Danny waited for me in his room. I had put on my shorts and a loose shirt to make myself comfortable, and came up the stairs carrying my massage oil and a couple of candles. I used this stuff all the time in my profession as a physical therapist, and I had of course also given massages to family members. This one, however, was going to be a little bit different. I was going to combine the massage with some posthypnotic suggestion.
I was not really a certified hypnotist, but I did sometimes use a similar technique on some of my clients during sessions. If one of my clients was experiencing stress, for instance, I might talk to them while giving them a massage. The sound of a gentle, calm voice turned out to work wonders for some of them, and I developed this further after reading several books on the subject. A couple of my regulars said they felt like sliding into a dream state while I was talking to them, and I really did seem to have a knack for it. One of my clients was a fifty year old man who had been smoking since he was 13. He had tried all the tricks; nicotine patches, gum, the works. After I started trying to persuade him to stop, he did. Just like that. Cold turkey. He was ecstatic.
It was after this initial success that I really started looking at what I was doing and how it worked. With this man, I had simply made him feel completely relaxed, through a combination of my massage and the use of my voice. I had then said that he was not actually a smoker; he was a non-smoker. He would realize this whenever he thought about getting a cigarette. Of course he wouldn't feel the need to smoke, he had no actual need for it. Whenever he went past a storefront, he would feel like he could do without them and not bother buying any. Whenever he had coffee or a meal, he would feel satisfied and not have a craving for anything else. It had become a habit to smoke, now he was replacing that with a habit of not smoking. That's what I told him, and as if by magic, it worked. He returned for a few more sessions, the message was repeated over and over, and eventually, he said that he didn't smoke anymore because he didn't really want to. His wife actually sent flowers to my office - that was nice.
One of my long-term customers said that there was something special in my voice. She'd been to a lot of therapists and said that it sounded naturally hypnotic - there was just something in the way I calmly expressed things that made her naturally want to agree. As I read more on the subject, I did notice that I didn't sound excited or aggressive when I spoke; there was just a calm, monotone voice, as if I were trying not to wake up a deep sleeper - instead, sliding the words into the listener's ear in a quiet, constant stream. So when I was rubbing her shoulders and said that she would feel a growing confidence from being more active and moving around, it just became something she really wanted to do. It was like her mind and body just willingly agreed to what I was saying.
Now, I did feel slightly awkward about using these techniques on my son. On more than one occasion I had thought to myself: "Sarah, are you sure about this...?" It was just that I got so tired of having to ask him for the same things over and over ... When he graduated from college last year, we were both expecting him to find work pretty quickly, so I didn't see it as too much of a hassle when he moved back in with me while searching for a job. I also saw it as a potential bonus to have a young, strong man who could help out with chores around the house, but it didn't quite go that way. After a few months of living in his old room, Danny fell back into his old habits, focusing more on his own things than helping out around the house. It wasn't that he didn't want to help out, he just kept getting caught up in his own distractions.
"I'm sorry, mom, I really did want to help, I just lost track of time ..." was a typical excuse.
I guess I was partly to blame. When my husband left us, years ago, I doted on my only child and Danny spent his teenage years getting used to being served by his mother. I did the cooking and the cleaning, washed his clothes and took care of the shopping. After he'd left for college, he did start to message me about what it was like to have to take care of himself, but once he moved back in, everything just sort of adjusted itself back to the way it used to be when he was growing up.
Lately, though, my frustration levels had risen. When I asked him if he could do the dishes while I went shopping, he'd say: "Sure." Then, when I came back with the groceries, he'd forgotten all about it. And yes, some of his time went into looking for jobs, but I also spotted him surfing the web, working out in the living room and watching TV quite a lot. So yeah, I put away my awkwardness.
I wanted to do something about this situation, and talking to him about it just didn't seem to work. So why not try this other thing instead? I mean, it seemed to do wonders for my customers, so ... why not? After all, he did agree with me that he wanted to be better at this. All the literature agreed: you cannot hypnotize someone into doing something they really don't want to do. A posthypnotic suggestion relies, instead, on the subject's actual desire to do something. The lady who regularly came to my parlour and let me hypnotize her into being more active, she really did want to be more active. The fifty-year-old smoker really did want to stop smoking. And Danny really did want to help out more around the house.
I knocked on his door and entered. He got up from the desk and switched off his computer, ready for his massage.
"Ready?" I asked cheerily.
"Yep. How long does it take again?"
"Hehe, are you in a hurry?"
"No, I just... was just wondering."
"An hour, maybe. I can give you a bit shorter if you like, but if you want to relax, you shouldn't think too much about the time."
