I went to a hypnotherapist yesterday. And I have to admit that I thought it was going to be more of a miraculous discovery than it turned out to be. Why? For many reasons. First and foremost, I witnessed real live hypnosis demonstrations performed on my fellow classmates back in high school. The stuff they were doing led me to believe that it is not a hard concept to put someone in such a trance that they forget themselves and do as they are told. You see it in movies even, people in half-lying down positions, murmuring the utter truths of their subconscious mind to the hypnotist. For the second reason, I know of atheists that don’t believe in anything spiritual but they believe in hypnosis and its validity. So I thought that if I’m already spiritually inclined and open-minded in this sort of thing, I will have no problem going into a trance and exposing that which I was looking to find.

The reality was far from it. In fact, the trance that I experienced was even less impressive than the trance I go into for my meditation journeys. If you’re sitting in a chair, relaxed, and someone keeps asking you questions like, “What do you see now?” or “What happened to that?”, for one thing – the talking will get your logical mind going. Secondly, if you can’t see anything or if you think you’re imagining something (meaning that you could see it this way or that way just as vividly in comparison), your emotional mind also gets annoyed at the questionnaire. Why keep asking if I already told you that this is the reason I came here – because I can’t remember? Don’t you think I have asked myself this question a million times before paying someone to ask me that just one more time??

But.. I won’t refute the entire methodology since it obviously helps people globally with whatever their issues are. It just didn’t work for me this time. Maybe another time.

It’s easier for me to bask in the wondrous occurrences emerging within the realm of meditation because the most unlikely synchronisities come to the surface. And that is how I know that it wasn’t just my imagination that created this or that vision – because I don’t believe in coincidences. It’s funny how our systems of belief work, isn’t it? They can be entirely malleable in one spot, and totally rigid in other places without you ever even recognizing it until confronted with its inflexibility. You could also deconstruct it piece by piece, endure the trauma, and rebuild it as you see fit. And that’s probably why we are still not extinct…

Do you trust people?

All people or just some?

Unconditionally or only in certain situations?

I wouldn’t go as far to say that I have a problem with trusting as a whole. I let down my guard when I’ve had the time to “examine” a person psychologically and upon him passing that test, my mind processes the information that those that do not pose  a (immediate) threat could probably be my friend in the near future.

I have a hard time being in a room of people I don’t know because I don’t know what to expect of them. I don’t know if I should brace myself against sneering judgement when someone starts to small talk with me or refrain from laughing at something you aren’t sure was meant to be a joke or not (this one happens more often than I like to admit and more often than not I laugh at first until I see their confused awkward expressions in response, which is my cue for embarrassment and apology.) I was taught to never go into a stranger’s house alone and even though I’m not a little girl anymore, I would still try to bring someone with me if I’m going to go see something for sale in someone’s house.

And it’s so odd for me to realize that there are other people living and breathing out there in the world, who openly invite stranges into their homes for business or pleasure, for meet-ups, and so on. I wish I could be so unreserved and unnerved by it.

But there are also extremists in the field! My in-laws were telling us how they had met a couple in Mexico, who were also vacationing at the time at the same resort. At least, they thought that the two were a couple initially. One of the nights, they saw the girl sitting at a bar alone. They asked her where her partner was and she just shrugged back in response, saying that he should be around here somewhere. It was confusing at first for them; how could two people be in Mexico together and not know where the other one was? She further explained that they weren’t actually dating. In fact, they had only met at the airport the night they departed to Mexico. They met online and had arranged to book a room together at the resort because it was cheaper to book a room for two than two single rooms! I can’t even think to invite a man I don’t know into my own home, let alone live with one and sleep with one for a week! What if he turned out to be the boogey man that our parents had threatened us with all these years? A murderer, a rapist? An organ harvester? There are too many scary stories out in the world to think what that situation could have resulted in.

And yet people do it. It’s a wonder to me.