The transformation

Three weeks ago, she called herself asexual. Today she masturbates at least daily. Three weeks ago, she avoided dressing well in public for fear that people would think her a slut. Today, she enjoys the looks she gets at the gym. 

Three weeks ago, she was Shannon the highly inhibited psychotherapist. Today, she is Sabrina, the therapist who makes a point of telling her clients to consider their sexual health.

Shannon, a fan of this blog for some time, had gotten in touch with me, with issues that standard therapy hadn't touched, decades of challenges to her sexual self-esteem. Her uncle had molested and belittled her at age 3. Her mother had punished her for every slight step in the direction of romance or sexual expression, whether at age 8, 12 or 17. High school boyfriends had bragged about her as a conquest. She'd made a few bad relationship choices as an adult. 

Meanwhile, just under the surface, she hid a part of herself she called Sabrina. Sabrina was all the things Shannon was not -- sexually comfortable, but also organized, efficient, brave and unashamed. Shannon wanted all those things. Could I help?

It turned out that many of my Global Suggestion methods, especially those enlisting her subconscious mind, helped to turn down the negatives and turn up the positives. 

It was a team effort. 

Sabrina helped Shannon buy sex toys. Then, when Shannon tried to use them, and her mother's voice scolded her, her subconscious showed her how to mock her mother's interruptions. Meanwhile, I was helping Shannon feel her own body again -- first with the pain of clothespins, then with a well of pleasure that I located in her lower back. She could share the energetic pleasure with others by touching them... and refill the well by touching herself with her toys.

We also discovered that she had a conscious entity on board that was repeating her dear uncle's comments in her ear. I persuaded Amanda to become her inner cheerleader instead. 

All these helped, but I was nervous. I knew that for Easter Shannon was going to spend a long weekend with her family, a set of people who routinely triggered her worst behaviors and worst thoughts about herself. I expected a setback.

But, surprise, the night before the trip, Shannon said that she was just too tired of feeling guilty and anxious all the time. What she really wanted was to take a vacation of a different sort.

"I want a place where I can rest and heal. I want a place where I don't have to be responsible for daily projects and organizing and future planning." She decided it was her turn to hibernate, preferably on a warm beach somewhere. And that Sabrina was perfectly capable of managing things.

When would she want to go? "Tonight, when I sleep. I need to say goodbye to my cat."

So now Sabrina is in charge. She checks in on Shannon from time to time, but mostly is out in the world, exploring and enjoying her new life. Her laundry is done. The house is clean. She works out reliably. Her colleagues have noticed her new energy. 

And whenever she feels out of sorts, out of balance, she pulls out her toys and re-centers herself with a good solid orgasm. 

A professional, with a personal request

Store clerk: "Yes, may I help you?"

Young professional woman, holding up package of tiny clothespins decorated with red ladybugs: "Can you tell me whether these are as tight as regular clothespins?"

Store clerk, staring: "You weren't planning to use those on clothes, were you?"

No, of course not. Shannon was planning to use them on her breasts.

The previous night, Shannon had worn six ordinary wood clothespins, at my suggestion. They were intense, she reported, equal parts painful and arousing. But now she wanted a change -- for something more attractive. And the ladybugs did the trick. Next day, she wore 31 of them, for a telephone meeting that she ran from home. She thinks no one noticed.

Shannon is a longtime reader of this blog, who finally built up the nerve to order a few of my recordings and then asked me for more training.

What particularly interests me about Shannon:  She's a psychotherapist, and a hypnotherapist, with a busy practice. But she sees in BDSM hypnosis new opportunities for sexual healing that ordinary psychotherapy cannot touch, and she wants to find out. With herself as test subject.  I'm happy to explore this too.

As it turns out, the clothespins were just the start of an intense week for Shannon.

In the course of our hypnotically tackling and resolving one issue she's had since she was 3, these things occurred: She found herself standing naked on her balcony, in the middle of the night (for how long she does not recall); tied up and taken by an anonymous lover who left her squirting on her bed; kneeling in someone else's bathroom, holding her breath as her arousal grew toward orgasm;  curled up as a kitten at the end of her own bed for the night; and giving a public presentation one evening with the aforementioned clothespins on her nipples, just concealed by her professional clothes.

Shannon has a lot of remaining sexual inhibitions, and a lot of work ahead of her. (Example: She is just now buying her first sex toys.) But by the time she's done, I expect that she will be shame-free, fully in charge of her own sexuality.

Watch out. Next time a clerk asks her about her plans for the pretty clothespins, Shannon just might show her.

You're getting very ... focused

Alma has one of those jobs where you really need to pay attention sometimes. One afternoon she messaged me, desperate for some sort of hypno trick that would shut out all distractions and help her crank through the paperwork.

