I’m going through a huge growth spurt right now.

Things I knew to be absolutely stable and true fell apart. I didn’t know who I was anymore. And then things got reconstructed. Then fell apart again. Rinse and repeat.

Breakdown-rebuild-breakdown-rebuild-breakdown-rebuild. Like that.

Oh, life, and growing up, sickness of the body and soul and all of that.

But it turned out that all the ways I ended up expanding and deepening as a result of all that hard crap applied not only to my general personhood , but also to my HipGnotist-self.

A point of painful vulnerability that I kept coming back to was “Ohmygod, I am in so much pain. Ohmygod, nothing makes sense anymore. How can I do work as a healer and a teacher when I feel like such a complete mess in body and mind?”

Loss of confidence in my general self as well as hypnotist-self. Imposter syndrome, feeling like I’m going to get ‘found out’ for the fraud that I am. Not remembering why I do what I do. Not being able to access that place where I felt like an immensely capable and passion-filled hypnotist, that place of thirsting for more work and learning.

I felt too broken in body and spirit to facilitate anyone else’s healing.

While I was recovering and largely silent-retreating from the world, I talked about this at length with trusted friends and mentors. And, though I was too busy suffering at the time to notice, I was learning things that would, in retrospect, take my hypnosis work to a whole new level of depth and complexity.

A very kind and wise friend reminded me of the archetype of the wounded healer. That was comforting and illuminating.

Having experienced utter existential confusion and woundedness of the type that I could only have imagined before, my understanding of humanity’s joys and despair did deepen by about a thousand times.

The same friend told me to “lean into the discomfort” when I was busy trying to run away from it, hide it, mask it with something that looked better. I tried. It wasn’t comfortable and it was more honest, and therefore, more efficient.

The experience of being violently humbled by life, in retrospect, made me infinitely more compassionate and open.

Oh yes, that’s it. The recent times broke me open.

(Not that all of this is over, the process concluded. Not at all. It’s definitely ongoing but I’m far enough from the eye of the storm to notice and appreciate what I am learning. I am still in the process but not inside the dead center of the pain.)

In practical terms, through lots of serendipities which were essentially triggered by my breakdown, I had the opportunity to study and train in different topics in hypnotherapy that I was only superficially familiar with before.

I was led to a passionate rediscovery of the genius of Jungian analysis (so much fun to play with in the context of trance states!). And a much deeper study of Ericksonian hypnosis. And slightly more woo-ish stuff that I’m playing with, which I’m frankly fascinated and astonished by.

That brings me to another point: I discovered the hard way the limits of techniques and tools and what to do about it.

Well, let me put it this way; techniques and tools are tricky. Don’t get me wrong — I still stand behind and enthusiastically advocate everything I’ve ever taught. I’ve learned many more than I’ve taught, because I don’t decide to teach something unless I’ve used it myself and found it undeniably effective and fun.

Because they can be tremendously useful. I personally have multiple memories of having my ass saved by EFT and other acupressure modalities as well as simple self-hypnosis techniques that I teach my clients. My clients report the same.

But here’s the thing — when you’re in the middle of a serious breakdown/anxiety attack/panic attack, those can be utterly inaccessible. When you go to a really, really dark place, the mere suggestion of applying a technique is enough to make you want to punch someone, if only you had the strength to, which you don’t because you are that listless and resigned. Most likely, you’ll just passively hate them, and then passively hate yourself for not being able to help yourself.

That’s the worst feeling in the world.

Many of my self-hypnosis techniques involve employing an active imagination (of course, hypnosis is the art and science of the placebo). It is my experiences that severe depression, anxiety, panic, etc often immobilize our imaginative capacities as well as the basic ability to know what you want.

(Things I take for granted when I’m not-in-a-crisis.)

So tools can feel like applying a band-aid when you’re missing a limb. Not helpful at best, maddeningly irritating at worst.

What I’ve arrived at is this: techniques are super helpful, but only when the work of properly architecting one’s consciousness is done.

(All right, roll your eyes a little bit. I’m doing it too. But bear with me!)

Dr. Milton Erickson, the godfather of modern hypnosis, said something to the effect of: “patients are patients because they are out of rapport with their unconscious mind.” The way I understand this statement is that the unconscious mind contains a blueprint for healthy patterns that serve who you want to be. Internal resources of strength and wisdom. When we are far out of touch with it, we lose ourselves (an unfooted crisis!) and suffer.

And when I say ‘architecting consciousness,’ here is what I mean. Let’s assume that there is a structure to the unconscious mind that gives it soundness and stability. Makes sense, right? Even speaking from a purely biological point of view, the brain is wired and neurons are meant to fire in a certain way. There is a system and a strategy to how our minds ought to work in a healthy state.

But when something goes deeply and intensely wrong, it’s most likely a structural problem, rather than a surface one. Think of an alcoholic who’s been one for many years. Think of someone going through a period of catatonic depression lasting for months. Think of someone staying in a physically abusive relationship despite multiple efforts by others to get her to leave. Industrial-strength phobias and panic disorders.

Out of rapport with the unconscious mind. And stuck in that pattern, feeling despondent and helpless.

These are more dramatic examples, but there are plenty of less dramatic cases in which it helps to address the structural problems first, then apply the techniques.

This is why I feel so strongly and evangelically about hypnosis. Dropping into the unconscious mind and doing internal work at that level is so difficult to achieve, if not downright impossible, with regular talk therapy. Psychiatric meds do something else altogether. Modalities that work with the body and its energy system can do wonders but it does not directly engage our minds.

This is what a trance is for. This is what hypnosis is for. You drop straight through the logic, objections, analysis, hesitations and habitual story-telling of the conscious mind, discovering that there was something wrong with the architecture of the unconscious. Something happened, and stuff got disorganized, out of sync, at a deep level. You might be able to remember when. And why.

And when you look at the problem, when you get to that deep level, always contains the blueprint of its own solution. Your unconscious mind always knows what to do to heal itself. And, guided by a skilled hypnotist, you can do the work, right then and there.

Of course, I already knew that. But having been in the patient’s chair multiple times in the recent past, I learned the same lesson at a much more visceral level this time. And it’s changing my approach to client work.

Subtly, but noticeably. To me.

I’m going deeper and I’m taking my clients with me. (If they want it and need it, of course. Everybody and each case is different.)

If you’d like to take a look under the hood, we should play. I mean, seriously.