Friends and Changes

This week I continued my education by starting in class in Ericksonian hypnosis techniques at HCH Institute. I found out right away that it’s a bit different than I thought, and it takes a lot more skill and practice than I realized. Frankly, I don’t think a four week seminar is going to teach me anywhere near enough to use it well. I expect that I’ll end up with a good idea of what I need to practice and some resources to explore further. 

What’s really tricky about the Ericksonian technique is that you don’t have any direct feedback from the client. I always had the impression that the Ericksonian practitioner was pretty much, ‘flying blind’, but that’s not it at all. What the practitioner is really doing is constantly modifying his script, based on subtle physical queues from the client, and intuition too, I suppose. The trick, of course, is learning to read those queues and also having a ready supply of things to say, at your fingertips. That may be my biggest challenge.

At the break, I got to connect with two friends from previous courses. That was very cool cause I feel very close to them.  It would be nice to see them more often, but I’m getting that would not be the best idea right now. Which leads me to thinking about relationships again.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever really ‘get’ relationships, especially with women. I suppose that I don’t worry about my relationships with men because it’s easy to take ‘em or leave ‘em. It would be nice to have friends to hang out with, but I know if I know what that means. What do these thinks look like from the inside? I don’t know. I do know it feels really awkward to ask anyone to hang out or get a beer or something. “Hanging” always ends up feeling awkward, unless there are other people there, or there’s some definite purpose for the meeting. The whole idea of “dating” just feels weird. I think my issue comes from the fact that, when I was younger, dates were all about sex, and now that has be pushed way to the background I have no idea what to replace it with. 

I think my problem revolves around not being any good about having friends. I’ve spent most of my life getting people to like me. Now that I don’t really care about that any more, what else is there? I expect that I will, eventually, meet the right people with the right personalities and enough common interests that we have things to do together. I have spent so much of my life being the significant other, the plus one, the friend, the hanger on in somebody else’s group, that I never found, or built, a place for myself. A place where I was me, not somebody’s attachment. Finding those groups and building those relationships takes time, especially at my age. On of the blessing of my age is that time passes quickly. Days, weeks, and almost months, go by before I notice them. So, waiting isn’t really all that hard. 

My life is so much more positive now and good things keep coming my way, so I have high hopes that “this too shall pass.” That the present difficulties and awkwardnesses will work themselves out. I’m only focusing on those few things I have to do, like work, taxes and finding a place to live, and letting everything else be a game. I psychic told be recently that I need to stop worrying so much about making the “right” decisions, decisions that will last me another 20 years. I can kick back, relax, cruz, have fun and take my time. It’s still hard to completely let go of that feeling that I need to fix and solve everything right now, but it’s important that I do. “Marry in hast, repent in leisure,” applies not just to marriage.

I’ve spent a lot of time “trying on” different kinds of relationships in my meditations. I find that everything I imagine doesn’t work very well when placed in the context of my real life. I think that’s telling me that my fantasies are a bunch of crap, and reality, when it shows up, will be something very different. So I don’t know what to expect and that’s a good thing. Life would be a lot less fun if I knew everything ahead of time, good and bad, so let’s raise a cold one to the unexpected. My it keep us on our toes and nimble of mind and heart.

Asking For Help

I haven’t been writing much lately, I’m finding it hard. My life’s in a bit of turmoil, what with finding a job and all, I just seem to have a hard time focusing. I’ve also been told that, since I’m looking for work, I should back off on the touchy-feeling stuff and focus on technology. I find that a bit hard to do because I just don’t care that much about it. It’s what I have to do for a living, I don’t really want to think about it in my spare time. 

I used to think that knowing a lot about tech made me cool or special, in some way, so I forced myself to read a lot of magazines on science and technology so I could “keep up.” It seems that having a bunch of current “technological tidbits” at my fingertips made me feel like I had something to say. Heaven forbid that I actually share something about myself or listen to what the other person had to say. Now I realize that I tended to hang out with people that did the same time as I did, talking only about stuff “out there.” I did it because I was uncomfortable talking about anything else. I didn’t think that my life was interesting and other people’s lives made me jealous, angry or depressed. No wonder I always had dysfunctional relationships.

