London Workshop

 

CHANGING TO LIVE AND LIVING TO CHANGEThis is a segment from the book "Changing to Live and Living to Change: A Workshop I did for the London Branch of the Royal Society of Medical Hypnosis. THE LONDON WORKSHOP: Part One PASA WITH JULIAN This workshop was led by me at a teaching hospital in London sponsored by the Royal Society of Medical Hypnosis and attended by psychiatrists, medical specialists, general practitioners, dentists, psychologists, and social workers. Their expectation was that they would learn PASA and then use it in their work. (PASA is the acronym for Positive Altered States of Awareness. It is a technique of mine for reaching positive altered states of awareness. It is explained later in the Workshop. For immediate details of what it is, how it works, and how to do it, see Operating Principles.) I stand on the platform facing the serious looking group and then I close my eyes and do a brief PASA exercise. I begin to breathe slowly and rhythmically and in a minute I reduce most of the excessive physical tension I was aware of. Then I recall a scene from an island I was on in the South Pacific: I imagine and relive that I had finished the night shift as a radio operator. I see myself get a lift to the end of the runway and then I walk past the garbage dump, to a little beach. Very few of the soldiers braved the dump to get to this small, perfect beach of the lagoon with its clear blue-green, water. It is empty. I take off my short pants and T-shirt and sunbathe. When I feel too hot I cool myself in the shallow water. (I didn't realize it until much later in my life but I had discovered my way of doing PASA.) Now I am back. I open my eyes and begin to speak. 'Good morning, I had a distressful time getting here. I was a little nervous about doing this workshop and in the hotel room I checked my briefcase with the workshop materials in it three times. My wife and I left about 8:30 a.m. which gave us an hour-and-a-half to get here. The hotel porter told us that the number 37 bus goes directly to this hospital. Since it's Saturday morning and there is very little traffic, the ride shouldn't take more than 20-25 minutes. Just as we were approaching the bus stop the number 37 bus came rumbling in and we began to run, with me waving frantically for the bus to stop for us. Ie didn't. He accelerated and whooshed by the bus station just as we got to it.' (Laughter heads nodding understanding and sympathy.) 'Well, when I finished cursing the bus driver and my frustration subsided, I was worried that I'd be late for the workshop. Then my wife suggested we take a cab and I gratefully agreed. I had momentarily forgotten that I had alternatives.' (Laughter) I take a slow, deep breath and then begin to speak in my PASA voice, which is slow, quiet and rhythmic. (The spacing between phrases is shown as [...]. All PASA exercises are italicized.) Longer pause. "With PASA help we have moved our strengths... creativity ...and love from the back of our mind" longer pause "to the front of our mind. I pause briefly and ask if there are any questions. "Yes," says Julian. "I have a very stressful situation and was wondering if you could help me with it." I ask him to come on stage and he agrees. We sit in two easy chairs facing each other at a 45 degree angle. He is in his early thirties, thin, wiry, of medium height, with black hair, dark eyes. He settles in his seat and begins to talk. "After only a few months in general practice one particular lady patient started to write me very amorous letters. I sent these letters to a defense society and they took over the correspondence. Uh, I had to remove this patient from my care." He stares blankly at a point on the ceiling and then he continues. "I can see now why it happened. I took over a practice from a retiring doctor and his receptionist told to be 'particularly nice' to her because she was terribly shy. And I was nice to her. Perhaps too nice, I don't know". He laughs unhappily. "I got my just rewards." He shrugs and then says, "I was in my late twenties and I suppose I was a little flattered. She was a very attractive woman." He purses his lips and sits up in his seat. I imitate him, pursing my lips and sitting up. He says, "I see that I'm a pursing person." He coughs. There is laughter from the group. I ask, "Would you mind explaining that cough?" He laughs along with the audience and then he replies that it doesn't mean anything. I look deeply into his eyes and I begin to speak in my PASA voice. "You can choose, Julian...to blink your eyes as I blink mine..." I pause as he settles in his seat and blinks his eyes. Then he stares straight ahead. "You are here, now...and in you there is an exciting character in you in a way...and the hidden way of being entertaining..." He nods yes. "You are really good at being here now... The good Julian...but you don't show it to many people." His eyes are closed and he speaks quietly, saying that he agrees with me. I continue,"There is something frozen in you...as water is frozen...and we are going to do a PASA exercise... so you can flow more freely... That is a thought for you to entertain." For the next three minutes Julian sits quietly , unmoving, his eyes closed, while i