I am embarking on a new journey.  A few short months from now I will be retiring.  At this junction in my life, I have this strong desire to fix the things that are holding me back.  I want to go into this new phase of my life, the best version of myself that I can be. 

It is a work in progress.  One of the pieces, I started this afternoon.  I have decided to try a new type of therapy – Hypnosis. Through this process, I will be examining emotions and the experiences where I first felt these emotions. This is all in an attempt to release the things that have negatively impacted the adult that I am. 

I had my first hypnosis appointment today.  Releasing Anger. Anger is a weird emotion… Our past experiences influence the way we react today. I went back, through hypnosis, to a young age where I first experienced anger. Through the exercise, my subconscious was looking down at the experience, not experiencing it first hand. I was able to filter the experience by reframing it and giving it the benefit of my 57-year-old self’s knowledge and wisdom. By rethinking and refocusing on other things, such as the things that may have been happening in the background that I didn’t know about at the time or the main player’s past experiences that had lead them to that place, I found I was able to replace my anger with compassion for myself and for the other people around me in that experience.  I am probably not explaining this correctly. I’m not saying that the things from childhood that I experienced, didn’t give me a right to feel anger.  They did.  But what I now realize, and if I am honest, have suspected for a long time, is that holding on to the anger some 50 years later, is not serving me. In fact, it was so clear to me today that the anger is hurting me. It was a physical weight I felt.  A heaviness in my chest.  A darkness.  The hypnosis session helped me to release that pent up anger and refocus.  Accept what was.  Move on.    

We all live through experiences that leave us with baggage.  That baggage has shaped us into the people we have become.  Sometimes that baggage is helpful- maybe I learned at a young age to protect myself from true danger.  The remainder of my life, that knowledge will help keep me safe.  But what if the experience, as seen and felt through the eyes, ears and heart of a child, is misconstrued and misinterpreted?  What if the experience in some way causes you to feel guilty, like the experience was your fault when it wasn’t?  What if the experience causes you to distrust others unjustly?  What if the experience causes you to dislike yourself?  These thoughts and emotions are not helpful to you… life would be so much easier for you, if you let those long held beliefs go; if you reframed your experience. You were a child, you were not responsible nor did you have any control over the situation or the adults in your life.  Everyone is flawed… the adults in your young life, included.  They made mistakes, sometimes horrible ones. Releasing the anger will make you feel lighter, freer, unencumbered by a childhood that you didn’t have any say over.

Releasing the anger caused a tsunami of emotion today that left me feeling drained and exhausted but also so very hopeful- Hopeful that I will, someday soon, be free of the emotional ties that bind me.  The long held negative self image that has followed me everywhere has made me a more timid, fearful, apologetic, anxious, neurotic shadow of the person I can and want to be.  It is time to let that stuff go! 

I am finding myself.