Now, I am really good at sending subjects, including Alma, on little mental vacations. She loves to fly with the birds. But I'd never been asked for the opposite effect. So I had to think about this.

Alma has a lot of interests that seem to be switched on at all times, and at work often plays music, prowls the web and chats with me when she really should be working. And it's a small office, with a couple of lively colleagues who are hard to ignore. What she needed was an all-purpose fog machine.

Next time I saw her, I installed a little self-hypnotic trigger. I had her put her index finger against her temple, and then slide it slowly, slowly down her jaw to her chin. At the same time, I told her to watch my hands, which were closing  together in front of her, forming a sort of tunnel. And I told her to gradually block out all the surroundings, and replace them with a fog, as her attention narrowed to what was immediately in front of her.

As her finger ran down her jaw, her focus narrowed. When she slid it up again, her focus broadened.

After a few tries on her own, she said she had it.

I agreed. On her last try, a roaring freight train had gone past us. She hadn't even noticed.

The next day, I didn't hear from her until evening. Alma  was ecstatic. It had worked so well. The combination of the sliding finger against her skin, my voice telling her to focus, and the image of my hands tightening her field of view had all reinforced each other. The hours had flown past, and the paper pile was a lot smaller.

She uses it all the time now. She calls it her dimmer switch.

In fact, it works so well that one of her colleagues can't stand it. She pays no attention to his shenanigans now, to the point where he slams into her office and asks where her mind has gone. She's tempted to tell him.

Out on the Edge

We've talked about effects, body modification, playing with my memory and the usual kinds of parlour tricks associated with hypnosis, i wanted to take some time to talk about something else We've been working on.

From time to time We have played with things at the very edges of my limits, going so far as to work on one major phobia in particular. i am extremely claustrophobic. This stems from a pretty serious near death experience. i can't stand being in closets or inside anything where my face is covered or i can't see out or get out on my own.

This presents some potential problems for bondage situations that Sir may want to engage in with me including hoods, complete mummification etc...so He thought, and i agreed somewhat nervously that we should work on conquering this together.

He is not a therapist but He definitely understands where my phobia comes from. We've had extensive conversations about it. i've talked through where my fear comes from and what triggers it. With His empathetic nature He is somewhat of a natural at helping me face and conquer this fear.

We started out very very slowly with Him putting me inside a bag for a couple seconds at a time, always with His voice in my ear calming me and keeping me grounded in the present instead of flashing back to past experience. It was very hard at first, being isolated like that and the first few times i think i nearly hyperventilated.

Slowly though, with His calm voice and reassurances i began to be able to spend more and more time inside the bag, eventually growing to 30 seconds or so which would have been unthinkable even a few short months ago. He and i both discussed the progress and decided it was time to continue.

He started by sitting me on the floor and surrounding me with three brick walls so i could still see out the front. Then, with His ever present voice in my ear, He closed the last wall very close around me. i nearly panicked but He quickly brought me back down reassuring me that i was safe and ok ... that He was right there with me.

It took some time to get used to that, to being so completely closed in, the wall going all the way up to the sky, and i still breathe hard and have to really concentrate in order to sit still but please believe me when i say that there is NO WAY that would have been possible before He started this with me.

We have continued to push this boundary and are now working on actual closets which is where my fear comes from so it is the most intense of 'panic buttons'. He has a very clever mind, which you may have noticed, and is always thinking of new ways to replace my fear with pleasure instead, allowing me to move forward in ways that i never imagined possible.

Once or twice He has put a trigger on my closet door so that when i walk in, and get up the courage to close the door, i orgasm. This definitely has a way of tweaking ones perspective, though i am very far from comfortable in the closet with the door closed at least i can stand in there and think about closing the door without abject panic washing over me.

We've also played with my 'younger self' in relation to this fear. He has reverted me to times where closets were fun, exciting places rather than something to be feared. We have played hide and seek several times, hiding from various friends i had when i was younger. We've also played dress up in my mom's closet, the smells and sights so familiar that they instantly calmed me.

Most recently we were in the closet playing 'seven minutes in heaven' which i don't think i've played since about the 8th grade. It was fun kissing Him as my younger self and giggling about what everyone outside was thinking. This has definitely helped change my perception of what the closet is and is somewhat more related to traditional 'therapy' ... though i don't think you're supposed to make out with your therapist.

This is not something to be taken lightly or "played" with. A phobia or trigger this serious needs to be dealt with in a calm and rational manner and should never be used to scare or tease a sub, but with careful planning and tiny baby steps it can be worked through and the line pushed ever so gently forward.