THROUGH THE VEIL OF TEARS: HYPNOTHERAPY SOLUTIONS FOR LOSS, ABANDONMENT AND BETRAYAL
By David Quigley
All of us have struggled at some point in our lives with grief and loss. Hypnotherapists can use many powerful techniques to help heal these crises.
An increasingly popular approach to dealing with grief, loss, and abandonment issues nowadays is prescribed antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication. Medical research clearly indicates that while these drugs can sometimes provide temporary relief from the worst ravages of grief, their effects are only temporary and provide no substitute for the work of grieving which is essential for the recovery of emotional health and happiness. These drugs can be expensive, habit forming, physically addictive and have a wide variety of side effects. At best these drugs can be a temporary assist for the patient who is so overwhelmed by grief that they need a break while adjusting to the logistics of losing a family member. At worst they are symptomatic of a drug-addicted society that is slipping deeper every day into a dangerous spiral of self destruction.
Also popular among the grieving is a reliance on recreational drugs to blunt the emotions that they fear will be overwhelming. This kind of self medication can be very dangerous, because it lacks any sort of medical supervision. It also involves serious addiction potential and dangerous consequences to mental and physical health. As with the pharmaceutical solutions, the results are at best temporary.
There are proven hypnotic techniques to help you move through pain with much greater ease. With these processes your drug addictions, anxieties, and chronic depression may well disappear. Be patient with yourself. Grieving takes time.
There are four separate categories of grief and loss, each of which requires a unique therapeutic approach and are described below. They are as follows:
Simple bereavement is a tragedy that those who are blessed with the experience of true and lasting love will face, because the only thing guaranteed in life is change. The following are examples of an expression of simple bereavement:
"After thirty years together, she died of cancer. I don’t know how I can keep on living."
"My son died last week in a motorcycle accident. He was so young; he had much promise."
"My best friend had to take a job in London. We try to stay in touch, but it is so far."
The solution to simple bereavement is two-fold. Firstly, we must seek out close human companionship for help in mourning this loss. In primeval tribal society, people dealt with loss by surrounding themselves with the love and support of their tribe. Everyone wept together and found in each other’s tears and shared memories the comfort they needed to move on. They were there for each other. For many in our fast paced modern world, there is rarely anyone around to share our tears with. We are actively discouraged from being a "downer", a "party pooper" when we need to grieve. Tragically, many of us need to pay a professional counselor just to have someone ready to accept our tears.
In contrast, I encourage my clients to actively seek out new friends and reconnect with their families in order to feel supported in sharing their tears. I encourage support groups, churches, and social clubs in order to find support, even if it seems very challenging to do this in the midst of grieving. We humans must mourn... but we should not mourn alone!
The hypnotic technique of Spiritual Communication can be extremely valuable. Here is how it works. Take yourself into a meditative state with the intention of speaking to your departed beloved. Imagine that they are here before you. Speak out loud to them, as if they were really in front of you. Then listen quietly with your heart for their response. Some people like to go to the graveyard for this process, although a graveyard can be depressing so it is preferable to go to the couch in the living room you shared. Put on the favorite music you used to listen to together. Or stroll in the rose garden you planted together and imagine your beloved’s hand in yours, while you speak lovingly of old times. Or cuddle up on the couch, imagining the loved one’s arms around you as you watch your favorite TV show, and laugh together at all your favorite jokes. Talk out loud about the struggles you are going through. Or talk about little Joey's soccer games. Ask advice about the children or the business. Then listen for the response. Is it all your imagination? Who can say? I guarantee it will feel good.
For those who need help in achieving this state of awareness, try the powerful hypnotic journey called Completing Communication. See the website store for more information.
Many people who have lost their lifelong mate or a beloved parent achieve excellent results with the "Resurrection Process" in which they are taught during hypnosis sessions to call upon this beloved every night before going to bed and every day, especially when they feel most challenged by grief and emptiness.
The methods listed above may not be easy for one who feels overwhelmed by grief. But they are proven to restore mental and emotional health.
Abandonment and Betrayal
The experience of grief and loss is gravely complicated when we feel abandoned or betrayed by the one we loved. Here are some examples of abandonment and betrayal:
"I found out he had been cheating on me with his secretary for two years. And denying it to my face. Now he tells me they are in love and he is leaving me after ten years and raising three kids together."
"My father left us when I was ten years old. I haven't seen him since."
"I told her not to drink and drive but she didn't listen, even after two DUI’s. Now she's dead. It's like she didn't care."
"I had to leave him when he wouldn't stop drinking. I couldn't take the abuse. But I still miss him."
