My cure

Friday 18 April 2014 | Andreia Nogueira at 03:23 |

Hypnosis always seemed to me as an art used for bad purposes. After all, the unique contact I used to have with this therapy was television programs where people were taken to do ridiculous things, like act like a chicken, or confess their secrets without realizing what they were doing.

I recognize I gave in to the ease of making a wrong judgment without strain myself to search for information and confusing the messenger with the message, as so many people do when they deny God because of dubious religious practices or when they criticize the concept of democracy just because someone used it in a bad way.

When one of my best friends told me how hypnosis was helping her to lose weight, healing misconceptions that had effects on her relationship with food, she piqued my curiosity. ¿Did you know that hypnosis is used to cure many phobias, such as go the dentist or travel by plane?

The conscious is just the tip of a huge iceberg and hypnosis is the way to achieve this iceberg. Through it, we can find the causes of some problems and erase them or find answers for our own future in a peaceful and creative way. We never say what we don't want. Our attention (i. e., our mind as we know it) is always present, although as a witness. Whatever your goal is, at the end of a hypnosis session, your mind and your body are full of a different happiness and a wonderful refreshment.


I wish I had discovered this science earlier because it could have been so helpful to me before. From my point of view, it must be included in the Portuguese health system (although several doctors recommend it). Actually, I think all people should have access to this technique since adolescence because the best of hypnosis is that from the moment you learn how to use it, you can do it whenever you want. Of course it depends from person to person, and to solve big problems it would be better if a therapist could help you because obviously isn't the same use the same technique to try to solve different problems and use a specific technique - studied and validated – for a specific problem.

For example, one day I decided to try to understand why it used to be more comforting and pleasurable to cry alone than share it with another people. Then, I asked my subconscious to take me to the moment where this has happened for the first time and, although I had already revisited that moment consciously, I never realized that was where it all started. Without the emotional memory, which is impossible to delete in a conscious state, I was unable to realize that in fact there was no comfort or enjoyment at all in that particular moment. It just happened like that because I had no one to cry with. This simple discovered I made through hypnosis resulted in no more pleasure to cry alone.

In any case, a true expert in hypnosis will say that a few sessions will be enough (of course depending on what kind of problem you want to solve) and that the goal is not be accompanied by hypnosis forever, such as in other therapies, but instead learn tools. Yes, because likely you will need to do homework after a hypnosis session.

In my sessions, I had the opportunity to, for example, visit the moment when SCI arrived in my life, create a mental mechanism to "clean" my body from illness, install a kind of glove of anesthesia for emergency situations and imagine myself in a happy situation that used to scare me, like being a reporter.

Credits: Dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It was funny to note that, as described by other people with different problems, my results had no immediate effect (which made me doubt of myself). I mean, they were noted later and by chance. After I finished my therapy, I didn't decide to participate in long bus trips. Honestly, this idea still scared me. But, full of courage and joy, I was progressively doing  things not so radical like long bus trips and everything was OK, as expected. In fact since I finished my therapy, I never went to the bathroom seven times before going out anymore and coffee and other ingredients were allowed to come back to my life (except milk, my biggest enemy).

Later, in the economic crisis in Portugal, I resigned from my job as editor and I decided to start to work as a freelance journalist. I even moved to a developing country and thus I tried to fulfill my dream.

At the beginning, I faced some symptoms of IBS due to the different food and water until my body got used to them. I even needed to do long bus trips because there was no other choice. So, during that time I needed to use many of the techniques I learned in hypnosis, which, somehow, make me feel in advantage over other travelers.

At the same time, I drank a 'shot' and I was afraid that next day would be spent on the floor of a bathroom, with dizziness and diarrhea, as used to happen whenever I drank alcohol, but nothing wrong happened. Months later, I drank a cappuccino and the outcome was the same. Nowadays, I drink milk almost every day and my body never complains about it anymore.

I cannot deny that maybe the milk is different that maybe the day I drank that “shot” was a lucky day or that my closeness to God makes me value more important things and try to follow my dream/mission like there was no tomorrow is useful.

IBS is psychosomatic and I truly believe that the fact that I don't even remember it anymore (because life is too short, I have something more important to do on earth and it won't be a syndrome that will stop me) helps me. If you ever experience a situation when you only got something when have it or not made no difference anymore, you know what I'm talking about.

However, I cannot forget the days I lost trying to be happy and my IBS stopped me, mainly when I compare them with my new days, when I only remind IBS to write about it.

Deny the miraculous side of my story would be ungrateful. Forgive me if you don't believe in God and you are suspicious that I'm trying to lure you into something you don't want. This isn't my purpose at all.

I only ask you to understand that since I attracted my amazing hypnotherapist and God gave me the courage to follow my dreams and the possibility to do it, I cannot deny His help and His investment on me. To deny it would be to deny my truth and my life.