Doug O'Brien: So,
here's what we're going to do.
Everybody turn facing this way.
Find something, oh, I don't know, (laughter) something about eye level
on which you can focus your eyes.
Maybe not this. (pointing at a "Hypno-disk" on a shelf at the front of the room.)
Speaker: Yeah,
right here.
Speaker: It's
even better if it spins.
Doug O'Brien: Yeah,
I didn't bring the motor. I didn't bring the motor. But, anything that you want to, above eye level, you can
focus your eyes upon. I'm going to
come back here and face the same direction as y'all, so that...
Speaker: Y'all,
you all.
Doug O'Brien: ...so
I'll be seeing the same thing. OK,
that's OK, you stand there.
I'll be standing. So, feet
flat on the floor, eyes up looking at one thing. It doesn't have to be that thing, but anything. Soft focus your eyes so you can take in
the whole room. And, as I do this,
you might notice the pacing that I use.
I am now aware that I see the
HypnoDisc. I am now aware that I
see the television. I am now aware
that I see the bookshelves. I am
now aware that I see the white board.
I am now aware that I hear my
voice. I am now aware that I hear
traffic sounds. I am now aware
that I hear a hum of the water cooler.
I am now aware that I hear other traffic sounds.
I
am now aware that I feel my feet on the floor. I am now aware that I feel the temperature of the air. I'm now aware that I feel the clothing
on my arms. I'm now aware that I
feel my hands on my legs.
I'm now aware that I see the
light. I'm now aware that I see
the shadows. I'm now aware that I
see the light's reflection.
I'm now aware that I hear a slight
rattle around the water cooler.
I'm now aware that I hear my voice. I'm now aware that I hear traffic sounds.
I'm
now aware that I feel my feet on the floor. I'm now aware that I feel my back against the back of the
chair. I'm now aware that I feel
the clothing on my legs.
I'm now aware that I see the
picture. I'm now aware that I see
the chair.
I'm now aware that I hear car
horns off in the distance. I'm now
aware that I hear my voice.
I'm now aware that I feel my
breathing. I'm now aware that I
feel the weight of my body being supported by the chair.
I'm now aware that I see the
wall.
I'm now aware that I hear my
voice.
I'm now aware that I feel my
weight.
And,
if you're doing this for yourself, and your eyes haven't closed yet, you can
just go back to the beginning and do four more sentence completions in each
modality, being aware of even more things that you see, even more things that
you hear, and even more things that you feel. And, keep cycling through until your eyes close. But, for now, if they haven't closed,
just let them close.
And, in your mind's eye, take
yourself to a body of water, find that place, that place that you find to be
(sigh) just beautiful. A kind of
place where you can just relax, let go, and be thereŠnow.
And,
take a moment, and notice, just notice all the beautiful things that are there
that you can see, seeing there, through your own eyes, the quality of the light
shimmering, perhaps, on the water.
Notice the sky, if it's cloudy or clear.
Notice the sounds that are
there. Perhaps, there's waves, or
there's water gurgling, or perhaps, there's just a general stillness. Notice the sounds of nature that surround
you. Perhaps there's birds
singing, or leaves rustling.
And,
find a place where you can just stretch out and relax, maybe a hammock or a
chair, or a beach blanket kind of spot where you can just stretch out and feel
yourself relaxing there now. Just
allow yourself to relax, knowing that as we proceed, your unconscious mind will
go through your resources, your references, all the things that you've been
learning, so that you can utilize them in positive and constructive ways,
because you've learned a great deal, haven't you?
Sure,
it's sometimes confusing at first, to learn new skills and new ways of
thinking, but while you're there at this beautiful place, your unconscious mind
can go through all your files, all your references, all your resources, and put
them in order in a way that you can utilize them, this idea of multiple
imbedded metaphors, stuff you've done before.
It's just one story after another,
just like watching TV and being interrupted by a commercial, and then going
back after those "other stories," you know - commercials - were given to you,
with their punch lines. And, just
come back and pick up the story from where you left off.
And,
you know how to do that, and you know how to use language patterns. So, you can do these things. You're an excellent trance subject, and
as you go deeper and deeper now, and just let yourself relax, your unconscious
mind will cross-reference and make those associations in your unconscious mind,
and all the way up through your conscious mind that you'll be able to utilize. You'll be able to get access to those
skills.
And, it feels good. It feels good to know that you're
learning new skills, new ways of thinking and responding to people, and
noticing other than conscious communication. It feels good to know that you're on a path with a
heart.
And, you love this stuff, and you
love learning, and you love helping others. You love influencing people in positive ways, helping them
get hold of resources that they might have even forgotten about. But, through goldmining, you've helped
to retrieve and weave into dreams.
And, you can take a minute or two of clock time and dream, a dream
perhaps woven from the gold of your materials that you've found and remembered
that you have.
And, you can take a minute or two
of clock time because you know in a minute or two of clock time, you can dream
a dream that would seem to take an hour or two, or a year or two, or a lifetime
or two. It's all the time in the
world, internally, in dream time.
So, go ahead, go ahead, take a minute or two of clock time now, and
dream, a dream of integration, right now...
(2 minute silence)
That's
right. And now, knowing that all
hypnosis really is self-hypnosis, and especially, this trance, the Betty
Erickson Special, is self-hypnosis, you can discover, if you don't know,
already, how you come out of trance.
So, take as much as you need to reorient back here to now, reorient back
to this room and this place, and wake yourself up in the way that's most
enjoyable and appropriate for you.
That's right. Welcome back.
What
I particularly love about the Betty Erickson Special, is that it seems very
spiritual to me. I don't like to,
necessarily, talk about this very often, but to me, it seems very spiritual. It seems like it's opening up to the world,
and the idea that it's like Samadhi of the 'Be Here Now' thing, is meaningful
to me. I like it a lot. It feels very expansive and opening.
I
love doing it outside, instead of looking at a bookcase and saying, "I'm aware
of the shadow on the wall," I can just be in the mountains, and go, "I'm aware
of the mountains and the sky," and stuff, it's nice. Because I don't have to go far to go to a body of water in
that particular case, but it's, nevertheless, very pleasant.
So,
how was that for you? It's nice to
be able to go there any time you want.
Now, Erickson once said, and I think it's in the book, actually, there's
a quote in your book, that patients become patients, you know, the category of
person that we refer to as patient, because they're out of rapport with their
own unconscious mind. This is very
similar, in conjunction with Steven Gilligan's quote of, "Where rigidity was,
let flexibility be. Where
singularity was, let plurality be.
Where a single voice was, let many voices be heard."
The
Betty Erickson Special, with this expansive quality, you really do sort of open
up, don't you, to all of who you can be and are. So, one of the things I think is really useful, is to do the
Betty Erickson Special regularly, even if you don't have content in mind, even
if you don't have a therapeutic suggestion that you want to offer to yourself
in mind. Just doing it, I think,
helps to create a greater sense of rapport and inter-connection with you and your
unconscious mind.
So,
for me, I used to do this regularly.
I don't so much any more, but I used to make it a rule, for a long time
I did this, that I made it a rule that, you know, "No trance, no breakfast,"
and, "No trance, no dinner." So,
I'd do it at least twice a day.
And, it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be an hour, or even
as long as we just did it, but just doing it for as long as it takes to get me
to the beach and then, hang out there for a bit and come back, you know? It's a really nice way to just sort of
center and be here now, it's a great thing.