"No, that's true."
"So - on the bed?"
"Yep."
He quickly threw off his shirt and stripped down to his boxers. I noticed how toned his body was; he really had grown into a strong, fit young man. Much more so than his father. Kids nowadays, I thought - so eager in the gym, trying so hard to look fit. Well, he did do that. He did lots of crunches, push-ups and other exercises, and they did yield results. He lay down on his bed, face down, head half-way between two pillows so he could breathe more easily. Unlike what I did during work hours, I sat up on his bottom, knees on either side of his body. It's easier doing a good back massage from this position, but not really suitable for work as it is a bit intimate. I didn't have an issue parking myself on top of my son, though. I'd changed his diapers, so sitting on his rump was no biggie.
Applying the oil on his back, my hands were working it into his skin, slowly spreading it from his shoulders to the small of is back. My fingers pressed into his muscles - he had some meat on him, my big boy. I liked this. He was always a little bit tense when I started massaging his shoulders, but after ten minutes or so, he would find himself unable to avoid relaxing, letting go of the world around him and think only of the feeling of my hands on his skin. I could have that effect on people. I was good at this - that's why I started up as a physio in the first place.
"Feeling a bit more relaxed now?" I whispered to him after about fifteen minutes.
"Mhm..." came a very relaxed moan from between the pillows.
"That's good, just let your body grow heavy in the mattress, let yourself sink slowly down... You feel more and more relaxed and comfortable for every second..."
I kept talking to him like this for a while, using phrases I had learned from my textbooks, sending my boy deeper and deeper into a trance-like state. I could feel it working, his body went completely limp and he only made small noises every few minutes or so. I then tried bringing him even deeper.
"Danny... I'm going to count down from five, and when I reach zero, you will open your eyes and take two deeeeep breaths... then you will say: "I'm so relaxed". When you do this, you will feel your whole body relaxing and falling into a nice, comfortable trance. Five.. four... three... two... one... zero..."
"Mmmm... I'm so relaxed..." he muttered into the mattress.
"Goood..." I breathed while moving my hands from the small of his back all the way to his shoulders. "One more time now, and after you speak, you will fall even deeper into trance... five ... fooour... three... twooo... ooone ... aaand zero..."
"I'm sooooo relaxed..." he said after his deep breaths and I could feel him breathing under me. After a few more minutes of this kind of conditioning, getting him to do simple things and make replies, I felt that he was ready.
"Danny...?" I whispered to him, in the same calm voice.
"Mhm..." he muttered.
"Do you love your mother?"
"Yes..." he muttered again - he seemed almost asleep.
"Do you want to help mommy with her tasks around the house?"
"Yes."
"You really want to help out?"
"Yes."
"All right. Why don't you say that. When I count down from five, say that you would like to help me. When you have said it, you will sense a nice warm feeling of purpose spreading through your body. Five... four... three... two... one... zero..."
"I want to help you, mom."
"I know. You're a good boy, aren't you... We both know that. We both know you want to help mommy. You just forget sometimes, don't you ... But there's a way to change that. Would you like to do that...? Would you like to change that for your mommy?"
"Yes..."
"When I count down from five, you can say that you would like to help me, and once again you will feel that lovely warm feeling of fulfilment growing inside you. Five, four, three, two, one, zero..."
"I want to help you, mom."
"Good. When we're here at home together and I say that I need something, you will start to feel a strong urge to help as soon as you can. You will not be able to stop yourself from helping me, you will feel that it is your duty to assist your mother. You will get a powerful sense of satisfaction from helping me. Every time you help me, this feeling will get stronger. Whenever a chance to help comes up, you will remember hos much you love this feeling, and you will desire to have more of it. You will very much want to do for me the things I need done, and you will feel a great satisfaction in helping your mommy. Once you have done it, you will not remember why you wanted to do it so badly, you will just feel a great satisfaction. All right ... now I'm going to count down from ten, and when I reach zero, you will open your eyes and feel refreshed and happy. Ten... nine... when you wake, you will feel this urge slowly building inside you. Eight ... seven ... You will feel the urge to prove to me and to yourself that you're a good son, that you want to help your mother whenever you can, and that you can be useful. Six... five... Every time I thank you for helping, you will feel a strong sense of confidence flowing through your body. Four... three ... You will feel stronger, more useful than before, and every time you hear me thank you for your help, your confidence and general well-being increases. Two... You will feel more and more successful, and every success makes you want to repeat it so that you can feel it again. One ... You know you're a good son and you can hardly wait to live the life of a good son ... Zero."
