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If you call and ask me if I do past-life regression hypnosis, I am going to ask you to call someone else.

So here I am in the third session with Michael,  a vet who completed four tours: one in Afghanistan and three in Iraq.

To say he has PTSD is not really strong enough. I want you to understand that he has SERIOUS POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER.

I want to warn you not to threaten him. I have written down a list of his triggers and I promise you, I will not forget any of them while in his presence.

He is sweet and thoughtful and not someone you want to provoke. He tells me about the civilian guy who put a gun in his face and asked for his wallet. Yes, Michael was on crutches, but his body momentarily forgot the shrapnel lodged in his spinal cord. The guy with the gun went down, hard.

He tells me things, horrific things, the kind of things I very intentionally never watch in movies.  And yet, I find that I can listen to what he has experienced and I don’t wince or want to jump from my chair. I am almost as neutral as I would be by the news that you put a banana down the garbage disposal.

Woven between his tales is a tired soldier’s search for his own humanity. How do you reconcile acts of war with who you are?

He ruminates,  “Am I the big soft bear who like to save people or am I Rambo with ice in my guts?”

Healers tell stories and for no reason that I am consciously aware of I find myself telling him about my dear friend Camille’s husband. She says that although he has lived in Seattle for twenty years, he can get lost coming home. When they go somewhere together,to protect their marriage, she drives. And yet, when they visited Rome, this same husband had a GPS in his head. She would be studying a map and he simply seemed to know the lay of the land.

As I tell Michael this story, I feel a chill down my spine. I recognize this as words that have come out of my mouth for reasons I don’t understand and they have landed like a truth that needed to breathe. His relief is palatable. And then some force opens my mouth again, and I say, “Maybe you were a soldier in another life time.”

Michael comes to his appointments prepared. His mind is spilling out torturous thoughts and memories. He will sometimes stop and say, “I know I just laid a lot on you.”

I am not surprised, but he is, when he says,

“The first time I was in a situation where all hell broke loose, I remember looking over and seeing my squadron leader frozen. Shots and soldiers are all around me. It is real mayhem and I am barking commands. I didn’t even know what they meant until years later when I heard them in the movie. I had no rank. I was new and yet, I had an almost 360 degree sense of who was where and who was an immediate threat and who was not.  They were doing what I said. It was the first time I had the feeling I wasn’t driving, and how was it that I knew those things? But I did. So yes, I absolutely know I have been a soldier before.”

Micheal’s PTSD responds phenomenally well to EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique. After three sessions he is sleeping better. A reoccurring nightmare is gone. And he can tell a few of his worst experiences without feeling the adrenalin coursing through his body.  And his reaction to loud sounds has dramatically lessened.

I am grateful for Michael for coming into my world and for teaching me things I didn’t know about war, and myself.

I look forward to sharing more as I venture down this path.

Enjoy your long weekend,
Lisa

If you have tried a zillion diets, sooner or later you are going to hit a wall!

Sometimes you just need some one-on-one hypnosis to keep you out of the cookie jar, or stopping at Starbucks.

It is really fun to be hypnotized  to not want to eat cookies, or chocolate, or candy.

However, the associations are usually so strong from years of repetitive experience that an upset like grief, a big change, or even a disturbing conversation, can sometimes send you back to your old comforting stand-by.

This is where EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is really helpful.

It is an effective way to PLAY with your thinking.

It is as though you have an entrenched stream of thought.

It can go like this: When I need a break, want to treat myself, I grab my favorite>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

With EFT, you can state the truth as you are tapping on your body, “Even though I say I want to be healthy, and not have this annoying fat on my body, I still want to eat this Snickers Bar, and have a Diet Coke. Even though I know I can’t keep doing this and feel great in my body, I TOTALLY love and accept myself.”

The power is in acknowledging the truth instead of staying in the fight. (Please read that sentence again!)

You have battling parts. One part wants to feel healthy and proud, and the other part wants what she wants, and to be left alone.

This is exhausting!

With hypnosis, you can be powerfully veered from this battle, but in my experience, EFT gives you another very useful tool. I don’t know about you, but I LOVE good tools!

This is my favorite example in my own life, and forgive me if you have heard this story before.

I did not want to pick up my high-school daughter from volleyball practice. She had been gnarly before school that morning and I had had a very busy day and I wanted to go home and not make ONE MORE STOP!

The owner of Husky’s Deli in West Seattle was on the radio, being interviewed about his family’s tradition of making ice cream.   When my girls were little, and we didn’t have a hectic schedule, we would wander in, order an ice cream cone and sit outside and enjoy it. It was fun, and I can see them trying to manage the cones and the ice cream in their little hands.

Well, suddenly all I could think of was ice cream. I could go to QFC and they had Dove bars on a stick and I could be late, and I started laughing.

What I really wanted was the leisure of NO SCHEDULE, thank you very much. The ice cream wasn’t going to change that!

At the next stop light, I did some EFT on myself. I drove right to the high school,  picked up my daughter, and made her a wonderful dinner.  I totally forgot about the ice cream until the following week when I was teaching, and I used it as an example.

Out minds are really interesting,and knowing yours is very useful.

In my practice and in my own life, I have found the combination of hypnosis and EFT to be an absolutely phenomenal combination for change.

Access My Free Hypnosis Library: click here

Cake used to be such a problem for me, I should have worn a sign that said,

“DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CAKE UNATTENDED.”

Now I can laugh and remember that my mind is powerful and that I can use it to stop my sugar cravings. You can too!

When they gave you your first coke,cookie or whatever, they didn’t warn you…..

SUGAR CAN BE ADDICTIVE

Sugar can be  harder than a crack addiction because it is everywhere….and it is socially acceptable.

Many of my clients, and probably you, don’t really want to give up sugar because it feels like you are going to miss some fun.

I know the feeling…….

However, I have discovered with a little hypnosis, you can dramatically decrease your desire for sweets, stop craving sugar, and you can increase your sensitivity so that many things begin to taste too sweet…

Download a free hypnosis to STOP YOUR SUGAR CRAVINGS NOW

She glided into my office, like a warm, soft breeze.

She has a big job organizing events, lots of events, and she also has an exceptionally cool demeanor. The kind of person you would happily hand over your “to do” list to and then just not worry.

Underneath her exceptional poise, she was having panic attacks at inopportune times, and having trouble staying asleep at night.

The attacks subsided after her first session. She listened to her recordings at night and was pleased with the positive change in sleeping patterns.

Things were going better, much better, and then she had a panic attack while watching TV.  WHAT?

Her Mom had mental breakdown and been hospitalized when my client was in grade school.

She doesn’t consciously remember much, but she did remember watching TV to pass the time after school, waiting for her Dad to come home.

We brainstormed about what that precious little girl was going through as we did EFT and then followed it up with some powerfully mind-shifting hypnosis.

That was last year. She is still sleeping well and the outside cool demeanor remains true on the inside too.

The combination of EFT and hypnosis is incredibly effective.

Did you know that you can work with me on SKYPE?

E mail me at Lisa @ Lisa Crunick .com  no spaces, and set up a free twenty-minute, no pressure consultation.