For some, hypnotherapy is a treasured tool of self awakening. Alexandra Janelli shares her first hand experiences with the power of this healing art.

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It felt like my world was falling apart and I wasn’t sure what to do.

Earlier that month I had made the decision to leave my relationship with a man I had been with for five years. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, but rather I hadn’t been listening to the nagging feeling that something didn’t feel right. That feeling raged through me the day after my brother’s wedding when it felt like I had been hit with lightening—marriage is forever, so with my soon-to-be engagement on the horizon, I spoke the words “this isn’t working for me anymore. I think we should end things.”

As we slowly unraveled our life together—from our car to the dog—I ventured out of my life of certainty into a world of unknowns.

While I spring boarded into a sea of unknowns luck would have it I entered into the typical “rebound” relationship—which, looking back, was doomed to fail because I had no idea how to date again. Pushing quickly for a relationship, the man retreated and I was again alone—this time not by choice.

Fall beckoned in winter and winter took its toll on my heart and head. I attempted to hold onto bits and pieces of my prior relationship while slowly testing the dating waters of New York City. I was too afraid to fully let go of my ex and too afraid to go it alone. Caught in a whirlwind of emotions, I felt like I was stuck in the middle of the ocean, treading water and not sure which way was toward land. Instead of just starting to swim I tread water for fear of another dating disaster, rejection, or love mismatch. I was emotionally drained and didn’t know what to do. I felt off balance and off kilter. A sinking ship in the middle of nowhere. Depression set in. It was time to find help.

I finally broke down and called my therapist to set up weekly meetings to discuss this drastic life change I was going through; but despite all the talking and analyzing, I felt no closer to closure with my feelings than I did months before. Until one idle Sunday when I thought about going back to see the hypnotherapist that had helped me with stopping my avid finger picking. I made an appointment and we discussed the many layers and associations that I had created around the idea of being alone.

What I learned: Alone Doesn’t Have to be Lonely.

On that premise, we started our work in helping me find my inner confidence and discover who I was and who I wanted to be. I begged in our first session that what I wanted was to be unconditionally loved by someone. To which he responded, “Do you unconditionally love yourself? If not, why should you expect that from someone else?”

He was right.

It was time to learn to love me. It was time to look in the mirror and face a few vulnerable truths.

• It was time to learn to love me. It was time to look in the mirror and face a few vulnerable truths.
• Life is hard and sometimes just sucks.
• Facing my emotions would be uncomfortable and scary. How long would the emotion last? How deep would it go? What if I never stopped feeling it? There are many emotions I was feeling and they can rear their ugly heads when I least expected it.
• Loving myself would be hard because there are so many parts of me to understand.

As I looked in the mirror I felt like a puzzle with a million pieces. Nothing fit together correctly and it was overwhelming to even start. But just like with any puzzle, I started with a loose outline.

My hypnotherapist has always been very good to ask the question of, “Alexandra, what does it feel like?” to which I would express a long drawn out explanation in an attempt to rationalize my feelings. It was soon met with: “No Alexandra, What does it feel like? What you are explaining is not a feeling.”

What I felt was:

• Sad
• Angry
• Doubtful
• Heavy
• Pain
• Guilt
• Frustration
• A crushing sensation in the pit of my stomach
• Tight jaw
• Heavy heart rate

The feelings seemed endless, but in many ways it was a relief to finally outline the hole I had been placed in. I began to examine my fears and emotions one step at a time, putting them in front of me to observe and learn from. I will never forget sitting in my hypnotherapists office and having to place a few key components of my personalities in chairs around me. To my left was a chair for the Pessimist. To my right was a chair for the People Pleaser. In front of me the angry side who screamed ‘its just not fair!’ All these pieces. All this noise.

What was I supposed to do with all these conflicting parts of me talking over the other? Everyone wanting change, but no one will to work together. No resolution except for sound and fury.

It was time to stop. Just STOP.

Logic was not what I needed to help me out; what I needed was patience with myself. It was OK to not always be perfect. Heck, there is no such thing as perfect!

In fact, once I was able to open myself up to all the things I didn’t know about myself or what I was capable of achieving, I started to make room for personal growth. What I found was there is a lot of value in not knowing something. It might be a vulnerable and sensitive place to be, but when you make a little room for it, there is a lot of growth and self appreciation to be had. I wasn’t supposed to know how to sort out all my issues—I never acquired the tools.

