As a Christian, I have a strong belief in the importance of forgiveness. Not everyone sees things the same way; people who have been hurt deeply by others in the past often do not want to forgive them because they feel that’s letting them off the hook. That it means you’re saying they’re an okay person and you shouldn’t remember what they did or take that into consideration.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Forgiveness isn’t about the other person so much as it’s about you. When you forgive someone, you’re not saying they did nothing wrong. By forgiving them, you’re saying that they no longer “owe” you anything.

When someone owes a lot of money to a creditor, the creditor can go after them with all guns blazing, taking them to court, harassing them with phone calls, sending threatening letters, or … they can forgive the debt. Factually, the debt did exist. They were owed money and interest. But because repayment couldn’t happen–maybe the debtor didn’t have the money because of losing his job–they chose to not waste time and resources trying to achieve something that was never–never–going to happen. Instead, they legally wiped the slate clean and said the debt was no more.

There are still consequences for the debtor, of course. But they no longer have a negative tie with that creditor. The creditor no longer demands anything from them. At the same time, they can’t necessarily go back to the creditor and request a new loan and expect it to be granted. That would just be silly.

When you withhold forgiveness, you’re acting like a creditor constantly hounding the poor guy who owes you money. Spending valuable time and energy on recovering the money, when the guy doesn’t have the money to give you. You can say the one who hurt you owes you an apology or needs to make it up to you or … but most of the time, that’s an unrealistic expectation. They either won’t apologize or can’t.

Move on with your life and let them go.

That’s what forgiveness is for. They’re still the same people that hurt other people. They’re still the kind of people that run up bad debt. But now you’re not wasting time and energy on a fruitless task. Now you can redirect all that energy into something more positive.

A Simple Process

Here’s a quick way to start the process of forgiving someone who’s hurt you:

1. Go into trance. Use whatever process you’re comfortable with to relax and go into a state of self-hypnosis. I have a short guide written by a friend of mine linked to here: Light Switch Self Hypnosis.
2. Imagine being in a safe place, where a discussion can happen with no danger to either party. Make it as real as you can; smell the scents around you, hear the sounds of your shoes on the ground or floor, feel your clothes, the breeze (if any), the chair (if any), etc.
3. Now place the person who hurt you opposite you. If you’re seated, have them be seated across from you. If you’re standing, have them stand across from you. You get the idea.
4. Engage in dialogue with them. Tell them everything you’ve been wanting to tell them about how they hurt you, how it made you feel, how it affected your life, etc. They don’t get to talk yet, so have at it.
5. When you’re done, it’s their turn. Listen to what they have to say about why they did what they did. You might be surprised at what comes up. Even though this is only your unconscious filling in the blanks, you might find an insight you weren’t consciously aware of. Some people doing this had distant and harsh parents when growing up, and found that they understood unconsciously that they were doing that because they didn’t know how to love, or because times were hard and they were working five jobs and had no energy for their kids, etc. Just like they didn’t get to talk during your turn, you don’t get to talk during theirs.
6. Your turn again. Think about what came up and notice how it changes your understanding of the situation. What do you want or need to say to them now?
7. You can go back and forth like this for a bit, but try not to let it go on more than 3 rounds (or you’ll end up spending all your time just going back and forth and not getting anywhere). Once you’ve reached a satisfactory point, tell them you forgive them. They may have already asked you for forgiveness during your dialogue, but if they haven’t, go ahead and tell them anyway. Use your new understanding and send them love. Maybe you now understand how they themselves were hurt, and you feel compassion. Or maybe you understand they just don’t know how to be different, and you feel compassion. Send that to them and feel it. You can’t feel compassion and hate at the same time.
8. Now imagine a cord running between the two of you, tying you to them and vice versa. Do whatever it takes to cut that cord. You don’t need that negative connection anymore. They don’t owe you anything and you don’t need to let what they did continue to affect you. So cut the cord. Burn it. Melt it. Whatever works for you.
9. Allow yourself to feel peace and comfort, while watching them leave or disappear (again, whichever works for you), then re-alert yourself and exit the trance.

