CONSCIOUS CHOICE: HEALING

Hypnotherapy & Inner Family Healing

By Barbara Lynn Allen

How many times have you "known" some deep truth about yourself, a truth that explains your current unwanted behavior or situation, but been unable to make the changes in yourself or your life that you want? Many people have developed substantial conscious understanding about themselves without being able to change their behavior or their life. Most of our problems and negative patterns have their roots in our subconscious mind where they may be inaccessible to our conscious control. Here in the subconscious is the home of the "inner child."

Childhood wounds tend to linger. They don't always go away even when we think we have forgotten or "gotten over" them. Some people do get over childhood suffering on their own, but many people continue to long for the parental love, attention and acceptance they never received. There are people who actually spend years trying to heal their parent, so the parent can finally give them the love they long for. Others may develop unsatisfying codependent relationships with partners in which the family drama is played out once again.

Using an advanced form of hypnotherapy, we now have new techniques to finally heal suffering from childhood neglect, abuse or abandonment. Because hypnosis is a heightened state of inner awareness, we can, with guidance, contact those subconscious "parts" of ourselves that are still hurting and offer those parts (the inner child) a deeply corrective emotional experience. The results as one client put it are "like a miracle, a dream come true."

Our subconscious mind is capable of an amazing array of imaginative abilities. We can imagine or pretend almost anything. Because of this ability we can actually create a new "inner family"; a loving and supportive inner parent, a feeling of peace, love and safety we may never have known.

One client, Sandy was so anxious and fearful that she was unable to relax enough to sleep through the night. In just a few sessions of inner family work, her sense of safety and comfort increased to the point where she began to sleep regularly through the night. Her friends remarked that she no longer looked scared all the time. As is often the case, her entire life and her relationships improved and became easier and less problematic.

Another client, Cynthia was compulsively overeating and gaining weight rapidly. When we rescued her inner five year old from a critical and demanding mother and using her imagination brought that child into the present with a loving, supportive adult, Cynthia began to feel whole and at peace for the first time in her life. She learned that she could treat herself in a loving way. After several sessions, she stopped overeating. It became easy for her to change her eating habits, instead of a struggle. She lost weight rapidly and eventually the empty feeling inside was gone

It is truly amazing how people are able to experience a sense of loving acceptance in hypnosis from "inner parents" and the results are even more amazing. People learn in these sessions how to love themselves, to care for themselves physically and emotionally. This self love and self care is then reflected back to them through positive changes in their present lives and in their relationships. Imagine living your life today, right now, with an unshakable inner sense of self love, support and self acceptance. This is the promise of Inner Family Healing in hypnotherapy.

FEEDBACK: CLICK HERE to email comments and feedback. Please note the title of the article or the author's name. Include your own name or type "name withheld" by request. Thoughtful responses will be published in our next edition.