'You are feeling very sleepy....no shit Sherlock!'

Well I have spent the whole of my week off flaming gardening. Not under duress but to avoid my own guilt at not helping the MIL. I cannot think of anything else that I have achieved during my 'free from work' time. I haven't even tried to do more to the sort the house out. Alas I had so many plans.....

I did visit a hypnotherapist in attempt to aid my bid to lose weight. It cost a small fortune, but I guess I am willing to try anything now. The first part of the session was more like counselling - I had to be open and honest, cried a lot and tried to figure things out with the therapist. He observed that when I picture things that upset me or made me feel 'low' I always divert my line of sight to the bottom left of my vision spectrum and by simply looking up and to the right when feeling like this, I can feel much better. Of course I thought this was ludicrous but unbelievably it actually works! So part of my homework was to practice this into daily life, and it has been very helpful so far.

The actual 'hypnosis' part, which the therapist referred to as 'trance', was weird. Primarily I was sat in a rattan chair for the whole thing, and not particularly comfortably - but maybe that was to prevent me from falling asleep! I did feel sleepy mostly. I could hear what the therapist was saying, and thankfully I felt I was always in control - that I could have stopped everything at any point. That was what I was most nervous about, so I think that relaxed me. On occasion the room felt like it was spinning but it would stop after a little while. The therapist was talking to my unconscious as if it was an entity, in a respectful way, asking it to help me and making reference to me in a complimentary, confidence building way. Thankfully there were no swinging fob watches involved, as I may have found this very hard to take seriously!

Finally before he asked me to slowly become more aware of myself and open my eyes, he told me that my unconscious would let my conscious self know that it had heard him and that it would try to help me, by creating a 'funny sensation' in my left hand. When fully 'compus mentus' he asked me how I felt, I said 'tired' and within a few minutes of talking I felt a tingling sensation in my left hand! I was like - no way - was this just me imagining it because the therapist had said it would happen? All the way down the street I had this throbbing, pulsating feeling in the centre of my upper left hand, then it stopped. To begin with I was totally freaked out, spooky was an understatement; but for the rest of the day I was just exhausted and had a fuzzy frontal headache.

That was Thursday gone. Two days on and I am not eating any less. He did say the effects would not be immediate but I still feel compelled to eat more than I should, for whatever reason. I am a little disappointed as I really thought it might help. It works for smokers trying to quit, why shouldn't it work for me? The only thing left to try is acupuncture. Of the complimentary therapies anyway. I will give it a bit longer just to be sure before I totally dismiss its effects.