Yes, thanks to a hypnotherapy session over Zoom video chat, the chronic pain I've been living with... is gone. Just gone. There's still some acute pain that comes and goes, but most of it is gone. I just had to visualize myself flying through a bull's eye, and though that sounds cheesy, the pain disappeared when I hit the target. Just gone.
Suggestion. It's a remarkable phenomenon. I forgot how well it works. Doubtless my next article will be all about that, as will my next video. I recently talked to some people about altered states of consciousness and hypnosis, so that will definitely be next up.
For right now, I'll say that I don't even know why I waited so long to get someone else to help me with this. It worked. Not to mention, I had him throw in some suggestion for confidence, and it worked the same way with the bull's eye.
` The chronic pain over most of my body, especially my back, is now gone. My arms and wrists and hands are somewhat sore from using trekking poles. The right side of my body still aches from doing squats.
` As for my neck, it is becoming more neck-like, with better air passage in my throat, and indeed as we see over the course of my videos, my voice becomes deeper. A lot deeper. For a while my voice was cracking uncontrollably, but not so much now.
I still have to tilt my head to the right so that my eyes are able to track properly, but even that is not as important now. In fact, it isn't the only cause of my eye strain: I went to an optometrist and found that my left eye is slightly off.
` I have yet to actually purchase the glasses; they are the lightest frames because my neck could not tolerate the pain and weight of glasses on my face. Now it doesn't hurt the way it did before the hypnotherapy session, only a small bit. After I get the glasses, my eyes should feel a lot better as well. Hooray for even more pain relief!
I will delve into the actual technicalities of how hypnosis works, and my many hypno-adventures, in the future!
As for my podcast, I named this blog Skeptophany after it. The irony is, I spent years recording interviews for it, during a time in my life in which I was barely hanging on for survival, in a lot of pain, and not much able to get the production work done. Then, in April 2016, most of what I recorded became inaccessible when my laptop broke in April 2016.
` I had two external hard drives, but the one that I was using for my newest stuff (because it hadn't filled up) had a partition that prevented non-Linux computers from accessing my podcast and video files.
` After several attempts to remedy the problem, including attempting to repair the laptop twice (but the replacement part was "DOA" both times), I finally decided to spend the $200 to transfer the data. Yes, this took me 18 months of failing to solve this problem!
` Something like a week passed in trying to get this partitioned data from the wrong drive, which freaked me out because you can't. But then I realized my mistake, I transferred everything that was on my broken laptop as well, and bought a new external hard drive! And it was all at a discount! So, what better result could I have hoped for?
Yes, I can continue making my podcast! I am just so... backlogged at the moment.
As for my own productivity, I have not been doing the things I perceive that I really need to do, but at least I've been getting some things out of the way, such as finishing a book I've been borrowing for several months. (It's been difficult to read because pain.)
` I was also slowed down for a while by a couple of illnesses, but some amoxicillin helped with that. Many things have drained my energy, including spending a lot of time improving myself. I cannot believe the emotions I am capable of feeling after healing from an impostor's betrayal.
The only thing vexing me this whole time is that the person who introduced me to hypnosis, physical therapy, and much else, has blocked me on Facebook and in real life. Why, I can't say, but it was somehow a result of my last communication with him, which was text-based. I showed it to a few people, but they are just as puzzled as I am as to why anyone would respond this way.
` It's good to know it isn't just me. I expect this, too, to somehow resolve itself.
These are just some of the dramas that have been playing out in my life since my last post. Right now, I am in serious need of some sleep.
