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The Meg Ryan of Grief

Dina Varano • Sep 21, 2021
A candid therapist of mine once called me the Meg Ryan of grief. You know that scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally, the one in the diner? Meg Ryan’s character, Sally, simulates a full-blown orgasm to prove to Harry that women can easily fake sexual climax if they so choose. The difference between Sally and me was that my grief wasn’t fabricated. It arrived in a tsunami of tears as I did the hard work of ending my first marriage and unraveling the ties that bound my ex-husband and me together.

The importance of grieving is only now beginning to get the recognition it deserves. In our distinctly American culture with its optimistic, can-do attitude, grief is mostly still a sign of weakness. Sadness of any kind, associated as it is with loss and losing, challenges our social identity, even calls into question our beliefs and actions as a nation.  One has only to think of the Vietnam War and our difficulty in acknowledging not only the lost lives but also the loss of the idea of ourselves as a country that always wins. It took nearly ten years before the installation of the Vietnam War memorial gave us a public place to grieve the bloodshed of that futile conflict.


As individuals, we also tend to avoid touching the deeper sadness of what might be dying in our lives. Maybe it is a relationship or a way of being in relationship that is dying. Maybe the death of a long-held dream is calling us to mourn. Perhaps a change in circumstance due to retirement or illness invites our grief. Aging itself certainly prompts a certain mourning of time passed and paths not taken, and of bodies no longer so limber. We may grieve when we become aware that no one and no thing can rescue us from our emotional pain. We all have reasons to grieve at one point or another.

There are also moments when we are called to grieve what cannot be changed, and to see that we did the best we could at the time given our situation and resources. For me, the death and destruction of so much life on the planet, be it climate collapse, species extinction, or Afghanistan, is one of these moments. At this global level, we are pressed to witness and mourn our relative powerlessness. The world needs our collective grief to mobilize wise action at this critical time. 


Grief can be quiet, especially after the death of someone close to us. This soundless mourning often shows up in the body as a slowing down, a heaviness. It may come before the tears or after them, or simply in between. It may reflect an initial shock, a grappling with the mystery of the finite, or a time of integration after the deeper grieving has passed. But this isn’t the kind of grief I want to explore today.

If I was an apprentice at grief in my early 30’s, then I am a master now. I’ve easily put in my 10,000 hours of grieving at this point. And when I say grief, I don’t mean a passing sadness or a few tears. I mean consistent episodes of full-on heaving sobs, the kind of grief that leaves you rode hard and put up wet with piles of snotty tissues scattered around you. The grieving that wipes you out from the physical labor of giving birth to your authentic sadness and anger and all the feelings that grief can encapsulate. This is the grief that gives your core a workout from the depth of your crying.


“It rises on a salty geyser of tears, sometimes sung to the surface by a terrific moan, streaming down our cheeks until it moistens the soil where we stand, preparing us for new growth.”

 

—Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Finding Our Way Home



The reason I’ve become such a fan of this kind of deep emotive sadness is that it so reliably leads me to joy these days. It took me awhile to pull up the buckets of tears filling that well of loss I was in. I cried … a lot. But over the years I discovered it was a cleansing, purifying process that inevitably led me to connect with the depths of my being. I found bliss in that renewed connection with Source and Self that had been blocked by all that stuck emotion. Being present to the grief fostered my connection with Presence itself, teaching me that eventually we are the wise witness who welcomes all experience with love and compassion.

We all get scared that the well is too deep for us to find bottom and discover the joy and relaxation of our Being that is there. At first we may not be able to do this kind of grieving alone, which is part of what makes it so difficult for people to really get into their feelings. Messages like crying is for sissies or stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about have taught us to repress our tears or to hide them from others. 


We stop trusting that our authentic emotional response is there to help us and has something to teach us. Embedded in our willingness to be vulnerable is our authenticity and strength and sense of belonging. Writer and dreamworker Toko-pa Turner likes to call this vulnerabravery. Having a therapist or other safe and sage person witness our grief offers us a comforting presence in which to practice this courageous vulnerability. With time, we recognize that all emotions are temporary. When embraced and allowed, they always pass and our fear of them transforms into curiosity.

For me, grieving is paradoxically an act of deconstruction and an act of knitting together. In our grief, we dismantle old structures of self that no longer serve. For example, we might be grieving an old pattern of self-destruction through addiction or relationship choices. As we feel our pain about the hurt we have caused ourselves and perhaps others, the old armor of what Eckhart Tolle calls the painbody begins to soften and dissolve.

