from Roy Cage, C.Ht. (used by permission. Christy Graham requested a guest blog from Mr. Cage after hearing this story in person. If you ever get a chance to learn from Mr. Cage, grab it! He is amazing.)
Jason was a troubled boy, eleven year’s old, and in Special Education classes in his school. I was “this hour’s guest” on a Dallas/Ft. Worth Talk-Radio program called “Meet the Experts” hosted by Karen Bloom and Art Snow, which was, I think, the most popular talk show on N. Texas radio at the time. It was an afternoon show, ran 3 hours, weekdays, and both hosts worked the entire show, answering the phones, interviewing, questioning, and commenting on answers furnished by the guest experts on various professional fields such as Law, Medicine, Accounting, etc., and the various counseling therapies, including Therapeutic Hypnotism (that was mine.) It was a Wednesday in November, as I recall, and one of the listeners to my studio visit, that day, was Jason’s mother. She had been unable to dial through on the crowded call-in lines to talk on the air, and had left a number with the station’s receptionist requesting that I call her. I did so, and this was her story: “We are sort-of at our wit’s end, Mr. Cage. Jason has driven two school counselors and one psychologist “nuts,” trying to help him, and we then registered him in a sort of “therapy camp” for boys of his age group in Missouri in the Summer, and they simply gave up on him and sent him home! He never smiles; never has fun. He never plays, inside or out, with his brother and sister….he NEVER eats a meal with the rest of the family, he takes no interest in school, doesn’t like his schoolmates or teachers, and will not attempt to do the work assigned. He is a complete “loner” and seems to love nothing and nobody. He doesn’t fight, he just stays to himself, and we seem to have no way to help him. He’s not happy, He cooperates with us in things like seeing counselors, but nothing seems to help. Do you think that you might help us?”
I thought for a moment before answering, considering what I’d been told, and then answered, without further hesitation, “Yes, I really think that I can. I’d very much like to try.” When they arrived for Jason’s appointment, I told the parents to please make themselves comfortable while Jason and I spent a little time in the Session Room. When we were in that room and Jason had been seated, I asked “Jason, do you think that you need help……for yourself?” He promptly replied “Yes, Sir.” I asked: “Are you willing to change…if I am able to help you to be able to do so?” Again, he said promptly; “Yes, Sir. I wish I could be happy and like people and then they would like me!” I said “Great! We’ll get started. I had a special child-size recliner in the office at the time, and it fit him well and he seemed comfortable, except for the almost constant movement common to hyperactive folks.
I believed that he truly did want help, and would do what he could to help me, so I started by telling him that I could see that he was a bit hyperactive, but I wanted him to try something for me. He nodded o.k., so I said “Thanks. it’s not going to be easy for you, but I believe you can do it! I want you to keep your right hand and arm, all the way up to the shoulder, completely still while I count rather slowly from 30 down to 1! Do you think you can do this?” He said “I’ll really try” and I said “Good!” Now, keeping your right arm and hand “still” regardless of what else you do, listen to my count now….and I started with 30 and counted down with my session-room voice at a pace of about one digit per second, all the way down to “One!” I think that every skeletal muscle in his body, EXCEPT HIS RIGHT ARM AND HAND, were in motion while I counted. But he successfully did what I had asked. After thanking him for the effort, I said “Now it’s going to get tougher. This time while I count I want you to keep BOTH arms and hands still like that! Close your eyes, breathe easily, and keep both arms and both hands still while I count. “30”…and etc. His whole body seemed to be incapable of stillness, except that both left and right arms and hands remained completely still! The next step was to continue this routine with stillness for both arm-hand sides AND the right leg. I suggested that it might help to simply close his eyes and allow his head to sort of slump toward his chest, and he did that. And as I counted it was Success! The instruction was for eyes closed, head laying against the back of the chair or slumped to his chest, breathing easily, and keeping both arms and hands, both legs and feet, still for the count. He took position, I started counting even more slowly, and by the time I had reached the count of 15 he appeared to be in the relaxed, unconcerned state typically referred to as “Hypnosis” (“hyper-suggestible”) and I think that I never actually completed the count down to one, that time.
Good! Jason was obviously capable of focusing his Analytical (Conscious) Mind, and of exercising short-term control over his impulsive “Feeling (Emotional) Mind.” At about the count of “Fifteen” I had realized these things, so I slowed the count rather dramatically and left off counting, completely, at about “Ten!”
After a few moments of suggestion to enhance his state of relaxed distraction, and familiarizing his now accessible emotional mind (often referred to as “subconscious”) with my voice, pacing, intensity and expectancy, went to work surprising even myself with the ease with which were able to accomplish dramatic improvement in this first session.
