I’m going to tell you about something I don’t think I’ve told you about before. (I’ve potentially mentioned it in the podcast.) And I know how you love stories……..
About 4 years ago, I fractured my ankle. It was something that was just meant to happen. The odds were highly stacked against me. I was in a nightclub on a Spanish island and I was wearing high, high shoes (now affectionately known as “the ankle breakers”). The club had a tiled floor and they had just had a foam party so it was really slippery. Oh and there was also a tiny, tiny step which wasn’t marked out. And potentially I might have had a little bit of wine too.
So anyway, I slipped and my ankle bent in a way that isn’t normally humanly possible and there was a nasty noise. I tried to get up but couldn’t put any weight on it and knew it was bad, bad news.
I got to the hospital, had it x-rayed and they confirmed it was fractured.
The doctor wanted to operate and stick some pins in but I was due to fly home the next day and my Spanish can just about get me a beer but probably wouldn’t cover me for a hospital stay. So I told the doc to wrap it up in plaster cast and send me on my way.
He said they would have to plaster it with the bone back in the right place and that they’d need to push it back whilst plastering me up. This, he said was going to hurt quite a lot and said I’d need some pain killer. The only problem is that I’m allergic to morphine and he didn’t have anything else to offer me. He was pretty worried about this but I was fine about it and just said “I’m a hypnotist, I’ll put myself into trance.”
We got into the special plastering room and I started to get myself into state. Out of the corner of my mind I saw a nurse coming over with a needle. The doctor quickly told her something along the lines of “No need she’s doing hypnosis on herself” (but he said it to her in Spanish obviously.)
I used Hakalau to manage my state- breathing in for the count of 8 and out for the count of 4 whilst also using peripheral vision. I’d previously used this technique when I was on my NLP Master practitioner training and on the last day we did a glass walk. It was a big stretch of broken bottles and in order to walk over them without slicing your feet up you had to utilize the breathing technique and the vision at the same time. Some people who didn’t quite get it right did end up with cuts on their feet.
It took about half an hour and I was aware at times that some pain kicked in, but I quickly got rid of it by focusing my attention elsewhere.
The Doctors and nurses were suitably impressed and sent me on my way with some paracetamol.
Which I never took.
By Gemma Bailey
www.gemmabailey.co.uk
Good on you! I have a broken ankle at present just the fibula which does not need surgery but still was very sore without having to be pushed into place, so I am very impressed by your use of trance amazing.
Mine was a broken fibula, but it healed up in 7 weeks. Hope you get better soon! G x