As this defense against our own tenderness falls away, we usually discover the wounded child within who holds our pain and our joy. Grieving helps us to integrate these split-off parts by knitting together elements of our being that have found refuge in the shadow or hidden side of our personality. We have more access to our life energy, our authentic power. In shamanic terms, grieving allows us to retrieve parts of our power or soul that have been lost due to trauma, whether large or small. This retrieval expands our capacity to show up for our life because we have made more room for an embodiment of the love, joy, playfulness, and creativity in our hearts.


When I see someone trying to repress their tears in a therapy session, if the timing is right, I’ll sometimes playfully ask them if they were having an orgasm would they try to suppress it. Their usual response is laughter and a hearty “no!” So, it’s the same with tears, I’ll explain. Tears are our body’s natural response to emotional pain or intense joy. If all emotion is just energy in motion, let it flow. But we struggle to do so.


“To our culture, obsessed with productivity and perfection, the experience of grief, its sadness, anger, and feelings of loss, can feel like taking steps backward or being stuck in place. But that is an illusion. Grief is the great accelerator.”

 

—Bethany Webster, Discovering the Inner Mother


Facing our pain is hard work and we tend to judge it as either insignificant or overwhelming, either not worthy of crying over or too much to endure. Both judgments serve simply to repress our tears.

 

There was a period of several years in which I cried hard every day. Sometimes those tears came as a salty solution to wash out an old wound and allow it to heal cleanly. Sometimes they were tears of gratitude and joy for being able to experience life so intimately. To come to know myself and my belonging in the world so tenderly. I took to heart this beautiful quote from the yogic master, Kripalvanandji:


"Crying is one of the highest devotional songs. One who knows crying, knows spiritual practice. If you can cry with a pure heart, nothing else compares to such a prayer. Crying includes all the principles of yoga."


If only we could see how beautiful we are when we open our hearts to the grief that is there. After a truly good cry, look in the mirror and you will see how clear your eyes look, how relaxed your face is (hint: those are the signs that it’s been a full cry). I’m lucky that I get to see that beauty and bravery every day in my work with others, along with the snotty tissues. My prayer for each of you is that you'll allow whatever grieves you be a path to the ceaseless joy residing within you. So let those tears flow!

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By Dina Varano + Meghan Barich 16 Oct, 2020
Yearning for something to look forward to this winter? Jan 24 — Feb 14, 2021! A weekly experiential workshop to renew our connection with the natural elements of winter, allowing nature herself and our own creativity to show us the way. Join us & transform the isolation of winter during the pandemic by making new connections in safe and sacred circle with others.
By Dina Varano 16 Sep, 2020
Birdsong punctuates the steady hum of the insects in the background of the conversation I am having with my mother. The last few days of my staycation became a multi-day mother-daughter sleepover. As we sit on her back porch, I notice that my mother's face is softer now, lightly furrowed like a lovingly plowed field. Still, the criss-cross of tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth cannot hide the beauty that has defined every decade of her nearly 80 years. Despite the signs of her aging, her easy smile and ready engagement in our chatting speak of her continued vitality. I'm glad to see her comfortable in a sleeveless top and shorts on this warm, muggy Indiana day. A few years back she had gotten self conscious about what we joke is the "creeping crepe" of sagging skin and arms that flap more like wings every time you look. She takes good care of herself but there is no stopping the progress of time. These days with her have been fun. We've had several impromptu dance parties, a few walks, a tiny bit of safe shopping, and some great carryout feasts. Together we also listened to educational podcasts, watched a fun documentary about the world famous Puerto Rican astrologer, Walter Mercado, and witnessed Kamala Harris become the first woman person of color candidate for the vice presidency. Mom's trying to make this staycation fun for us because she knows we'd rather be in the mountains and at the beach for a 'real' vacation. To have days of leisurely time with her is precious and if there's anything the pandemic has reminded us, it's that we don't know what's coming next. So appreciating and enjoying the good things we already have in our lives becomes a top priority.
By Dina Varano 12 Mar, 2020
A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart ... Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there. —Meister Echkhart
By Dina Varano 17 Feb, 2020
You will not achieve your happiness. Or rather you will not "achieve" your happiness. I’m not saying it’s impossible for you to be happy but that happiness is not an achievement. It is the wholeness and inner peacefulness that is already the natural state of being or Presence , within you. The only thing between you and knowing a deeper sense of joy and contentment with yourself is the thinking mind’s fixed ideas about who you are. These ideas might be positive or negative: I am successful or I am a failure. Either of these beliefs is conditioned on your external circumstances. They rely on the conditions of your bank account or job title or mood state or relationship status or even the contents of the thoughts moving through your mind, in order for you to feel good about yourself. But what if there were something underneath all the judgments of success and failure, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant? What if you could relax into the abiding wholeness and peacefulness at the very heart of who or what you are? In A Great Wagon , the great Sufi poet and mystic Rumi invites us to enter this space of deeper insight, connection, and wakefulness:
 Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
 there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
 When the soul lies down in that grass, 
the world is too full to talk about. 
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
 doesn’t make any sense.
 The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
 Don’t go back to sleep. 
You must ask for what you really want.
 Don’t go back to sleep.
 People are going back and forth across the doorsill
 where the two worlds touch.
 The door is round and open.
 Don’t go back to sleep. Most people come into see me because they have become entranced by the negative beliefs running through their heads. I ’m not good enough. I am unworthy. I am unlovable. I don’t matter. I am broken. And often at the root of it all, like the three-year-old we once were, we somehow believe I am bad. Such fixed ideas are actually hypnotic trance states or what we most commonly call ordinary waking consciousness or “reality.” 

