(个案实例十二)意想不到的治疗

Rachel撰文

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    廖阅鹏按：1999年耶诞节时，我旅行加州，在美国友人邀请下，第一次以英文作为催眠媒介，结果证明，说英语也会通喔！这是朋友后来撰写的催眠报告，如果你的英文不太行，麻烦多查字典……  2000.8.5

主旨: An Unexpected Healing - Hypnotherapy Report
日期: 2000年7月2日 AM 09:10

As long ago as 1976, on a retreat at the spiritual community of Findhorn in Scotland, I'd had a profound awakening to the indelible experience of having lived before. At that time I understood this to mean that "my soul" had inhabited different manifestations. Although now, with a greater knowledge of Buddhism, I'm no longer sure that this is an adequate explanation, it still remains as a wonderful moment of Truth, a realization which transformed my life. Suicide and escape from suffering by extinction of the body were no longer a possibility - it became truly a laughable idea for me. There is no escape that way. I now knew this in the depth of my being. As integrated as this is into my psyche I'd never really tried to explore any previous lives. I simply was too busy with other things to be much interested. That is until last year.

At the turn of the year 2000, the opportunity arose to undergo a hypnotherapy session. I knew Mr. Liao personally and on a visit he made to California, I asked him to try to help me explore any past lives we could discover. I was particularly interested in trying to find an origin to a strange phobia I experience. I hate having anyone touch my neck firmly or encircle my neck with their fingers. It makes me very nervous but doesn't seem to relate to any experience in this life time. I'd always wondered if it might relate to a previous life. However, before we go further, let me digress and give a little background of my life's journey between the Findhorn realization and the turn of the Millennium.

At Christmas 1999, it had been 18 months since my withdrawal from a commitment of over 20 years to an esoteric group or cult. The group followed a form of spiritual development called the Fourth Way; an integration of Eastern and Western techniques and philosophy. This was developed by George Gurdjieff, Peter Ouspensky and Rodney Collin amongst others in the early part of the twentieth century, in Russia, Europe and the Americas. One of the many exercises the group practiced was not to speak to or communicate with ex- members. This I knew, this I had practiced myself and this was expected on my leaving the group.

Although my withdrawal from the group elicited feelings of loss, grief and mourning for friends and community, I'd generally considered myself a relatively healthy person psychologically. This grief seemed a somewhat normal manifestation for someone suddenly experiencing several acute life stresses all at once. Within one month I had lost all but 2 close friends and my very enjoyable job. I'd left my home of 10 years, separated from my husband and moved to Taiwan, where my arrival was decidedly stormy. Within another 6 months my father-in-law had died, I'd traveled to England, Taiwan twice more and finally returned to the USA. I bought a house in a new town, moved from my old community, started a business and finally stopped running long enough to see that some doors had really closed, while new ones were beginning to open.

Now it felt normal enough to begin to explore past lives and anything else the hypnotherapy might uncover. My emotions were ones of vague curiosity and vague skepticism. I'd watched as Mr. Liao's clients had become transformed by the process of hypnotherapy, seeming lighter and less troubled after their sessions. However, I didn't feel I needed any "therapy" myself. After all, I'd been uncovering the dark side of myself for over 20 years.
What else could there be?

However, I decided not to resist the process of the hypnotherapy, just to allow it and try to learn from it. The results were unexpected as you will hear. There were two sessions, each about an hour in length and a day apart.

1. PAST LIFE REGRESSION

Having been tested for probable suggestibility, Mr. Liao determined that I could indeed be hypnotized. A series of relaxation exercises he gave placed me in a pleasant, floating psychological state. Not asleep and not awake, but in a sort of trance where I was aware of the room, Mr.Liao's presence and other external factors but attuned inwardly to the soft, amorphous world of the trance. Within this state, which did fluctuate, sometimes deepening or becoming more shallow, we began to explore the impressions of past lives.

I was vaguely aware of Mr. Liao's guidance but more interested as time passed in the multitude of lives which unfolded before me. The images which arose ranged over time and space, from nightmarish scenes of being burned alive or being in prison, to happy scenes of sitting beside streams on serene mountains or Indian beaches or floating in clouds as a baby between lives, joyous and free. The level of detail with which I could remember some of these vignettes was astonishing. Rather like having a still close up of a colored movie. I was vaguely aware of Mr. Liao helping me leave a particular life when I was stuck and it seemed that as long as he guided it, there were an infinite number of new lives to look at, grandiose or humble.

When he tried to have me approach the phobia of the neck however the images dissolved into flashes and would not remain fixed so they could be looked at. The most I got was a pair of hands around the throat but no sense
of having a life connected with this. All of the lives I experienced were human forms.

Was this all imagination? Does that matter if it is true? Does it have any deeper meaning? These were questions I was left with at the end of the session. More importantly, emotionally I came away with a profound feeling that "all possibilities are still open." This was an important realization as my having left a spiritual group had also left me with a sense of spiritual failure. This gave a new sense of optimism and is also a truth which I know comes from my own being. A small but significant healing had come from inside me.

2. CHILDHOOD REGRESSION

The second session was different. Somehow, I did not feel that the trance-like state went as deep. However,
the result was even more startling. Guided back in time through this lifetime to a place where a psychological hurt has taken place, I see myself as a young girl alone in my family home in England. I can picture the room, the curtains and the window out of which I look for the return of my mother. She has gone to visit a friend. My mother has not returned. I am alone. I am abandoned. I am crying. She has gone. She does not love me. I am alone. She does not care. I am crying. I am really crying. She does not love me. She has really gone. I am forgotten. I am angry. I am very angry. I am alone. I am alone. She has gone. I cry.

About 2 days after this session, which did leave me in tears, a sudden realization came. This abandonment and sense of helplessness and anger has left its traces throughout my life. It has shown itself in my relations with men and caused a deep wound, more deep than necessary, an over-reaction, whenever anyone has broken relations with me. Now, that it is seen as the egotism of a helpless child, it has dissolved to some extent. Maybe it will not have the same power again over my adult reactions? Who knows. At least another healing took place at that time and lightened my heart. I now include my mother in my metta practice and realize "she did not know what she did" ( to paraphrase a Bible quotation).

These hypnotherapy sessions also marked the end of that period of grieving for my lost life and community. Maybe it was just time anyway for that to end naturally or maybe the hypnotherapy simply moved it to completion.
Will we ever know? Also, are there more childhood traumas to be revealed which will throw light on some other unskillful adult reactions? Whatever happens, I am grateful for the unexpected healing.

Love,
Rachel