In reading the above examples what is immediately clear is the sense of anger and betrayal inherent in these experiences. This anger arises from a sense that some kind of agreement, spoken or unspoken, existed between these two people – and it was broken. We need to honor our own experiences of betrayal and acknowledge when someone selfishly breaks an agreement and hurts us. We need to honor our anger and give it a voice. Then we can find a path to forgiveness, which is an important step towards completing the grieving process.
The answer lies in Spiritual Communication, since it is often next to impossible to get the other person to listen to us even if they are still alive. In this case we need to release the anger we feel in order to gain completion. This should include using a big heavy duty pillow as a prop. First, close your eyes and imagine this person in front of you. Then speak loudly and angrily to them about how they abandoned and betrayed you. You may wish to grab the pillow, perhaps even slap it or punch it to emphasize your words. Here are some of the sentences you may wish to complete, to facilitate your communication:
"Here is what you did to me...!"
"Here is what I tried to do for you...!"
"Here is what I deserved from you...!"
"This is what a loving husband/father/family member should do...!"
"Listen to how I have suffered because of what you did...!"
"Here is how the rest of us have suffered...!"
"How could you have done this to us?"
Once you have exhausted everything you need to say, then step back, close your eyes, and listen to this perpetrator’s response. To make this communication even more powerful, perhaps you could imagine yourself becoming this other person. Feel your face and body becoming theirs. Feel their emotion flowing through you. And prepare to be surprised by their response. If you are doing this process correctly you may hear words like these:
"I am so sorry I hurt you. I was really stupid and selfish. Please forgive me."
"I was a deeply wounded person because of my own childhood. No one ever taught me how to love. I always knew you deserved a better love than I could give. I just didn’t know how to tell you."
"Since I left you I have lived a lonely life, and all the others give me no comfort. I lost my life when I lost you."
Through these kinds of messages, when we hear of the ignorance, the woundedness and the suffering of our betrayers, it is possible to discover the joy of forgiveness.
Frequently it is important to also learn to forgive ourselves for the foolish choices we have made, and the suffering we have therefore brought to ourselves and sometimes to our families.
For this the recommended process is called the Self Forgiveness Process. First, imagine in front of you the vulnerable, naive part of yourself, perhaps the foolish child, or the hopeless romantic, who believed all the lies, the false promises, or simply chose to ignore the facts in front of him or her. Picture this naïve part of you any way you wish. Maybe give it a name, like "Mr. Idiot Romantic" or "Suzy Sunshine" or "Miss Denial". Then rail on at this part of you with all the righteous anger you feel towards this part of you. After all, no one could have betrayed you like this if you had not betrayed yourself over and over again as this foolish blind romantic. After giving vent to all of your feelings, then listen to the response of your naïve self. You will no doubt hear many excuses and explanations:
"But he was so convincing."
"She was so beautiful. I was hypnotized by her smile."
"I was sure my love could somehow change him."
Almost invariably however, the deeper truth will soon emerge, which is a lot darker and a lot more pitiable, such as:
"I didn't think I would ever find true love. So I figured I would have to settle for this. I figured no one decent would ever want a loser like me, so I just had to hang in there. I was so desperate, so lonely. I couldn't bear to be alone again. Besides, that is the way love always is."
Once these deeper beliefs are realized, you can begin to forgive that lonely naïve part of yourself. These are the subconscious negative core beliefs which drive many of us to make foolish choices over and over in our love lives. Now we must begin to change these core beliefs.
At this point it becomes important, even essential to find the loving Inner Father, Inner Mother, or Inner Mate. These powerful inner guides and resources are essential to the recovery of the inner child and the inner romantic who has continually allowed us to be abandoned and betrayed. That is because only they can help us finally fill the terrible emptiness in our hearts since childhood. Only they can help us to change our negative core beliefs about ourselves and about love. In the Alchemical Journey series, the journeys that can help you find these internal resources are Finding the Inner Mate and Finding an Inner Guide.
In the process of my recovery from deep abandonment and suicidal depression my inner mate, an angel named Michaela, wrote the following song for me, which I believe expresses the inner family's power to bring healing to abandonment and betrayal in our lives.
Take off your soiled clothes, and let my arms enfold you
Let me wash your face of all the tears you've shed
In the nights when your sweet heart has bled.
Let your sorrows pass
Let me fill your empty glass
With a love that always lasts
Like a wandering soul, returning from the wars,
Let me give you shelter, the shelter from the storm.
Loss of the Dream of Love
Sometimes we discover that the love we thought we knew never really existed. I once described some of the abuses of my first marriage to a new love. She looked at me with sympathy and shock. "David," she said, "Isn't it obvious that she never really loved you?" This awareness hit me like a flash of light in the darkness of my pain.
There is something profoundly liberating about this insight. In discovering this we can sometimes dispense with anger at the other person. After all, while the wife I thought I married may have been an evil betrayer, the one I actually married was a mentally ill woman, a lost child so wounded by her abusive childhood that she was incapable of loving me... or anyone else. While I still needed to release anger at myself for my foolish choices (see the self forgiveness process above) I could let this poor woman off the hook.