Most of those negative beliefs have their origins in our earliest interpersonal experiences. This is partly why they have such sticking power. But the other reason is that between the ages of two and six our brains are operating in Theta -wave frequency. Theta is the brain wave length of hypnosis. So basically until we’re about seven years old, we are literally in a trance-like state, receiving a big download from our direct experience about how to survive in our families and in our culture. That download programs the software of our perceptions and lays down the tracks of our subconscious and often self-sabotaging mind. Up to age seven or so, children have very little access to critical or rational thinking. They live mostly in the realm of the abstract and their imagination. This is why children are so good at “pretending” in their play. The divide between what is possible and what is real is nearly nonexistent. At this stage, children are much more likely to accept what you tell them: Good children do what they are told. Big boys don’t cry. Nice girls aren’t loud. Your sister is the smart one (or perhaps, the pretty one ). And all of those messages are about as true as the tooth fairy left that quarter under your pillow last night. From this perspective, the process of healing is about getting un-hypnotized from these old, inaccurate beliefs. What we call hypnotherapy is just another way to wake up out of the trance state of our early conditioning and get grounded in the reality of our wise and loving nature. Hypnosis supports us in broadening our state of consciousness so that we can engage in a transformative process of self-inquiry from the perspective of our higher self. For more information on hypnosis, read Hypnosis FAQs .
By Dina Varano + Meghan Barich 16 Oct, 2020
Yearning for something to look forward to this winter? Jan 24 — Feb 14, 2021! A weekly experiential workshop to renew our connection with the natural elements of winter, allowing nature herself and our own creativity to show us the way. Join us & transform the isolation of winter during the pandemic by making new connections in safe and sacred circle with others.
By Dina Varano 16 Sep, 2020
Birdsong punctuates the steady hum of the insects in the background of the conversation I am having with my mother. The last few days of my staycation became a multi-day mother-daughter sleepover. As we sit on her back porch, I notice that my mother's face is softer now, lightly furrowed like a lovingly plowed field. Still, the criss-cross of tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth cannot hide the beauty that has defined every decade of her nearly 80 years. Despite the signs of her aging, her easy smile and ready engagement in our chatting speak of her continued vitality. I'm glad to see her comfortable in a sleeveless top and shorts on this warm, muggy Indiana day. A few years back she had gotten self conscious about what we joke is the "creeping crepe" of sagging skin and arms that flap more like wings every time you look. She takes good care of herself but there is no stopping the progress of time. These days with her have been fun. We've had several impromptu dance parties, a few walks, a tiny bit of safe shopping, and some great carryout feasts. Together we also listened to educational podcasts, watched a fun documentary about the world famous Puerto Rican astrologer, Walter Mercado, and witnessed Kamala Harris become the first woman person of color candidate for the vice presidency. Mom's trying to make this staycation fun for us because she knows we'd rather be in the mountains and at the beach for a 'real' vacation. To have days of leisurely time with her is precious and if there's anything the pandemic has reminded us, it's that we don't know what's coming next. So appreciating and enjoying the good things we already have in our lives becomes a top priority.
By Dina Varano 12 Mar, 2020
A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart ... Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there. —Meister Echkhart
By Dina Varano 17 Feb, 2020
You will not achieve your happiness. Or rather you will not "achieve" your happiness. I’m not saying it’s impossible for you to be happy but that happiness is not an achievement. It is the wholeness and inner peacefulness that is already the natural state of being or Presence , within you. The only thing between you and knowing a deeper sense of joy and contentment with yourself is the thinking mind’s fixed ideas about who you are. These ideas might be positive or negative: I am successful or I am a failure. Either of these beliefs is conditioned on your external circumstances. They rely on the conditions of your bank account or job title or mood state or relationship status or even the contents of the thoughts moving through your mind, in order for you to feel good about yourself. But what if there were something underneath all the judgments of success and failure, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant? What if you could relax into the abiding wholeness and peacefulness at the very heart of who or what you are? In A Great Wagon , the great Sufi poet and mystic Rumi invites us to enter this space of deeper insight, connection, and wakefulness:
 Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
 there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
 When the soul lies down in that grass, 
the world is too full to talk about. 
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
 doesn’t make any sense.
 The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
 Don’t go back to sleep. 
You must ask for what you really want.
 Don’t go back to sleep.
 People are going back and forth across the doorsill
 where the two worlds touch.
 The door is round and open.
 Don’t go back to sleep. Most people come into see me because they have become entranced by the negative beliefs running through their heads. I ’m not good enough. I am unworthy. I am unlovable. I don’t matter. I am broken. And often at the root of it all, like the three-year-old we once were, we somehow believe I am bad. Such fixed ideas are actually hypnotic trance states or what we most commonly call ordinary waking consciousness or “reality.” 