This is where hypnotherapy really started to help me.

My hypnotherapist helped me begin to work through my insecurities of being me by pushing me past my comfort zone to inspect and understand these various parts of me that needed tending to. I began to realize the safety net that was underneath me and that it was OK to try without always succeeding. When you reframe the idea of failure to one of learning experiences you open the door to a world of personal strength and improvement. In fact, you really open the door to finding a new energy of self-love, self-respect, willingness to try, and confidence in yourself—a self-awareness that no one can take away because you found it yourself.

I kept my triumphs in a special place in my heart like a seed and nurtured them. Accomplishments, whether large or small, started to add up, and my seed of self-worth began to grow. I began to transform to the woman that I wanted to be. From this growth sprouted a new sense of adventure including dating, making new friends, and trying new things that had once been completely off my radar.

Looking back, I feel like life had presented a door of opportunity to me. Before I went through hypnotherapy, I would have stood in front of the door worrying what was on the other side, contemplating what I should do, agonizing over the possible ramifications of worst-case scenarios and doubting my abilities to work through whatever might happen.

But I didn’t.

I looked at the door of opportunity with excitement of what was on the other side. Instead of questioning what was waiting for me, I opened the door and JUMPED! With a calmer mind, I trusted myself that there was no emotion too deep, no pain too strong, and no situation I couldn’t handle. I was in control. I was ready to try. Not only try for me, but for the life I wanted.

I had a goal and I was building on a foundation of self-love.

Life isn’t easy. In fact, sometimes it just downright sucks. But there is always opportunity to learn about you.

Life sometimes tests us. It pushes us to be better without us having a say in it! If you can trust that the universe is trying to show you something, the less you resist the more you can learn and truly open the door to the life of love and fulfillment.

Healing yourself is hard work, but it’s work that’s worth it. It’s worth it because you’re worth it.

Over the past year, I have worked with many men and women to help them move past relationships to find themselves and love. Through the dynamic work I have done with myself and many clients, I decided to put together an at-home program that can help anything. While it’s certainly not a cure-all, it’s a wonderful tool to help you help yourself. Preparing for love has never been more calming. You can find this program here.

Life has been a journey since my breakup in 2009. Since unlocking my mental safety net through hypnosis, my life changed drastically. From getting married and later divorced, moving from New York City to Chicago, traveling the world from France to Indonesia, I have had one common theme stick with me:

Life is an journey that is meant to be experienced as opportunities to learn who you are, trust your intuition, and take a leap of faith in yourself. Everything does happen for a reason, but we are the keys to what happens and the hindsight that we CHOOSE to apply to it. We can either be victims to our circumstances or take things in stride. By seeing everything as growth (the good and the bad), we can challenge ourselves to be better.

Despite having gone through some of the toughest life changes since 2009, there is not one thing I look back on and regret.

Upon deciding to move forward with my separation from my husband, I elected to go back into hypnotherapy. It has again been one of the most transformative places in my life. I have once again learned to strengthen the legs that I stand on, gain a sense of awareness, wakening, and consciousness in the head on my shoulders, and open my heart to a world of opportunities.

With a year under my belt of being the single woman running a successful small business, living alone, and really living life as an adult, I am pleased to say that I met a wonderful man with whom I am able to have a dynamic and deep relationship. It was not easy moving through the initial dating steps, but with strength and inner alignment we built our foundation strong. It’s been seven months since we first started dating and truth be told: I have never been as happy as I am now.

While life can certainly be hard, I think I made the assumption it was always supposed to be easy ☺.

Life isn’t easy, but when we persist toward something we know is out there, something just beyond what we can see, it gives us the ability to preserve. Pain is temporary and it’s worth all the joy you experience when you move past the hurt!

[image: via Micolo J on flickr]

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About the Author

Alexandra Janelli, C. Ht is considered one of New York City’s premier hypnotherapists who has worked with Academy Award Nominee Actors, world-renowned photographers, singers, top-level executives, and professionals across many sectors of business. She has also worked with students and children. As featured on MTV, Swell City Guide, Dossier Journal, The New Yorker, Time Out Chicago, and various other publications for her Hypnotherapy and creativity, Alexandra helps clients push through and past their blocks to achieve their goals with the power of her hypnotherapeutic-based approach. You can learn more about Alexandra and her work via her site, Facebook and Twitter.