December – the perfect month for hypnotherapy

Why is December the perfect month for hypnotherapy?

Isn’t it the month for happiness? joy? love? gift-giving? (willingly, I mean)

Yet, for many it is just the opposite. It doesn’t need to be. When you understand “why” you are unhappy this month and release the emotions connected to the cause, what’s left? Happiness. Joy. Relief.

Even just plain, old, vanilla hypnosis can help. You can be more relaxed, sleep better, tolerate the noise of the holidays better, accept that others may over-do it.

What’s the difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy.

Hypnosis? I do all the talking. You do all the listening. I give you suggestions. You accept them – or you don’t.

Hypnotherapy? After you are relaxed (hypnotized), we have a conversation. I’ll provide some of the questions. You’ll provide the answers. Trust me – the answers are quite likely NOT what you think they are. The answers will come from your subconscious. Imagine that! (No, don’t.)

I recall one client years ago. When we met, she asked if I thought I could hypnotize her, and I told her that I thought so, but it might be hard. Then I told her I was just going to count to “5” and she’d be in deep state of relaxation. Her friend was there to “protect” her from this man she had seen on TV. She closed her eyes, and I counted, “1-2-3-4-5”, and she was immediately in a past life! Her very first words, unprompted, indicated that she was having an experience that she obviously had never had in this lifetime!

I was trained by, and worked with, the late Irene Hickman, D.O. (1915-2002). When I met Irene in 1988 and bought her book, she inscribed it with “Adventure awaits all who explore the mind.” Her words are just as true today as they were then.

Sessions Continue during health crisis

Thanks to communication devices like computers, tablets and smartphones and to programs like Skype, Zoom and WhatsApp, it is possible to enjoy the benefits of hypnotherapy during the current COVID-19 crisis.

Although the preferred method is to conduct sessions in person, using an electronic connection is an excellent tool when face-to-face is not possible. Sessions can still be recorded and a e-file sent to the client. Watching the client via video means that important cues (facial gestures, eyelid movement, etc.) are not missed.

It’s easy to conduct a session across town, between states, and even internationally.

Are you experiencing a problem  you’d like to resolve?

I read yesterday about an actress who is claustrophobic. There is a perfect opportunity for a valuable regression hypnotherapy session. Maybe I should put the Six Degrees of Separation theory to work?

Recently I did a pre-surgery hypnosis session via Skype with a client who was approaching extensive back surgery. I wish there had been enough time to schedule 2-3 additional sessions, but it was a last-minute call.

Got questions? Get in touch. My contact information is at the top right of the page.

Remote session in the U.K.

Late in October I received an email from the U.K. with an inquiry about the possibility of a session. Through an exchange of emails a remote spirit releasement session resulted, and it was conducted on November 4. One of the great things about electronics is that I was able to email a recording of the session to the client in the U.K. that same evening.

The session here included two of us; a person who was the hypnotized subject and me. I had not given my hypno-partner any details about the information that had been emailed to me, other than the session would include a bungalow in the U.K. and possibly the person who was requesting the session. In other words, we started with her (my hypno-partner) being a clean slate.

In the bungalow we discovered four spirits. The first was in the kitchen and was fascinated with the modern-day stove. The four spirits were released, and then we “connected” with the late resident of the bungalow and helped to release her to the Light. At first, she wanted to “stay” so that she could continue to visit around, as she described it, but her delight was obvious (through the hypno-partner), when her brother’s spirit and that of a neighbor came to welcome her and escort her “home”.

Then we checked out the person who had requested the session. We identified spirits there and released them. The first spirit had a body that had been killed and abandoned, and she was bent on getting another body so that she could extract vengeance on those who had killed her. After releasing the feelings and anger, then she realized that she was long past the time when any of her killers was still alive, and she was willing to leave. Others were identified and also left.

Unbeknownst to my hypno-partner, the requestor had told me that a psychic had once told her that the spirit of a murdered person was hitchhiking with her.

It is fascinating that this work can be done remotely. In 2016 I was contacted by a woman in Iran (or was it Iraq?). The initial inquiry was to ask if I would be willing to fly over to do some work. I explained that we could attempt to do it remotely, and that’s what we did.