Most of those negative beliefs have their origins in our earliest interpersonal experiences. This is partly why they have such sticking power. But the other reason is that between the ages of two and six our brains are operating in Theta -wave frequency. Theta is the brain wave length of hypnosis. So basically until we’re about seven years old, we are literally in a trance-like state, receiving a big download from our direct experience about how to survive in our families and in our culture. That download programs the software of our perceptions and lays down the tracks of our subconscious and often self-sabotaging mind. Up to age seven or so, children have very little access to critical or rational thinking. They live mostly in the realm of the abstract and their imagination. This is why children are so good at “pretending” in their play. The divide between what is possible and what is real is nearly nonexistent. At this stage, children are much more likely to accept what you tell them: Good children do what they are told. Big boys don’t cry. Nice girls aren’t loud. Your sister is the smart one (or perhaps, the pretty one ). And all of those messages are about as true as the tooth fairy left that quarter under your pillow last night. From this perspective, the process of healing is about getting un-hypnotized from these old, inaccurate beliefs. What we call hypnotherapy is just another way to wake up out of the trance state of our early conditioning and get grounded in the reality of our wise and loving nature. Hypnosis supports us in broadening our state of consciousness so that we can engage in a transformative process of self-inquiry from the perspective of our higher self. For more information on hypnosis, read Hypnosis FAQs .
By Dina Varano 09 Feb, 2020
John sat in the chair practically buzzing. His anxiety was palpable as he described the recent onset of panic whenever he had to audition. As a professional musician, this fear had become quite a hindrance to his career. It was starting to take a toll on his marriage and everyday life as well. “I just don’t understand it,” he says. “I’ve auditioned hundreds of times over the years. Sure, there’s been some anxiety like all performers have but why am I so suddenly terrified now?” His words expressed the mix of fear, despair, anger, and confusion he was so obviously feeling. As I got a better sense of John’s life history, we began to piece together how he grew up with a very demanding, perfectionistic father and a passive but subtly manipulative mother who relied on her son to provide the emotional support she didn’t receive from her husband. John remembered feeling terrified by his father’s judgment and burdened by his mother’s needs. “But even if that’s what’s contributing to my panic, what can I do about it? How do I get rid of it?” he asked somewhat pleadingly. I shared with him how children are often very resilient to trauma in general and especially to these more ordinary or what we call developmental traumas, becoming successful adults in many ways. But, often in midlife like John was, what has been unattended in us or left in the shadows of our psyche will start to emerge in the form of symptoms—anxiety, depression, illness, even a kind of restlessness. These symptoms can be clues that something is not resolved. Something in the past is intruding on our ability to live freely and fully in the present. We talked about how sometimes we have to take a step backward before we can move forward in our lives, and I suggested we incorporate EMDR into the therapy to resolve whatever was underlying his anxiety. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful, evidence-based modality to treat anxiety, acute and post-traumatic stress, phobias, depression, and other concerns. I’ve also used it many times to help resolve complicated grief over the loss of a family member or loved one, or settle inner conflict about a larger life decision like marriage, divorce, or a career change. In our session, I told John that thousands of research studies backed up the efficacy of EMDR, that it was commonly used with military veterans around the world because of its effectiveness and, most importantly, that I had seen over and over again powerful transformation in my clients as they engaged deeply in the process. “Okay, I’m curious,” he replied with a little more hope in his voice. “Let’s do it.” In the next session, I asked him what was the negative belief he was telling himself when he felt the audition anxiety. I’m a failure, he answered promptly. At my invitation, he then began to identify times in his life when he’d had that same or similar thought about himself. Eventually we decided to focus on an old, emotionally charged memory of being a very young boy of five or six years old. He remembered standing alone in his bedroom, practicing his