My client came in because his life was a "Mess." He couldn't speak without crying and told me that he felt depressed and could only sleep and drink alcohol. He made it clear that he wanted to move toward a life of balance, honesty and integrity. Initially, on the phone, it had sounded as though he had toward motivation, but he was actually moving away from the current chaos; he had just lost his job, his girlfriend and his roommate and had a list of other things that had recently happened to him. He had not been motivated to make changes until he encountered so many negative things and realized that he had to get away from them.

He wanted to work through his life issues and his habit of fabricating the truth - he was a chronic liar.

At this point, our first visit, he had some personal goals and by his second visit, he had specific and ordered goals as he knew he needed to change his habits, move to another state (location - not just an NLP state), find a new job, place to live etc. He was extremely detailed in his plan for success.

His entire life, he had seen how he was different (he noticed mismatches) from others and tried to fit in by lying or doing things for external approval. Now, he was interested in developing his own personality and life regardless of what others thought and regardless of being different from others. He was moving towards an internal approval system.

This client responded very well to hypnosis and NLP. In just a few minutes, he knew that working with me was exactly what he needed and he didn't wait for the proof of several visits.

He made it clear that he preferred to own his own business and work independently. He liked to be in control and preferred not to be in group situations where others were in control.

At this point in his transition, he was focused on being "in time" and was very action oriented.

We did several exercises in his 2 visits before he moved to Nashville, Tennessee. We began with what I call "gliding." I asked him to name his current situation ("Mess"), choose a color to represent it and tell me how he would rate it on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is the worst. He chose 10. After he did this, I asked him to leave it for a few minutes and create a place where he was calm, in control and safe (safety had been identified as something he had never had). He said he couldn't create this place because he had never felt these things. I asked him to remove any time/space limitations, use his imagination or tap into anything he had seen or read in the past to create this place in his mind. He created a nature scene at a waterfall and named it "Escape." He used the color green to represent Escape and breathed in the feeling of calm, control and safety. After he breathed that in, I asked him to connect "Mess" and "Escape" with a thin cord and glide back and forth between the 2 as quickly or slowly as he wanted letting me know how it was going every few minutes.

It was difficult for him to go to "Mess" but I asked him to at least glide and touch it briefly even if he returned to "Escape" quickly. I reminded him to breathe in the feeling of "Escape" and really let that feeling fill every fiber, cell and tissue of his body.

He eventually said that he really didn't feel anything negative when he went to "Mess" and he knew he was OK. I asked what positive !earnings he had from "Mess" and he turned what began as an extremely negative situation into a situation of learning and hope and optimism. He left very happy and very optimistic.

When he came to his next session, he was still optimistic and had made plan after plan for his next steps in life. He had spoken to family members about improving relationships and had meditated regularly and listened to motivational CD's. It was about 10 days between appointments and he had come to my Reiki Share about 3 days after his first appointment, so I had gotten an update from him before his 2nd appointment.

For the second session, he wanted to work through his tendency to lie. We went to the root cause with hypnosis and learned that it had begun in pre-school when children had teased him for wetting the bed. We did some hypnosis work allowing him to speak to the people involved and then we did some re-parenting and inner child work. He took his child self to "Escape" and worked with him there. Then he glided between the pre-school and "Escape" and neutralized any remaining charge from that time in his life.

Note: He told me later that he saw clearly how his habit of lying began in preschool and continued as he tried to fit in with others.

Next, I guided him through creating a chalkboard in his mind where he wrote all the negative words and feelings he had describing himself. I had him erase those words completely and go to the board to draw a true representation of himself. He added the words that described his true self and added colors, designs, tools and symbols to represent him at his very best. He breathed these in several times and we concluded the session.

Finally, I asked him to create a timeline in his mind and follow it approximately 3 months in the future and let me know how he was doing in full detail. His descriptions were bright and positive and he was very satisfied with his projection of himself in 3 months.

He left extremely happy and thankful for our time together. In the midst of what could have been a very bad time in his life, he had a new optimism and excitement and knew that he was ready to move away from his habits of the past and move forward in a new and positive way. His confidence had increased greatly.

He called me from Nashville to tell me how well things were going and to thank me.