Okay, so maybe that’s not necessarily quick, but it works. It’s a version of Chair Therapy, done entirely within your own mind. Though if you want to actually set up two chairs in a room and do it that way, more power to you.

Let me know what you think and feel free to leave a comment!

And what do you win? A free downloadable audio product or a free customized audio product or a free phone session with me. Your choice.

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As an example, there’s a thread discussing and debating the desirability of making people fanatics about the changes they’ve made through hypnosis, with a lot of people cautioning against it because of the negative connotations of the word. And that’s a valid point. However, hypnosis is partly about reframing. Changing “My husband snores and it bothers me” to “My husband snores and I feel good because I know he’s there, alive and with me,” for example. 

That reminded me of a poem I wrote a few years ago for a poetry challenge at Wild Poetry Forum. The challenge was to write a poem in praise of something society viewed as evil or undesirable. We had a specific model to follow (a poem someone else had written doing exactly that). Here’s the poem I wrote (after the break):

For the Psychopaths

I want to sing
a paean of praise for
the psychopaths, those

who blaze their own trails
through the darkest night;
without a single guide, they

hack through the chaff
of others’ inhibitions
and find their own

morality. They are not
afraid of ridicule, of
setbacks or laws; no,

they scoff at such
inconsequential things.
To them, I would say:

The world is dark,
the world is dark and
we cannot find our way

without blazing trails and
cutting the deadwood from
the path. The world is dark

and we must be tigers, burning
bright in the forest of night;
we must burn bright.

We must have confidence.
We must learn to have faith
in our ability to find the way,

to stand on our convictions
and fight against oppression
despite what stands in our way.

© copyright 2005, Joshua Johnston

What made it so interesting?

It was billed as a hypnotist using hypnosis to murder.

Yep, that old theme that Hollywood likes to use: hypnosis used for nefarious purposes. Great drama. No argument there. But is it accurate? Are hypnotists really able to do things like that? Could a hypnotist use someone in the way that was depicted on The Mentalist?

The answer isn’t quite as cut and dried as you might think.  The short answer is ‘no.’ The longer answer is more of a ‘no, but.’

Patrick Jane, the star character played by Simon Baker, does give the game away fairly early on. He says “You can’t hypnotize someone against their moral code.” So if a hypnotist were to try to hypnotize someone to commit murder, it wouldn’t work … unless they were already willing or predisposed to murder. And that’s demonstrated when one of the police officers is hypnotized. 

Oh, I think now is a good time to remind you to be careful when reading this; if you haven’t watched the episode yet and you want to, there may be some slight spoilers in here. I’m doing my best to not reveal anything vital, but I am only human.

So if that’s true, is the plot of this episode plausible? If you won’t do something against your morals while under hypnosis, is the premise of a hypnotist convincing someone to commit murder a viable premise?

No. 

Unless they’d already be willing to commit murder.

And even then, there’d be a *lot* of work involved. It couldn’t be something that was from a quick, first time trance, except in very unusual conditions. And then it’d be brainwashing with hypnotic methods tossed into the mix. And brainwashing is a completely different story.

So that’s that, right? The Mentalist episode debunked. Not quite. 

You see, there’s more to the story. There’s also a guy, at the very beginning of the episode, bringing what he thinks is a sack of potatoes to the police. It’s really a body, and Jane realizes he’s hypnotized. He was hypnotized as part of an attempt at covering up the crime and confusing the police as to who did it. 

You might think that’s not possible as well, but it is plausible. Yes, really.

Take a look at this clip of Anthony Jacquin on YouTube convincing a shopkeeper to give him a garbage bag full of cucumbers.

Not quite the same thing as convincing someone a body’s really a sack of potatoes, but the concept is there. Again, to actually pull it off with a body would take a lot of work, in my opinion. (On that note, there was a slight bit of prep in Anthony’s clip: if I remember right, he did do a quick intro and induction before the clip began, then gave the guy amnesia so things would go faster.)

