Stay calm and ignore external distractions

I had a client today who must count as one of the strangest inductions I have ever done.

The client came in and stood there looking at me. When I invited her to sit in the chair she immediately said 'No, I can't sit in a chair". I asked her what she meant. She told me that she had a bad back and could not bend to sit down. 'No problem' I said. 'The chair extends almost flat, you can lie down'. No, she said, 'I can only stand or lie flat on my back or on my stomach'.

Now this woman had come to a hypnosis session knowing full well that she would be asked to sit, but made no provision for her own special needs at all. I finally found a cushion she could use for her head and she lay down on the floor.

The interview

I then started interviewing her to find out what she wanted. So there I was asking questions of someone lying flat on her back on the floor. I finally found out what she wanted, she was afraid of retirement (!). She was seventy years old and had been forcibly retired by her employer. She was partly deaf and couldn't really describe what it was that she was afraid of.

Ignore external distractions

Anyway, I formulated a plan to deal with her issues and I began the induction. As luck would have it, a few minutes into the induction a tremendous rainstorm hit. The sound of the rain on the roof and windows made conversation almost impossible. I found myself  with a half deaf client lying on the floor with the biggest rain storm in years raging outside.

I ended up bellowing at her lying there on the floor shouting 'RELAX! LET YOUR MIND FIND SOME QUIET PLACE!' etc., while the pounding of the storm made it hard to hear myself, never mind get through to her.

She did eventually go into trance successfully, but I won't forget this session in a hurry.

I guess the lesson I take from this is to carry on no matter what the external distractions.