The Loving Voice:
The Joy of Openings at the 2012 IHF Conference
By Keri Elizabeth Ames, MH, Ph.D.
I completed my first level of training as a hypnotist less than two months
before I attended the 2012 IHF conference for the first time. I’m not at all a
conference virgin; I’ve always loved conferences, and I’ve attended dozens of
academic ones in the last decade in my former work as a professor of
comparative literature, teaching at the University of Chicago and Yale
University. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the wonderful rabbit hole I
fell into when I became a hypnotist and joined the IHF!
Words are the greatest magic and miracle of being human to me. I became
a scholar because of my passionate desire to understand how the voice conveys
meaning as the written word in the great works of Western civilization. So when
I arrived at the IHF Conference, I would have told you that I am an expert in
words. After all, I am a translator of ancient Greek and a trained philologist. I
also might have admitted that I love words, and that I was an exceptional
academic lecturer because I knew how to use an entrancing voice instead of a
monotonous, boring monotone.
That’s right: before I became a hypnotist, I used to think I knew the power
of my own voice. Go ahead and laugh; I’m laughing too. (We IHF hypnotists like
to laugh!) I laugh because everything I thought I knew about words and the
power of the voice was unraveled at my first IHF conference. That unraveling
was one of the most beautiful learning experiences I have ever had. The rational
knowledge and expertise that I acquired in universities will always be valuable
to me, but now, I know that rational knowledge to be only the very tip of the
iceberg showing to the visible eye. What lies beneath the water is the knowledge
of what the voice can do in hypnosis to help another human being.
My first IHF conference was like diving beneath the water and suddenly
seeing the rest of the iceberg. Everything about the power of the voice and the
power of the word that I had always intuitively felt but rationally denied was
suddenly shining before me.
Every hypnotist I met at the IHF was an angel in the literal sense: the
Greek word angelos means messenger, and the message is that the power of voice
and words sets you free from the past. Hypnosis is the process that releases what
no longer serves you and reveals the gift of the present moment of being alive in
a human body. As Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas explains, “Hypnosis is the science
and art of energy and words.” I am an expert in the science of words; that’s my
Ph.D. But it’s the energy of words that makes hypnosis the most powerful tool
on earth for self-discovery, for self-transformation, for empowerment, and for the
realization of human potential.
Allow me to detail how my journey through the IHF Conference led me to
that epiphany. First, I began to understand the urgency of permission, with
Beverley Taylor and the PTSD panel of John Warhank, Dawn Rowe, and
Christine Rossiter. Granting the hypnotist permission to help shift those old
experiences of trauma in the body is a gift beyond compare. Their insights taught
me that the higher self is always there to guide, as hypnosis permits the client to
shed those bodily memories instantly and permanently.
Kathi Kenedi’s Genetic Consciousness playshop was simply brilliant. Her
process is a new way to gain awareness, a new way to go deep into your cells to
find out what makes you you. In her demonstration with Dr. Bob Levine, we
witnessed him focusing on what was within and what he chose to shift, and we
saw his shift proceed easily, effortlessly, and wonderfully. Then Kathi let us
choose partners to experience the process with each other. Dr. Bob hypnotized
me; what happened to me there in perhaps those 12 minutes was more
transcendent and beautiful than any hypnosis I had ever experienced up to that
point.
The panels that permitted us time to practice and experience the particular
hypnotic processes were fabulous. Pamela Hutchinson’s Meet Your Angels
playshop was amazing: the room was literally sizzling with the energy of our
group as she led us through the way she works. Another example was the Reiki
Panel with Kathi Kenedi,, ? Schroder, ? Marzella, and Maureen Stock; the short
statements combined with the group’s practice took full advantage of the
opportunity of our time together. Roy Audette and I were partners and both of
us practiced Reiki on each other as we could not have before imagined possible.
Dr. Bob Levine’s Stress/Pain Elimination Certification Clinic was great
fun. Together we began to learn Dr. Bob’s innovation program and powerful
techniques. He has developed an impressive system to teach anyone how to
interrupt pain patterns in their body easily, effortlessly, and immediately.
Helping us understand how we are each generating our own patterns of
suffering and how we each have the power to break them is profoundly
insightful and of enormous value. Dr. Bob’s mission to reduce chronic pain and
improve quality of life while lowering outrageous health care costs is admirable.
May his impact ripple outwards to benefit millions!
Dr. Anne Dibala gave humorous anecdotes and excellent insights into
how to communicate with your medical doctor. She urged us to empower
ourselves to choose the proper medical intervention or medication. Educate
yourself, ask your questions, and employ your loving voice with your medical
doctor to intervene on your own behalf. Never again should any of us ever again
be intimidated by anyone in a white coat!