I used my own regression technique to allow Jason, in his emotional mind, to perceive himself at the beginning of his life….literally at the moment of conception within his mother’s body. Then, I proceeded to direct him….month by month… . through the approximately 9 months of life and development within her body, where there “is nothing to see but darkness, nothing to hear but what mother can hear, and nothing to feel but what she feels.” I then observed carefully while he was “in” the first month….the second month (no visible reaction, appearing sound asleep!) continuing in like manner through months three and four, and then….THEN! At month Five, Jason began to cry! Suddenly contorting his face and his body. Trying to hug and squeeze himself around the shoulders while he sobbed and tears flowed and he drew his knees up toward his chesl, cried “OWOOOOOO! so loudly that I wanted to cry with him! But I could not allow myself that freedom, so I said “Jason, speak to me with your 11 year-old boy’s voice and tell me what’s happening to you now in the fifth month in your mother’s body.” I waited, and he could speak even though he was obviously in pain: “NOBODY WANTS ME!! NOBODY WANTS ME AT ALL! NOBODY LIKES ME! THEY DON’T EVEN CARE THAT I’M HERE!! Ohhhhhhhhooooo!” Nobody wants me!” The tears were flowing, and I had to do something! I spoke firmly to him and said “Right now…Jason! Go back one month to the fourth month in your mother”….and he calmed down, got quiet, became still, and I continued: “just stay resting right here while I step into the other room to speak to your mother. I’ll be back in just a short time and we’ll continue…YOU ARE DOING SUCH A GOOD JOB!” I went into the anteroom and as his mother looked up and me in surprise and asked “What’s happening, what’s the matter?” I assured her with a smile that everything was going VERY well, but just needed a little information from her. She agreed to respond.
“Think back to the time you were pregnant with Jason, and tell me any event that happened that might have been memorable or remarkable during the fifth month of your pregnancy?” She quickly replied “Specifically the fifth month? Oh, nothing special…just pregnant! I had some morning sickness for awhile, but after that I guess I just felt awkward and pregnant!” I replied: “No, that’s too ‘pat” for the answer. Take a minute to think: 5th. month pregnant with Jason. Where were you? What was going on?”
“Oh!” She said…’Oh, now I know: .that was the most horrible experience of my life! I had left Michigan with my boy friend, who came to Texas to work. I was pregnant and didn’t want to tell my parents, and so I just left them a note that I was leaving with him and would keep in touch, and we left with the clothes on our backs and two small suitcases, a few dollars, and an old car. Fort Worth is as far as we got, and we were staying in a ratty old motel, here, while he looked for work. I had nothing to do all day while he was looking for a job, and I had no money. and I was five months pregnant! Then, one afternoon, he came in to the room, started grabbing some of his clothes and sacking them, didn’t say a word to me, and then headed out to the car. We were on the second floor of this old motel, and he took the rusty old stairway two steps at a time to the bottom, and as he was getting into the car I yelled “Where are you going? What’s happening?” and he simply replied “I’m leaving. You can just stay here, and he started the car and yelled through the window: I don’t want you anymore, I don’t want to see you again, and neither does your family or mine! I don’t know of anything I can do for you, so you’re on your own, we’re done! Good Luck!” And she has never seen nor heard from him since that moment! These are HER words; “I was the most unwanted person in the Universe! I had NOTHING! I had NOBODY! I didn’t even have anything to eat and I had a baby living inside my body and no way to even kill myself and him! I had to beg for some food, and even if people helped me they acted as if they hated me for asking. I was in rags and looked and felt awful!, and nobody cared if I lived or died. I had no-one!!” And I said “I’m so sorry to have had to bring this up, but I believe it was necessary and the best thing you could do for Jason and your family.” She hastened to interject: “And this is NOT Jason’s dad: this is my husband and Jason’s stepdad.”
I went back into the session room feeling a mixture of elation and grief. I wished that I could stop right there and make magic happen! But I then knew where Jason’s intense emotional separation came from! We humans just work this way: prior to birth, his only notable experiences were those experienced by his mother! Being, for practical purposes, developing physically and mentally and even emotionally at a time where he could see nothing, hear nothing that mother didn’t hear, and feel nothing but what she felt (emotionally) his mind was constructing his Basic Internal Emotional Operating System from HER feelings and reactions. She felt totally rejected and alone, and he, being in her and actually at the time a part of her felt what all the rest of her felt, and that became the underlying emotional energy and motivation driving his sense of exclusion and rejection!
I believe that it would be good here to imagine the Emotional Mind as developing like the annual rings of a tree: What is entered and saved in the early rings doesn’t, somehow, disappear as the outer rings develop. Instead, it stays in there creating conflict and attracting additional, similar emotional energy as it reacts to any similar causal events as time goes by. Then, often, sometime much later in life, it becomes such a powerful reaction that the analytical mind can no longer control it in times of stress!)
