Death Walker Julie

Julie reminded me of French actress Sophie Marceau. Upon arriving, when I told her so, she said, “Funny enough, I am French.” This 23-year-old young lady wanted to have more self-confidence and get rid of the “inner fears” that she couldn’t seem to get rid of on her own.

“What are you afraid of?” I asked Julie as she handed me back the intake form. 

“Many things. It ties into the low self-confidence. I know I shouldn’t compare myself with others, but it seems others are all better than me.”

“Better than you on what?”

“I… “ It was not the language that Julie hesitated. As a matter of fact, Julie’s English is excellent. She later even told me, when I asked if there was anything she thought she was good at, that “Learning language skills” was number one on her list. She found it hard to put her feelings into words. So I went on, “I’m sure a lot of people, you included, are better than me in math. But I don’t have any fear of it.”

“Oh, no. I’m sure my math is not better than yours. I’m not good at math at all.” Julie laughed, very sincerely.

Good. We are alike. There’s that similarity for rapport, I thought.

“But you don’t seem to be bothered by not being good at math. So what are the things that matter more than math, to make you feel not so good about yourself?” I asked.

Julie’s internal narrative was that others are smarter than her, and her biggest fear was being stupid. Julie’s mother died of cancer when she was only 15. Father was not emotionally available at all. Having to travel a lot for work, her father was not physically available either. There was not much guidance for Julie, and she felt she had to grow up all on her own since she was 15 years old. Father married again a year after Julie’s mother passed away. Julie was given enough freedom to travel and do a lot of things, but love and affection were not available.

Julie came to Canada to study two years ago. She has a part-time job to partially support herself.

Julie was very agreeable in our intake discussions. When I said “We don’t live to be liked by others”, and “There’s no need to be better or worse than others,” Julie would say, “Yes. I know. I’m trying very hard. But it seems that I have a blockage or something. I just can’t control my feelings.”

“What feelings?”

“Fear, sadness, and anxiety.”

The feelings were coming up, and I saw it as a good moment for her to go into trance. So I had Julie comfortably reclined. As she was settling in, Julie looked at me nervously, “What if I can’t be hypnotized?”

“Well almost everyone asks me that same question. And my working schedule is still very busy.”

“No, I actually had an experience. When I was back home, once in a park, someone was trying to hypnotize people. It was for fun.” She continued, “He tried it on me too, but it didn’t work.”

“What happened for it not to work?” I was looking for answers such as “my hand couldn’t get stuck to my face”.

“I think I’m just not hypnotizable.” Julie didn’t answer my question directly.

“Well, you are here. Sounds like your unconscious mind disagrees that you are unhypnotizable, because,” I moved closer to her and slowed down, “if you were, your unconscious mind wouldn’t bring you here, for you, to be, hypnotized.”

Julie looked at me a little confused. I asked her further what exactly what happened, or not happened during that street hypnosis in the park. Julie said it was a long time ago. She couldn’t remember.

“Since you can’t even remember it,” I continued, “and amnesia is a hypnotic phenomenon, maybe you were hypnotized.” I smiled, making it sound like a joke.

I had Julie gazing into a spot on the ceiling to start with, and gave her the suggestion that her eyelids become heavy… After Julie’s eyes closed, I continued on with my monotone to draw her attention to the relaxation of her eyelids. I was just about to give her a challenge that she could relax her eyelids so much that they wouldn’t open even if she tried. Right there Julie popped open her eyes and became very nervous, “No I can’t do it! I’m feeling fear.”

“You don’t have to do it.” My tone was calm, “We can just look at the fear.”

Since the fear was already present, that was our chance. I directed Julie, still with her eyes open, to tell me where the sensation of fear was located. Julie pointed her fingers to her upper chest.

“So let’s draw neutral attention to the upper chest. That sensation there. It’s not good, not bad, not right, not wrong. Let’s just stay curious. Does the sensation have a colour?”

“No. I don’t see a colour.”

I continued, “Look with curiosity at the sensation on your upper chest. What do you find there? Any shape? Any size? If not colour?”

