HelenzArt-life-musings

Month: Oct 2024

  • When I was just a little girl.

    There’s a Doris Day song, ‘Que sera sera‘, (‘what ever will be will be’) that, though written back in 1956 when my mum was 21 years old, fits with these retrospective views. I’m going to share my first experiencing of a therapy session with Chris so as to give an insight as to how there can be an opening up to what lies beneath.

    I was walking into the realm of what ever will be, will be. I had no preconceived notions about where this next meeting with Chris would take me.

    As I walked up the stairs to his office, there was trepidation for sure. A small knot of not wanting this in my chest and a clenching of muscles. Tension. Yet my intuition was saying ‘go for it’. It’s hard to explain that ‘gut’ feeling’ when you haven’t really listened to it much before. Yet I felt it and heeded it, just as I had when I traversed the terrain of grief, I was listening to that guidance.

    Chris has a wonderful warmth to him and as he took my jacket and invited me to sit in the squishy, comfy, reclinable chair. I had no doubt that I was where I needed to be. We chatted around my experiences through my week. The sadness and tears, the presence of my mother. He shared how hypnotherapy may work by allowing a quietening of the known consciousness., the working, accessible, memory. To perhaps let my subconscious show me what needed to be seen. I start to relax and as the session begins the chair is reclined, my shoes are kicked off and he counts me under.

    I hear his voice, I can hear other noises that come through the window or movement in the building but they aren’t diverting. My breathing deepens, he asks for communication with my subconscious through my right hand. An index finger raise for yes, a little finger for no, they signal appropriately. It’s strange, as it’s like a tic which is involuntary, yet it is voluntary. Yet it’s not a thinking and doing voluntary though, by which I mean that if we played a game requiring those movements when either yes or no was called out there would be a small lag while the response was processed. This was instantaneous. It’s a suspension of what I have come to call a ‘surface thinking’ or ‘head mind’, perhaps even ‘working mind/memory suffices.

    Chris then asks if there is something that needs to be seen and if so to review it. The need to sob is irresistible, it’s a scary moment as there is little control, as there was none in the prior days. It’s an out pouring of feeling of being harmed, certainly emotionally. Not understanding why, when I was only playing. Chris guides me through a tapping exercise that starts with the side of my left hand, moves to above the eye, repeating after him that the feelings are welcome, that we are open to feel this strong emotion. To accept that it’s here and that it can move through, tap to the side of the eye, under the eye. That the pain can be released and the causes seen clearer. Tap above the lip, under the lip. To the centre of the collar bone. The sobbing subsides and as I move the tapping to the thumb there comes a sensing of a source. Chris then asks if it’s ok for subconscious me to share this with the knowing me and it is. Another reviewing happens. There’s a pause in me to see. It’s strange seeing, re-experiencing these things. Seeing what I’ve always known, yet hidden all the detail, suppressed so much.

    A reintroduction to the mother I didn’t know I knew. Survival mode for a young girl. My mother writ large. A tall woman who carried more weight than she wished for. To a young girl she appears monstrously looming.

    Had I not heard her call? Probably not, as I’d be caught up in something interesting, like ants moving eggs or the way the ditch water burbled. Had I caused offence somehow? For her, yes I had. She was a harsh handler. I was scared of her, I had always been wary of her, her long sharp finger nails of which she took great care of.

    Chris asks few questions and those he does are generally along the lines of how my body is feeling. What am I seeing, sensing? What I’m feeling. Where any feelings of tension may be? I can respond to these queries though some consideration is often required before answering. If there is a particular tension or concern with a sensed place then that can be investigated or tapped into a welcoming. Eventually there comes a sense of relief. That what was needed to be seen, heard, acknowledged and accepted has been reached for this particular session. That I have been given enough for now.

    The seeing is done, the emotion is spent , Chris counts me brings me back to the chair and the room. I am feeling at peace, even though the seeing was not pleasant, it feels right to have brought this out. It’s a lot to take into my ‘normal’ world. To ‘get my head round’ as the phrase goes.

    Chris says to allow this to integrate. Wasn’t sure what that actually meant. Though I now see that as a means of reshaping the unknowing to knowing, become more whole, accepting of one’s past to inform the now of me but not define it the same.

    I went home feeling a little different. Achy eyes, but with a sense of serenity. Little did I know that this was the beginning of revelations that would turn me inside out. Bring doubt, shame, guilt, questioning sanity, veracity and who I am.

  • Finding Courage.