I am trading sessions with another practitioner this weekend. I was disappointed with my session, I didn’t get to the answers I was hoping for. I did see an interesting “past life:” but wasn’t able to reach the subconscious and get any clear answers to my questions. I’m constantly blocking myself and this truly seems to be a theme of my life.

The “past life” took place on some other planet and I was humanoid, but not human. I was very tall and thin and wore a dark blue, suit-like thing. It resembled a stylized business suit, but I had the impression that it was more than just a covering, that it helped me maintain my shape, in some way. There were a few scenes with parts of the suit removed, and the body seemed like a blob that couldn’t hold it’s shape.

All the scenes took place on a kind of platform, high in the air, that stuck out from the side of some dark, cliff-like thing I that never really got a good look at. These images seemed stylized, almost like colored pencil sketches around the edges. The platform had no straight lines or any consistent curves, it’s outline resembled a stylized flame, with the tip of the flame pointing a way from the cliff. The surface of the platform wasn’t very flat, it was shaped somewhat like a frozen wave. Near the end of the platform was a fairly ordinary upholstered chair, with something like a skeletal end table/lamp nearby. 

I saw most of this from the outside. It’s like there were two somebodies: One doing the stuff and me watching. We both looked the same, though it seemed that I was larger. It seemed that I was both watching and being the other being. I could feel what he was feeling and know what he was thinking, but partially from the inside and mostly from the outside. Hey, I was beside myself!

At first, I was standing near the base of the platform, looking out at the chair, and past that into a hazy-cloudy vastness. I/he went and sat in the chair. He could control what he was seeing out beyond the platform. I don’t know how, there were no controls of any sort, I knew that he could. He was looking at rolling agricultural fields with scattered houses. He had some kind of job to do that partially related to the weather. 

My memory is a bit fuzzy here, but there was a scene where he was sitting on the edge of the platform, dangling his legs over the edge, and watching thick, billowy, clouds. There was no sky visible, just clouds, ranging from light gray to dark. 

The final scene had fire. I couldn’t see much more than an angry glow and a few glimpses of bright flame, the smoke was too thick. He was on the edge of the platform, watching, feeling remotely sad and like a failure. He was feeling like he’d had one purpose and he’d blown it, but the feelings weren’t all that strong. But still, there was a feeling of emptiness, and pointlessness to it all.

I disappointed with the rest of the session. I couldn’t get a purpose or a lesson from that life, and the subconscious wouldn’t come through. Looking at it now, I’m a little surprised that the lesson has nothing to do with failure, but revolves around being alone, and doing “it” all by myself, Never asking for help, reluctantly accepting help or assistance, no matter how much I need it, and believing that I’m “not good enough” unless I can do it all by myself. Wow. Never really brought that into focus before. I’m going to have to ponder that and see what comes out of it.

In a few months I will be living alone, for the first time in my life, if roommates count. Clearly a new experience. In a way, I’m already living it now. Knowing it’s coming is already putting me in that space. Now I get the feeling that a bad relationship is better than being alone. I hope this will pass soon. I don’t need to feel isolated, it’s just that the reality’s sunk in and it’s going to take some time to get used to. Having a job will help to give me some sense of purpose and a sense of self worth. Transitions are always hard, no matter how positive they eventually turn out to be. I’ve heard about this stuff forever, but this is the first time I’ve been self-aware enough to see what’s happening as I’m going through it. 

The past two years have been good preparation. I’ve been finding new interests and making new friends, getting out and doing stuff. I used to be such a homebody. Now I won’t be stuck by myself 24/7, but I’m going to have to make some choices soon, as my current path is not sustainable. Once I find my new direction, I will probably have to rearrange, or give up, some things that I like. I suppose that’s a good thing, that there are enough good things in my life that I don’t have room for all of them at once, but it’s more change.

Perhaps I should truly take the lesson of that “past” life to heart: Ask for help, accept help, accept assistance in small ways and large ones. I have this thing about not being a bother, I don’t want to annoy anyone, that asking to hang out or something, is being a stalker, or weird, or just plain awkward. Now I get to spend the next period of my life figuring out how all that works. It could be worse: It could be raining.