Finding Well-Being, of a Kind, Through Self-Hypnotherapy

Jakarta Globe, Lisa Siregar, Feb 06, 2015

Hypnotherapist Lala, center, sees her holistic approach to healing as the
most effective way to maintain health. (JG Photo/Tunggul Wirajuda)

Asense of tranquility fills the house in East Jakarta’s Buaran ward as hypnotherapist Lala Latifa uses her steady, soothing voice to lull her client into hypnosis.

Cares and worries gradually slip away for the patient as Lala, 39, pairs her voice with use of pressure points on the forehead and temples. Long used to clearing the mind or improving blood circulation, the acupressure that Lala employs has a beneficial touch by giving positive affirmations. In turn, patients acquiesce to the hypnosis.

Hypnosis, she claims, will induce a sense of peace and deep sleep, while emptying the mind.

Lala then evidences the power of the mind, suggesting to the client that she is tying 20 balloons (imaginary) to her right hand and placing a stone (also imaginary) in her left hand. The client’s right rises in response, and her left hand drops.

“Hypnotherapy is dependent on the mutual trust between the hypnotist and the recipient of his or her treatment,” Lala says.

“The process can only be done properly if the hypnosis is done with the other party’s consent. The method combines the power of belief and an innate understanding of what makes people what they are. But most of all, hypnosis can and should be used to treat oneself, as only we know what’s good for us and how we should deal with our problems or challenges”.

Discovering hypnotherapy

Lala’s own awareness of hynoptherapy’s benefits originate from her experience with a bout of serious illness.

“I started taking an interest in hypnotherapy in 2013, after the uric acid problem that had long been ailing me reached a terminal stage,” says Lala, a former primary school English teacher.

“The ailment caused blood clots that left my feet swollen, and could have led to a stroke. I wasn’t happy with conventional medication, as it only treat the symptoms instead of the ailment, and hampers the body’s natural ability to treat itself. The side effects of taking medication are also a drawback, as they create further complications.”

Lala’s medical circumstances, as well as her curiosity, encouraged her to give alternative therapies a try.

“I started by trying cupping therapy, which did wonders in treating the blood clots hobbling my legs. After that, a friend introduced me to meditation, and it was from there that I learned about hypnotherapy,” she says.

“I was trained by Rifky Haryo Wibowo, an expert in the field, from September 2013 until I started my own practice in April 2014. Hypnotherapy was an eye opener, as it can treat a range of mental, emotional and physical problems with the help of other hypnotists or ourselves, by harnessing willpower and one’s mind.

“For instance, self-hypnotherapy helped me overcome my phobia of earthworms and enabled me to treat my uric acid problem, to the point that I can eat virtually anything.

“While it does wonders in treating physical ailments, it comes into its own when treating mental or emotional problems,” Lala adds.

“As a skill that deals with the subconscious and the vibrations that it generates, hypnotherapy is also versatile as it can be combined with meditation, reiki and reading tarot cards as well as SEFT,” or spiritual emotional freedom technique, a form of psychotherapy said to improve life at various levels.

“If combined with hypnotherapy, whether on the self or others, the effect is liberating, as we can overcome anxiety and improve our confidence,” Lala says.

Hypnotherapy to help

“Hypnotherapy, particularly self-hypnosis, did wonders for me, but then I realized my true calling lay in helping others and sharing my skills with them,” Lala says.

“Many of the issues that I help my clients with are emotional or psychological in nature. For a method that deals with the subconscious, hypnotherapy is quite frank and literal, as there’s little of the symbolism of tarot reading. As with any other problem, they have to talk to me to identify them and pinpoint them.

“I even treat the very people who tackle those issues, such as psychologists, who are afflicted with issues like bipolar disorder and other problems that they can only manage to repress. Hypnotherapy helps them bring those issues to the fore, as the subconscious is coaxed out.

“The treatment also requires a lot of tact, as both educated and uneducated people with problems are oblivious to their issues or deny them, and often take it the wrong way if you try to point it out. But it’s important that we get them out of denial as repressing their psychological or emotional problems in a prolonged manner can lead to cancer and other psychosomatic illnesses.

“But eventually, it’s vital that I teach them self-hypnosis, so they can deal with their own problems instead of depending on others to resolve them. After all, the only people who can deal with our own problems are ourselves. I’m only there to help them resolve their issues.”

Dealing with challenges

Like many practitioners of alternative healing techniques, Lala has more than her fair share of detractors, from skeptics to religious fanatics.

“Skeptics and fanatics are among the hardest people to convince when it comes to the benefits of hypnotherapy. The former hold on to science and logic, so that even if they’re aware of the subconscious, they are inarticulate about it at best,” Lala says.

“But at least they can agree to disagree. Fanatics are harder to deal with because they’re more irrational and take their holy texts more literally.

“Sometimes they’re not above accusing me of black magic and asking me what my religious beliefs are. They are also more likely to intervene than skeptics. But a lot of them use their beliefs as a shield to protect them from their issues.”