I continue to use the Hickman Method, just as I learned it in 1992-93. Many practitioners feel the need to “improve” on what they learned, but Dr. Irene Hickman’s methods work just fine. All we need is more “young people” learning them, so that they don’t die out when we “old timers” are no longer available. Irene began using non-directive regression hypnotherapy in her osteopathic medical practice in 1950 and learned spirit releasement techniques from Bill Baldwin many years later.

October is Ghost Month?

There always seems to be increased interest in ghost stories in the month of October. I guess Halloween does that to people.

But “ghosts” (spirits) are here all the time. Maybe Halloween should come once a month, so we would pay more attention.

Earthbound spirits are those who are hanging around after they wore out their bodies. Or perhaps life got cut short by an accident or a fall or a disease. Or by someone else’s action.

If a spirit doesn’t leave the earth plane when the body dies, it seems to be “stuck” here and is unable to leave on its own. Maybe some can leave on their own. If they do, I won’t run into them.

But if they are stuck here, they just might show up during a regression hypnotherapy session. My training with the late Irene Hickman, D.O. (1915-2002) included how to spot them, engage them, converse with them and release them to the Light – where they should have gone when the body died.

There are many reasons why a spirit doesn’t leave.

If you have questions, drop me a line. Just email me at gus@gusphilpott.com

He died in 1940

On the past Thursday and Sunday I conducted sessions in Columbia, S.C. and came in contact with spirits of inmates of the old South Carolina Prison. The prison was located in downtown Columbia and, after being torn down, has been replaced with CanalSide Lofts Apartments.

The Thursday session was in one of the apartments and started as a spirit releasement session, because my client felt strongly that a demon had attached itself to her. We dealt with that and she told me that there were “many other spirits” present. One of them said he’d been there a long time, waiting to tell his story, and he wasn’t going to leave until he told it.

On Sunday afternoon I met again with this client, and we began with a session that involved three past lives. After a short break we resumed and the prisoner (from Thursday) came forward. He told us his name (Jerome), Prisoner Number, accused and actual crimes, and when he died (1940). He said many bodies are buried on the property, a part of which is still under construction. Before we finished, he was pushed out of the way by a white prisoner, who told us his story.

I’ll save the two stories for a later telling. The short version is that each left the earth plane and took a bunch of other prisoners’ spirits with them.

My client told me, before the session on Thursday, of car trouble – so bad that she was trading in the car. The dealer had run diagnostics on the engine; the Check Engine light was on, other dashboard warning lights were on, and the engine output was determined to 50% with a chance that the engine would blow. She called me as she drove home after the session. The car was running perfectly!

We all know – there are no coincidences.

Holidays – Stressful Times

How many people do you know who have experienced high stress during the holidays this year? Have you been stressed out?

Stress could result from finances, family, incomplete grieving over deaths in the past year, marital stress, absent relatives.

I just finished reading The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. The book has been recommended to me several times over the years, and three people recommended it in the past two weeks. So I purchased the e-book from Amazon and read it on Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Day. Now I’ll re-read it, more slowly.

In addition to knowing that regression hypnotherapy is a great way to help people resolve problems, I am also a fan of Byron Katie and The Work. There are many examples of Katie’s work on her own website and on YouTube.

Last night I helped a friend on the phone, after she missed important family time this week due to continued grief over her brother’s passing earlier this year. She is struggling with being the last survivor in the family of her parents and siblings. The loss of her brother “grabbed” her yesterday on Christmas Day. “I used to talk to him for hours and started to call him today,” she said.

So I told her to call him. “Pick up your phone and call him.” Now she had excuses, like “His phone has been disconnected.” So what? “Call him. He doesn’t need a phone where he is.” She agreed that it was just his body that had died, and his soul had not died.

So call him! She called me back later to tell me she had been disconnected (by the electronic operator indicating the line was not working). “Don’t let a little thing like that stop you from talking with him. Call him back.”

Her brother still exists, just not in the same form. He finished using his body and cleared out. That doesn’t mean she can’t still talk with him. I told her to ask him how he is, where he is, what happened after his body died. (She says she doesn’t know what happens after death.)

Here is her chance to find out!