Here are some other examples of losing the dream of love.
"My dad was never there for me. Now after his death I realize he was never even a father to any of us. Just a drunk. He could never have been what I wanted."
"He never even said I love you once in seven years together. He never even looked at me with love in his eyes. He never mentioned any future for us. Why did I stay?"
"After that one night of passion, I have spent 30 years obsessing over him."
In addition to the Self Forgiveness process described above, it is important to find the inner mate or inner parent in the subconscious mind who can meet our needs for love. (In the Alchemical Journey series, the journeys that can help you find these internal resources are The Inner Mate and Meeting an Inner Guide.) Only then can we stop the projections that cause us to see others in a deluded way. To the extent that we dream of our neurotic mom finally loving us or absentee father finally listening to us, we often continue to live in a state of chronic suffering and bereavement. The only solution that really works here is to release the parent and find a new loving parent in the inner world who can finally meet our inner child’s needs for love. Hypnotherapy sessions can teach how to bond these loving parents to daily life. Then we can finally let go of the "parent" who was never available anyway.
Still another process that may be essential here is examining the past life contract with this other person. Long term obsessions about a relationship that has never met our basic needs for love and never will are often the result of a past life connection with another person. In a past life this person may have been a true and devoted lover. Or maybe the past life experience was a powerful obsession like the Romeo and Juliet romance. Imagine Romeo following his Juliet through one lifetime after another trying to fulfill their promise to each other. That would be quite typical of a past life contract. Until we can examine the situation of their original contract with each other, it may be impossible for these two to even imagine a life apart from each other. Once their contract has been discovered, the client can see that an adolescent fantasy of romance with a suicide pact, however poignant, is no substitute for a lasting relationship. Then both parties to this contract can simply let it go if it no longer serves them.
Here is a real life example. One client was trapped in a five year marriage filled with conflict. She understood that the man she loved was just a fantasy. But she could not let go. Using past life regression technology, we went back to where this relationship began and she saw herself as a young southern belle in a vast plantation in the old south. She had fallen in love with a handsome black slave and in a moment of adolescent passion promised to free him from his slavery, escape with him to the frontier, and marry him. Her brief affair led to pregnancy. After giving birth to a black child her lover was quickly identified. She was told he had been killed. But she promised to remain faithful forever.
The client went home to her present husband that evening. As she described this story to him, he burst into tears. He told her he remembered all of it. But he insisted that he had escaped the hounds by swimming across the river and had later come back to claim her, but she had married someone else. "I had to!" she cried, "but in my heart I wanted only you." They shared these powerful memories together and held each other close for hours of tears. At last they were finally able to see the foolishness of their childish fantasy and let each other go with no regrets. A five year obsession was ended in a few hours.
Guilt Ridden Separation
One of most devastating kinds of loss is the relationship that we destroyed through our own actions, or inaction. Here are some examples:
"'If only I hadn't cheated on her so many times. Those women meant nothing to me. It is my fault that the only one I really loved is gone."
"If I had been there for my son instead of working all the time, maybe he would still be alive."
"If only I had gone to counseling when he asked me to... Now he is gone."
The best solution for this is the Remorse Process. If it is not possible to do this with the other person in real time, then it can be done on the spiritual plane. Like all Spirit Communication processes it begins with closing your eyes and imagining the other person in front of you. Then imagine getting on your knees in front of them and clearly and thoroughly confessing everything you did wrong. Hold nothing back. It is important that you express remorse, and not simply regret.
While both expressions begin with the words "I am sorry" the expression of remorse can actually lead to forgiveness and perhaps renewal, while the expression of regret is probably useless, or worse, is poisonous in resolving the problem. Let us examine the difference so we can we avoid this mistake which has cost many of my clients their chance at renewal. Here are expressions of regret:
"I am sorry you were hurt by my affairs. I didn't mean to upset you. It is just who I am."
"I am sorry you took my drinking so personally. It wasn't about you."
"I am sorry you had so many needs I could not fulfill. I tried."
Actually, if you listen carefully with your heart to these statements, they are not really about apologizing for mistakes. They are actually blaming statements. They are saying, “It is your fault that you had these needs and feelings. I was just being me, and I am sorry that you overreacted.” (These kinds of apologies are heard frequently in couples work.) If this is the best you can do, if this is what you honestly feel, I recommend you save your breath and move on. Your needs and your partner's needs for relationship are clearly incompatible.
Now, here are statements of true remorse. They have a very different feel.
"I am sorry I was unfaithful to you. I was a selfish pig."
"I was a stupid drunk. I hurt you, and I am so sorry."
"I am sorry I was not there for you to be the dedicated father you deserved."
