Awesome appointment tonight! Brief background for first time readers: I have chronic pain from fibromyalgia and have started going for hypnotherapy treatments for pain management.

Tonight was sooooooooo relaxing, cool, and funny

Went under in my favorite way, which is laying on a grassy bank by a river with the sun and the trees and birds. A boat comes floating down the river that I climb into and float down the river on the water

My hip has been horrendous so that's where he concentrated. Once I had sufficiently relaxed so that I was melting into the chair, he began a visualization of me becoming so small that I could go inside my brain. In my brain there was a control room and inside were all switches to control various things. There was a knob to control pain that went from 0-10. I imagined turning up to 10 and the pain increased and then down to zero. It never decreased as much as I would like, but I'm at the beginning and I did notice a difference.

The next visualization made me laugh out loud. I concentrated on the pain in my hip and then he told me to visualize it as a shape or object and with a color. I immediately thought of a devil with a pitchfork and bright red! It was funny. Then I had to picture it getting bigger and bigger and the pain got worse. Then picture it getting smaller and the color fading until it was like a black and white picture. I pictured it turning into a tiny white angel.

The last visualization was that I was walking on a forest path and I had a back pack that was getting heavier and heavier. It was full of all the negative thoughts that I need to discard - and ideas, behaviours, or irational thoughts that I needed to be rid of. The path came out to a beautiful pasture that had a hot air balloon in it. I had to go to the balloon where I found a box that was locked - when I unlocked it there was nothing in it and I was to start unloading my backpack into the box.

Once I unloaded it I could either untie the ropes or pick up an axe nearby and cut the ropes to watch the balloon and all my issues float away. It was way cool!!

When he brought me out it took awhile to become grounded because I was so relaxed and at ease. The first thing I said was "can we do that again"? He laughed and asked which part and I said "all of it"!!

I'm only at the beginning of this but so far I have been able to use some of these skills to control road rage and help me walk into the woods this past weekend. Of course I had the worse pain ever yesterday after that walk, but it was worth it and the pain will subside a bit again.

If you have never experienced hypnotherapy and have the opportunity too I would highly recommend it - my mind has not been so clear and free in many years!

-Tranquility (and certainly tranquil tonight)