A lot has change in our world since 1980. One thing that hasn't changed in 35 years since Urban Cowboy and Looking for Love (In All the Wrong Places) arrived on the scene is… Hollywood. Our movies and culture remain filled with the theory that love is found when we find someone to give it to us.
Pretty Woman had the downtrodden-yet-beautiful prostitute being 'rescued' by the handsome billionaire, "and she rescued him right back." The 1996 Tom Cruise film Jerry Macguirebrought us the famous line, "you complete me!" – and left us feeling like we might all have missing parts that only someone else can give us to make us whole. Even today's movies, like 2014's Winter's Tale, leave the moviegoer looking for miracles – especially when a main character like Beverly Penn says, "Each baby born carries a miracle inside. A unique purpose and that miracle is promised to one person and one person alone." It gets sort of depressing if you think you've missed the one person who has your miracle, doesn't it?
There is, however, good news if you step out of the theater and step into your own mind. Researchers including behavioralists, sociologists, and even neurologists are finding that love and other emotions aren't things we need others to trigger but rather feelings that we can trigger from inside of ourselves.
Hypnosis is one common method for overcoming heartbreak or getting rid of barriers to healthy relationships. Some experts also recommend adding meditation if you've forgotten what love feels like or if you think you've fallen out of love in your current relationship.
Lucas recommends spending 20 minutes a day really focused on that feeling of love – not the one on the silver screen but the one on the inside of your own mind. She contends that this kind of meditative work can not only help you feel your own love inside but can help you attract new love or even heal a current relationships that has lost its zing.
If all those Hollywood love stories have you feeling frustrated because you haven't found that one perfect person or you're not sure if the one person your with is the right one, you will generally find that you're better off working on yourself and not trying to find or fix someone else.
Looking inward doesn't really make for compelling 90 minute Hollywood love stories – and that's okay, you aren't living one of those. You're living a life. And it's full of love if you just let yourself feel it from the inside.
I guess Johnny Lee was sort of right. We have been looking for love in all the wrong places.
Craddock knows that "real love" is out there for everyone but it's beyond just finding it. "You've got to be available to attract it," she concludes.
If I had a dollar for every person who asked me to help them forget a person from their past, I'd be a retired hypnotherapist by now. And it would be a valuable trick if I could make it happen. I'm sure I could charge many thousands of dollars for a good memory erasing session that would turn "Mr. Wrong" into "Mr. Who is that Guy." The line of people out my door would stretch around the block if I could stop a hurting heart just by getting out an eraser on the client's memory in a quick forty-five minute session. And while we can help with heartbreak and loss, hypnosis can't erase a past love or make you forget about the person who divorced you, broke up with you or left you standing at the altar.
What hypnosis can do is help you change your reaction to the events of the past. It can help you put those hurtful words from the last fight into the right perspective. It can help you repair the damage and recognize the valuable lessons in the relationship. Hypnosis can help you find the things you want in the next relationship and help you heal enough to even imagine that next relationship. Hypnosis can help you find and fill all the holes in your own life so that a complete and powerful you can move on, move forward and thrive.
Keep the past in the past. We can help you properly assess the past, put it away and focus your attention on the future. That's where your life is going to occur. Nothing more will happen in the past and hypnosis can help you stop living in it – especially if it has a lot of pain for you in it. You have a purpose. You have a future. And neither your purpose nor your future should be weighed down from your baggage from the past. No, hypnosis can't make you forget. It can just help you move on. And that's worth lining up for.