This step could include explaining the reasons for ones mistakes. Not as an excuse to make it acceptable, but to help your partner understand the reasons for your failure. You could also explain how much you have already suffered. It is important to promise you will never transgress again. And it is important to give your partner some reasons to believe that you have become a new person, one that can keep that promise. Here is an example:
"I am sorry I was unfaithful to you. I was a selfish pig. It's just that I was trained all through my childhood by my womanizing father to believe that a real man has sex with every woman he can get. I know how wrong that is. I know it is no excuse. But somehow he programmed my subconscious to believe this, and I felt powerless to stop it. But now that you have been gone for two years, I feel so empty inside. I miss you so much. I now know what real love is, and I never want to go back to that cheap sex again. I will seek more therapy if I am ever tempted again. Please take me back."
Your former partner may already be beyond reach, or they may choose to forgive you and take you back. Or they may decide they can no longer trust you and must move on. Or they may give some real acts of atonement that you must perform to prove your remorse and your change of heart before they take you back. In any case, by completing the process outlined here, you can at least rest assured that you have done everything in your power to repair the loss.
Next you will need to spend lots of time doing the self forgiveness process outlined above, confronting the inner "womanizer" or the "drunken jerk" within you. In this process your former self must commit to doing whatever is necessary, including seeking hypnotherapy treatment, to never repeat the terrible actions that created these problems before. And you must hold your former self to that promise. If this step is left undone, your next relationship will crash on the same rocks. Of all the types of loss described above this one most needs the intervention of a skilled therapist. It presents the gravest danger to the clients self esteem and mental health.
But whatever type of loss, abandonment and betrayal you suffer from, get real help. Drugs are not the answer. Ordinary talk therapy has limited value and is very slow. However with the technologies outlined here, emotional health will be restored and life can begin anew. But even with the powerful methods outlined here, it will not happen overnight.
Be patient with your tears. Healing the broken heart takes time. Give yourself the time it needs. And do your best to surround yourself with the love you need to get to the other side. Good luck.
Old Betrayal Healed with Alchemical Hypnotherapy
"This experience released a heaviness that had been laying on my heart for over 30 years. In the weeks since, my whole body has felt lighter and I can now express myself in the world with even greater ease. David Quigley led me through this experience with astute and insightful grace. I'm amazed at the depth this work can reach by phone!" Shaeri Richards Sedona, AZ
The Miracle of Love
"Before the training 7 years ago, I was a dietary consultant and seminar leader, but despite my successes, my heart was barely alive. Since the training, the difference is like night and day in my life. I now live from my heart and much less from my head. I feel a deep sense of inner peace and connection to myself, my God, and other people.
"I realized I needed to heal my relationship with my mom if I was to ever have a successful relationship. I've done so far beyond my expectations... in addition she's learned to let love in her life and now at 80 years is living her dream with her new husband. Alchemy has helped me create a loving romantic relationship for 6 years now that just keeps getting better as we both pursue our joy and support one another.
"Working with my inner child and inner mate have filled me with feelings of joy, bliss, and love... sometimes I feel so full of joy, it feels like my heart will pop! It's hard to remember back to that abandoned infant in a fetal position hiding under a blanket that I met at the beginning of the training. She constantly thanks me for saving her from her fetal grave and has gifted me by pouring Bliss into my life. This is only one of the numerous moving spiritual experiences I've had as a result of this work. They allow me to love and trust life and God and turn my life and work over... unbelievable given where I started!
"As I grow and heal, I open similar doors for my clients. Their joy compounds mine and it's like getting paid to play. What joy! The more I give, the more I get.
"My life feels like a miracle. I'm eternally grateful to my inner source and to the Alchemy process, and it just keeps getting better. It feels so good to live from my heart. Thank you, David, for all the miracles Alchemy has allowed me to enjoy in my life and the lives of my family, friends, and clients."
Anne Kofman, CHT
Danville, CA
(510) 837-8838
Ending Old Love Patterns Leads to Intimate Partnership
"The Alchemy training opened my eyes to new possibilities of healing I had never dreamed of in my medical training. During one of David's Empowerment workshops, I was able to end a lifelong pattern of unrequited longing for romantic love and commitment during a powerful ceremony of past life work. Within a year, I met my present partner and now have enjoyed for 3 years a wonderful intimate partnership for the first time in my life."
Patricia Sorensen, RN
Redwood City, CA
415-366-3900
All of us have struggled at some point in our lives with grief and loss. Hypnotherapists can use many powerful techniques to help heal these crises.
