As an alternative treatment to aid my well-being and mental health, my mother-in-law, a marriage and family therapist and founder of the Center for Counseling & Integrative Healing, gave me a wonderful opportunity to meet with her co-worker Franz Juarez, a practiced Shaman, hypnotist, energy healer, craniosacral therapist, and overall wonderful spiritual practitioner.
If Kris would have offered me this a year ago, I would have turned it down automatically thinking it was hokey and assuming that it wouldn’t do me any good, even though I knew absolutely nothing about it. However, Franz opened my eyes to a whole new perspective of mental health and alternative healing methods and techniques (visit his website here).
I didn’t really know what to expect meeting with a spiritual practitioner like Franz, but once I met him he gave me a sense of comfort. I didn’t feel like the patient going into the doctor’s office, waiting for a diagnosis (with my psychiatrist, it’s rather a long list of everything that’s wrong with me) and a treatment. Rather, I felt a personal connection, grounded and encompassed by positive energy and good vibes. I didn’t feel intimidated, scared, doubtful, or small, instead I felt safe and ready for our venture.
We started with the guided meditation/hypnotherapy, in which he led me into my own comfortable, safe place – my sanctuary. All rationalizations are thrown out, and the focus is on feeling. What do I see? What do I feel? Where do I feel it? No thinking and asking “why” I feel or acted a certain way. Instead, how and where do you feel those feelings? Don’t think, just feel.
This is always harder than we think. The mind is extremely powerful, and with everything going on in our lives we tend to ignore or just shut out the emotional side or try to rationalize those feelings to make sense of them. Franz helped me shut my mind out for a bit (my Ego) and focus on my intuition, my feelings, that nagging pain in my chest, that heaviness I feel that tends to bring on sorrow, guilt, fear, doubt, and anxiety. He would have to remind me, “Just feel it. Don’t block it, don’t ignore it” when my mind would try to take over in order to rationalize my feelings.
With these simple words, I unveiled a deep-ridden guilt that has lingered for so many years and has intensely grown recently due to all my health issues, hospitalizations, medical bills, etc. This guilt has mostly nestled in my heart in regards to my parents, specifically my mother – how much I hurt them, how much I put them through, the tears, the anger, the frustration, the medical bills, the desire to be a daughter that my parent’s could and would be proud of. The guilt was suffocating me, like someone was sitting on my chest resulting in an aching heart. After many tears, a sense of a reconnection with a Higher Power, and simply just feeling those feelings, I finally felt some of that guilt release and replaced with forgiveness. (I actually left that session and instantly called my mom and felt a sense of joy and lightness when talking with her.)
At the end of our session, Franz gave me a recap of what he sensed and felt as well as some suggestions to help open my mind, body and heart. When he went into his observation, I thought maybe Kris told him about some of my past history, especially with my family, mental health issues, medication, etc, because it was like he knew me for years prior to this meeting. I was blown away! He encouraged me to delve into nature, be outside, exercise, get creative, meditate, and really try to get to know my true self that I have tried to ignore for so long. All these suggestions may seem general and simple, but all of them coincided with events that were and are currently going on in my life, so I just thought it was kind of odd, yet amazing at the same time.
Words will never be able to describe the emotional experience, the spiritual connection, the energy, or the way you feel after one session. All I can do is encourage you to try guided meditation and/or hypnotherapy for simply the experience or as an alternative, additional treatment. As a huge plus, there are no negative side effects other than it may just not be for you. But like many other treatments and methods, give this more than just one try because some things that take time will have a huge impact on your life.