Lala also pointed out that the shady business of spiritual healing casts a pall over those legitimately trying to do good.

“Many [alternative therapy] practitioners aren’t above slandering their rivals in their bid to promote themselves, as well as take out ads. They are also known to make their clients depend on them by predicting doom and gloom and then telling them otherwise — for a price.

“The nature of the business contradicts many of the underlying principles of my hypnotherapy practice, which is to get people to help themselves and reduce their dependence on others.”

Lala admits that hypnotherapy is still a new frontier for Indonesia, but says she’s certain the method will thrive.

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"The Innate Revealed" (3) - Nov 22/23, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

"The Mysterious Innate" – Aug 31, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“.. Mining the Akash - The Role of Innate

What I'm going to tell next, we have given you before. However, I wish to explain it better in this communication. Your innate is also a governor of what you personally need. Let me explain: Turn a page with me. We have talked in the past about mining the Akash. So let us open that door for a moment. Is it possible, dear one, that you could go into the vast storehouse of the attributes of your past lives and pick out something that you need today? The answer is yes. It's called mining the Akash, and it is a staple of the Kryon teaching. However, the way it's accomplished by the individual Human is really difficult to describe. It's a personal intuitive process. However, one attribute of it that is often misunderstood is that permission from the innate is needed. This is because the innate smart body knows what you need. It is then the governor, or the filter, giving you permission regarding what can be pulled out of your Akash and used. It will say no to frivolous things and yes to the things that will allow you to cure yourself of disease, live longer, and increase the efficiency of your DNA. It's a smart body regulator.

Innate doesn't care how you look. It cares about your health. If you want to go into your Akash and pull out something that you need for survival, it's right there with you. If you want to make clearer skin, it won't respond. Do you see what I mean? It's the governor for mining the Akash. By the way, the Akash is very ready to be used for this. [Kryon wink]

You have earned what you've lived, dear ones, and it's very available. It lies in a quantum soup of lifetime information that is ready to be used. If you have a disease in your body right now, and perhaps you want to mine the Akash in a way that will create healing, you can. Like all nonlinear things, it requires a new, mature consciousness and practice to work. But the body is ready for you to "go get" the cellular structure of a past life that had no disease. The blueprint for this resides within you since you earned it and lived it. The innate is responsible for spontaneous remission! Science has no idea how a Human does this. The innate can help you "go get" the things within your earned Akash and place them into your cellular structure. That's how smart it is! Imagine clearing disease so completely that there is no sign it was ever there? It happens all the time. Imagine being able to drop a chemical dependency overnight? It's exactly the same principle.

Did you ever sit in a meeting and something is said or a feeling can happen, and you get chills? What are they? You might say, "They are chills of validation." Guess where they came from? The innate! The innate has the ability to signal you the truth. The brain does not. In fact, your brain will often get in the way. It's the brain that contains your box of belief. It's the brain that contains the perception of who you are based on experience and memory. It's your 3D survival instrument. But the brain can't give truth. It can only give you what it perceives as the truth, based on logical, processed, computed, synaptic reasoning and only based on your past experience.

Your brain can tell you not to touch the stove because of what happened once before. But it can't give you chills of validation from information it does not have. The intellect wants you to believe that your brain is supreme. However, the brain is only one part of the body system and not a very intuitive part. It is the innate that knows the truth. The innate is connected to the quantum parts of your DNA and, therefore, also knows of your spirituality and the truth of God inside. …”

Len Dong: an ancient shaman dance for modern Vietnam?

Yahoo – AFP, Tran Thi Minh Ha, 13 June 2014

A "Len Dong" dancer performs with candles at a local temple in Hanoi

on March 25, 2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)

Hanoi (AFP) - The Vietnamese spirit medium dances in a trance, attacking invisible enemies with a sword as drums beat, musicians chant, and dozens of curious onlookers watch in amazement.

Civil servant by day and practitioner of traditional spiritual possession rituals when the mood takes her, Nguyen Thi Hoa is clad in a richly embroidered red robe as she performs a Len Dong ceremony at a private Hanoi temple.

"I have no idea what I've been doing," Hoa told AFP after the five-hour performance, which involved at least 15 costume changes.

A "Len Dong" dancer performs as attendees

 watch at a local temple in Hanoi on March

25, 2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)

"I could not believe I had smoked like a chimney and drunk like a fish," the normally teetotal 52-year-old said.

"Could you tell me what I told you to do?" Hoa, who is not a professional Len Dong shaman and only undertakes the rituals when the spirits move her, asked friends who had watched the entire performance.

Len Dong, which uses musical invocations to lure spirits to possess mediums and communicate with others, has been performed in Vietnam for centuries.

Practitioners and attendees -- people can donate to help cover the costs of a Len Dong performance without having to directly participate -- usually turn to the ancient ritual to ease stress or hoping for help from the spirits with romantic or professional problems.

For decades, Len Dong was restricted by French colonial and Vietnamese communist leaders, but the tradition is enjoying a flurry of popularity since restrictions were relaxed a decade or so ago -- and some say it is a useful vent for stressed citizens.

