Mind Magic

Sometimes when I sit at my computer to type a story arises and I thought I would like to share this one with you.

Once upon a time a long time ago in a foreign land the light changed.    From darkness light began to emerge.   Hesitant at first and then as if warmed by the sun it began to grow.   A greater light than it had ever been before, and held within that light was a sound, a tone, a frequency a harmony.

Some of that darkness did not know what to do with that sound, with the light, and began to tremble and hold on in case the sound, reflected in the light held something that it did not know how to comprehend.   It trembled with the thought of the light and the sound and yet it knew in some small way that it was simply a journey to so much more than it had ever been before.   

It was as if in that light, unconsciousness was now beginning to become conscious.    The darkness was beginning to become light, and the sound was beginning to reverberate through all aspects of its being.   Connecting, joining, merging, and changing everything it knew.     All aspects of its wholeness.    A letting go, a slight tremble and then as the light began to shine the darkness knew that the light held so much more and it began to change.  

A new lightness began to emerge, a new sound, a depth, a width, a tone,  a band of frequency new and not as mysterious as first conceived because it had always been there, hidden at first under cover of the dark waiting to emerge once again into light.

And it was so much fun, so much lighter; a new way of being, a new way of seeing, a new way of thinking, as change began to become so much more familiar and the sound reverberated deeply throughout everything now.

So I invite you to begin to allow your sound to emerge, similar and yet different than before as you begin to shine your light and allow that change to be part of who you are now.

“Before you go to sleep at night imagine what it would be like to have exactly what it is that you want and go to sleep with that feeling of having what it is that you want.”

“Imagine what could happen if every morning before you got out of bed you allowed yourself to feel exactly what it would feel like if you had exactly what it was you were dreaming of at that moment in time.   I wonder how different your life would be. “  

I am giving a talk on The Power of Intent at the NZANLP/NZAPH joint National Hypnotherapy/NLP conference on the 18th to 19th June in Rotorua, and on a trip to White Island over the weekend I got to experience just what can happen when we utilize that power of intent.   

It was fine when I left Auckland for Whakatane on Friday night with a group of fellow trampers from WOPS, but as the evening closed in it began to rain, and it got worse and worse until it was bucketing down and it certainly didn’t look too good for our trip by boat to White Island the next day.   If Saturday didn’t work out we still had Sunday and so although dissapointed we all firmly believed that the weather would improve and we would get to White Island.    

Next morning saw us tramping in the pouring train through the bush up to the lookout where we had a clear view of the sea conditions and they didn’t look very promising.   However the wind was predicted to drop and hopefully the rain would soon pass over.   We walked along the wharf and took a look at the boat we would be travelling to White Island in and it certainly looked sturdy enough and comfortable enough for our journey the next day.   

Before we went to bed that night we all smilingly affirmed our belief that we would be going to White Island the next morning as the wind was dropping and the rain had stopped.   Imagine therefore our disappointment when we heard that the tour had been cancelled because the Harbour Master had closed the bar, and the tour to White Island was off.     We were all naturally diappointed and other options, including tramping certainly didn’t have the same appeal.

But this wasn’t the end of the storey and there was something else.   And in this instance what unfolded was the WOW factor.   Nine of us in three helicpoters took a short flight across to the Island.   There was a plumb of smoke rising from the island just as we arrived and the photo shots were exquisite.   We donned hard hats and were given gas masks and proceeded round the island.   It was an amazing experience and as we flew back around the rim of the crater and looked down into the crater lake we all knew without a word of doubt that what eventuated was so much more that what we had anticipated and so much more than we could have experienced if the trip had unfolded as we expected.   

What we came to understand from that journey to White Island, was that sometimes it is in the letting go of the details, that allows something even more beneficial to occur than you might have imaged at the time.  The magic of the power of intent expressed in the most perfect way.

As we landed back at the airport we couldn’t help sharing our take on the “Power of Intention”.    If you truely desire something, when it is taken away there is always something else in its place.   The power is in the intent, and not in the details.   So dream your dreams, and allow them to unfold in what is for you the most perfect way.

Well here I am back in Auckland and I must admit that I did enjoy those wonderful sunny Autumn days we had last week and not so sure I am ready for more rain yet.   I understand we have had a wonderful summer but I guess I have missed most of it.

 
I have just spent some time at the Litchenberg Institute in Germany singing my heart out or more exactly utilizing two distinct tones to bring my mind and body into what I call harmonic resonance.   And wow, when I experienced it, I knew it in every pore of my body.   Not that I am a classical singer like many who train at the institute, or a classical musician, but someone who has come to understand the harmonic relationship between my voice and my body.   To experience that alchemical relationship between the sound and my body, for me is  truly magic.   