    The Latin root of courage is ‘cor’, the heart, the core or centre of what we are. That centre of feeling. Where we may feel fear and love and hope . To take courage to face our fears with love and hope that things will be OK. They will be OK yet not necessarily in the way we anticipate.

    So if it’s ‘cor’ for the heart, is it ‘rage’ too? Perhaps not in an anger sense but yes, to heightened emotion, a vehemence of passion or desire. An intensity to bring about change.

    Intent…. A focussing in on, paying attention.

    I have waited for this intensity of gaze, a focus of courage to write of my experiences with myself in therapy.

    My post of the 20th of June, covers my reasoning of finding a hypnotherapist. Of how I found myself in floods of tears. Of my intent to continue a journey, step by step. A journey that began decades ago, even life times ago though I didn’t know that at the time. A journey that began with death. That of my son, Gavin. Mine too, in more ways than one.

    So from one visit I went from feeling positive about changes to feeling utterly bemused, confused, bereft and all at sea.

    I arranged to have second visit to see the hypnotherapist, Chris, who was to become my way marker.

    The appointment was for a week later, yet what was I ‘to do’ in those intervening days. Chris advised simply sitting with what ever came up! I had always been able to sit for hours and read, watch TV, but might this be hard to do?

    When Gavin died, I learned how to sit and feel, actions for when I felt that welling up would be to pause what I was doing, find a comfortable place to rest, and let the tears flow. Sometimes I would look through the condolence cards and letters received from people who knew him. A freeing and expressing of my grief of loss and the other emotions that surround that. Yet that had a knowable cause, a rooted source, a physicality of a reason. A logical response to a circumstance.

    This depth of emotion, which felt of overwhelming sadness seemingly had no source. No seeable, no logically on the surface of knowing, root cause. It’s scary to feel such extreme emotion and not have any, ‘in the head’ reasoning for it. It was deep within and intent on coming out. The force of releasing through tears made sitting with it easy. In part perhaps by making the choice to carry on a discovery voyage, was a surrendering of control. I didn’t know where I would go, yet I intuitively felt it was time to go. I would simply sit and weep. I didn’t or rather couldn’t read, the same paragraph would be returned to as sight blurred, eyes ached from welling tears. Just so sad…. as if I was crying for all the world. I could still pull myself together, put it aside, be with company, my husband and family. Smile and laugh as usual, yet beneath, when in solitude, I would simply sink into an ocean of sadness.

    Solitude was key for me. It all felt very, very personal and I didn’t require pity nor to feel judged. Yes, I did tell my hubby that I was going to see Chris again and that smoking wasn’t simply a habit to be easily cast aside like an old sock. That there were deeper roots to the need. Which I don’t think he was particularly surprised at though what else he thought isn’t for me to guess at. Like many people without an addiction it’s often hard to understand a compulsive need.

    Over a number of days the sitting continued though the weeping subsided. I would watch the world around me, something I have always done. Marvel at the trees as I have always done and drift. Mind of nothing in particular, just sorrow. Then something might sift up, a ghosting of a memory from childhood not specific. Only a hint of where this pain may arise from. My mother kept coming to mind.

    I will mention that my Mother left when I was in my teens with never a birthday card, nor a gift at Christmas. To be honest I have never knowingly mourned her departure. Not cried at her leaving. I was always closer to my Dad so never upper consciously considered or admitted to feeling abandoned. I don’t recall even asking why or where she had gone, and my dad never offered any reasoning voluntarily. That it shaped some behaviours in me is certain. That yearning to be loved, or at least wanted for something, turning to promiscuity in an effort to find an embrace. She did reappear from her self imposed anonymity when her sister traced her down as their mother was dying. I allowed a contact for the sake of my then only child, for her to have a grandmother, the caveat being that she was not a mother for me, as she gave up that right when she vanished. Occasional visits happened over the years til she died in her early 60’s. No sorrow then either, just the death of someone I knew. We mutually stayed at arms length, no warmth or affection kindled on my part.

    Was there more to my wariness of contact with her? Was there an underlying relief to her going that made me so sanguine to her departure back then. I didn’t rightly know but the seeds were being sown.

    Extreme emotional out pouring can only last for so long, whether we understand a reason for them or not. By the end of the week I was utterly spent. There was a suspicion that my life would once again be turned upside down yet I felt that this was absolutely necessary to bring about an inner sense of peace.

    I was ready to step into my next session with Chris. I had found my courage to face what was asking to be faced. Just as I have found my courage to write about my experiences.

    Looking beyond