Healing trauma is much like peeling the layers off an onion. You reach a certain amount of resolution and  think you are cured, then a week, a month or even years ago by and you are suddenly triggered and back at square one.

If you have been hanging in there with me, you know about the painful relationship I had with my mother the radio star. I have always been proactive and innovative in my approach to healing. I honestly thought I had this whipped until an incident happened about a year and a half ago that brought me full circle to a closed throat and freezing mid performance.

Stage Fright.

We have to rewind about a dozen years or so. I became fascinated with hypnotism and took a weeklong workshop where the instructor convinced me that I could make money doing both photography and hypnosis. Exciting for me and upon certification joined the Arizona.Society for Professional Hypnosis. Wonderful group of professionals who not only refer each other, but take care of each other. One of my colleagues was Michael DeSchalit who specialized in stage hypnosis and presently has a residency in Las Vegas entertaining the masses. We got to talking one day and I told him about my issues with my mother being an entertainer, and how my friends were pressuring me to try open mic, but I was understandably uncomfortable about it. He agreed to hypnotize me and make me absolutely fearless. It worked. My first time on stage I had a blast, and I even took down a heckler thanks to Michael. I enjoyed the hell out of myself on stage for many years. 

A year and a half ago I lost someone in my life who I had truly hoped would be there for the rest of my life, and the sense of abandonment was overwhelming. My next open mic I fell apart on stage and had to be walked off by the host. I was devastated.

I tried to work through it and kept spiraling. I was so fortunate that I had a good relationship with that particular bar and host. He did everything he could to support and help me off stage. Finally, I decided to try self hypnosis. I purchased programs online and while they were somewhat effective I couldn’t  get myself back to 100%.

Finally, I contacted Michael. It had been at least 10 years since we last spoke, and I wondered if he would even remember me or he was even working with private clients now that he was a celebrity in Las Vegas. To my amazement, not only did he remember me, but was eager to work with me again. He assured me that we were going to lick this together and on this day we did.

My session was about two hours long and it felt like 10 minutes. I felt refreshed and hopeful for the first time in a long time, knowing that I had picked the best person for the job.

I highly recommend hypnosis when you encounter blocks. I believed in it when I trained, I believed in Michael when he initially took care of me and 10 years later, I am so grateful to be able to hire him to help me heal from this new layer of trauma.