Hypnosis for a broken heart

Hypnosis for a broken heart? Anyone thinking about the wonderful movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind??

It is a movie I have watched many times and have cried and cried until I thought I couldn't cry anymore, but then it leaves you with all this stuff to think about, just as all the great movies do.

If you haven't seen it then do, and for those who haven't for the sake of this blog, the concept is that a couple of lovers have an interaction which is portrayed as being extremely full of love, affection and really quite life changing. The relationship fails and the film depicts the heartbreak and pain felt by both. Until one elects to have the memories of the relationship erased from their mind, leaving the question to the viewing audience, 'is it better to have loved and lost than have never loved at all' - or basically, would you trade the good times, the memories and the feelings of complete and utter happiness, for nothing at all, the elimination of what is good so that there is no longer pain.......

Well I recently started undergoing a series of sessions of hypnosis for my broken heart. And before I start to sound like a nutcase who simply can't get over someone, or like some sort obsessed stalker I would just like to state that I have NEVER done a "drive-by", I have NEVER turned up at places that I knew my ex would be in order to create some kind of "incident" or "exchange". I am not a stalker and have never participated in this kind of obsessive activity, nor have I been sitting around obsessing about him and what he is doing or anything of that nature.

I have however, found it very difficult to get over the situation. Yes, the situation, not "him", its the lies, the deceit and the months of mental anguish that have been really hard to recover from, not to mention the selling of my home and the being homeless and so forth......these things actually are really hard to move on from.

I recall at one stage he said to me 'just go and live your life' - nice suggestion, but when you have nowhere to live and no idea about what is going on because there has actually been no conversation, then "living your life" becomes a little more difficult than it may seem! Although not for him, because HIS life continued as if I had never ever been there!

Anyway, my shrink and I talked about it and as she does hypnosis we decided to do a number of sessions to eliminate all memory or the ex, not him so much but the memories associated with him, the happy ones, the sad ones and mainly, eliminate the memories of hurt and pain associated with him, and just to make my feelings toward him completely neutral.

So it was not like the movie in as much as the person is completely deleted from your mind, it was done in stages and was done so that I still know who the person is, and my mind is more than aware of what has happened between us, and I am more than aware of how I was treated and what he did to me, but it is probably best described as being that these things are now not cutting every time I think of them, they do not feel raw anymore.

The memories of good times are completely gone. I do not associate him with anything good or happy in my life, the bad memories are gone as well, not the facts, but the memories of the bad things that happened are gone in as much as there is no feeling in them anymore, sort of like they are faded - if that makes sense.....the same with the good stuff, its gone, there are no feelings associated with it, but its not as if I have no memory at all, but I don't feel anything towards these times.

So I guess the big question is "do I feel any better" - well yes! I do! In a crazy sort of way I feel towards him nothing......and towards that time.....nothing, again......that is not to say that if he came back with some crazy declarations of love and wanting to "work it out" (at the same time I expect hell would be freezing over) that I would not know who he was, but I would just not feel anger or hatred towards him, or love or kindness, it would just be the same as dating anyone else new I guess, to see what happens and if you like the person and what they do and how they behave etc and make a decision about what happens next based upon that.

I feel better because the memories are not so raw anymore. The painful things that happened are not at the forefront of my mind, and I am not reminded of the good times and saddened at the loss of these. But it certainly is not like it is portrayed in the movie, the complete elimination of the person is not really possible from what I understand - although the thought I have to say is somewhat tempting to think about!

I was reading my horoscope the other day and it said 'take yourself back to the moment of your greatest mistake, the moment that you wish had never happened', the first thing that came to my mind was the moment that things went bad between us, my initial thought was that this was the moment of my greatest mistake, not the moment that we kicked off our relationship, although both these moments in time could be said to be equally the moments of my biggest mistake.

The question, would I change anything, stayed with me for some time and I started to think about this and really decide if I WOULD actually change things. Well, yes I would. I would change all of it. I would give my right arm to be back in my house, to have this never have happened with "him" and to be living as I did when we were just friends. This is largely because I DO miss him as a friend, and I miss being naive enough to think he was a friend (although my assessment on this has clearly altered) I also miss living where I did and having the security of having my own home. But at the same time, I am really happy with my life the way it now is. I love my work and I love what each day brings. These are things that would not be possible if none of the horrible stuff had happened........

So, can we assume then that whatever it is that you or I believe in, that something in the universe was doing the right thing by me to take me out of that situation, as happy as it may have bee at the time.........

If that is the case, do we then think that hypnosis is a valid tool to use in the recovery process after a relationship is over??? I don't know really.......I am still thinking about it to be honest. I have always thought that is was best to face your demons, to face them and to make them back down and to come out of a painful situation a stronger a better person........but then I also think that gaining some assistance to reach the subconscious mind might be a useful tool, not to eliminate the person from you mind, as in the case in the movie, but to help with the hurt of certain events or treatment that actually is not necessarily encountered with every break up, but if it is evident, can help to build your resilience and really refocus you attention on more positive things which then helps to build self esteme and so forth.

However, as the movie shows, to eliminate someone completely and all memory of the events associated with that person actually doesn't provide a growth experience, because you are essentially going to do the same thing and make the same mistakes again, so I am not convinced that this kind of hypnosis is and can be helpful or healthy, but for me, this was not how it was used and certainly not the effect it has had.

Well, regardless of the hypnosis, but certainly with its assistance, I have certainly become a stronger person. A better person? .... well you would have to ask those around me. They have certainly reported that I am not the same person, that I am not as fun, not as carefree, and perhaps not as caring or trusting. So it could be said then that the hypnosis has not actually affected my experience in as much as it has not taken away the leaning and development process that came along with the situation I was trying to erase......and I won't be using hypnosis to try to undo this or to bring those qualities back because they now form part of who I am.