You might ask why I would bother going all that way when singing is not my career, nor that of a classical musician, but I have come to understand as a hypnotherapist that the sounds people hear, the sounds of other peoples voices, have a much greater impact on them than they realize.      

 
Many conversations are emotionally loaded, and for those who are sensitive to others emotions, it is sometimes difficult to deal with.    So part of my journey, as someone who used to be so extremely sensitive to others emotions, has been the journey into sound, and in particular the sound of my voice.     Part of my journey into sound has been the desire to utilize my voice in a way that allows others to find their voice and maximize their potential.    

I am continually amazed at the access hypnotherapy gives us to the window of our mind.   That part of us that knows so much more than we are consciously aware of.   That part – the unconscious or subconsciousmind – which when harnessed can bring about such change.

But what do I mean when I talk about soul retrieval, and what does that have to do with hypnosis.    So much of what we do is conditioned by our past, the rules that we adopt to fit into the culture we live in, the family we grow up in, or the friends we have.   And no matter how much we try and analyse why we continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, we still do.

Soul retrival utilizes Spirit guides and Power Animals to assist you in your journey into the past to heal old wounds.   Similar in way to the journey you might ask a shaman to do for you, only you do it yourself.   A powerful way to make change, to heal situations that have left you feeling fractured.   A way that gets to those parts of usually difficult to access. 

I love the way that new aspects of something that goes back for so many years, such as hypnosis. can continually come up with new aspects of old ways to help us on our journey into the fullness of who it is that we truely are.   Wonderfully positively us.

Its raining now but I woke the other morning in the quietness of an early morning anchored off a sheltered bay at Waiheke.   No wind, no boats passing, just stillness.   Calmness reflected in my mind, and my body.   Like meditation, that space between sleep and wake.   Nothing to do but be me.

I am reminded how rare this space in life is where silence, or quietness is just there.   We are constantly confronted by the sound of traffic, peoples voices, machines, radio, TV and invisible sounds that we don’t necessarily quantify but sounds that do impact on our mind and our body.   A vibrational sequence of sound that  impacts like coded impulses on the control room of our mind determining the way we chose to react according to our past experiences.

I wonder whether, like me, you have ever chosen to enjoy this space between wake and sleep early in the morning before you are fuly awake.   To linger a moment longer in what seems like quietness, or stillness, just luxuriating in that stillness.   Sometimes when I wake in the middle of the night I find myself returning to this space, knowing that I am safe and warmly tucked up in my bed nothing to do but dream and be me.

I’m not sure about you but I know that I have loved the warm clear days that have been part of my life for the past few weeks.   Everything looks so clear and somehow it’s so much easier to feel positive about things.   To breath easy rather than fight the weather.   To get things done without a struggle, and to be my own person.

In the same way though have you noticed how bright and clear things look after a shower of rain, especially the garden.   It is as though all the dust and dirt has been washed away and the plants sparkle in their freshness.   This is particularly so when walking in the bush.   The moss seems to become even greener and plumper and the differing greens sparkle in the filtered light.   It is as though you can see the very edge of everything in its clearness.   Where one plant ends and the other starts, and where I can re-energise.

This reminds me how much better I feel when I set clear boundaries, especially in the busy build up to Christmas.   It is that time of the year when overload can creep up and before I know it clarity disappears and muddle starts to set in and some would even say that I can get grumpy.   

So for me this year it is about setting some clear boundaries as I move into that last hectic Christmas buildup.   Looking at what is really important, and what isn’t.   Does it energise me or or take energy away.   Well that’s my aim and I will know I have achieved it when I sit down for lunch on Christmas day and enjoy every moment of it.

Once again the weather was on our side as we flew over to Stewart Island.   The sun was shining and the weather forecast was looking good for the start of our walk.     This time I would have to carry everything so it was important to make sure that I didn’t carry anything that I didn’t really need.     

We got a lift to the start, rather than walking down the gravel road, and took our time to stop and take note of the surroundings.   There was a saying by Leonard Cockayne 1909 that seemed apt and summed much of what I came to love in terms of Stewart Island.

“The face of the Earth is changing so rapidly that soon there will be little of primitive nature left.   In the Old World, it is practically gone forever.   Here, then is Stewart Island’s prime advantage”, and one hard to overestimate.   “It is an actual piece of this primeval world”.