One last bit. Jane, throughout the episode, claims to be unable to dehypnotize the people who have been hypnotized. That’s a bit of falsehood right there. There is something called a “hypnotic seal,” and it works to prevent people from being hypnotized by anyone else other than that hypnotist. It’s unethical.

And ineffective. 

Any competently-trained hypnotist is able to break such a seal and hypnotize the person anyway. It’s not terribly hard, and you don’t “need to know the trigger” in order to do it. 

All in all, this episode stayed mostly accurate when talking about hypnosis, but did have a couple slight failings in that regard. Also, despite being mostly factually accurate, it managed to still give the impression of hypnosis being used for nefarious purposes. 

Joshua

PS. Don’t read this PS if you don’t want a spoiler. 

Remember what I said above about making someone commit murder under hypnosis? At the end, the evil hypnotist tries their best to have Jane murdered by a hypnotized colleague. Telling the guy he’s by a pool, the ocean, and to push Jane in as a joke, etc. They’re really on top of a building and Jane would fall to his death. He gets Jane pushed up against the edge of the roof and stops there. 

Granted, he’s being pushed two ways by Jane trying to work suggestions to stop and the evil hypnotist shouting for him to do it. BUT. He doesn’t do it. He freezes at the edge of the roof and doesn’t complete the act of throwing Jane off. 

Despite being hypnotized and having his sense of reality so distorted that he thought he was somewhere completely different, he still stopped short of killing someone.

They discussed such things as how to bulk up so you weighed your max at the weigh-in, yet still be able to quickly lose those extra pounds. One guy proudly shared how he drank regular Pepsi instead of diet, ate generally fattening foods and laid around doing nothing before weighing in. One lady, one of the radio personalities on the show, shared her devious strategy: eating extra-salty foods the couple days before, then eating the physically heaviest stuff she could find on the morning of the weigh-in, combined with drinking a ton of water.

Apparently that strategy gained her an extra 8 or 9 pounds, which were quickly shed, being mostly water weight.

This time of year is–pardon the pun–big for challenges and contests like this. Who can lose the most weight? Who can quit smoking for the longest time? Who can stop procrastinating longest? Who can stick to their exercise plan for more than 3 weeks?

Who can keep their resolution the best and longest?

As a hypnotist, I have the real answer to all those questions. The way to truly keep your resolutions, the way to most easily win the office “Biggest Loser” challenge, is not to cheat, but to use hypnosis. Whether you use a real, live hypnotist or a good quality audio CD or mp3, hypnosis is the key.

Tom Nicoli, a hypnotist on the East Coast, once did a challenge on Dateline, if I remember right. They had one person assigned to him, one person doing a diet and another doing exercise. The challenge ran for a few months and at the end, they discovered that Tom Nicoli and his hypnotic approach made for the easiest and most effortless weight loss experience. The guy he was working with didn’t have to work hard, didn’t have to sacrifice and suffer and battle temptation. He just … lost weight.

He also kept it off the best.

I don’t have a weight loss CD or mp3 yet, but I will soon. In the meanwhile, you can call or email to schedule an appointment and free consultation for a live session. Also, you can check out some excellent audio products from Wendi Friesen and Cal Banyan.

Wouldn’t you rather truly win at keeping your resolutions than do some cheating to win a short term contest at work or school? If so, do consider hypnosis and take action now. It’s easy, it’s fun and works.

I’ve got to run now, but look for my next post where I’ll share some easy self-hypnotic techniques you can use to help with your resolutions in general.

EDIT: Tom Nicoli responded to my post in the comments below and pointed out that I’d neglected to link to him and his products after I mentioned the power of his program. He does a great job (as evidenced by the Dateline Challenge he took part in, with six people each trying a different diet or program; not the three I remembered), and has been rated as the best of the best by Shape magazine. Feel free to take a look at Tom Nicoli’s weight loss CDs and peruse his site.

Joshua