Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Credit Where it is Due

A feeling is welling up within me to send powerful gratitude to several individuals who have been integral parts of my journey.  I have been on the road to making some significant changes in my life, and I feel stronger every day.  There are many in my life who have helped me along the way, but there are some who I wish to call extra blessings upon for their patience, expertise and guidance.  

In March of 2012, I started seeing a therapist named Dawn Johnson.  I was unhappy.  When she asked me what I needed and what I wanted out of therapy, I just said I just wanted to be happy again, to feel anything other than despair, and she accepted me wholly.  She is a licensed hypnotherapist, and has training through the Wellness Institute.  I didn't know anything about hypnotherapy until I started seeing Dawn on a regular basis, and certainly had never heard of Wellness.

What a surprise to me, hypnotherapy is nothing like what you see on TV.  There is no quacking like a duck, and you are actually conscious the entire time.  It relaxes you to a point that your filters come off and you don't censor yourself or your reactions.  I must say, it is astonishing what can be gleaned through a good hypno session.

Dawn has used her training and expertise to help me release a great deal of my own shame and grief.  She has been patient, caring and brutally honest.  My family will never be the same as a result of the treatment and loving care she has provided.  She has been my ally, my nemesis, sounding board, my helper, my irritant, my balm, my friend and my biggest cheerleader.  Dawn has a gentleness of spirit and trustworthiness, and she is also genuine and real about her own fragility.  She is endearing and accepting, but knows just where to prod to make me take the steps I need towards healing.

Without Dawn's pressure, I never would have met Rob and Mary Anne Speigel.  They are also certified hypnotherapists and work with the Wellness Institute.  They have been using hypnotherapy, in combination with other methods of therapy, to help people work towards healing for decades.  Rob and Mary Anne are a power-couple, they have a combined strength and compassion for their clients/students that I cannot do justice to.  They are fully engaged, fully committed, and full of love.

Rob is a button-pusher to the extreme.  He won't let a person wishy-wash their way out of a difficult situation.  He is forceful and he excels at making people very angry; he has infuriated me on so many levels.  He is opinionated and won't take crap, and I love him for it.  Rob is kind and gentle and full of heart.  Just this past weekend I was having a very painful experience while in trance and he was there for me from start to finish with nothing but wisdom and compassion in his spirit.

Mary Anne is the perfect complement to Rob.  She exudes a maternal strength and care with an incredible gentleness and firmness of heart.  Where Rob makes you want to smack him through making you so mad you suddenly see the light, she nudges you out of your own way and shakes your rugs and opens your curtains.  She is very wise, relaxed and genuine.

They offer an intensive series of weekends called Personal Transformation Intensive (PTI).  This is one weekend a month for five months, and I just completed week three.  Attending PTI, I have met 8 other people on their own journeys through personal pain.  After just three weekends together I feel greater care and concern for these people than I have ever held for a group in my life.  They truly are a second family, people I have come to trust implicitly.  We have shared the deepest and darkest parts of ourselves, and worked as a team to shore one another up through our processes.  The experiences we have shared, both wonderful and terrible, have bonded us together like I never could have imagined.  I know that I can rely on them, trust them and believe in my PTI colleagues with my entire being.

All of these people have pushed me on this journey towards the beauty I know I deserve.  I had to take the first step and get myself out there, but without them, there would be no journey.  I would not have discovered the strength to continue to do this.  I would not have realized that BEAUTY is what I deserve, and DESERVEDNESS is what I crave.

I deserve BEAUTY in my life!


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