And we loved our time on Stewart Island enjoying a little bit of that primeval world, where we could relax and enjoy the friendliness and helpfulness and the wonderful meals served at the local pub and the friendly Kaka that landed on the tree trunk conveniently resting on the deck where we stayed.

I have just returned from a 5 day rafting trip down the Clarence River with Ben Judge of Clarence River Rafting  and what a great trip.   You might like to check  out his web site at  www.clarenceriverrafting.co.nz.     It ticked all the boxes and more.    The river is a level 2 and along with the fun and excitement of the rapids there was time to enjoy the amazing scenery, stretch our legs and explore some of the surroundings.    So much more than a shorter trip could have provided.

Time off the river to have a look around

The weather pulled out all the stops and along with sunshine we had little wind to hinder our journey down the river.     We were early to camp on a couple of days leaving plenty of time to go for a walk, have a sleep, read a book or simply sit round and have a laugh, a drink and some nibbles before enjoying a sumptious meal.   The food was unbelievable and Ben’s wife’s biscuits were exceptional – the hardest thing being  knowing which one to leave behind.

An extra special breakfast for the last day of the trip

We pitched out tent overlooking the river whenever we got the opportunity and went to sleep with the sound of the river, thundering in the background and were woken in the morning with the most incredible dawn chorus.   So much better than the normal alarm clock.   Just to lie there in that half sleep half wake space, a little like being in a trance state, and listen to bell birds in full voice was stunning.

The sound of the river is so different from the sound of the sea where you can distinctly hear that ebb and flow as it both comes in and goes out at the same time.     One night I chose to sit in solitude on a bend on the banks of the river and just listen.    A continuous flow all going in the same direction, a flowing sound, tranquil and calming.   It was hard to pull myself away from the beauty of the snow covered mountains in the background, the sparkling rocks, and the milky green of the water.   We were now in limestone country and you could tell.   But who could resist the meal that Ben, Sophie and “M”   had so carefully been preparing for us.   Fresh herbs and all.

And all this, and no other rafts insight except our mother ship and the rest of our group.  What bliss and how good I felt.

As I was reading the Herald this morning whilst waiting for my porridge to cook I suddenly became aware of a crackling sound on the stove and realised that if I didn’t do something now, then it was likely that my porridge would burn, or I would have a very messy pot to clean up after breakfast.  Neither of which I wanted.

I seem to have become even more fascinated over the last little while how much I utilize the sounds around me to determine my response.   In this instance one of action to avoid something I didn’t want.   But a little earlier I had lain in bed in that half wake, half sleep state, luxiourating in the sound of the early morning bird call and thinking about how much pleasure I was getting from that sound.   Recently a thush has become resident in one of our trees in the back garden and I never realised before what a beautiful sound that it has and how much pleasure I get from that sound.

But back to pleasure or pain, and what sounds trigger those emotions.   Are you really aware of the emotions that the sounds around you are producing or do you just automatically slip into that old way of reacting to sound?   Does it bring you pleasure or pain?   Do you move towards it or away from it?      And if you did become aware of the sounds around and how they impact on you, would that very noticing of the sound change the impact that it had on you?

I am curious, does anyone else have particular sounds that they love or some that they hate.   Those that make them smile or those that make them scared or angry?    Just checking, just for the fun of it?

Further to my last post about sound, I find that at the moment I am accutely attuned to sounds around me as I explore my world in so much more detail than I ever envisioned before.   As I begin to make more sense of this world that I live in.

This year we have had an abundance of lemons on our tree and I have been making Lemon Honey from on old recipe of my grandmother’s that I found.   I choose to make a large pot full so that I could give some away to friends who also find it one of their favourites.

My new stove has a very gentle simmer point when the gas is turned very low so it makes it very easy not to burn things, which I really enjoy.   It takes a little longer to come to the boil but worth it in the end.   I was fascinated therefore to hear the first sign of it getting close to boiling point when it began to thicken.   Not sure that I have every noticed this before.    It was like little bursts of air on the bottom of the pot.   Then the bubbles began to surface, and finally that plop, like boiling mud, when it starts to boil.   A burst of air released I realised and then thought how familiar this was with people who find themselves caught up in anger.   Like bursts of air surfacing that have to find an outlet.   

I wonder if you have ever noticed that if we let those who are angry let go of all their hot air, then we can begin to dialogue and find a way to communicate which obviously is so much more enjoyable than anger.

A bit like lemon honey when its made and you can enjoy that bitter sweet taste.   When its got rid of all the hot air and begins to thicken and you can spread it thickly on a piece of toast or something and just enjoy.

Funny how the sounds around can be an entrance way to another way of understanding how we relate to so much of what we call life.