The Healing Strategy Your Doctor Never Told You About
Photo by denmo3000, Flickr
I don’t receive emails from my ex-husband anymore. Not because he doesn’t send them, but because I’ve set up a filter so they go directly to SPAM. My SPAM folder has much more tolerance for toxicity than I do.
But there are loopholes, like this past weekend when an email from my ex got through because he sent it through YouTube, with a link to a video called “Planning for a Life With MS” by the National MS Society. This is what he wrote:
“This is very valuable for anyone with MS, but far more for you who’s not known for planning-anticipating, and logic. I’m very concerned about that part of you.”
I love that he sent this to me. I read it and laughed out loud and thought to myself: “Thank you for my next blog post.”
My ex-husband is a masterful hypnotist (I’ll explain this in a minute) and he’s using a very powerful communication tool here, called a presupposition. The presupposition in his statement is that what I need to “plan for” and “anticipate” is my inevitable disability. He’s “very concerned” because clearly there is something coming in my future that we should both be very concerned about.
The reason presuppositions are so powerful is that they are not directly stated. He didn’t say “There is a possibility that you could be disabled in the future, so maybe you should plan for that.” Instead he assumed it into his statement as fact, as the incontrovertible reality, which then gets communicated as fact to the person being spoken to. Most people don’t even notice it, so it goes right in without question.
Unless of course the person being communicated to (me, in this case) is aware of how language is used to build reality. As soon as I read his email, I noticed the presupposition and immediately deleted it so that I would not accept his message that disability was my inevitable future. And I want to make sure you know how to do this to, because everyone has someone like my ex-husband in their life, telling them how things are.
Everyone is surrounded by hypnotists. Unfortunately many of the messages and suggestions that people deliver – often unintentionally – are negative. As someone with an illness who wants to heal, it is essential that you learn to attune yourself to and recognize these subtle suggestions so that you only allow positive, healing messages to impact you.
What is conversation hypnosis?
When most people hear the word “hypnosis” they think of a man swinging a pendulum in front of their face or some poor guy on a stage quacking like a duck after he’s been “put under.” These are the sensationalized versions of hypnosis we’ve seen in movies and television. But the truth is, hypnosis happens every day, in regular conversations you have with your friends, your family, your co-workers, your doctors.
Hypnosis is a way of using words that is clear and precise so that, if someone chooses, they can easily take instruction. So, hypnosis is really just a way of being intentional and precise with the way you use language.
Words direct your awareness. That’s just a fact. Before I wrote the word rutebega you probably weren’t thinking about rutebegas. And yet now you are, because I used a word to direct your attention. Whenever we speak or hear words, they always direct attention – whether we mean for that to happen or not.
Since everybody speaks, everybody is always directing your attention. They are using word magic to get you to think or feel one way or another. Most people are absolutely not clear and precise with how they are using their words. However, we could call what they are doing conversational hypnosis.
For example, let’s say you’re at work and you see your friend Sue over by the water cooler. You ask her how she is and she says, “Well I have this horrible headache! My forehead and my temples are just throbbing so intensely and it won’t let up for a second. You know what I mean?”
You may think you’re just engaged in a moment of small talk with your friend, but in order for you to make sense of what Sue is saying to you, you need to feel the feeling of your forehead and your temples throbbing intensely. The leading question that she ends with: “You know what I mean?” forces you, if you hadn’t already, to consider what she means, and to do that, you must feel the sensation in your body. Sue, in a simple casual conversation, has led you to feel your head throbbing, at least for a moment. That’s conversational hypnosis.
I just want you to be realistic
Conversational hypnosis is most effective when the person doing the suggesting is someone you are in rapport with. In other words, you trust them, you like them, or they hold some position of authority in your life. This means that the people closest to you are likely to be the most effective in their suggestions. So if your husband or wife or mother or sister or best friend, for example, does not truly believe you can get well, they’ll probably reveal that in casual conversation with you, and if you’re not aware of how hypnosis works, their messages will go right in and undermine your effort to get well.
Here’s one of my favorites:
“I just want you to be realistic.”
This person, let’s say it’s your sister, is not directly telling you that she doesn’t believe you can get well. Instead, she’s presupposing (presuming, taking for granted in advance), as my ex-husband did, that you getting well is not realistic, and simply telling you to “be realistic.” The message she’s communicating, then, is that she doesn’t believe you can heal.
Now, if you’re aware of the power of conversational hypnosis, you will hear her say that and immediately notice the belief she’s communicating and reframe it for yourself. In this case, you can remind yourself that her definition of “realistic” is likely based on the Western Medicine paradigm of what is and is not possible with a chronic illness like MS. So when she uses the word “realistic” she’s only accessing a slim percentage of the possibilities that exist in the world.
What are the messages your loved ones (or not so loved ones) are communicating to you about your illness? What are the messages being communicated to you by the MS community? Notice the presuppositions. Delete or reframe the ones that don’t serve you in getting well.
Ahhh….feels good.
Want more inspiration? Read The Only Way Out is Through or go to the main page to Get Inspired.
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WHAT A GREAT POST! You described this phenpmenon so beautifully. I actually have very few people left in my life as I have chosen to streamline into a ‘non-toxic’ life. Others’ ideas about my health and state of being are very stressful to manage for me so I chose to plant myself in a different garden, so-to-speak. Those people around me now are healing forces all in their love and support.
thank you cathy! and for those reading this, cathy’s blog is amazing and you should all check it out. http://www.cathyaten.com
Karen, this was wonderful and so timely, as I was just thinking about how what we hear goes into us on the cellular level, whether or not we try to stop it. I made a decision not to tell a lot of people about my MS. Initially I kept it to myself because I didn’t want to be known as the “friend with MS”, nor did I want to be judged as to my choices (non-traditional) for healing. I also stayed away from any website, publication or physician that referenced “what to expect” or “how to plan” for living with MS.
Now, as I am moving slowly and steadily towards good health, I have come to realize how important it was for me not to be labeled. Your post says it so well and validates my initial decision. And, like Cathy, I have selectively chosen those I want to be around whether it be friends or the healing community….I want only positive light and energy in my life. Thank you for your ongoing, wonderful messages.
thank you deb!