How Hypnosis Healed the Child Within

What would you say to that child…

I posted a picture in our MMHA Engage group this week, and it tied in neatly with something else that happened.

To explain, I need to give you a bit of background on ego states.

Ego states are sub-personalities, and we all have them. They’re like the committee that lives inside us—not just abstract concepts, but actual neural pathways burned into our brains.

Each ego state serves a purpose, as I’ve said before.

For example, I have an extremely aggressive ego state that loves close-quarter combat. And also a gentle one, that can be moved to tears by beautiful music, a film like To Kill a Mockingbird, or the look of wonder on my great-niece Bella’s face.

Interestingly, we also have ego states that are frozen at different ages, still very much part of our lives. In my case, certain young ego states can be triggered by something as simple as the smell of Silly Putty or an old black and white commercial from my childhood.

Ego states are mainstream psychology now, but I mention them only to lay the groundwork for my topic.

As some of you know, I’ve spent the past ten months obsessed with two new loves: country music and playing my Yamaha Avant Grand piano (which could be a story for another email).

Recently, I discovered the music of Alabama’s Jamey Johnson, whose rich baritone voice sounds like the vocal equivalent of Jack Daniel's whiskey.

Johnson, a former U.S. Marine, came to country music during his service. Though he’s only 49, he looks much older—like a cross between a benevolent wizard and a tough biker.

Yesterday, I stumbled on a new video of his on YouTube, where he encounters his younger self in a bar, played by an actor who looks strikingly like Johnson did when he recorded his early album, The Dollar.

I found the song deeply moving. In it, Johnson, as an older man, meets his younger self and gives him a glimpse of what his life will become as time flies by in a blink. I won’t say more, but I’ll put the link to the official video at the end of this email.

So, why am I telling you this?

Because the picture I posted in our group was a class photo of me at just eight years old, from the year I completed grades three and four back-to-back.

I was a funny-looking kid with ears so big that my parents joked they weren’t sure if I’d walk or fly. At the time of that picture, I was getting straight As in every subject.

But the following year, everything changed. An authoritarian, hateful teacher made my life miserable, and grade five became a terrifying ordeal that nearly broke me. I was small, phobic, constantly bullied, and generally unhappy.

Life went from magical and wonderful to chaotic and threatening.

That was when I started hating school. I went from top of the class to barely hanging on, failing two full grades, and ended up in summer school three times. I spent my last school year as the only gentile at West Nohant, a Jewish experimental free school, where I was allowed to learn whatever I wanted.

And that little boy—that young ego state—is still inside me.

But he’s not scared anymore. Certainly not of bullies or nasty teachers.

And that’s the power of hypnosis.

Years ago, I put myself into a deep trance and had a conversation with that little boy with the big ears. It became a deeply healing experience for both of us.

I told him he was going to be okay. That one day, he would become me—no longer afraid, but a teacher himself. A different kind of teacher, one who would help others heal, one person at a time.

He would be happy and very, very safe. He would find his power.

Tomorrow at 9 a.m., the Architecture of Hypnosis training begins again in Toronto. We’ll have more than forty students, including many from around the world, who will take this “hypnotic storm” home with them, ready to help others with their new, near-magical skills.

So here’s my question:

If you could speak to your younger self, what would you say?

Would you encourage, warn, or simply be present, sharing in the innocence of that child?

Hypnosis makes that possible.

And next weekend Chris and I, along with our wives, are going to see Jamey Johnson in Toronto!

That little boy inside me is very happy.

- Mike Mandel