Igor: The second part of that is you’re going to start doing a series of reframes.
Is it okay if I just use REF for reframe? Otherwise I have to spell it often and my arm gets tired. These reframes will happen at different points of the conversation.
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Hypnotic Pain Control ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved For some people it will happen earlier, for some it will happen later. We’ll do it mechanically here just to get used to them, but they’ll happen at different stages of the conversation depending on where the person’s mind goes. Do you understand what I mean by that? So we’ll put it in a linear process but it’s a nonlinear activity.The reframe that fits here most perfectly is reframing the idea of permanence. This very typically happens on the 1-10 scale. This is chronic pain. Do you know what the difference is between acute and chronic pain?
Acute pain is a pain right now. Your tooth gets pulled and there’s a sensation as a result. Someone cuts my hand and there’s a sensation as a result. If that sensation continues over six months’ time, that’s a chronic pain. It’s continuing long after the injury that sustained the original pain.
Does that make sense?
Another way of looking at it is just a medical way of saying is the pain recent, or has it been going on for a while? That’s another way of looking at acute versus chronic pain. Does that make sense to you? It’s a real simple way of looking at it.
Don’t get misled by medical labels. They confuse us and actually cement things in that don’t need to be. See through the illusion a little bit.
What this idea of permanence does is it actually starts attacking the primary driver of chronic pain. It is the fear that it will carry on going. It is the primary element that actually augments chronic pain. It is the fear that it will never stop. Do you see how with a very simple maneuver, we can already begin to start taking care of that?
Joe is a good guy. He’s smart. He gets the consequences and he’s adapting very quickly. So I can do this in a minute or two, and you’ve done it in a minute or two, haven’t you? There are other people, who can’t wrap their heads around it so easily. You’ll have to spend maybe 20 minutes or a half an hour just on that one idea.
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Hypnotic Pain Control ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved When the mind state breaks around that idea, then you see what we had over here with the paramedic. You will see them flooding with relief, and the pain control story is just so easy for you to do at that point. Whether you diminish it or you eradicate it at that point, you are on a home run at this point. Does that make sense to you? Do you see how these things start stacking up? Yes? I’d like you to do the exercise.Student: This is actually about the scale of pain. If someone has chronic but intermittent pain like migraines and things like that, does it matter that they’re not experiencing it when they come in and, if so, how do you work with step three?
Igor: In step three, if they don’t have the pain present when you’re there, it’s harder to work with. For example, some people want the proof that pain control works, so they want you to anesthetize their hands, so you can stick it in a bucket of ice or put a needle through it as proof. That’s a traditional way of teaching anesthesia and it can work.
The problem with that is there’s no leverage. There’s no message. There’s no purpose. How can you leverage with something that’s not there? When they’re in pain is the easiest time to work with them because they want to get out of it. When they’re not in pain, it’s easier for their normal mindset to exist because the mind tends to stabilize things. Does that make sense?
Can you work with it? Yes, it’s just going to be a little trickier. I would recommend that you first get used to this process, work with people who are in pain and then when they have that intermittent thing and they come in when it’s intermittent, you’ll get more insight into how to work with that at that point. This is an experience thing at this point, but the principles are identical. Does that help?
Student: I wanted to say – because that’s my experience. I think the thing that I realized and the reason I think that this could work even if you weren’t actually in pain is because I realize it’s fear and sadness about continuing
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Hypnotic Pain Control ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved to experience these in the future and what it does to their life. That is the key there.Igor: Recall the worst part of any chronic pain no matter how intense it is – the worst part of it all, the thing that augments it beyond the tolerance threshold is looking back and remembering the pain, and then looking forwards and fearing it will happen again.
I’ll give you a quick story before the exercise at this point, if that’s okay with you. Were you there in the mentoring program with the back pain?
We had a student when we did a mentoring program and he asked for pain relief. I wouldn’t do it during the program because he had no letter.
He came onto a mentoring program with a smaller group and luckily just at about the point when we started doing the pain control, the doctor faxed through the medical consent. He brought it in, I saw it, and it was all fine, so we did something just at the right time so it actually worked out very nicely.
The first time I asked him how’s your back feeling now, he had back pain.
He’d been crushed in an industrial accident. How does your back feel right now on a scale of 1-10? Do you know what his answer was? Eight or nine.
Then I asked him no, I mean right now how is it feeling? Oh, now it’s a four. That’s pretty much what we did right? This shows you in no uncertain terms exactly how chronic pain works. He was so busy remembering the pain that he actually thought it was at a level eight.
When he actually checked his back, when he actually sent his mind down to find out what’s going on here for real, he was surprised that it was less.
Now can you imagine how easy it was for me to help relieve that at that point?
He had this dramatic shift and he had no idea how it happened. I do, because his mind was in the wrong place. We’ll talk about this in the
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Hypnotic Pain Control ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved afternoon but it was just a question of jumping on the non-awareness set, and it diminished to nothing, zero.The only thing he felt was the sensation of someone touching his back with his thumb, so there was a light pressure reminding him that he needs to take care of it, and that was it and it stayed that way.