An increasingly popular approach to dealing with grief, loss, and abandonment issues nowadays is prescribed antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication. Medical research clearly indicates that while these drugs can sometimes provide temporary relief from the worst ravages of grief, their effects are only temporary and provide no substitute for the work of grieving which is essential for the recovery of emotional health and happiness. These drugs can be expensive, habit forming, physically addictive and have a wide variety of side effects. At best these drugs can be a temporary assist for the patient who is so overwhelmed by grief that they need a break while adjusting to the logistics of losing a family member. At worst they are symptomatic of a drug-addicted society that is slipping deeper every day into a dangerous spiral of self destruction.
Also popular among the grieving is a reliance on recreational drugs to blunt the emotions that they fear will be overwhelming. This kind of self medication can be very dangerous, because it lacks any sort of medical supervision. It also involves serious addiction potential and dangerous consequences to mental and physical health. As with the pharmaceutical solutions, the results are at best temporary.
There are proven hypnotic techniques to help you move through pain with much greater ease. With these processes your drug addictions, anxieties, and chronic depression may well disappear. Be patient with yourself. Grieving takes time.
There are four separate categories of grief and loss, each of which requires a unique therapeutic approach and are described below. They are as follows:
- Simple bereavement is the result of losing someone dear to us through death or some inevitable separation. Although there is nothing easy about losing the love of one’s life, such a loss is simple because it is usually only marginally complicated by anger, guilt, or internal conflict.
- Abandonment and betrayal occur when someone deliberately abandons us, and in the process breaks a spoken or unspoken commitment to love and cherish us. Sometimes we leave the relationship ourselves when feeling betrayed by a lover or mate, but this in no way relieves the sense of being both abandoned and betrayed by the other person.
- Loss of the dream of love occurs when we realize at the bitter end of what may perhaps be a long relationship that we have loved not a real person, but a fantasy of our own creation. We then need to mourn not the love that once was, but the love that never was.
- Guilt ridden separation, perhaps the most devastating of all losses, occurs when we know that we have lost the love of our lives because of our own reckless actions, or because we have taken this love for granted and failed to perform the actions that are critical to keeping love alive.
Simple bereavement is a tragedy that those who are blessed with the experience of true and lasting love will face, because the only thing guaranteed in life is change. The following are examples of an expression of simple bereavement:
"After thirty years together, she died of cancer. I don’t know how I can keep on living."
"My son died last week in a motorcycle accident. He was so young; he had much promise."
"My best friend had to take a job in London. We try to stay in touch, but it is so far."
The solution to simple bereavement is two-fold. Firstly, we must seek out close human companionship for help in mourning this loss. In primeval tribal society, people dealt with loss by surrounding themselves with the love and support of their tribe. Everyone wept together and found in each other’s tears and shared memories the comfort they needed to move on. They were there for each other. For many in our fast paced modern world, there is rarely anyone around to share our tears with. We are actively discouraged from being a "downer", a "party pooper" when we need to grieve. Tragically, many of us need to pay a professional counselor just to have someone ready to accept our tears.
In contrast, I encourage my clients to actively seek out new friends and reconnect with their families in order to feel supported in sharing their tears. I encourage support groups, churches, and social clubs in order to find support, even if it seems very challenging to do this in the midst of grieving. We humans must mourn... but we should not mourn alone!
The hypnotic technique of Spiritual Communication can be extremely valuable. Here is how it works. Take yourself into a meditative state with the intention of speaking to your departed beloved. Imagine that they are here before you. Speak out loud to them, as if they were really in front of you. Then listen quietly with your heart for their response. Some people like to go to the graveyard for this process, although a graveyard can be depressing so it is preferable to go to the couch in the living room you shared. Put on the favorite music you used to listen to together. Or stroll in the rose garden you planted together and imagine your beloved’s hand in yours, while you speak lovingly of old times. Or cuddle up on the couch, imagining the loved one’s arms around you as you watch your favorite TV show, and laugh together at all your favorite jokes. Talk out loud about the struggles you are going through. Or talk about little Joey's soccer games. Ask advice about the children or the business. Then listen for the response. Is it all your imagination? Who can say? I guarantee it will feel good.
For those who need help in achieving this state of awareness, try the powerful hypnotic journey called Completing Communication. See the website store for more information.
Many people who have lost their lifelong mate or a beloved parent achieve excellent results with the "Resurrection Process" in which they are taught during hypnosis sessions to call upon this beloved every night before going to bed and every day, especially when they feel most challenged by grief and emptiness.
The methods listed above may not be easy for one who feels overwhelmed by grief. But they are proven to restore mental and emotional health.
Abandonment and Betrayal
The experience of grief and loss is gravely complicated when we feel abandoned or betrayed by the one we loved. Here are some examples of abandonment and betrayal:
"I found out he had been cheating on me with his secretary for two years. And denying it to my face. Now he tells me they are in love and he is leaving me after ten years and raising three kids together."
"My father left us when I was ten years old. I haven't seen him since."