“It’s like a… face, vertical.”

A face? There seemed more to it, “A vertical face… Is it a face of a male, or female?”

“A boy. But I can’t see it clearly. It’s dark, like a shadow.” Julie’s eyes closed to get into it.

“Yes it’s a shadow, but you can tell it’s a boy’s face. How old is the boy?”

“I don’t know, maybe 11, or 12… No, I couldn’t get it clear. This doesn’t make sense. I’m imagining it.” Julie opened her eyes again.

“You are not imagining it by imagining it. It came to you, without you trying to imagine. You may have imagined it from your unconscious mind. Therefore it must mean something.”

“But I don’t know what it means. It doesn’t work.” Once again, Julie was about to give it up.

“To know what it means, we need to go all the way to find out. Right now it’s too early to say it. We don’t need to know what it means yet, but we can go and find out. I promise you, my voice will always stay there with you. My voice is your guidance.” I remembered Julie had told me she longed for guidance when she was growing up.

That word worked. Julie relaxed a little more, and closed her eyes again.

“That’s right. There is that boy’s face… This face has a body, or a figure too, doesn’t it?”

“It’s dark. He’s standing there, face down. Very sad, and helpless.”

“Maybe you can help him. Can you perceive yourself going over there and saying hello?”

“Can I do that?” Julie asked me back.

“You can try and see what happens. Remember my voice is always with you.”

“Okay.”

“Does he notice you?”

“He knows I’m there, but he doesn’t care much, still face down, sad.”

“Ask him if he needs help.”

“He’s indifferent.”

“Well,” As a hypnotherapist, I play with words, “Since he seems to be helpless, tell him we are here to help. Now he has help, he can’t be helpless anymore.”

“Who is that?” Julie’s eyes opened again and her beautiful eyes looked at me.

“Well, you are the one who’s talking to him.” I thought about having a direct conversation with the boy through Julie, but Julie looked too nervous for that. So I decided to continue to have Julie as the go-betweener. “Ask him what his name is.”

Julie closed her eyes again. “He doesn’t really answer, but I got… Tom?”

That was a good start. I continued, “Ask Tom where he is from.”

“I’m sure it’s Europe. But I don’t know if he was answering, or I’m imagining.”

“It doesn’t matter, since you said you are sure. That’s what matters.”

“I’m very confused.” Julie opened her eyes one more time. “What is happening?”

“Well,” I looked at Julie’s intake form, on the line of religion, she wrote “none”. “You found the boy in the dark place through going into the fear and sadness in your upper chest. So it seems to me Tom is in your space. Probably Tom is already dead, either he doesn’t know, or he doesn’t know where to go. And we can help him.”

“What do you mean?” Julie was now more curious than scared.

“I mean, this Tom we are dealing with, may be what they’d call a spirit.”

“Like a ghost?” Julie asked.

“Yes. That’s what they’d say.”

“How do we help?”

“Close your eyes and ask Tom if he knows that he has died.”

“He knows.”

“Okay. Then he is simply lost. Help him look around, and look above, what’s there?” I was hoping some tunnel of light, orbs of spirit guides, or winged angels would appear for Tom, but I also know whatever may show up, it had to filter through Julie’s mental capacity and receptivity.

“Only the moonlight, and stars… We are walking. I can feel grass, and trees…”

Nice. Now Julie was more relaxed with the process. To solidify the process, I asked, “Is Tom to your left, or your right, as you walk?”

“To my right. But his head is still down. He doesn’t communicate.”

I was not sure what to do next. But I promised Julie I’d guide her, so I asked, “If you stop, would he know? Would he stop as well, or would he keep walking? Try it.”

“When I stop, he knows. He’s stops, then he continues, but much more slowly.”

“So he likes your company?”

“I think so. And I like walking with him too.” Compassion was another thing Julie told me that she was good at, after the language skill.

“So the two of you enjoy walking like that, under the moonlight.”

“Yes. The moonlight is very bright. It’s a path in the forest. The trees are dark. But I’m not afraid at all!”

