I Was Hypnotized

One sunny spring morning, I was hypnotized. I was on my second extended sick leave from teaching and suffering from chronic acute anxiety. The idea had come to me a couple of weeks earlier as I waited my turn for my Japanese acupuncture treatment. I was sitting in the narrow hallway, that was Akari’s waiting room, the typed price list at eye level —Hypnosis, $160 per session. 

Did I believe in hypnosis? No. But that, dear reader, was beside the point. I’d recently come to realize that it didn’t just matter what I did, it mattered how. I wasn’t a skeptic looking to be convinced. I was prepared to fully surrender to any process that could potentially put my clenched body into a state of deep relaxation. Hypnosis wouldn’t be the cure, but could it be a potential tool in the ever-growing tool box? This was the most I dared hope for.

Over weeks, I wrote drafts of about 40 affirmations on family, romance, teaching, health and motherhood. These statements—some already true and some wishes for the future—would provide Akari with a script during the hypnosis. There were statements about goals, My writing will touch others; about dreams, We will have a garden; and about cherished beliefs, I will continue to raise a daughter who is confident, a deep thinker and aware of her emotions. 

The affirmative language felt empowering. I am professionally detached from my job, I wrote at a time when I’d routinely wake up in terror—hands clutching my chest, mind racing as though I were on laced drugs—about having to, one day, go back to work. I have come so far and will continue to grow and evolve and enjoy optimal health, I wrote as I was spending hundreds of scarce dollars weekly on treatments, distractions and supplements just to function.

Like an editor, Akari would prod me for more detail when I’d show her a draft. The writing process was a tool in itself. 

As I lay comfortably waiting to begin, just before she started to count backwards from twenty—yes, just like on tv—Akari explained that she was going to trigger my subconscious into action. My affirmations would be realized through my subconscious effort. I lay there knowing that that was impossible and yet, I’d argue, entirely committed to the process.

“When I get to five, you will open your eyes widely.”

And I did. Albeit not subconsciously, but rather because I was prepared to surrender. I was solely looking to put my body in a prolonged state of deep rest. 

Within minutes my body oozed on that table, as though it had no finite shape. Like melted butter, no longer solid, I dripped off the edges and puddled onto the floor. Slowly and gently, she read me my affirmations, adding her own insights. Effortlessly, I didn’t move a muscle on that table. My mind didn’t race and my anxiety was absent. Yet I was never sleepy. 

“When I get to one, you will open your eyes.” And she is then counting down again from twenty. The whole experience felt ten minutes long but the clock told me it has been fifty. My body and mind had been able to bank nearly an hour of deep relaxation. 

And so, hypnosis was dropped into the tool box. Mission accomplished.