I will loan her my copy of How I Died and what I did next. This book was channeled by Toni Ann Winninger and a friend of almost 15 years, Peter Watson Jenkins. Peter finished the time in his body last month, and his daughter, who is a hypnotherapist in the U.K., wrote a touching message on Facebook that a chapter in the next edition of this book may be an interview with her father. Toni and Peter also produced these books, Talking with Leaders of the Past, Talking with Twentieth Century Women and Talking with Twentieth Century Men. These are all available on Amazon.com. Toni was a prosecuting attorney in the Office of the Cook County State’s Attorney. The books were transcribed by Peter’s wife, Sonia Ness.

Fear of Flying?

Several years ago I was flying from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to Atlanta. The plane loaded, the door closed … and the plane didn’t move.

The passenger seated next to me pointed to a man about three rows forward and on the opposite side of the aisle. She asked, “Do you think he’s having a problem?”

When I looked in the direction she was pointing, I saw the man and noticed he had his hand on the armrest like it was the last thing on earth he was going to touch. He was having a real “white knuckle” experience, and the plane hadn’t moved yet.

Then a flight attendant announced a delay due a mechanical reason, and the aircraft door was opened. Passengers were told they could deplane and expect to re-board in an hour. I followed the “white knuckle” flyer off the plane and, as we reach the terminal, I asked about his problem. He explained that he had a great fear of flying, and I asked if he’d like to enjoy the flight, instead of fearing it.

We sat down near a window and I asked him to close his eyes. I knew an airport lounge was not a place where he ought to display a highly-emotional experience, and I suggested to him that he could learn the reason for his fear of flying in a calm, quiet way. Then I suggested that he go back to a time that was connected to today’s fear of flying and just experience it in a calm way, letting go quietly of any emotion connected to that experience. He did, without explaining it aloud, and we were done.

Soon after, the flight was called for re-boarding. When he stood up, he exclaimed, “Let’s get on. I’m ready to fly to Atlanta!” He boarded with a big smile and was relaxed for the entire flight!

Do you have a fear of flying? Or of something else? Get in touch. I’ll be happy to help you. Just click on “Contact Gus Philpott” at the upper right.

Summer Roadtrips

This summer reminds me of 24 years ago, after I completed my training and work with Dr. Irene Hickman. In April 1993 Irene and I had gone to a conference in Edison, N.J., where I met Raymond Moody, M.D. and Dannion Brinkley, and then to Fort Lauderdale for the conference of the Association for Past-Life Therapies, where I had met Brian Weiss, M.D. Shortly after returning to Kirksville, Mo., it was time for my vagabonding life to resume, and I packed up and headed east.

For six months I traveled, trading hypnotherapy services for room-and-board. I stayed in a hotel only three nights, and that was at a conference in Detroit. I’d visit someone I had met during the previous months, conduct a few sessions for that person and friends, and then head on down the road. Stops included Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina.

I remember one woman who identified four-five issues she wanted to work on – big issues. Some therapists would have been licking their chops at the billable hours ahead. When she asked me how many sessions I thought it would take, my answer was, “Is it supposed to take more than one?”

It’s seldom that I see a client more than once. Occasionally, someone will want to set up weekly appointments. I discourage that. It would be great for me (financially), but it’s not the right thing for them. This kind of work (regression hypnotherapy) gets to the heart of the matter, quickly, and frequent sessions are not necessary.

I do recall one nurse who wanted additional sessions. In the first session, she was looking for the reason she was always cold. Her experience was in a past life, when she was about four years old and waiting at the entrance to the lane for her father to come back from town in a horse-drawn sleigh. She was wearing a light velvet coat and was very cold.

A month later she wanted to know more about that coat, because it hadn’t fit the environment. She regressed to Age 2, in another city, and with her mother, who was dying. Her mother had made the coat a little too large, so that the girl would have the coat and remember her later on. She was comforting her mother, telling her that everything would be all right. (In this lifetime, she had just started a grassroots hospice organization.)

A month after that, she wanted to know more about that family home, which she said was in England. She could describe the house and the interior, as if she were standing in the rooms right then. In her experience, she was! After she described the first floor, she went up the narrow staircase to the rooms on the second floor. After she had gone into the bedrooms, I said, “Go down the hall to the bathroom.”

She said, “There’s no bathroom! There’s a pot under each bed that Father has to empty.”