"I told her not to drink and drive but she didn't listen, even after two DUI’s. Now she's dead. It's like she didn't care."
"I had to leave him when he wouldn't stop drinking. I couldn't take the abuse. But I still miss him."
In reading the above examples what is immediately clear is the sense of anger and betrayal inherent in these experiences. This anger arises from a sense that some kind of agreement, spoken or unspoken, existed between these two people – and it was broken. We need to honor our own experiences of betrayal and acknowledge when someone selfishly breaks an agreement and hurts us. We need to honor our anger and give it a voice. Then we can find a path to forgiveness, which is an important step towards completing the grieving process.
The answer lies in Spiritual Communication, since it is often next to impossible to get the other person to listen to us even if they are still alive. In this case we need to release the anger we feel in order to gain completion. This should include using a big heavy duty pillow as a prop. First, close your eyes and imagine this person in front of you. Then speak loudly and angrily to them about how they abandoned and betrayed you. You may wish to grab the pillow, perhaps even slap it or punch it to emphasize your words. Here are some of the sentences you may wish to complete, to facilitate your communication:
"Here is what you did to me...!"
"Here is what I tried to do for you...!"
"Here is what I deserved from you...!"
"This is what a loving husband/father/family member should do...!"
"Listen to how I have suffered because of what you did...!"
"Here is how the rest of us have suffered...!"
"How could you have done this to us?"
Once you have exhausted everything you need to say, then step back, close your eyes, and listen to this perpetrator’s response. To make this communication even more powerful, perhaps you could imagine yourself becoming this other person. Feel your face and body becoming theirs. Feel their emotion flowing through you. And prepare to be surprised by their response. If you are doing this process correctly you may hear words like these:
"I am so sorry I hurt you. I was really stupid and selfish. Please forgive me."
"I was a deeply wounded person because of my own childhood. No one ever taught me how to love. I always knew you deserved a better love than I could give. I just didn’t know how to tell you."
"Since I left you I have lived a lonely life, and all the others give me no comfort. I lost my life when I lost you."
Through these kinds of messages, when we hear of the ignorance, the woundedness and the suffering of our betrayers, it is possible to discover the joy of forgiveness.
Frequently it is important to also learn to forgive ourselves for the foolish choices we have made, and the suffering we have therefore brought to ourselves and sometimes to our families.
For this the recommended process is called the Self Forgiveness Process. First, imagine in front of you the vulnerable, naive part of yourself, perhaps the foolish child, or the hopeless romantic, who believed all the lies, the false promises, or simply chose to ignore the facts in front of him or her. Picture this naïve part of you any way you wish. Maybe give it a name, like "Mr. Idiot Romantic" or "Suzy Sunshine" or "Miss Denial". Then rail on at this part of you with all the righteous anger you feel towards this part of you. After all, no one could have betrayed you like this if you had not betrayed yourself over and over again as this foolish blind romantic. After giving vent to all of your feelings, then listen to the response of your naïve self. You will no doubt hear many excuses and explanations:
"But he was so convincing."
"She was so beautiful. I was hypnotized by her smile."
"I was sure my love could somehow change him."
Almost invariably however, the deeper truth will soon emerge, which is a lot darker and a lot more pitiable, such as:
"I didn't think I would ever find true love. So I figured I would have to settle for this. I figured no one decent would ever want a loser like me, so I just had to hang in there. I was so desperate, so lonely. I couldn't bear to be alone again. Besides, that is the way love always is."
Once these deeper beliefs are realized, you can begin to forgive that lonely naïve part of yourself. These are the subconscious negative core beliefs which drive many of us to make foolish choices over and over in our love lives. Now we must begin to change these core beliefs.
At this point it becomes important, even essential to find the loving Inner Father, Inner Mother, or Inner Mate. These powerful inner guides and resources are essential to the recovery of the inner child and the inner romantic who has continually allowed us to be abandoned and betrayed. That is because only they can help us finally fill the terrible emptiness in our hearts since childhood. Only they can help us to change our negative core beliefs about ourselves and about love. In the Alchemical Journey series, the journeys that can help you find these internal resources are Finding the Inner Mate and Finding an Inner Guide.
In the process of my recovery from deep abandonment and suicidal depression my inner mate, an angel named Michaela, wrote the following song for me, which I believe expresses the inner family's power to bring healing to abandonment and betrayal in our lives.
Take off your soiled clothes, and let my arms enfold you
Let me wash your face of all the tears you've shed
In the nights when your sweet heart has bled.
Let your sorrows pass
Let me fill your empty glass
With a love that always lasts
Like a wandering soul, returning from the wars,
Let me give you shelter, the shelter from the storm.
Loss of the Dream of Love
Sometimes we discover that the love we thought we knew never really existed. I once described some of the abuses of my first marriage to a new love. She looked at me with sympathy and shock. "David," she said, "Isn't it obvious that she never really loved you?" This awareness hit me like a flash of light in the darkness of my pain.