Can you see how all this stuff starts feeding in together? Does that help?
Student: How did you know to ask?
Igor: Because I always ask.
My experience has shown me that when I ask someone what the pain is, they will tell me what they expect to be there. You’ve seen me actually do this a few times with a couple of people here. I asked them, what is the pain level? They say it is this, and then I checked in – is that what it is right now? Just check. It’s a standard thing I will ask. Hence, it’s so easy to work with. It’s kind of what happened to you, isn’t it?
Liz expected the pain to be greater but when she checked in, it’s like my God, it’s a lot less than I thought it would be. That’s the nature of chronic pain. This is why meditation can work so well – one of the reasons.
If all you do is suck them into the one moment in time, you’ve just gotten rid of 60% of the cause of that pain. How can they not feel relief? Does that help?
Student: Yes, thanks.
Igor: Very quickly – I want to do the exercises.
Student: For the permanence?
Igor: The permanence of the problem?
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Hypnotic Pain Control ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved Student: Yes, asking the person how he’s feeling right now, is that what you mean?Igor: That’s one way to do it. There are many ways to do it. That’s a simple example of it, yes. Another example was when I asked is it always like this, or is it sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker? If he says oh no, it’s sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker, he’s also agreeing that it can change so that it’s not permanent. Do you see what I mean?
Those are not the only two ways of doing it. I don’t want to limit you to my way of doing it or my favorite questions. I’ll give them to you and there are other ways too.
Student: The one thing I don’t understand is you just checked the scale and then always there was some conversation and they say oh, now it’s okay.
Igor: I’m not saying that now it’s okay. Can we role play this conversation?
Would that help you if I have a short role play with him just so you see? So on a scale of 1-10, where is it right now?
Joe: It hurts. It’s a seven.
Igor: Great, so just double check on your shoulder and really get a sense of it.
Where is it right now?
Joe: Actually it’s more like a four.
Igor: This is a very typical conversation we’d have – typical. Sometimes he just says no, it’s still a seven, which is fine. No big deal. So you just say it’s a seven?
Joe: It’s a seven.
Igor: So it’s still a seven, right?
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Hypnotic Pain Control ©Street Hypnosis All Rights ReservedJoe: Yes.
Igor: So it’s still the same. Fine, now I just want to double check if that’s all right. It’s a no brainer. I’m just minimizing that. So is it always a seven or is it sometimes stronger or sometimes weaker?
Joe: It’s sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker.
Igor: All right, so what’s the lowest it’s been?
Joe: Maybe a two.
Igor: Great, so if you could keep it at a two for the rest of your life, I know it’s not the ideal solution, but if you could just keep it at a two for the rest of your life, would that be a significant improvement over how your life is right now?
Joe: Yes.
Igor: I have just reframed the whole idea of permanence. He’s accepted number one that it’s possible, and number two that it’s already happened at least temporarily. If it can happen for a short period of time, we can just extend that time. I can make him a chronic reliever rather than a chronic pain person.
Does this make sense? Does that help now? Do you understand this conversation here, folks? Please just skip through sets one and two as quickly as possible – literally, just a couple of seconds just to get a token effort. Spend some time on steps three and four working on that level of pain a little bit just to get a sense of where they’re at. Off you go.
Did you all have a chance to go through steps one to four? Yes? Now I realize the way we’re doing it right now, that it’s quick little sound bites.
They’re hitting the essence of the idea.
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Hypnotic Pain Control ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved As I mentioned earlier on, I could happily have this conversation with Joe for an hour before I can get anywhere near pain control, and there are some people who are so onboard from the get-go that we’re done in five minutes.The example in the mentoring program, the guy we were working with there – Jimmy, who’s a great guy – he was bugging me when we had the stage hypnosis beforehand. In fact if you watch the stage hypnosis DVDs, you’ll see him on it.
He was bugging me constantly during that program – oh, I’ve got this pain thing and please help me, and I was telling him to get the letter, get the letter, get the letter and I’ll be able to help you. Give me that letter.
He was going yeah but I’ve got this problem. He got the letter. They faxed it in. Once he showed me that letter, you saw him handing that letter over, how long did it take to complete the whole thing?
Joe: Five or ten minutes.
Igor: Right, it was so quick, I even had no concept of how long it took because once you get past these stages – one more step we’ve got in here – in my opinion you’re almost done. The rest is just the flipping the switch. You’ve built the machine. You just have to push the on button.
Everyone focuses in hypnosis – and this is a little crazy in my opinion. They focus on the technique. Well, do you use glove anesthesia? Or, do you use the secret Jedi technique? If you want to know that one, I’ll record it for you, okay – after I figure out what’s going to be in it.
When you watch the clinicians at work, the ones that are constantly getting success is they think it’s the technique but it’s not. It’s what they’re doing before that. Unconsciously they’re getting it all together. Are you getting a real appreciation for how important this step is? Yes?