Old cure for new ills?

Six years ago, Hoa began suffering from insomnia, lack of appetite and tiredness. Conventional doctors could not rid her of her ills.

A "Len Dong" dancer performs as

attendees watch at a local temple in

Hanoi on March 25, 2014 (AFP Photo/

Hoang Dinh Nam)

On the advice of a friend, she visited a Len Dong practitioner, who told her to try performing the spirit possession ritual herself.

"To my surprise, my health started improving at once," she said, adding that she started seeing positive changes at work as well.

Len Dong is an ancient Vietnamese custom which involves "calling the spirits of the dead into the bodies of the living to connect past and present," one of the main research books on the topic says.

Musicians play traditional songs to help the shaman enter a trance. Multiple assistants help the shaman to change costumes or prepare offerings -- from chickens to "ChocoPie" snack cakes -- for the altar.

During the ceremony -- an auspicious date for the event is carefully picked in advance by the shaman -- the practitioner will seemingly drift in and out of a trance, singing, chanting and dancing to the minimalist, rhythmic music.

"It's not just the insane dancing of people who have lost their dignity," said cultural researcher Ngo Duc Thinh.

The practise of Len Dong can help people under intense stress or suffering from low-level psychological disorders, Thinh, a renowned professor of Vietnamese culture at a top state research institute, said.

"They practice Len Dong to rid themselves of their problems and return to their normal life," the professor, who has spent more than three decades studying Len Dong, told AFP.

A "Len Dong" dancer performs with

 incense sticks at a local temple in

Hanoi on March 25, 2014 (AFP

Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)

"As society develops, spiritual pressures multiply. Stress becomes more serious -- and this creates more chances for Len Dong," according to Thinh.

Social stigma

Hoa practices Len Dong at least twice a year.

"I don't dare tell my mother as she would say I was crazy," said the bureaucrat, who spends around 40 million dong (nearly $2,000) to put on each performance.

Her work colleagues, mostly communist party members, are also not aware of her Len Dong practice -- the ritual has at times been considered heresy, and was totally banned until the 1980s by the communists, although rituals continued in secret.

"I received several warnings from police, asking me to stop my practice," said a professional Len Dong practitioner, speaking on condition of anonymity about that period of time.

Even now, practicing Len Dong can carry a government fine of around $250 which aims to prevent private for-profit practitioners rather than genuine Len Dong devotees like Hoa.

"The government tried to ban it, but they in fact have failed. It's impossible to ban Len Dong," researcher Thinh said.

Votive paper horses, used as offerings,

 are placed outside a Hanoi temple while a

 "Len Dong" dancer performs on March 25,

2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)

But it might be necessary to regulate it, some experts say.

Len Dong practitioners usually offer their services at temples between Vietnam's lunar new year -- usually around late January -- to the end of the third lunar month in April.

Since restrictions on the practice were lifted, business is booming and some newly wealthy Vietnamese are willing to pay up to $50,000 for a Len Dong service.

The trouble is, it is hard for people to tell the difference between genuine Len Dong practitioners and con artists.

"Several practitioners, who have only some ability, have used that to cheat people for money," one practitioner told AFP.

"That makes people confused -- they can't differentiate between real and fake Len Dong."

Tai chi practitioners in Yunyang, Chongqing. (File
photo/Xinhua)

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"Soul Communication" - Feb 22-23, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version Part 1, Text version Part 2)

“…  Spiritual Survival

Let me take you back a bit. How many lifetimes have you slogged through old energy? Slogged through it? You picked yourself up and the old energy of the planet knocked you back. This is a metaphor of the old soul awakening to the realization of divine purpose for itself and the planet, only to be ignored, or worse, to be "found out" and then feared.

Old soul, it seemed that you just get started on a spiritual path and it kills you. You come back again and then you're enlisted in a war and it kills you again. You come back, you awaken; you become even shamanic, and it kills you for being enlightened. How many lifetimes has it been where all you can do is hold your own and try to survive in a world of very old, dark thinking? Survival becomes a word that means something completely different to the old soul. High consciousness in an old energy is like a square peg in a round hole, and this is what the old soul is used to.

Dear ones, this is ending - all of it - and this was the prophecy of the indigenous of the planet for this time. Here you are, ready for it. But the planet is not going to suddenly become higher in consciousness, dear ones. Instead, the systems around you and the energy around you are going to start getting easier, making it far easier to survive for those like you. There will be far less resistance and more openness of many people than ever before. This is the beginning of a very slow shift.

This also means that it's going to be easier for you to balance. We've used this "balance" word over and over. Many times, those in esoteric belief systems go into certain Human life categories because it's pure survival. It's easy for you to be a hermit, speaking even to my partner. If you don't have to show your light, it's easier. In the past if you showed your light, you were hunted! You understand what I'm saying, don't you? For when you open the door and the light spills out, everybody looks at you because you are different. What's wrong with this picture? In the past, it has meant your demise. This is what is changing. But it's hard to forget it. …”