Hypnosis as Co-creation

Posted on November 15, 2010 by mcallister

Just about 5 years ago, in a breakout during my Hypnotherapy training, I experienced a deeper trance, letting go more than I ever had before, and the process was just happening for me, to me. I was playing with dolphins in the ocean and then out in space and they were laughing as they always do, finding it so amusing that we had to work at healing, something that for them was natural and playful, just a part of who they are.

I realized that all of the guided meditations, and earlier hypnosis experiences had been created by my conscious mind. Listening to the instructions it then produced the appropriate pictures or other experiences to the best of its ability. Playing with the dolphins the experience simply unfolded, happening before I could think it, arising from some place other than my conscious mind.

This to me is the intention of “hypnosis”, to allow other aspects of our full self; the subconscious associative memory, or the super-conscious higher self, guides or Spirit, to assist in our process and teach us, heal us, create an experience for us. It may be a dialogue with aspects of self, family, friends, or spiritual helpers. It may be a journey, with dreamlike realism, or more abstract symbology. The journey itself may be your process, or just a path along which things happen, or an exploration of your inner world. It might be in present time, or the past or the future even.

Inviting the conscious mind to step out of the loop for a while, allows many other resources to show up to support you, co-create with you, communicate and give to you. Any surrendering in the process is not to the therapist, but to these aspects of Self. The therapist is a facilitator and guide, holder of a safe container, another strand in the co-creation, not a controller or puppet-master fixing you like a broken machine.

Over the years I have noticed that many people expect their experience to be like mine, where everything is happening for/to them, and they sit back for the ride. While this may happen for you, more often you develop a co-creative process where you are also in the picture, interacting, and making choices. If you are imagining a place its form may appear, or you might just feel that it should be a certain way. There are lots of ways that things can show up, and some of them may be as conscious thoughts, feeling, preferences.

It is the part of the mind that operates in shoulds and shouldn’ts, that wants to figure it all out as you go along that we are asking to step aside so your process can unfold. There is great wisdom in the rest of you. Mixed in with the issues and pain there is the wisdom for how to release and complete, so you can move forward and create.

Your waking life is like this also. We may try to figure things out, consciously create what we think is right, or best for us, but when we make space for our intuition, higher self, and the Divine to co-create with us we can relax into their support and find the flow. Co-creation in waking life, as in trance space, however does not mean checking out and expecting it all to just show up. It is a balance of presence and allowing, active and receptive, masculine and feminine which are always necessary for any creative act in this universe.

One of the meta benefits for people working in trance states is realizing this process of co-creation, of letting the different aspects of Self weave together to create a stronger tapestry with less effort, in our inner world, and in our outer world. May you find joy in deepening the awareness and experience of co-creation in your life.

(© 11/2010)

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Holding Space

Posted on November 1, 2010 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

If you’ve ever had a friend call up because they’ve just had something significant happen in their life and you take the time to listen to them, in their excitement, or joy; sadness or confusion, you’ve held space for them. When you can just listen, without jumping in with your own story, or to advise, fix or reframe, but just listen, you’ve held space with integrity. This is not always easy, especially if you are triggered in any way by what they are saying, but doing this is a great gift, validating their experience of themselves and giving them space to spontaneously shift things that need shifting.

In my training as an energy worker we learned about setting the energy of a space. Something like interior decorating with energy. Different spaces and different activities work best with different energetic backgrounds or tones. Once you have set the space you can maintain it consciously, which is holding space in a formal sense.

When I am doing healing work with you it is important to set and hold space in a way the enhances and facilitates your process. There are various levels to this, including how I set my personal space, how the room or healing space is set, aspects of my relationship with the you, and guides or other outside energies that I might invoke. Sometimes these pieces may be set intentionally and formally, or they may simply flow from the energy and intention I bring to the space myself. The quality of presence that one brings to a teaching or healing space is a key part of the whole process.

In studying successful healers it has been found that they all bring a level of compassion, being an energy of allowance; allowing things to be as they are with love and gratitude. The great power of this energy is that until something can be accepted in the present moment, it cannot be changed. Once you can allow something to be present, you can begin to choose to keep it, or change it. As long as it is not accepted it is in the future or past and thus out of reach.

Holding a compassionate acceptance you can also naturally hold the knowledge that things can change, that healing is possible and the releasing old things is a great good, if sometimes painful. Bringing this permission to change, grow, heal without fear helps create the safety someone needs to follow their process.

