The Online Lodge

Allergies and Other Immune System Disorders: Part 3

Doctors have understood for years that chronic stress in our
lives can trigger a wide variety of immune system disorders,
including asthma, allergies, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis,
etc. They don’t always explain to their patients what
processes cause the normal stresses of daily life to turn
into disease. Nor do they show us how we can deal more
effectively with the stresses in our lives to eliminate these
processes and the symptoms that result from them. You’ll
learn in this article how stress becomes internalized into
immune system malfunction and how with hypnosis we can stop
this dangerous process and thus heal our immune system
reactions.

Among our primitive ancestors, stress usually involved some
profound physical threat which required a rapid and energetic
physical response. If attacked by a saber tooth tiger, our
bodies reacted with a powerful dose of adrenaline from the
adrenal glands, which got our heart pumping, increased mental
alertness, stopped digestion, and prepared us for fight or
flight. With the action of this and other hormones, our
bodies were ready for battle. Unfortunately, nowadays the
stresses we experience usually do not require aggressive and
energetic action.

When the rent is overdue or mother in law
pays a visit, you may have noticed that a few rounds of
screaming, hitting or running are hardly effective solutions,
no matter how good they might feel. So all these stress
hormones simply stir up our bodies into a frenzy of cellular
reactions for which there is no effective release. The
result: our bodies, directed by the subconscious mind, start
attacking whatever is at handinnocent pollen grains, loose
food proteins, or even our own body cells, as in the
rheumatoid arthritis which had me crippled in 1978. (Hold the
sympathy cards. I used hypnotic techniques to free myself of
this disease in 1984 and am now a rock climber and
mountaineer.) What can we do?

Hypnotherapy has the answers. And the first of these lies in
the very definition of hypnosis. Hypnosis is first and
foremost a state of deep relaxation and peace and thus a
premier remedy for stress. A competent hypnotherapist will
spend time showing their client how to induce the state of
self-hypnosis, and will instruct their client both in and out
of trance to access this state every day, especially when
their symptoms are activated by the stresses of daily living.

Hypnotherapists know that even the most ordinary stresses can
become overwhelming if the subconscious mind clouds these
experiences and tasks with negative significance based upon
childhood or other traumas. For example, the simple and
usually pleasurable act of making love to one’s devoted
spouse, for most of us a source of pleasure and relaxation,
can be a nightmare of stress to a survivor of sexual abuse.

It is critical to gather from our clients their descriptions
of the most stressful experiences of their daily lives, so we
can go back in hypnotic regression to “the first time you
felt this feeling” and rescue the client’s earlier self from
these terrible memories. We use emotional release therapy to
help the client push these tensions out of their body,
through sounds, movement, and aggressive emotional
expression. Then we implant in the body new memories,
memories in which the client’s younger self is filled with
safety, power, and love. These new memories are accompanied
by new beliefs. “I’ll never get it right!” is replaced by, “I
can do this and enjoy it!” While many of my clients express
skepticism at first about the possibility of accomplishing
something so farfetched, one session in trance is all they
need to feel the enormous power of the work in their own
bodies, in their own beliefsand in their lives.

Which particular stresses are bringing on an attack of an
autoimmune disease can be discovered in hypnosis by entering
the affected body part as if it were a room. Then we can see
exactly what persons or memories are stored there, and either
complete communication with those persons, or rescue the
former self from these traumatic memories. Details of these
processes can be found at the Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy
library. For example, we enter a client’s arthritic finger
and discover the stresses of trying to type at a job filled
with criticism and undermining of the client’s achievements
by a vicious boss. First I encourage the client to use these
fingers and the client’s voice to express their anger at the
boss.

Then I have the client’s present self applaud the good
work she is doing, while gently stroking and massaging these
fingers. The results? We can see and feel an immediate and
lasting reduction in pain and swelling. I then encourage the
client to continue this healing process on their own if
needed. And such conditions, because they have been ingrained
by years of daily trauma, often require that clients learn to
do these processes every day on their own for a period of
time. This combination of self massage and self hypnosis to
deal with chronic pain is a very powerful and unique feature
of the work I have developed.

Physical exercise is an important element for recovery from
any illness. It is especially difficult for victims of
autoimmune conditions because when we are in pain, or
sneezing, or suffering from chronic fatigue, we just don’t
feel like moving. That’s why to work effectively in this
area, a hypnotherapist must be trained in pain control and
helping to motivate clients to get exercise. The client must
be encouraged to be patient with their bodies and celebrate
the small victories. “I’m too sick to move, so I’ll just
collapse” can become “I walked all the way to the mailbox
today!” Hypnotic suggestion can be used to make movement more
appealing as well. “It’s so much fun to walk again” is a
message that can be repeated in every session, and will be so
much more effective when spoken to the subconscious mind of
the hypnotized client.

Another helpful approach in hypnosis is to communicate
directly in trance to the “soldiers” of the immune system,
telling them to “stand down” from their assault on harmless
pollen grains or those body cells that are being attacked.
For example, for rheumatoid arthritis sufferers, such phrases
as “The linings of your joints are safe. They are a part of
you. They belong to you. Your body is safe and at peace.” can
be very effective. For pollen allergies: “The flowers are
your friends. Their pollen is harmless, a gift from your
friends, the flowers. Your mucus membranes (prime sources of
histamine production) can relax in the knowledge that these
pollens are your friends.” I have personally experienced a
huge healing of an arthritis attack using these methods. It
is often possible to experience a steep reduction in visible
redness and swelling within an hour of this procedure.

In another article, I explain how it is possible to rewire a
client’s biochemical responses to allergens by returning to
infancy, the time when our biochemical immune system
responses were first programmed into our bodies. We can then
change this programming to reduce or eliminate allergic
responses.

Copyright © 2006 By David Quigley