HomeSpunHealers

I had lunch today with a psychologist friend of mine, and when I told him that I not only slept last night (I had trouble for a whole week not sleeping well) but I also dreamed again.  And I hadn’t even thought about how much I missed my dreams until I had one last night.  He said to me in his best psychologist voice, “Aha!  That’s why you were so out of sorts.  You had not been dreaming!”

I am somewhat familiar with Carl Jung’s philosophy of dreams, that our dreams give us valuable insight into our subconscious minds, but I think I appreciate my own dreams for another reason.  I am a prolific dreamer.  I dream in living color and I can smell as well as taste and hear and touch and see in my dreams.  They are adventures for me.  And I didn’t really even realize how much I enjoy them until they were gone.  In fact, I didn’t even realize that I missed them until I had one after a drought of them.  Isn’t that the way life is, though?  Sometimes we don’t know we miss something, even after it’s gone, until it’s back again.  That’s a good enough reason for us to lose things occasionally.

I’ll share my dream with you.  I dreamed that my little almost lame pug, Kojak, was going to day care.  The day care bus came to pick him up, and I waited outside with him, so I could make sure he got on the bus safely.  When the bus pulled up, the door opened, and the bus driver opened her arms to Kojak, and he jumped and soared into her arms.  Now, in real life, Kojak can’t walk very well, much less jump and soar.  But that’s the cool thing about dreams.  They don’t know the boundaries of the waking world.  And of course, in real life, Kojak stays home with our other pug Elvis while I’m at work; neither of them go to day care.  The dream made me happy because I got to see Kojak so free of his infirmaty, and because I realized how much I missed dreaming.

I also realized that I shouldn’t stop dreaming during my waking hours either.  A life without dreams is not a happy life.  So, I’ve decided to value my waking and sleeping dreams and to be very thankful that I have both again.

Have you tried everything you know to stop smoking and haven’t been able to quit? Have you been on every diet plan you’ve ever heard of and still can’t quit overeating? Do you get anxious in certain situations such as test-taking or riding an elevator, and you can’t seem to overcome your fear? Do you just have an inexplicable negative outlook on life, but want to change your mindset to positive? All of these situations and many more can be solved with hypnosis. Hypnosis is a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation, and heightened imagination. To be hypnotized, you have to enter an almost dreamlike state. You’re not actually asleep, but your brain waves are functioning as if you almost are asleep. That’s where the word “hypnosis” comes from, the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos. If you’ve ever been driving somewhere, and all of a sudden you’re there, and you don’t really remember how you got there, you’ve been in a state of mind similar to the one you will need to be in to undergo hypnosis. When you were driving in this state, your mind shut out most of the stimuli around you except for the most important subject at hand, your actual driving. So, you got where you were going safely, but you didn’t remember too much about anything else along the way. That’s exactly what it feels like to be hypnotized. To get into this state of suggestibility, you have to be totally relaxed. Every hypnosis session begins with relaxation methods of some type before the suggestions are offered to you. You can either have someone perform hypnosis on you, or you can hypnotize yourself. It just takes some practice.

You may have heard that some people can not be hypnotized. While it is true that some people have a higher inclination to being hypnotized than others, all people can be hypnotized. The really difficult ones just have to rely on a professional and be ready and willing to undergo hypnosis. If you don’t really want to do this, just like anything else, you won’t be able to. But if you’d like to try hypnosis to help with a problem that you really want to change, it will work wonders for you. Many people claim that nothing worked to help them stop smoking before they tried hypnosis. I know that hypnosis helped me lose 60 pounds with ease. Both Athena and I took a course in hypnosis, and we both learned to right hypnosis scripts and to perform hypnosis on others and on ourselves. We’ve both had good success with making changes in our lives by listening to tapes we’ve recorded that put us into a hypnotic state where our suggestions to ourselves were easily accepted by our minds. Once the mind accepts something as true, it helps control the body to act in the same way.

Here’s how it works: When you are sufficiently relaxed, you are in a state of suggestibility. That means that anything the hypnotist tells you will be accepted by your mind completely. That is what makes hypnosis done for entertainment so much fun to watch. Even a very shy person, under hypnosis, will sing and act crazy with enthusiasm. But while the person will do things that he or she might not otherwise do in front of an audience, the person will still retain his or her sense of safety and morality. Hypnosis can’t change that, and a hypnotist can’t make you do anything you truly do not want to do. Thus, if you don’t really want to modify your eating habits or exercise more to lose weight, then you won’t benefit from the hypnotism. Or if you don’t want to quit smoking, even after hypnosis, you won’t be able to. That’s why I said you have to really want to do this to make it work.

