Forbidden Priests
Heaven …
I’m not going to heaven.
I met a man that was 88 yrs old and decided he wanted to give up his habit of smoking 30 cigarettes a day.
He stated that he still loves it but it was time for "the fags to go". When I asked him what his motivation was to finally kick the habit he responded in a bruff manner "back in my day deary these things were cheap! ... now they are costing me a lung!" ... I had to giggle as he said this ... I'm not sure that he realised that they were ACTUALLY costing him more than a lung.
His doctor had told him that the tar in his body was the only thing keeping his heart pumping and not to quit. This was a huge first for me. I had never come across anybody who was told not to quit!
We proceeded with the quit smoking sessions. This was going to be more then one hypnotherapy session. He definitely had some deep rooted emotions towards this habit.
He decreased from 30 smokes down to 15 in the first week of doing quit smoking hypnosis.
Then down to 11 by the second week.
5 by the third week. (he surprised me I admit I wasn't convinced he was committed to the process when he started!)
On the fourth week I asked him if he was ready to kick the habit?
He said "For sure but can I tell you a secret that I have been harbouring since I was a child? ... Its a horrible horrible secret that I want to get out of my soul." He was quite concerned about this secret.
He proceeded to tell me this tale (yes he gave me permission to share this with you when I asked him as after he came out with it I helped him with a hypnotic re-frame to let go of the betrayal he felt towards his father ... its amazing how hypnotherapy can shift limited beliefs for people)
He was 14 years old. He and his father had been asked to take 2 priests to the next town via horse drawn carriage.
It was a days journey and the priests were of different religions. The priests were not to make contact or speak to each other.
He was to sit in the carriage with the priests whilst his dad drove.
After a few hours the priests started to speak to each other and began to argue.
As he was only 14 years old and the discussion was getting rather heated, he shouted at his dad to stop the carriage.
His father stopped the carriage as the two priest began to get into a fist fight. Tumbling out of the carriage, throwing punches at each other ... knocking him into the tumble ... he was pushed aside and decided to jump between the priests and shouted at them to stop!
Both priests stood in shock!
They stopped for just a moment to then tell him off for laying his hands on a religious man (this was extremely taboo back in his day).
After this his father had said "come son let the men work out there peace" to which the two priests then engage in further combat till one of them finally conceded yelling "damn you all to hell I'll walk!".
Some time had passed before they could convince the priest that was walking get back into the carriage, so they could continued there journey into town.
The son was told that he would not go to heaven if a word of this came from his breath. Sworn to secrecy for touching a religious man had carried a huge amount of guilt since. He was convinced he wasn't going to heaven.
Upon hearing this I asked if not only does he want to quit smoking today but also be reborn into his new life of forgiving himself? He responded gleefully with a yes and we proceeded with the hypnotherapy session.
The re-frame I used was "heaven and hell are determined by the memories of the loved ones that live on. Remember all the good things about that boy now."
He no longer smokes. The tar wasn't keeping him alive. He has lost 15 kilos and is walking up to the store each day enjoying the fresh air. I wave to him each time I see him and have never seen a more content and relaxed smile on a mans face.
Sometimes we not only have to help heal the problem at hand but also the problems that are not at hand.
(Permission has been granted by all participants to share this story)