When I am doing energy work with you, holding space for deep processing or transformation, there is the sense of almost literally holding the space in my hands, using them to invoke levels of energy that will facilitate your process. Until recently I have usually experienced this as holding a specific energetic vibration; of love, compassion, gentle support, or some other positive quality that seems appropriate to the situation. Sometimes I consciously set it, other times I leave it to Spirit.

In the last year a deeper level has shown up to be held. I suppose today people will think of this as a quantum level. To me it is simply the void. The void is not nothing. It is a vast sea of energy that has not yet come into physical manifestation. I see it as the ground of all possibilities. In holding this energy it is implicit that anything is possible, that you can release whatever is present and reform it in any way that serves you. To do this you have to release all the beliefs, resistances and attachments that have collected around the issue or condition you are working with. Easier said than done, but when this level of energy shows up, it brings these qualities with it, making things simpler and deeper.

The void is inside us all, underneath all of what we think we are, and if you ask it to arise it can become conscious to you as well, as is taught in more than one emotional release practice I have run across. When we can allow ourselves to drop into the dark, then we can come through it into the light of the love that is all the possibilities and becomes all the forms. This is really who you are.

We are now collectively learning and releasing what we need to to hold this space for each other and even for ourselves. May you find the courage you have for this grand adventure.

(© 11/2010)

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Mental Projections

Posted on October 15, 2010 by mcallister

Take a moment to look at something nearby. A tree out the window, a friend or family member over your shoulder, even a book on a shelf next to your desk. Notice the mind labeling it, “tree”, “Julia”, “book”, whatever the name is. Do you then turn back to this note, or something else, having “seen” that person or thing? Or do you stop, let the mental label pass and really look, feel, experience the person or thing for what it is, right now?

So much of our perception is seeing what ought to be there, what we remember from yesterday, or last month. We are actually projecting outwards as much as we are receiving inwards. Take a moment to notice the leaves on the tree, one by one, to be aware of the complexity of it, the details, how even as you watch it, it is moving and changing. See your friend or loved one, how do they look right now, how do they feel, how do you feel? Even the book; really see the spine, the title, the color and texture.

Yesterday I was out walking and letting my mind go I noticed that my whole being was perceiving. Walking over stone gravel, my being was experiencing stone, both in general and these particular stones, no two alike. Walking over grass, green again with the recent rains, feeling the life and energy of the grass. The blue open sky, the trees in all their phases of fall transformations, each leaf a different shade of green or yellow or brown. Setting the mind and the labels aside I was experiencing, perceiving in a deeper way.

Now shift your attention inwards. Close your eyes, let go your ears, your external feeling, even your sense of smell. What do you experience?

If you know any sort of meditative practice, are you already into that practice? Setting things up in a certain way, running through a routine, or a check list, creating some visualization? Even if you are noticing things along the way, how much is your mind involved in guiding this process?

Let yourself for a moment release all this experience. Give your self space to be in the dark, or the light, inside yourself, and notice what you notice.

Perhaps you have learned this years ago. Great! but the mind will project itself inwards as well as outwards. It will call out well known land marks, name them and check them off; it wants structure and pattern, all the rest. Not that working with the mind on the inside is not productive, but what happens when you just create a space, without conscious mind? what shows up then? Who shows up then?

Just as we walk through the world thinking that we are receiving sensory experience when we are often crafting and shaping and projecting outwards from our minds, how much of our inward experience is of a similar nature?

If we are beings of light and energy, beings with higher/deeper aspects, does the mental effort in meditation help us to connect with these levels of self? or not? Try some time just creating space inside, releasing the projects and inviting your higher self to show up. Perhaps it’s that simple?

You may find that other things, other aspects will appear first. As Rumi says, welcome them in the front door and show them out the back. Continue to make space and invite your higher self to show up. Remember that it is always there, always has been, you are just learning to recognize it more for itself, and less for what you think it is.

Just as releasing the mind’s external projections and creative efforts shifts your experience into a deeper more direct level of being, and being in touch with the spirit loose in the world, so setting aside the inner mental creations opens more space to experience your spirit and deep self directly, rather than through the forms of the mind. This is the self made of love and joy. Breath in, let go and ENjoy.