instrument, knowing his father was listening outside the door to make sure he didn’t stop playing until the hour was up. An only child, that little boy wished he could instead play with his friends or even that his father would play games with him like the other fathers he knew. I supported John in accessing the body sensations and feelings he felt in the present as he remembered that old scene. Then I asked him to rate how upset or emotionally charged he felt on a scale from zero to 10. He was surprised by the intensity of something that had happened so long ago. “I’d say it feels like about an 8, when I really tune into the experience.” I reassured him that our work in EMDR would likely bring that down to a zero in the next few sessions. He looked at me skeptically. “Is there really any good reason for you to keep carrying around these old feelings of shame, fear, unworthiness, and anger?” I asked with a slight smile. He smiled back, saying no, obviously not. With EMDR, through gentle, bilateral stimulation of the brain (using eye movements or alternating tactile sensors), we are activating the hippocampus and other key cognitive processing centers, to reprocess emotionally charged experiences that are stuck in a fight-flight-freeze-please survival mode. Unresolved trauma or emotional states can keep us in a kind of trance, which keeps our body and brain looping through the same set of thoughts, feelings, and reactions, even though our conscious mind can assess that there is no danger present or knows that we are adults now, not the disempowered, dependent child we once were. Through EMDR, we don’t erase or eliminate these memorized and painful emotional states. Instead we transform our relationship to them by supporting the body-mind to complete the cycle of activation and repair that didn’t happen at the time of the experience, allowing us to return to our more natural state of homeostasis and calm. When we can process through those experiences in a new way, our fully adult, more empowered self is back in charge. The past is now in the past. And we embody all the resources we actually have as adults: our ability to make choices, express our feelings and needs, and enjoy intimate connection with others. In the reprocessing sessions, John began to acknowledge, express, and honor the feelings and needs he had as a young boy and of his inner child today. He brought the inner resources of his adult self—compassion, protection, love, and choice—to shift his whole experience of that younger, disempowered state. Finally he could meet the needs of his child self wholeheartedly, without limitation or reservation. As he healed the old rift within himself, he was surprised to find that feelings of deeper compassion for his deceased father’s emotional wounds also emerged. “I hated and feared that man for years,” John reflected, “but now I can see how his own trauma, especially as an immigrant who had experienced many losses, made him the way he was. I feel a sort of tenderness now not only for what I missed out on in our relationship, but also for what my father missed. It feels good to let go of that old resentment and fear.” At our next session, I was the one surprised. John had always been very tense and fidgety in our meetings. His anxiety had been so high before he came to see me that he had nearly been hospitalized. It often felt like he was about to jump out of his skin. But that day, he came in smiling. He sat in the chair, radiating a kind of calm that was now as palpable as his anxiety had been. He shared with me his excitement that he had recently auditioned beautifully without anxiety for two orchestral opportunities. His wife was astonished at the change in him and they had begun to connect at a deeper level. We celebrated his healing and the courage it took for him to trust his ability to journey into the heart of his pain in order to find the freedom he didn’t think was possible.
By Dina Varano 01 Feb, 2020
Hypnosis FAQs The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. —Hippocrates People tend to have a lot of preconceived notions of what hypnosis is. Here are a few facts and some myth-busters to help you explore how hypnotherapy might be valuable to your own journey of transformation. What is hypnosis? Have you ever gotten so absorbed in reading a book, watching a movie, or playing a game that you didn’t notice how much time had passed or what was going on around you? Or perhaps you have driven somewhere and then realized you were so focused on your thoughts that you didn’t pay attention to how you got there? If so, you’ve experienced an altered state of consciousness similar to what happens in hypnosis. We also may commonly tap into altered brainwave states in meditation or guided imagery, while spending time in nature or during physical exercise, or any other experience where we are