Because you are meant to do this, I thought. Just as living beings think they can receive messages from the spirits, and be helped by those spirits; living beings can also help spirits and they can help the spirits transition. It seemed to me Julie was one of such beings. It was very natural for her.

Julie opened her eyes again. This time she was quite peaceful. She had questions, but she also found deeper answers. She was silent for a moment. “What happened to me?” Finally she asked me.

“You mean, why did you come across Tom?” Julie nodded her head.

“I don’t really know, but I had a feeling Tom came to you long ago when you were in the hospital because of your mom. Since then you experienced a lot of emotions, such as fear and sadness but they were not yours, they were his. You experienced his emotions. That is why it felt irrational, and you couldn’t control them.”

“Oh, yeah…” Julie thought about something, “Every time I reacted, I almost always could see a figure in front of me. Sometimes it snapped. That was Tom!”

“Yes. A lot of emotions you experienced were not yours. It’s time to let them go, and let Tom go. There’s a better place for him than hanging out with you, feeling lost and helpless, and interfering in your life. We are going to send him to a better place and there’ll be someone picking up Tom from here. You have done your work today walking with Tom. Someone will come to continue the rest of the walk.”

“You mean, now?”

“Yes. I mean, now.” I closed my own eyes and continued, “As you continue walking with Tom in the forest under the moonlight, we are going to call upon – well I’m not even religious, so for the lack of better words – angels, or guides, or helpers of sorts, to come here and take care of Tom, and guide Tom to a better place, a place that Tom can trust and where he can find peace…”

I waited, not sure what was going to happen next.

After a little pause, “Well,” Julie said, “I’m sure I’m making it up, but in my imagination, I see an old man with long white beard, like Dumbledore, but he is not Dumbledore. He is standing there smiling. There are a lot of lights. I think because he came from light, light is all over him, as if he gives out light.”

That was a pretty good “make up”. I said to Julie, “Well there are many ways you can make this up, like a young male angel with wings, or a female with long hair… but you made this old man up so easily as if it came to you. That’s because it was not your conscious mind that made it up, it was your unconscious mind, if you actually made it up. So that’s a good thing.”

Sometimes the hardest thing for people to trust is their own natural and direct experience. We all seem to trust books and other people’s experiences more eagerly and easily.

“Now what’s happening? Do you feel you can entrust Tom to this Dumbledore?”

Julie giggled, “He is not Dumbledore. He just looked like him.” Oh well, I thought, Julie, you actually do know something.

“I can trust him.”

“What about Tom?”

“Tom is trusting him. He’s walking fast towards him. I’m left behind… And I can’t seem to go over there…”

“Of course, you cannot go over there. You are still alive. You need to stay here. But you can wave your arm for a goodbye with them.”

I myself felt a very subtle head nod from “Dumbledore” in my heart, full of warmth, as if he and I were a team.

Julie stayed there, seeing them go. I had Julie come back to the therapy room, and back to her body on the couch. Before I brought her out of hypnosis, I instructed Julie to breathe in light to her chest, and all over her body for strengthening her own sense of self.

As Julie was sitting up, she said, mostly to herself, “It makes sense! Nobody told me any of this: spirit, death, walking… but it makes sense!”

I had a feeling something in Julie’s ability or purpose was opening up. She may be a “crossing guide”.

“That was what I would typically call Spirit Release Therapy.” I was going to tell Julie I had more information on my website, but it seemed that was not necessary. Looking at her, I said, “Some people actually come to see me specifically for that reason.”

“It makes perfect sense now!” Julie continued on, smiling a big smile. I thought how paradoxical that Julie felt intense fear in her body out of nowhere; but as soon as the scarier “ghost” came into the picture, she became very calm and peaceful.

“Thank you so much!” As Julie stood up from the couch, “I am feeling much lighter in my body now…” She paused for a second, “I mean, it feels really good!”

“Well, I think you are feeling yourself now. If all of those were imagination, your imagination is certainly a remedy for your imaginary problems.” I laughed with her while walking her out of the room.