talk in my PASA voice. "You are in contact with water which flows freely as a liquid...and you flow along with my voice, Julian...quiet, slow, rhythmic...as you go down deep...deeper...into your imagination and re-call...re-member...re-live...an experience of seeing the sea...as easily as you can say" longer pause "a, b, c...you see...the beach, the water, the sun, the sky...feeling your toes digging into the hot sand...feeling the cool breeze...as you look at the blue sky...and in this PASA exercise the sky is the limit" longer pause You begin to slowly walk into the clear blue water...up to your knees... feeling the gentle waves...looking down at the rippled sand..." I pause for a number of seconds. "With a slight movement of your foot across the sand... you create a sand cloud of hundreds of thousands of particles ...each floating in its own space" longer pause."And being there and then as you imagine it was...here and now...each particle drifts slowly down, deeper and deeper...until finally the last particle is in a new place... The cloud has disappeared and where you are standing...there has been a change...a transformation." I tell Julian that there will be a two minute silence and then I will count from five to one and he will open his eyes feeling refreshed and relaxed. During the two minutes I notice that more than half the audience have their eyes closed. Then I speak. "Soon, very soon...I will count...just as you count very much, Julian...and when I finish counting you will open your eyes...feeling, thinking and being...in the here and now...refreshed and relaxed...5, 4, 3, 2,1... Your eyes are open...you are wide awake." Julian opens his eyes, stretches, along with many in the audience. CRICKET WITH UNCLE CHARLIE He smiles at me and says, "It's funny but I feel bemused." I tell him not to apologize for that and ask him why he is bemused. He doesn't know. "I'll tell you. You are bemused because what is, is." He says, "I think so because the muse hit me during the PASA. I had some jolly good memories. But one thing bothered me. The repetition of my name wasn't helpful." I ask him if the way I said his name reminded him of someone. "Yes, you see, my family calls me Julian and my friends call me Jules." I ask him to share his PASA experiences and he nods, saying, "Well, I had several recalls. I mean, like the sea and the sun and I enjoyed them. One of them was a family game of cricket. Would you like me to talk about cricket?" I ask him why he needs the approval when he is getting so much of it. He replies in a quiet voice, "I suppose I am that sort of person. I need the approval before I go in." I nod my approval and he continues, saying, "Actually it was a very awful place to play cricket. You described the water -- I was ahead of you because I was fielding on the seaside. One uncle was very good and he was whacking the ball way out and I had to go beyond my knees to get the ball disturbing a lot of sand. How did you manage to know about that experience?" "I know that when I am in a PASA condition I am good to my unconscious and then it is good to me. My intuition told me to talk about water, the seaside. Now let's get back to your uncle. What's his name? He laughs loudly as he says, "He's got a family nickname as well." (Loud laughter from the group and Julian.) "Everyone knew him as 'Curly.'" I sigh and say, "I had an Uncle Curly but his name was Uncle Sol. What about your uncle who could really hit it far out?""When he was small he had a curly head of hair and his mother named him Curly. He was a good looking chap, very friendly, and was very good at cricket." "What else about Curly besides getting in deep and doing it well?" He smiles, raising his eyes up, understanding my double entendre. "That is exactly what I am doing now, probably getting in too deep." He laughs. "When I bowled to him, he hit it hard and when he bowled to me I hit him hard." He says this with obvious satisfaction. Theatrically, I say, "Yeeehhh. Just let it wash over you." More laughter from him and the audience. "Isn't it exciting to let yourself go all the way like Uncle Curly? Was there ever any danger in doing that?" He says seriously that there was danger only when the tide was going out. I reply that going all the way might get you in trouble. He doesn't understand. I say, "Perhaps it has something to do with the woman who was erotically involved with you. She might have picked up something in you, that you might have gone 'too far,' not verbal of course. I had a similar experience, Julian. Many years ago I was working in a clinic and I was treating a woman with marital problems. She was attractive, sexy and she picked up what I unconsciously felt, even though I never said or consciously did anything to encourage her. She had an hysterical personality. She told me she wanted to have an affair with me. I told her I could no longer treat her and thought it would end with that. Oh no! When I got home that evening I found her sitting on the steps of my house. I called the police and when they showed up she gave me a furious look and walked off. That was the end of that affair. Then I say, "Let's take a coffee break." End of part 1 of the London Workshop. (Copywritten by Irving Bronsky M.D.)