(© 10/2010)

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Losing Your Mind

Posted on October 1, 2010 by mcallister

Sitting on grass, with your back against a tree, a blue sky overhead and a view of nature spread in front of you. Perhaps a grassy field, a mountain backdrop, a lake or the ocean. Relaxing into nature, the tree has your back, your breath comes full and deep, your heart is open and something is singing inside. Your mind drifts like a small cloud far away and you are just present in the world, alive and joyful.

You have lost your mind, It has wandered off, or gone to sleep, leaving you to experience the rest of your being and for the moment you are living from your heart, resting in your soul.

This seems like a good thing. In fact we may go to some effort for this sort of experience. How much of spiritual practice is about transcending the mind, finding Samadhi, losing the ego? All many ways this has been said. However to say someone has “lost their mind” has a different feel to it, in fact a different meaning. Language can be confusing. Perhaps this is something that holds us back? Considering this recently, walking in the woods, it came to me that in fact the people who are said to have lost their minds (“gone crazy”) were, rather, “lost in their minds”. They were lost in hallucinations, delusions, mental constructs and fantasies. They were stuck in emotions, memories, lost in an internal maze.

These people may be said to have too much mind, rather than too little.

How often in everyday life do we have too much mind? Worries of all sorts that we seem to have no choice but to play over and over. Work, relationships, health. We may even tell our friends, “I’m loosing my mind here”. But actually it is far from lost, in fact we can’t escape it. What we are losing is our Self.

Sitting against the tree,we stay for a while, before returning to the life in which our mind is engaged for us. You have conversations with loved ones, remember how to fix your favorite food, or how to find a great restaurant.

There are different levels of mind and they can serve us, or enslave us. Learning to “loose your mind” is about developing that choice, to work with the right tool at the right time, to be aware of the levels of awareness that are other than “mental”, are of the body or the spirit. It is about learning how to find your Self, to cease to be lost in the maya of your egoic mind. It is about becoming sane, not crazy; free of any old fears and labels.

Cultivating the loss of mind: where do you really need it, and when does it get in the way, or distract you from being present with life? The next time you are worrying, remember the tree and the field or the sea: step out of the maze, experience your Self with a heart full of joy. Lose a little more mind and gain a little more soul.

(© 10/2010)

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Talking to Nature

Posted on September 15, 2010 by mcallister

All summer long I’ve been taking time to be in nature. When I’m by a stream, in the mountains, or just lying on the grass near my house; I let the mind quite a bit, open my heart and feel that there is a conversation going on. This is a conversation between my being and nature. Its a conversation without words, or even feelings, though it is through some level of feeling that I know it is happening.

While I don’t know what the contents of this conversation are, I know deeply that it is nurturing and helpful to me as a soul living in a human body. I can guess that I am being reminded of how the natural world works, outside of mind and human construction. It is connected, and we are meant to be connected. It is grounded and that is good for us as well. It is fluid and moving, rather than stuck. It is full of innate wisdom and knowing, so that nothing needs to be figured out.

Most of the universe operates without the use of an analytic mind. I am being reminded of this, perhaps invited to remember and bring into awareness ways of navigating life that don’t involve planning and analyzing. Not that these don’t have their place and usefulness, but too much and you wear yourself out.

Watching the full moon in August rising from the plans of Colorado, hazy pink in the moist evening air, gradually becoming clearer and brighter as it floats into the evening sky. I am in the foothills looking east, surrounded by nature, and suddenly I have a clear sense of the natural matrix, which waits to hold me, orient me, support me. It is a different matrix from the lights and roads I see out on the plains; part of the matrix of the universe, rather than that of the human mind. Remembering this and opening into it is a profoundly joyful experience.

Driving around town as the summer days slowly fade into fall, I notice the trees, the sky, the grass finally brown after a summer of green. I am aware of the cars and what I am doing, but I allow my heart to reach our and connect to nature. Both matrices are here, woven through each other, and I find centering and joy in one, even while I navigate the other. I believe that they do not need to be at odds, but it is clear that as we yearn to bring our higher larger self into awareness, into our life, talking to nature, reconnecting to its universal matrix of spirit, reminds us and teaches us what we need to know.

So allow yourself to find nature around you, even in the cities it is there if you look. Open to it, align with it, and let it talk to you and teach you. Remembering you will find more joy and become more fully human.

(© 9/2010)

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