With genuine puzzlement my grandfather asked me how, exactly, did I get into hypnotherapy. It was not a loaded and judgemental question, it was borne of an actual desire to know. Not necessarily to understand, just to know. He's like that, my grandfather... he's a story teller. In order to tell the story you have to learn the story, and so he asks - and then he listens.

I told him about coming across a class schedule for the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts and being really interested in the mind-body transformational psychology program. I explained that the program is an associate's degree in occupational studies, and that when it is completed the credits can be transferred to a local college towards a bachelor's degree in psychology. Like most of my family he had not known that after graduating from high school I had wanted to major in psychology with a minor in music, and had allowed my father to discourage me.

I said that one day I really hated my job, my career, and all of the people around me, and so I had gone on-line to find out what I could do right then to start getting out. There was a spiritual contracts class that weekend, and so I registered for and took it. That class was my introduction to SWIHA, to Linda Bennett, to Carolyn Myss and her archetype cards, and to hypnosis - although at that time I referred to it as guided meditation, which it also is.

I told how the next time I was unable to stand what I was doing for even one more minute I had done the same thing - gone on-line to SWIHA to find out what I could do right then that would take me even one half of one step closer to out. It turned out that in all of the AOS program I was interested in, the only thing I could do was take the first hypnotherapy class. I wasn't particularly keen on learning hypnosis. But it was part of the program, and more than that, it was the part that I could do right then.

Every one of Linda's classes that I have taken has started with a round robin introduction. At the beginning of the Hypnotherapy 1 class I gave my name and said that at the end of the spiritual contracts class I had made an agreement with myself to continue doing what I could do, and this was the next thing I could do. Not even half of the way through the class, I fell completely in love with hypnosis and knew it for what I'm supposed to be doing.

My grandfather thought that was interesting and reciprocated with the story of completing his teaching degree in 1927. Continuing with the story of returning to graduate school after losing his job in 1934 to a combination of the depression & nepotism. Finishing up with a nice twist about taking a continuing education class alongside the man who had been his high school principal and who had given him the recommendation to the state teacher's school in the first place.

A major component of Milton Erickson story telling is to frame and then reframe the client's experience. Which my grandfather did by first telling me about his path, and then being sure to let me know that based on his resounding success (he still has former students who get in touch with him - one time it was an entire school), I will also be successful. Of course, Milton Erickson's story telling is trance work, which my grandfather's story is not.... but I think I'd rather hear one of my grandfather's stories. :-)

I am so thankful that I can spend more time with my grandfather now than I have been able to before now. The career that ate my life certainly did make it difficult for me to participate with my family in the way I would have liked. I have missed a lot.

But I don't have to keep missing it!
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