able to enter a flow state of relaxed concentration. The primary intent of hypnotherapy is to help you gain more control over your behavior, emotions, or physical condition. When you are in a hypnotic state, your attention is more focused. You are relaxed and calm, and more receptive to healing processes and positive suggestions that you determine will support your therapeutic goals. Why use hypnosis? In hypnosis, we can learn to listen with more clarity and openness to the wisdom of our inner healer or more authentic self. It is one of the oldest and best-known forms of mind-body medicine. Clinical hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy, is a scientifically proven method creating positive change. With hypnosis, for example, you are able to take better advantage of the mind’s ability to control the body’s response. Adults and children in many clinical settings learn to use it as part of their overall treatment for pain, headache, nausea, anxiety, depression, needle or other phobias, skin disorders, and other physical concerns. Clinical research likewise demonstrates significant improvement in surgical recovery and survival rates in persons who use hypnosis to support their healing. Hypnosis can also help you to move out of the “trance” of negative thinking and habitual choices. For example, you may think, “I’m not going to eat that donut” and then find yourself taking a bite. It’s as if part of you is saying, “Yes, I’m going to change” and another part says, “No way am I changing!” Hypnosis helps you to access your own resources in resolving the conflict between these parts so that you can make more empowered choices that truly benefit you. Who can learn hypnosis? Almost everyone can learn to guide themselves into a hypnotic state, but some people seem to have a stronger native talent for hypnosis that may allow them to benefit more easily. In the actual process, the therapist will support you in using imagery and your imagination to strengthen your hypnotic ability and to address treatment goals. Using hypnosis for change is like learning any other skill, the more you practice, the more you benefit from that practice. And with practice, most of us are able to use hypnosis favorably if we are highly motivated to address the problem. Of course, like any therapeutic approach, not everyone can achieve the results they want with hypnosis. Myths about hypnosis Portrayals of hypnosis in the media or by stage performers lead to many inaccurate assumptions about hypnosis: Myth 1: I’ll lose control or say or do something stupid in hypnosis. People often fear that they will lose control of themselves or be controlled by the hypnotist. During hypnosis, you are in full control at all times. In fact, the active participation of your will power and imagination is crucial for you to achieve your goals. The therapist’s role is to act as a guide and coach, and you are always free to ignore or disregard any suggestion made to you. No patients will be hypnotized without their informed consent. Myth 2: I’ll fall asleep in hypnosis. Although the Greek word hypnos refers to sleep, hypnosis is not a sleep state. In addition to other observable differences, science has been able to distinguish hypnosis from sleep. EEG studies show that brain waves in hypnosis have a high level of alpha activity, indicating alertness, whereas the brain waves of sleep have little alpha activity. PET scans also show that hypnosis produces a very specific pattern of brain activity not present during sleep. Myth 3: I’ll lose consciousness in hypnosis and won’t remember the experience. While spontaneous amnesia following a very deep hypnotic trance is possible, it is rare. The vast majority of people work in a medium depth trance to accomplish their goals, which allows them to remember everything that happens during their hypnotic experience. Myth 4: I’ll get stuck in hypnosis. Remember that during hypnosis you are not asleep and you do not lose your free will. You can be conscious of everything around you, alert and awake. Your autonomic responses may be slowed during hypnosis, but your mental awareness remains acute. When the session is over, the therapist will gently instruct you to return to ordinary consciousness. If you need to come out of hypnosis for any reason, you will readily do so. Myth 5: Hypnosis is a supernatural or “spiritual” phenomenon. The American Medical Association has recognized hypnosis for decades as a safe and effective tool for creating symptom relief and deeper positive change. While hypnotic trance has been used for spiritual purposes, nothing about hypnosis is particularly “spiritual.” The experience of hypnosis is a natural, relaxing one. To read more about the use of therapeutic hypnosis in my practice, enjoy the blog Get Un-Hypnotized .
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