The Past Lives panel with Cindy Sawyer, Kathi Kenedi, Martin Peterson,
Christine Rossiter, and ? O’Maley was great fun. Martin Peterson’s story of how
his acceptance of a gift certificate for hypnosis compelled his formerly skeptical
self to accept the truth of his own past life was enthralling. Cindy Sawyer
reminded us that nothing happens by coincidence and not to be locked into a
linear understanding of time and space. The panel affirmed that the client is
always right and wherever the client goes is perfect.
I had been waiting to hear the words of Al Marotta on Trauma Release for
God knows how long: he stated matter of factly, “If you hear voices, they are
there: it’s that simple,” and “Consciousness predates time.” His insights were
riveting and his years of experience enriched his every comment.
The Shaman Panel was excellent; Walter Stock is a repository of wondrous
wisdom, such as the idea of finding your own personal totem animal for each
chakra, and Pamela Hutchinson and Craig Junjulias had specific, substantive
responses to my query about how to protect myself and preserve my own
boundaries when working with a client; for instance, don’t sit face to face with a
client, but always sit side by side or at an angle.
Others told me how much they loved Belinda Farrell’s Huna Self-
Forgiveness work, and her chanting is beyond beautiful. Teresa Figueroa’s
Hypno-Massage got rave reviews, as did Jaime Feldman’s Parts Therapy. Kaci
Christian’s workshop on authenticity was bonding and joyful, and the Stage
Hypnosis Panel with ? Almaraz, Jeff Bibik, ? Humm and Ken Owens was valued
by many. Beverley Bly and Craig Sigl each offered valuable and pragmatic
information about marketing and effective communication with clients. Their
advice was wise, fun to listen to, and easy to apply.
The combined impact of these panels, playshops, and countless awesome
conversations in hallways and at meals and breaks, served to exemplify for me
exactly how our inner energy and thinking manifests itself exactly in the world.
As Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas says, “Your word is your wand.” What you think
and say is actually exactly what manifests in the world. Just as in Homer’s
Odyssey, Athena waves her magic wand and changes Odysseus’ form and figure
from a vital warrior hero into a wizened old man with her words and her
intention, so do we all operate as human beings. We manifest the change we
intend with our voices and our energy. Hypnotists understand exactly how that
is the case like no one else, and with so many words and wands waving, this
conference became like nothing else I have ever had the joy of experiencing.
I cannot testify to who made the following statement, but I wrote it down
and it reverberates within me as happy truth: “Hypnosis is an act of profound
love. I look into my client’s eyes and I don’t know where I end and they begin.
That bliss of oneness is such a gift.” Anything is possible in any moment; every
moment is a deep karmic moment for every single one of us. Yet the moment
where the client and the hypnotist enter into bliss with permission and trust is a
realm of the most profound love. The voice is the instrument to create the
vibration that lets love release the old and embrace the new. Hypnosis relies
upon the loving voice in its very best form; the loving voice is the quintessence of
the very best opportunities of being human. As Al Marotta put it, “The greatest
act of love is helping those who cannot help themselves.”
The Sunday evening channeling panel was beyond the power of language
to describe; surely either my computer will freeze, the page will burn, or both,
should I try to write only what I experienced, let alone what each person in the
room did. Suffice it to say here for the written record that we were visited by the
most potent forms of love, joy, and beauty. Hearts were made whole; oneness
was like fog rising off the sea, filling the lungs of everyone present with purity.
It was my joy and my honor to be there, just like Stephen Dedalus in
James Joyce’s Ulysses: “He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing
colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all
colours of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere
beneath or seemed to.” We each heard the words changing color in our own way,
and we hypnotists are all different colors of different sorts of the exact same
sand. We have a home together at the IHF, and there is no seeming about it. At
home together at the IHF, we recognized every moment for what it is: an
opening where anything is possible.
So in the end, a homecoming is what this conference was. The 2012 IHF
conference was a chorus of loving voices, speaking and listening in perfect
harmony. In harmony, all is well, all is right, and all progress is possible: peace
on earth, peace in every heart, and abundance for all. At the IHF Conference, our
members created a new paradigm for humanity in 2012, walking in truth and in
abundance, with every tone being one of love. There are only two ways to live, in
love or in fear, and we have lived in fear on this planet long enough. This
conference announced that it is time for every voice on this planet to become a
loving voice and join in the harmony. The vibrations of our loving voices and our
loving work travelled far beyond the material world, into the near and far
reaches of time and space.
For me, that was the gift of all of the tragedies I had walked through to get
there. After all, the tragedy is never really a tragedy because every tragedy
always offers a gift. The 2012 IHF Conference celebrated the gift in every
moment and shared the power of the loving voice: just as it should be, for after
all, it’s 2012. It’s time to wake up, each of us to our own gifts and our own life
missions.