Jason was waiting peacefully when I re-entered the Session Room. I spoke quietly to him and said “Jason, as much as I hate to do it, I have to take you back with me into the time of your fifth month in your mother’s body, and I promise that it will soon be different. Come with me, now, in that wonderful mind of yours, back into that bad fifth month.” The reaction was shockingly fast and he was cringing as if trying to escape himself and all of the previous reactions. and I said Firmly: “Jason, what you’re feeling does not belong to you! These bad feelings all belong to your mother. They were her feelings, and were NEVER intended for you! And no matter how much you might like to keep them away from her now that you’ve got them, you cannot! They are HER feelings, not yours, and you must allow them to go back to her!” He began to calm down! I continued: “Before you were born, while you were inside your mother and part of her, your only feelings were what she felt. She had been unbelievably, terrifyingly rejected…by your biological father, by her family and friends, and by everyone around her, here, who saw her as a liability until she got to some people who run a shelter who took her in and cared for her. But she felt that nobody wanted her, ever again, and that she was alone in the world and with nobody but you, and you weren’t even born, yet! But she wanted you! She loved you so much and wanted you so badly that she gave up everything she could get to just be sure that you got born healthy and, I’ll tell you something else that is true: When they heard about you, her family, who had been rejecting her, every single one of them wanted you and loved you and made arrangements to take care of her and you to be sure that you were born healthy and they were so excited about you that they even forgave her and helped her make a home and a life for you down here in Texas! And they learned to love her again! Jason, you are greatly loved! Your teachers and schoolmates want nothing but to enjoy your company and your development and growth and loving you! They want time with you, and right now you are beginning to feel the truth of all I have told you and you are beginning to FEEL wanted and loved and you will never let such rejection into your feelings again! NOT EVER! I continued through the next approximately 3 months…of coming back to the constant present, where we had begun this life regression trip. I did the re-alerting of his analytical mind. and asked “Well, Jason; how do you feel right now?” He replied “I feel good and I want to see Mom and Dad and my brother and sister.” I said, “well, we’ll go out there where your parents are and we’ll schedule you back here in a week…NEXT Saturday morning. O.K?” He agreed. His Mom agreed, and we did all of that.
As I mentioned, I was scheduled to see him again the following Saturday On Tuesday morning his mother called me and said “Oh, Mr. Cage! I know we don’t see you again until next Saturday, but I can’t wait to tell you what’s already happened: Jason’s teacher called me this morning and asked “What has happened to Jason? What did you do?” She (mom) replied “Why? What’s wrong? What are you talking about?” to which the teacher replied “Yesterday, Jason was one of the best students in class…for the FIRST time….and he was friendly all day, and relating to his classmates as never before, and this morning he came to the desk and asked me if there was something that he could do in class to help me! He’s a totally different child! If he keeps this up we’ll have to move him into regular class at the end of this 6 weeks!
He did, and they did! And now it’s my time for me to become emotional, because here’s the rest of the story:
Jason became a model student and his mom would call me periodically to report. She and the family were ecstatic! He ate meals with them. Was interested in their lives, Played with them in the yard and in the house, and did everything with the family, just about. A year passed, and just before Christmas the next year, I got a call from Jason’s mom saying “Jason wanted me to make another appointment for him. When can we see you?” I said “What’s wrong, is something up….?” She replied “Well, I don’t know of anything, but Jason has been, so when he came in and said that he wanted to come back to see you, I wasn’t about to hesitate!” We made the appointment.
When they arrived, Jason had grown as 11-12 year old boys do, and he was carrying a paper grocery bag with the top rolled down. Mildly curious, I invited them in, and then he and I went into the Session Room. He brought the paper bag in. After we were seated, I said “Jason, it is so good to see you again. You have grown so, and your mother has called me a few times and you seem to have overcome the problems we discussed before, so what’s going on?” He said “Oh, No, Mr. Cage. Nothing is wrong this time. I got mom to make the appointment so I could see you again. In our class at school one of our assignments was to pick somebody who is especially important to us…very special;;;and make something for a personal Christmas gift for them. This is yours.” That did it. I could hardly control my own emotions. He opened the bag and took out a (to me) beautiful Whirl a Gig: on a stick which was beautifully designed and carefully made and stayed in my office on display for several years. What more could anybody ask?
Yes, I’m a man. A red-blooded (and some think maybe red-necked,) born and raised in Texas MAN! But it was my time to shed a few tears…for a totally different reason: Once more in my life I had achieved true acceptance!
Back to Jason: When the emotional mind has all of that pain and trauma built into it, it must react, and all of the logical argument in the world about how it’s not appropriate or desirable cannot change it. But when one discovers how to get into that mind, without the controlling presence of the alert thinking mind, and sets things in order there, the behavioral changes occur quickly, more easily than most would believe, and for good!. And THAT’S “Jason’s Story.”
Roy Cage, Certified Hypnotherapist
Author of “Conflict Therapy Hypnotherapy” “The Magic Loop…Using your words to heal yourself.” “NeuroPhasics”
All copyright: Roy Cage and all rights reserved to the author.
Interested in learning more? Think Mr. Cage can assist you? Roy has a private practice in Corinth, Texas and invites you to call him at 817-903-1544 or email him at cagero@aol.com.