The suggestions a hypnotist gives your subconscious mind will be believed by the subconscious mind, and your subconscious is what makes it easy to make changes in your life. You could come out of hypnosis believing that you love fresh vegetables and prefer them to candy, cake, and cookies. Thus, if you really believe that, you will buy those things at the grocery store and eat them for meals and snacks instead of buying and eating the sugary things that offer you no real nutrition, but make you fat and lethargic. So, your hypnotism has been successful. Likewise, if your subconscious, after hypnosis, believes that cigarettes make you feel bad, and you don’t like the taste of the smoke in your mouth. Instead, you enjoy fresh, clean air, and after meals, you want to take a walk and breathe in that fresh, clean air. So, instead of lighting up a cigarette after mealtime, you will find yourself craving a walk and breathing in clean, fresh air after dinner. Again, your hypnotism has been successful.

With hypnotism, it’s best to work on one change at a time. Let your subconscious mind focus on exercising more. When you’ve mastered that concept, then you could work on changing your eating habits. After that, maybe you’d like to focus on quitting smoking. Or maybe you’re ready to conquer your fear of taking tests. It’s up to you. Your subconscious mind holds many beliefs that influence everything you do in your life. And your subconscious mind can change to new beliefs. Once your subconscious mind has a new belief, you behave in a new way. And, voila! You’re a new person!

“Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.” – Florence Scovel Shinn

Something really strange and unexplainable happened to me only yesterday. I had feelings that defied logic and reason. I am not sure whether to define this experience as intuition, a premonition, or to chalk it up to the psychic bond between a mother and her child. I only know what happened saved my mother’s life.

My mother lives about an hour and a half away from me, and hasn’t been well for a couple of weeks now. She caught a terrible cold, which turned into bronchitis, which has now turned into pneumonia. She is on antibiotics, is responding well to medication, and she is getting better. There was really no need to be overly concerned about her health at this point.

Even so, I couldn’t get her off of my mind yesterday. I felt troubled and worried for much of the day. At one point, as I was sitting at my computer, the thought “I am not ready for my mother to die yet” came to me out of nowhere. The emotion that came with it was so strong that I actually began to cry. I quickly tried to dismiss the thought as just being overly emotional. I actually began to question my own state of mind, but the uneasiness just wouldn’t go away.

Finally, I told my brother, who is visiting with me, that I was going to call and check on Mom. He stated that he was just thinking that he needed to do the same thing. So, I called. My mother answered, and at first I thought that I had just disturbed her nap time, but as I tried to talk to her, it became apparent that something was terribly wrong. She couldn’t respond to my questions. She wasn’t able to complete a sentence, and she seemed to have trouble processing what I was saying. I felt her slipping in and out of consciousness as I spoke to her. I kept calling out to her “Mom, are you alright?” She managed with great difficulty to finally respond with “No.” I told her I was going to hang up, and I would call back.

I called one of my nieces, who lives just a few miles away. No answer. I called a second niece who lives 35 minutes away, explained what was happening, told her to call 911 and to get to over to her grandmother’s house right away. My mother was unconscious by the time the paramedics got there. She was slipping into a diabetic coma. The good news is that they caught her in time, and were able to bring her blood sugar levels up quickly with an IV. But what if I had ignored all the feelings and nudges to call? My mother would have died that night!

Everyone has intuition to one extent or another. The more you learn to trust in it, the stronger it becomes, and the better it will serve you. Intuition is a faithful friend that can help guide you in many areas of your life. The important thing is to learn to listen to your hunches.

Do you recall a time when your own intuition served you well?

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” - Carl Jung, Stages of Life

I greatly admire the thoughts, opinions, and writings of Carl Jung. When I first read the above quote, it caused me to pause and think. I began to think about all the various places I have visited in my life, hypothetically speaking. Through vast memories, I traveled all the way back to my childhood, and then journeyed back to the here and now. I found certain themes that are constant in my life, spiritual themes that have shifted and grown over the years. Some of the changes and revelations arrived easily. Others were learned at a painful price, but all were necessary in becoming the deeply spiritual woman that I am today.

From a very early age, I was interested in spiritual things. This could be because my father was a Pentecostal minister, his father was also a Pentecostal minister, and I was exposed to spiritual concepts from birth. There’s also the theory that we deliberately choose our parents while we are still in a purely enlightened spirit form, according to what we can learn from them to fulfill our destiny, and to aid in whatever lessons we are to learn while on this planet in physical form. If that is the case, I chose well because of my multi-faceted spiritual curiosities.

