, while the rest of the house has been given less attention. For both challenges, only the client has the key, opening up the doors or shutting down what is inside of him/her. Even though no therapist can make a client “open up” there are many ways to make it easier for the client to feel at ease and trust the process. On this first level, a therapist that has explored, struggled with and integrated his shadow, will find him/herself more patient and full of reverence when it comes to a client´s process and his/her decision to enter into the dark corners of one´s soul. If a therapist made the journey to his own individual “otherworld”, he/she will certainly find some compassion and within him/herself for the individual pain that is causing the client to hide and bleed behind closed doors.  Patiently they will keep on knocking the door until the client is ready for the process of searching his/her soul behind closed doors in the hidden chambers of the shadow. And once the client raises the courage to open the doors to his/her own personal “underworld”, nothing short of awe and respect, mixed with a deep sense of mystery are adequate to inspire the therapeutic intervention.

For the client, while considering its options, it is helpful to know and feel that they will not be let down by their therapist even if they are “less than love” in any given moment during the session. On this secure ground of love and acceptance, they are able to extend their view about themselves to become more than what they think they are. This will help them during the process of identifying dark spots in their personal history, to focus on the whole picture instead of just on the dark spots. For the therapist it is important to know that the final aim of the therapy is to restore the client´s wholeness (C.G. Jung calls this part of the psyche that embraces all our different roles and options the archetype of the SELF).  Once the client can really re-connect with the deep well of endless possibilities within themselves – “getting rid of the problem” might just be one pleasant side-effect.

 “Anchor”
Before diving with our clients into the deep sea of the unknown (C.G. Jung calls this the Personal and/or Collective Unconscious) or “the tunnel”  that leads us to the unknown aspects, rejected contents and unwanted roles and experiences within the soul of the client, we lead the client to anchor their soul within themselves. In therapy you would start to connect the client with the beauty within themselves through imagining a “safe, cozy place”, connecting with a part they love and accept about themselves (the Healer, etc.), taking them to the spiritual realm where they meet their guides or connect with their mission on earth, or simply by speaking a prayer for them if they are open to receive it. All of these options (and others that have not been listed here) will help the client to keep a broad perspective of their goodness and being protected, which will help them to trust and let go into going deeper inside themselves to meet their shadow and heal distortions and splits within the Self.

“Preparation”
After this short excursion to higher realms of beauty and light, to ask the client to focus on something unpleasant, hidden, dark sometimes seems like a sacrilege. The best way to make the transition easy is to confirm for the client that they will take this journey only for their higher good and only to broaden their options. They will feel and remember everything while they are safe and protected by their strong and loving Present Self (or by their spirit guides or God if they have connected to the spiritual realm before) all through the process. Sometimes it might be also indicated to give a “Call-back” suggestion which will take the client out of any traumatic situation right into their “safe heaven” (e.g. ideomotoric Finger Signal). If no “call-back” has been established, the hypnotherapist has the option to “freeze” any scene with emotional overload for the client or to suggest a client to “go mind-blank” if something is too much for them to handle.

“Open the door - Breaking the Silence – Feel”
The entrance to the underworld are feelings… Not necessarily “to feel” as often we have distanced ourselves far from ourselves to make sure we do not need to feel pain, fear, anger, weakness or any other “negative” feeling about ourselves (C.G. Jung calls this aspects “disowned parts of the soul”). Often the direct path back to these feelings and the treasures the hold locked up within them is to either use the body as guide or to explore our feelings toward others as they often reflect our own (externalized) shadow issues that we are not able to recognize within us.

Some clients directly access the feeling concentrating on any pain or discomfort within their bodies, others are able to locate a feeling in their body that they are holding towards a significant person in their lives. Others might “just” identify negativity in their lives on a more intellectual level (flowing out from them or put on them by their environment). In the end, healing will occur whenever the client is ready and they are ready, as they are sitting in your chair NOW.  If they can connect to a feeling, the feeling will take them anywhere (time, space, experience) they need to go to open the door to their hidden self. In these cases, Regression Therapy, especially with the Affect Bridge, is probably the best approach. Often elements of Hypnagogic Diaglogue to clear stuck feelings about significant relationships might be used to open or enhance the process.

For those, hovering above the emotional in a more intellectual plane (and it happens to the best of us), they sometimes need a little help to connect the underlying feelings (o.k. you understand that she had to leave you, but how do you feel about her leaving you? Where in your body do you feel the connection with her? How does this part of your body feel that is connected with her? If you imagine this part of your body without the connection to her, how would this part of your body feel differently? Which color does this feeling have? Which size? Which shape? Which material is it made of?). If the client is “just not going there” or the feeling continuously “escapes” them (oh, I thought it was in my belly, but I do not feel it anymore, it most have moved or gone away…),. Parts Therapy might be a great alternative, connecting with shadowy elements inside the psyche of the client by identifying and speaking out for contradictory parts within the client´s psyche.

What else?
The interesting thing is, that during the process of connecting “small darknesses” within themselves, clients often hit big ones (sometimes their own failures or traumas, sometimes sticky pains or guilts from other life times, sometimes not even their own but their spouses, parents, families, their communities collective shadows that they have been carrying for them because of love or guilt). And along the way sometimes long endured physical ailments get “enlightened”, relationships heal and the client regains purpose and meaning as delightful side effects.

“The Action continues…”
Bringing light into the Shadow, integrating rejected, hidden, forgotten elements of ourselves into our perception of who we are or might be, liberates energy and transforms our whole world. As the changes have occurred in a mental-spiritual level, fueled by emotional energy, the integration and transformation on all levels will continue for a while after the session where those changes took place. All levels – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual – need to adjust and realign to incorporate the new reality that has been created during the hypnotherapy. Therefore clients might experience situations that remind them of their shadow issues in their everyday lives, only to find themselves reacting differently to them. Sometimes the body will continue to heal and it is wise to advise the client to take good care of themselves during the days that follow the session (eating healthy, drinking plenty of water, exercise, rest, swim or take a bath as often as possible, etc.). If during the session specific instructions have come through from the soul, the inner child or spiritual guides regarding anything that the client needs for his/her wholeness (healing), the client might continue to follow these instructions and use positive affirmations to remind themselves of what they want to achieve or need to incorporate into their lives.

“Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once, beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something that needs our love.”
(Rainer Maria Rilke)

“May you be blessed with everything your heart desires”.
(Shakti Gawain)