This is Emily Bernard’s second post about the NLP personal breakthrough session we did to address the PTSD she was experiencing after having been stabbed 14 years ago. If you’re just joining the story you can get the Introduction and Part 1 here:
Emily Bernard writes:
“Mark and I began our first session with an interview. He asked me a series of questions about the problems—anxiety, fear, dread—I have experienced since I was stabbed in 1994.
His questions made me think.
They weren’t the usual “What happened? And then what happened?” kinds of queries. Mark’s questions put me in the center, if that makes sense.
Immediately, he was guiding me to reframe the event—and the enduring negative feelings created by my memory—so that I could see myself as having a role—not in what happened (the past is the past, of course), but in my subsequent reactions to it.
I once read somewhere that humans use only a small fraction of their enormous brain power throughout their lifetimes. It wasn’t that I felt my brain expanding as Mark and I talked, but his questions led me to a new doorway in my mind. Suddenly, the literature he sent me about the powers of the unconscious mind began to make sense. We have more control over what goes on inside of our heads than we often believe we do.
After more than an hour of this intensive interview, Mark and I broke for lunch. Again, I was impressed by his gentle spirit, his warmth and sparkle. He was as eager to get back to work as I was. So, after this short break, we began again.
The second part of our session involved reconstructing a timeline. Mark guided me back in time as I explored the roots of negative emotions and limiting decisions. We went further back than I was honestly comfortable with—at first. For me, I think the strength of this work is how much it pushed me to do and think things that I wasn’t comfortable with. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, and all those habitual ways of understanding and narrating myself and my relationship to the world.
Mark and I went into the recesses of my memory, and I found myself able to recount experiences that I had thought I had buried. I was able to speak about things that I had talked only to a few other people about.
Mark was not judgmental; his demeanor was calm and relaxed the entire time. Because I felt safe, I went further and further back. And before I knew it, I was ready to be hypnotized.”
- Emily Bernard
In part 3 I’ll share what those questions were that I asked Emily as well as key ways what I do is different from traditional therapy.
In part 4 Emily will share her experience of being hypnotized…
In the meantime if you’d like to:
Defeat the Dark Side and Master Your Mind For A Change.
Discover How You Can Learn NLP in 17 Minutes A Day For Less Than A Latte