My foundation served as a good spring board that I used not only for exploration, but to branch out in many directions, and to cast off ideas and beliefs systems that would cease to serve me well. In doing so, I realized fairly quickly that having a mind of my own, and walking on a path to find my own truth, would not sit well with those who were content to remain in their spoon-fed religious beliefs, and who dared not think outside the box.

Their hurtful reproof was a gift. It taught me tolerance. It taught me respect for those whose spiritual beliefs differed from mine. I would never “stone” anyone whose belief system did not line up with mine. I would not hurt anyone the way I had been hurt. I am grateful for the growth I experienced in this area.

I have come to believe that all paths lead to the same place. God (higher power, or whatever you call this source in your life) has many names, and just because you call this power something different from what I do, we are all still communing with that same source.

I also respect the differing views of what it means to “worship” or “give thanks.” To some it might mean attending church on Sunday morning, and if that works for them, and if that’s where they best connect to their source, then I am all for it. However, I feel God is all around me. I see him everywhere, and I hear him all the time. A portion of his spirit resides in my very being. For me, the church building is too small to contain my concept of “God,” and “religion” is too narrow-minded. Even so, I do not claim to own the market on the truth. I am still learning and exploring. I only know where I have been and where I am now. I trust that I will grow wiser still with years.

Along the way, I have explored various spiritual avenues in my quest for truth, and sometimes for exploration’s sake alone. I have studied things that are sometimes in complete contrast with each other, and because of this, I am knowledgeable about many varied things:

* Astrology

* Spiritualism

* Spirit communication

* Psychology ( I have studied the power of the subconcious mind for years.)

* Hand writing analysis

* Dream symbols and interpretation ( Incidentally, I do interpret dreams and had a gift for it even before I studied it.)

* Hypnosis

* Paranormal

* Tarot

* Psychic development

* Ghost hunting

I may have left a few things out, but that gives you some insight to Athena’s curious mind.

I do know that we are in a state of constant change. We should learn, grow, and evolve. We owe that to ourselves, no matter how unpopular it might be to others who do not understand our current undertaking or areas of study. We do not want to come to the end of our lives realizing that we never once thought for ourselves, or that we lived our lives too small, by living in our comfort zone or the expectations of those around us.

Our parents gave us many beautiful truths to build on. Still we must lay claim to our own personal truth, not just those that were handed down to us.

“Neither believe nor reject anything because any other persons or description of persons have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven.” -Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

It seems that our society goes through different spiritual phases from time to time. Most recently, the “new” spiritual fad that has taken our country by a storm was brought about by a book titled “The Secret.” It’s written by Rhonda Byrne. While there are many nuggets of truth to be found inside the book, it tends to mislead it’s readers in some areas.

I have been interested in the power of the mind for all of my adult life. I fully believe that our minds our powerful beyond measure, and that we have yet to tap into all that our minds are compable of, and all that we could possibly be. Still, It’s my feeling that action has to follow belief. I could sit in the shade all day wishing, hoping, and even believeing that my house will build it’s self, but unless I put some muscle behind all of that thinking, the only thing the lumber will attract is dust.

I am an advocate of positive thinking. I believe that positive thoughts, feeling that I am worthy of love and abundance, will certainly open me up to recieve more of the same, but there is nothing “magical” about this, and it’s certainly not a secret. I think it should also go without saying that if a person fills their mind with negative thoughts, such as feeling inferior or thoughts of scarcity, it will make it nearly impossible to have anything better than that.

Positive thinking or not, I think it’s a bit over the top to suggest that every bad thing that happens to you is due to your own thinking. Lightning strikes where it will. It has no respect of persons. The same holds true for famines, and other natural disasters. No one asks for these things, and no one brings these things on their self. Molested children certainly do not attract that type of crime on their own person. It just isn’t true.

I also have a problem with the “get rich” theme that makes it’s weave throughout the book. Like all you have to do is think about a new car, a mansion, etc, and it will somehow make it’s way to you. It feeds the feeling that is already dominant in our society that we do not have enough. We need more, bigger, and better. Whatever happened to gratitude, contentment, feeling blessed, and satisfied that you have enough already? Considering the conditions in some third world countries, we are already rich, no matter where we fall on the pay scale. We already have plenty of things. We simply need a shift in our attitude, a heart full of gratitude, and a song in our spirit for today.