There is something profoundly liberating about this insight. In discovering this we can sometimes dispense with anger at the other person. After all, while the wife I thought I married may have been an evil betrayer, the one I actually married was a mentally ill woman, a lost child so wounded by her abusive childhood that she was incapable of loving me... or anyone else. While I still needed to release anger at myself for my foolish choices (see the self forgiveness process above) I could let this poor woman off the hook.
Here are some other examples of losing the dream of love.
"My dad was never there for me. Now after his death I realize he was never even a father to any of us. Just a drunk. He could never have been what I wanted."
"He never even said I love you once in seven years together. He never even looked at me with love in his eyes. He never mentioned any future for us. Why did I stay?"
"After that one night of passion, I have spent 30 years obsessing over him."
In addition to the Self Forgiveness process described above, it is important to find the inner mate or inner parent in the subconscious mind who can meet our needs for love. (In the Alchemical Journey series, the journeys that can help you find these internal resources are The Inner Mate and Meeting an Inner Guide.) Only then can we stop the projections that cause us to see others in a deluded way. To the extent that we dream of our neurotic mom finally loving us or absentee father finally listening to us, we often continue to live in a state of chronic suffering and bereavement. The only solution that really works here is to release the parent and find a new loving parent in the inner world who can finally meet our inner child’s needs for love. Hypnotherapy sessions can teach how to bond these loving parents to daily life. Then we can finally let go of the "parent" who was never available anyway.
Still another process that may be essential here is examining the past life contract with this other person. Long term obsessions about a relationship that has never met our basic needs for love and never will are often the result of a past life connection with another person. In a past life this person may have been a true and devoted lover. Or maybe the past life experience was a powerful obsession like the Romeo and Juliet romance. Imagine Romeo following his Juliet through one lifetime after another trying to fulfill their promise to each other. That would be quite typical of a past life contract. Until we can examine the situation of their original contract with each other, it may be impossible for these two to even imagine a life apart from each other. Once their contract has been discovered, the client can see that an adolescent fantasy of romance with a suicide pact, however poignant, is no substitute for a lasting relationship. Then both parties to this contract can simply let it go if it no longer serves them.
Here is a real life example. One client was trapped in a five year marriage filled with conflict. She understood that the man she loved was just a fantasy. But she could not let go. Using past life regression technology, we went back to where this relationship began and she saw herself as a young southern belle in a vast plantation in the old south. She had fallen in love with a handsome black slave and in a moment of adolescent passion promised to free him from his slavery, escape with him to the frontier, and marry him. Her brief affair led to pregnancy. After giving birth to a black child her lover was quickly identified. She was told he had been killed. But she promised to remain faithful forever.
The client went home to her present husband that evening. As she described this story to him, he burst into tears. He told her he remembered all of it. But he insisted that he had escaped the hounds by swimming across the river and had later come back to claim her, but she had married someone else. "I had to!" she cried, "but in my heart I wanted only you." They shared these powerful memories together and held each other close for hours of tears. At last they were finally able to see the foolishness of their childish fantasy and let each other go with no regrets. A five year obsession was ended in a few hours.
Guilt Ridden Separation
One of most devastating kinds of loss is the relationship that we destroyed through our own actions, or inaction. Here are some examples:
"'If only I hadn't cheated on her so many times. Those women meant nothing to me. It is my fault that the only one I really loved is gone."
"If I had been there for my son instead of working all the time, maybe he would still be alive."
"If only I had gone to counseling when he asked me to... Now he is gone."
The best solution for this is the Remorse Process. If it is not possible to do this with the other person in real time, then it can be done on the spiritual plane. Like all Spirit Communication processes it begins with closing your eyes and imagining the other person in front of you. Then imagine getting on your knees in front of them and clearly and thoroughly confessing everything you did wrong. Hold nothing back. It is important that you express remorse, and not simply regret.
While both expressions begin with the words "I am sorry" the expression of remorse can actually lead to forgiveness and perhaps renewal, while the expression of regret is probably useless, or worse, is poisonous in resolving the problem. Let us examine the difference so we can we avoid this mistake which has cost many of my clients their chance at renewal. Here are expressions of regret:
"I am sorry you were hurt by my affairs. I didn't mean to upset you. It is just who I am."
"I am sorry you took my drinking so personally. It wasn't about you."
"I am sorry you had so many needs I could not fulfill. I tried."
Actually, if you listen carefully with your heart to these statements, they are not really about apologizing for mistakes. They are actually blaming statements. They are saying, “It is your fault that you had these needs and feelings. I was just being me, and I am sorry that you overreacted.” (These kinds of apologies are heard frequently in couples work.) If this is the best you can do, if this is what you honestly feel, I recommend you save your breath and move on. Your needs and your partner's needs for relationship are clearly incompatible.
