Your Thoughts and You
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. Abraham Lincoln
Here are a couple of stories about how our inner stories affect our minds which in turn affect us. I have permission to share but have changed their names.
A stress story
For their tenth wedding anniversary Nicky and her husband had arranged to go out for a celebratory meal and he had told her he would be home by seven, even though he often worked into the evening.
She thought he would be home much earlier so he could get ready. By 6.45 she felt disappointed that he wasn’t home. Her Mother arrived to baby-sit and she felt happy again. 7 o’clock came and went, as did 8 o’clock. By 8.15 she had experienced every emotion she had and some she didn’t even know she possessed. Her mother repeatedly asked her to be calm and how she was sure everything would turn out well. This merely added to her rage.
Her thoughts switched from anger, “the thoughtless b****rd”, to fear, “what if he’s had an accident”, to jealousy, “ I bet he’s with another woman”, to rage, “I bet he’s forgotten” and so on.
She then played the “what ifs”, planned what she would say and moved out, in her mind, with the children to her Mother’s. After this she then mentally acted out the scene of the police coming to tell her he was dead. She identified the body, had the funeral, grieved and remarried all before half past eight. She then phoned the restaurant and discovered he hadn’t booked, so she then prayed he was alive so she could finish him off herself.
He arrived home safe and well just before nine to find her livid, shaking and tearful following an uninteresting non-life threatening train delay. He had sent her a message letting her know but she hadn’t thought to look at her phone while in the midst of fury.
Once they had had a cuddle they left to spend the weekend in a spa hotel (this had been his secret plan - hence no restaurant booking) and they had a wonderful time.
Nicky’s stress tended to manifest as distrust relating to her self-confidence and we successfully worked through her difficulties. Her example showed that emotions are triggered by thought to the point of crying. The ‘late arriving husband’ story was the last time she had an extreme blowout but became her stepping off point.
A healing story
Gwen was being treated for anxiety, depression and insomnia. While healing from a broken ankle she developed shingles and was left with debilitating nerve pain. This had made her health symptoms worse. While we were chatting she shared that she and her husband were keen ramblers and she was sad she couldn’t manage even a short stroll.
I mentioned the similarities between nerve pathways and rambling paths on their walks. I explained to her how the subconscious mind can help healing when everything begins to flow physically, mentally, emotionally and that by calming the nervous system our hormones and self-produced chemical cocktail become balanced. This can soothe pain while encouraging healing to occur.
Hypnotherapy sessions vary greatly; some people are silent, some are chatterboxes, some people just nod or shake their heads and some are unresponsive.
When Gwen was in a hypnotic state I started with a soothing body scan and, with gentle guidance from me, asked her to go where her healing journey could begin. She smiled and talked a little bit, saying things such as, “Close it.” and, “the left one.” “It is free now” and, “That looks safe.”
Afterwards she described her experience, “I was on a walk in the countryside with my husband. We had a map but it was not like other maps - it showed pathways in my body. The main route was my spine with pathways, streams, stiles and gates. There were a couple of blockages in the streams that we cleared. We found a few gates had been left open and one was jammed tightly shut and rusty. Fortunately we had some oil (she laughed) so we managed to loosen it.”
She looked at me bemused and asked what it might all mean. I asked her what it meant to her (therapist response 🤣). “Well, I think it means my nerves and pathways have blockages from the irritation of shingles. This confuses the messages to my brain and causes the pain. The gates need to be able to be opened and closed and the streams need to flow. Oh, and the rusty one stopped the healing response.” She looked shocked, laughed and said, “How silly.”
We chatted some more about how our minds create stories. I mentioned again how we respond to metaphors and we sat for a little while in comfortable silence. The session ended and she left.
A few days later Gwen called to share that not only had the nerve pains reduced substantially but her ankle was comfortable enough to go walking.
Two months later a different sounding Gwen called. No nerve pain, ankle fully restored and with her doctor’s support she was reducing her meds as she felt so much better. Her husband was so happy he came for a self-hypnosis lesson.
We could analyse this and discuss pain gateways or we can just celebrate that Gwen healed.
These are two examples of how powerful our minds are and how our bodies react through imagination as well as reality. Our mind cannot tell if things are really going on or if we are just thinking about it so we react.
Are you living the story you desire?
Both stories have such an important message. I love the idea of the walk through the body and am thinking about doing my own version later on.