She taught me a lesson that day! One I’ve long remembered.

Dr. Phil Show 1/5/17

Popular TV-show host Dr. Phil had an interesting show on January 5, 2017, about an Ohio lawyer, Michael Fine, who mis-used hypnosis to sexually abuse a number of women clients. Two women appeared on Dr. Phil’s show, along with the lawyer for one of them, and a judge whom Fine had attempted to influence with subtle hypnosis.

Can this happen? Certainly, and it did. Should it have happened? Absolutely not. Could it have been prevented? Absolutely!

All the women had to do was smarten up and cease contact with Fine. Dr. Phil had his own opinion about the “power” of Michael Fine, but what Fine had found were a few women who were highly susceptible to suggestion and he took advantage of that.

One of the women on the show said Fine had called her at home in the middle of the night. Yet she continued as his client. There were solid warning signs that any woman should have recognized.

What Dr. Phil failed to inform his studio audience and his world-wide television audience of is the proper, ethical, responsible use of hypnosis and hypnotherapy. As a result of that Dr. Phil Show, thousands of women will fear hypnosis and hypnotherapy – and unnecessarily so.

The two women guests were still in obvious emotional pain over something that happened two-three years ago; perhaps longer ago. What Dr. Phil did not tell them is that they might find incredible relief after just one regression hypnotherapy session.

Now, I fully realize the possible unreasonableness of my suggestion. But, if those women, or any women, are suspicious or skeptical of the power of responsible use of hypnosis or hypnotherapy, all they have to do is bring along a trusted friend and a video-camera. They will “wake up” after the session and exclaim, “Wow! I feel so much better. It’s like a great weight has been lifted from me.” One session! (The term “wake up” is really a misnomer, because you aren’t asleep during hypnosis or hypnotherapy.)

Dr. Phil very kindly is sending both guests to expensive treatment centers.

I don’t do “hypnosis”. Hypnosis would be my doing all the talking; you do all the listening. Either you accept my suggestions or you don’t. When the session is over, open your eyes, stand up, pay me and leave. I don’t do it that way.

Here’s how I do hypnotherapy: Hypnosis helps you relaxed. Then we have a conversation. Regression means you go back to the cause of your scheduling the session in the first place. When we are done, open your eyes, stand up, pay me what it’s worth to you (I don’t have a “set” fee; you can pay just as much as you want to), and leave. I provide a digital recording of the entire session. Bring your own recorder or video-camera, if you want. Bring a friend. No problem.

Read Many Lives, Many Masters, by Brian Weiss, MD, who is a psychiatrist.

Read The Healing Power of Hypnotherapy. Brian’s book is good; mine is better. I wrote it. Get it on Amazon as a Kindle-only edition. It’s lower-priced, too.

Want more information? Call me at (847) 971-7083 (USA, E.T.) or email me at gus@gusphilpott.com

What’s it worth?

When you are experiencing a problem, what avenues do you have for solving it?

They are many, and I would urge you to consider that perhaps hypnotherapy should not be last on your list. I was recently asked why more people don’t explore or use hypnosis or hypnotherapy as a possibility for resolving a problem in life.

There is some mystery or caution or suspicion that seems to cause some people to hesitate when it comes to this tool. For one, it is an unknown. And like many unknowns, some people may not be open to it or may even be afraid of it.

For another reason, some will say that their religion doesn’t approve of hypnosis or hypnotherapy. They may not know just why and might rely on “just because”.

Another reason may be that they have seen a stage hypnotist perform and “make” people from the audience “quack like ducks.” Or at least that’s what it looks like to them.

What is most likely happening on stage is the result of the hypnotist’s conditioning the subjects off-stage, and they are ready and willing to follow the suggestions of the hypnotist. And they are having fun doing it. An ethical stage hypnotist will not ask any subject to do something which would cause them embarrassment.

I love introducing people to hypnosis and hypnotherapy in a way that they learn that they can trust the process. I suggest that they will be in control and that they will be free to accept any suggestions I give – or not. The “or not” is very important. And once a person new to the hypnosis experience learns that he can allow as much of the experience as he wishes, then he can learn just how much help hypnosis and hypnotherapy can really be.

Do you have questions? Drop me a line at gus@gusphilpott.com