Stories as Metaphors in Hypnotherapy
Stories play an important part in hypnotherapy, especially in the Ericksonian approach. Stories can be uplifting, inspiring and hopeful. If there is a parallel to be found to our situation, the metaphor will not be lost on us.
One morning in February 2020 I awoke to find myself in a rehabilitation facility linked to the hospital where a week before I had been admitted as an emergency. As I lay in the rehab bed I remembered that I had been told I'd had a "massive" brain haemorrhage, and had a large "mid-line shift", the right hemisphere had been pushed partly across the centre line by the pressure of the blood. I knew I couldn't walk, or even sit up. To go to the toilet I had to press the button to call a nurse, sometimes a nurse would even come in time, I would be helped to "step transfer" to a commode, and then I would be wheeled in and parked over the bowl. The nurse would ask me to press the button when I was ready. The ultimate indignity and a glimpse into the future that awaits many of us perhaps.
As I lay in bed I looked out of a window to a small garden, and remembered a story about Dr. Milton Erickson laying in bed with polio as a young teenager, looking out of the window and hearing the doctor tell his mother "He wont last the night". He went on to become a medical doctor, psychiatrist and world famous hypnotherapist.
The following days were filled with different therapies, mainly physiotherapy, in which I was taught to balance and walk again, from scratch. It took so much effort, I would slump in the wheelchair and get wheeled back to bed again.
My room mate was an amputee like most of the other patients, and he invited me to join him for breakfast, there were half a dozen other men at the table. After being introduced the man opposite me said "What you doin' here mate?" I was surprised and said "What do you mean?" He said "You got two arms and two legs!". I nodded and pointed to my head "I had a stroke, they're teaching me to walk again, like a baby!". His head dipped down under the table and bobbed up again. He pointed a fat index finger at me and said "You're cheating mate!".
I thought about this over the next few days as I struggled to balance and walk. I was reminded of how Dr. Erickson watched how his baby sister was learning how to walk, and he remembered that he must have learned like that too, and realised that he should be able to do so again. I realised that having to concentrate on every movement was very like the walking meditation I had learned years and years before from my favourite Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh. I got my daughter to bring his book on walking meditation from home for me. Between physio sessions I would practice walking meditation in my imagination.
One morning I was doing balance exercises with the physio, and I started thinking about when I used to practice Aikido, a Japanese martial art "The Art of Peace" which helps to develop a sense of centredness, a feeling that you are based in your hara, a point a few fingers below your navel, rather than in your head. If you are centred in your hara you are very stable physically, if in your head, you are very unstable. Also you can extend Ki from your hara down your legs into the Earth and anchor yourself strongly, stretching your arms up and spreading your fingers out you can extend Ki from your hara through your finger tips to the end of the Universe, to increase physical stability.
Back in my bed again I imagined being back in the dojo, we practiced two techniques at the start of every class, "Tai No Henko" and "Morote Dori Kokyu Ho" and I remembered how I used to feel pure joy when I practiced these techniques and I could feel it again doing them in my imagination. I had a client once who warned me "I'm not very good at using my imagination", I said "Ok you don't need to......... use your imagination, you can just....... remember" . I lay in bed and remembered when I was training for my black belt, I did three classes a week then, and one Friday I was walking at work and it seemed like I was gliding along a monorail that passed through my hara, and it felt like the air I was passing through was actually passing through me.
I remembered learning walking meditation from another master, Ekai Korematsu Osho and how I felt awkward and self conscious about it, and I asked in front of the class if it would be alright to just practice the sitting meditation and I noticed some of the other students nodding and smiling, but without hesitation he said sternly "No!". Did he know how much it would help me twenty years later?
I will always remember the moment that I started walking unaided again,in the gym at rehab, I could feel my legs again and it felt so good, my whole being was filled with joy. Thich Nhat hanh has said that "It might be a miracle to walk on water, but the real miracle is that we can walk on the Earth." In that moment I knew it was true, and I have not forgotten it. I will not take walking for granted again.
Maybe I was cheating, not only did I have two legs, but I also had these other resources that other people didn't have, that I'd forgotten about and didn't realise could be helpful in this situation.
When I was learning these things, Aikido and walking meditation, I didn't realise that one day they would help me to regain my body, my life.
I wonder what you already know that you don't realise can help you now? I can teach you to use your imagination for good and find your own inner resources too, and there is a possibility that it may be helpful.
Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that without mud the beautiful lotus cannot flower "No Mud No Lotus", it's a metaphor for transforming suffering into joy and happiness. I have found out that it is a possibility. Perhaps you can too.