Jun 23, 2016

NLO contributor Sarah Borien (alifelessphysical.com) shares her experience with hypnotherapy in this video! 

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Transcript:

Hi, my name is Sarah Borien, and you might know me from some of my fibromyalgia articles on NewLifeOutlook. Today, I'm going to talk to you about using hypnotherapy to help treat your fibromyalgia and cope with chronic pain. 

I've had the condition for about six years now, and to be honest I'd never considered hypnotherapy before. I was a little bit cynical about it and imagined someone waving a clock in front of my eyes whilst I went off into a trance, and I just didn't really like the sound of it. As it happens, it's not like that at all. 

I wasn't really sure where to find a hypnotherapist, so I did a search online and discovered that they tend to specialize in different areas. There are lots that specialize in quitting smoking or in losing weight or coping with things like depression and anxiety. But I managed to find someone who specializes in treating chronic pain and so I thought I'd give it a go. 

The hypnotherapist I found was really lovely. She was very welcoming and very approachable, and I think that's really important when you see a hypnotherapist, because you need to relax and you need to be comfortable being very honest. She talked, early on, about the fact that hypnotherapy doesn't work for everyone. It works best for people who have quite a vivid imagination and are able to visualize things very easily and that's definitely me, so I had a lot of hope for the session. 

To begin with, we talked about how I cope with my fibromyalgia, what I find most difficult, and what kind of things trigger a flare-up. And then the session started to feel like meditation. We did some breathing exercises. She talked in a way that enabled me to relax my body, to focus on my breathing, to focus on being calm, and it seemed really good but it didn't really feel an awful lot like hypnotherapy. 

My therapist explained that she is both a hypnotherapist and also a coach, and she was able to use the two therapies together to get the best out of my body. She explained that really the point of hypnotherapy is to almost trick your mind into thinking that you're in a situation that you're not. Because when your mind is thinking in a particular way, your body responds to that. 

She asked me to think of a happy place that I would find calming, and she started to talk to me and give me exercises to do to help trick my mind. I found it really interesting, particularly because I could feel it working. I could feel my body relaxing as she was taking me through the exercises. 

She also gave me a CD to take away to help me practice some of these things at home so that I could really get into a routine with it. And I have found that since that session, I've gone to my happy place when I have felt my body being particularly sore or feeling particularly stressed or being in a situation that would normally trigger a flare-up, and it's been quite interesting to notice how my body reacts when my mind starts doing something slightly different to normal. 

I booked two extra sessions with her, and I'm really looking forward to continuing the process and seeing if it has any long-term effects on the way I manage my pain. 

If you're interested in trying hypnotherapy to help you cope with fibromyalgia, I would just recommend two things. Firstly, I would make sure that the therapist you find specializes in chronic pain or in the very least, has a good understand of fibromyalgia. It's important that they know how the therapy could be used to help you ease your pain. 

Secondly, I would look for a hypnotherapist that has a full qualification rather than just someone who's done a quick two-day course in hypnotherapy. Good luck and if you want to see any other information about treatments I would recommend or coping strategies for fibromyalgia, please visit NewLifeOutlook.