Now, here are statements of true remorse. They have a very different feel.
"I am sorry I was unfaithful to you. I was a selfish pig."
"I was a stupid drunk. I hurt you, and I am so sorry."
"I am sorry I was not there for you to be the dedicated father you deserved."
This step could include explaining the reasons for ones mistakes. Not as an excuse to make it acceptable, but to help your partner understand the reasons for your failure. You could also explain how much you have already suffered. It is important to promise you will never transgress again. And it is important to give your partner some reasons to believe that you have become a new person, one that can keep that promise. Here is an example:
"I am sorry I was unfaithful to you. I was a selfish pig. It's just that I was trained all through my childhood by my womanizing father to believe that a real man has sex with every woman he can get. I know how wrong that is. I know it is no excuse. But somehow he programmed my subconscious to believe this, and I felt powerless to stop it. But now that you have been gone for two years, I feel so empty inside. I miss you so much. I now know what real love is, and I never want to go back to that cheap sex again. I will seek more therapy if I am ever tempted again. Please take me back."
Your former partner may already be beyond reach, or they may choose to forgive you and take you back. Or they may decide they can no longer trust you and must move on. Or they may give some real acts of atonement that you must perform to prove your remorse and your change of heart before they take you back. In any case, by completing the process outlined here, you can at least rest assured that you have done everything in your power to repair the loss.
Next you will need to spend lots of time doing the self forgiveness process outlined above, confronting the inner "womanizer" or the "drunken jerk" within you. In this process your former self must commit to doing whatever is necessary, including seeking hypnotherapy treatment, to never repeat the terrible actions that created these problems before. And you must hold your former self to that promise. If this step is left undone, your next relationship will crash on the same rocks. Of all the types of loss described above this one most needs the intervention of a skilled therapist. It presents the gravest danger to the clients self esteem and mental health.
But whatever type of loss, abandonment and betrayal you suffer from, get real help. Drugs are not the answer. Ordinary talk therapy has limited value and is very slow. However with the technologies outlined here, emotional health will be restored and life can begin anew. But even with the powerful methods outlined here, it will not happen overnight.
Be patient with your tears. Healing the broken heart takes time. Give yourself the time it needs. And do your best to surround yourself with the love you need to get to the other side. Good luck.
Old Betrayal Healed with Alchemical Hypnotherapy
"This experience released a heaviness that had been laying on my heart for over 30 years. In the weeks since, my whole body has felt lighter and I can now express myself in the world with even greater ease. David Quigley led me through this experience with astute and insightful grace. I'm amazed at the depth this work can reach by phone!" Shaeri Richards Sedona, AZ
The Miracle of Love
"Before the training 7 years ago, I was a dietary consultant and seminar leader, but despite my successes, my heart was barely alive. Since the training, the difference is like night and day in my life. I now live from my heart and much less from my head. I feel a deep sense of inner peace and connection to myself, my God, and other people.
"I realized I needed to heal my relationship with my mom if I was to ever have a successful relationship. I've done so far beyond my expectations... in addition she's learned to let love in her life and now at 80 years is living her dream with her new husband. Alchemy has helped me create a loving romantic relationship for 6 years now that just keeps getting better as we both pursue our joy and support one another.
"Working with my inner child and inner mate have filled me with feelings of joy, bliss, and love... sometimes I feel so full of joy, it feels like my heart will pop! It's hard to remember back to that abandoned infant in a fetal position hiding under a blanket that I met at the beginning of the training. She constantly thanks me for saving her from her fetal grave and has gifted me by pouring Bliss into my life. This is only one of the numerous moving spiritual experiences I've had as a result of this work. They allow me to love and trust life and God and turn my life and work over... unbelievable given where I started!
"As I grow and heal, I open similar doors for my clients. Their joy compounds mine and it's like getting paid to play. What joy! The more I give, the more I get.
"My life feels like a miracle. I'm eternally grateful to my inner source and to the Alchemy process, and it just keeps getting better. It feels so good to live from my heart. Thank you, David, for all the miracles Alchemy has allowed me to enjoy in my life and the lives of my family, friends, and clients."
Anne Kofman, CHT
Danville, CA
(510) 837-8838
Ending Old Love Patterns Leads to Intimate Partnership
"The Alchemy training opened my eyes to new possibilities of healing I had never dreamed of in my medical training. During one of David's Empowerment workshops, I was able to end a lifelong pattern of unrequited longing for romantic love and commitment during a powerful ceremony of past life work. Within a year, I met my present partner and now have enjoyed for 3 years a wonderful intimate partnership for the first time in my life."
Patricia Sorensen, RN
Redwood City, CA
415-366-3900
