Paul sits and re-reads the letter of termination that he has received from his employer of seven years. It says that he has been a good employee, and that the company has appreciated his work and performance, but due to cut backs he is being let go. He is unable to focus, he feels fears growing in his abdomen, “What am I going to do, how am I going to support my family, how am I going to support myself? The economy is getting worse and I will never be able to find another job.”
Bobbie is home from work, it is a new town a new job, a great promotion, but she has left all of her friends behind, her family, all the familiar things in her life are gone, and she feels isolated alone. “I am so lonely, what am I going to do, I will never be able to find friends like before.”
Alex sits in his quiet apartment, it is Friday night and he is alone after his partner of 18 months walked out on him. He is paralyzed with fear that he is unwanted, getting older, no one will want him; he will never find someone who will love him or that he can love. “Why did he leave me? What did I do that made me so unlovable? Now no one will ever love me again.”
Mary sits on her couch, wrapped up in a blanket, staring at the picture of her mother on the mantle. Her mother passed on several months ago, and she has not been able to let go of her feelings of guilt about things she wished she could have said, things that she had said and wished that she hadn’t. “Mom I am so sorry, I should have spent more time with you, I shouldn’t have been so wrapped up in my own life, I should have known that you wouldn’t be around forever.”
All four of these people are experiencing common feelings of grief and loss. In each case they have experienced a loss of some type, and although the details of their losses are different, the emotions attached to the losses are quite a bit the same.
The stresses associated with loss, or changes, can be some of the most debilitating we will ever encounter, and there are going to be times in our lives in which each and everyone us is going to have to deal with life changes or losses. These life changes are many, here is a list of a few of the most common.
• Death of a friend, family member, partner, or pet
• Job loss
• End of a relationship, divorce, or separation
• Moving to a new town or new location
• Loss of belonging, or belongings
• Completion of some phase of your life, such as school, or other long term
goal(s)
• Loss of health including the ability to move or be mobile
• Loss of income
• Loss of home
We feel bad or good based on the images we focus on. In other words the images that
we carry in our brains are the source of our emotional reactions. When we are dealing with a loss in our
lives we generally tend to focus on negative, blaming, images that keep us stuck in a pattern of grief or
guilt.
Stress full emotions cause many physical symptoms and issues such as anxiety attacks, which
may include shortness of breath, heart palpitations, excessive sweating, or clammy hands. Some clients
have complained of insomnia in which they have trouble falling asleep or suddenly waking up in the
middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep.
I have had clients who complain of fatigue, despite the fact they are sleeping proper amounts
during the night, the stress being put on the body through tense muscles, and constriction of body parts
causes and a lot of energy to be wasted and thus a continued feeling of being fatigued or tired.
Some clients have noticed that their eating patterns change, they may find themselves eating
more or eating less.
If you find yourself experiencing any of these symptoms please note that the stress of loss can
often cause such physical symptoms which feel bad or even threatening. Most of the time these
symptoms are harmless, but it is always best if you seek the advice of a medical Dr.
Elizabeth Kubbler Ross researched and wrote extensively on the whole experience of Death and
Dying, and it was through her work that we became aware of the five stages of Grief:
• Denial: During which you will deny either the loss of the impact of the loss upon your life
• Anger: During which you will become angry at the loss or some entity that you feel has caused the loss.
• Bargaining: During which you will attempt to make a deal to negate the loss, such as “if the universe will just bring back the lost object, then I will act better, I will be a better person, I will treat the person who left better, etc. etc.”
• Depression: During which you will slip into a state of either general or deep depression, unable to deal with or accept the loss.
• Acceptance: During which you finally begin to come to terms with the loss and begin to forgive and let go of the grief.
When you pass through these five stages it is not always in a linear fashion, in other wards you
may not go from denial to anger to bargaining, but instead you may go from denial to anger, then back
to denial, then to depression, and back again to denial. There is no right or wrong way to experience the
five stages of grief.
However you may find yourself traveling through the five stages of grief it will be good to have
Some kind of plan, something to help you move through the recovery process, instead of remaining
stuck. Such things as denying the feelings of grief or denying the loss itself is not going to help you move
ahead and it will in fact cause you to feel even more stress about your loss. You can block feelings for a
while, but those feelings will come back to haunt you by manifesting into the physical symptoms
mentioned earlier in this article.
In the first example given Paul lost his job, he felt that he needed to get a job, and get it quick.
He was able to do so, but he never resolved the anger that he felt over his lay off, and he carried that
anger with him for many months. The anger began to effect his relationship, his new job, and eventually
his health.
In one of the other examples Alex was unable to resolve issues of depression, which lead to
ideas of bargaining. He began to try and get over the broken relationship by a lot of partying and one
night stands. This behavior began to manifest in drug abuse, and risky sexual behavior.
As you can see it is important that you learn how to move through the thoughts and images that
we hold in our minds about the experience of the loss.
One of the best ways to do that is by developing a plan that includes such things as mindfulness,
meditation, or hypnosis. By utilizing the power of your mind you can learn how you have been
continuously focusing on the image of the catastrophic nature of the event, focusing on how bad things
are, and how they will never be the same, how they can never get better.
Your brain codes images in such a way that each and every time they come up, they illicit the
same emotional reaction, anger, fear, pain, sadness, etc. . By using the technique of Emotional Release
Therapy, taught through Foundations Hypnosis Seattle ~ Bellevue, you can allow yourself to view the
images that are associated with the loss without re-experiencing the traumatic emotions that are tied
to those images. Once you have accomplished that you can start the road to recovery by releasing the
blocks through the creation of new images and focus’ of attention.
When you hear yourself saying such things as “My partner dumped me, and I will never be able
to find someone who loves me again”, you can use new powerful affirmations and suggestions such as
“My partner and I split up, we were compatible, but there are plenty of people out there who I am
compatible with, people who will love me, and respect me, just like I will love and respect them.”
or “My mother is gone, and I never had the chance to let her know how I really felt”, instead you can
create new powerful images and affirmations such as “ when I was with my mother there were many
times when we were we able to connect and really let each other know how much we loved each other,
and I always did the best I could at the time”.
Hypnosis works with the subconscious level of the mind, allowing for new thoughts, new images
to be created, and planted into deeper levels which accelerate changes in your attitudes, your stress
levels, and thus your overall health.
Through Hypnosis you will find yourself moving through the recovery process by being able to
successfully cope with your loss, you will learn techniques and skills that will allow you to manifest the
things that you need in your life to move beyond the loss. You will gain the knowledge that will allow
accept that life is in a constant state of change, but that those constant changes do not mean that you
will not be able to move ahead with your life. You will be able to accept the new circumstances in your
life without the debilitating effects of feeling stuck and unable to move ahead with your life.
And finally you will, through, Foundation’s Hypnosis Seattle ~ Bellevue, Emotional Release
Therapy you will find yourself easily and effortlessly letting go of the past, letting go of the issues of grief
and loss, and moving ahead with your life.