Hypnotized by Karen Hand & Catherine Johns

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: Taking a chance on trance : She tries hypnotism to fight food cravings and negative attitude : June 9, 2010 : BY SANDY THORN CLARK | Chicago Sun-Times : : There was no swinging pendulum. No mesmerizing pocket watch. No magic spell. No hocus pocus. No voodoo. : Instead, there was an intense focus on a spot of my choosing. Total relaxation. My imagination. And a precise, soothing voice intended to guide, gently scold, and comfort. : Welcome to my first encounter with professional hypnosis. : In an attempt to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative -- all while losing a few pounds (that is, if 60 pounds qualifies as a few) along the journey -- I was willing to try hypnosis. : So there I was, riding an elevator to the sixth floor office suite of the Chicago Hypnosis Center, 4801 W. Peterson. Fascination and desperation dwarfed my fear of failure and journalist's skepticism. To my surprise, I immediately trusted co-owners Catherine Johns and Karen Hand, two former Chicago radio personalities who became certified with the National Guild of Hypnotists five years ago. : In a 25-minute interview designed to determine if I qualified for hypnosis -- drunks, persons with IQs under 70, and smart alecs don't -- Johns, 57, and Hand, 55, asked what I hoped to accomplish through hypnotism. I rambled . . . I longed to end what I called my stinkin' thinkin' . . . my all-consuming feelings of rejection . . . my "I'm not thin enough, not young enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough" mindset. Eventually, I got to the point: I felt this downward spiral of negativity, traced to my childhood with a hard-to-please unaffectionate father, played a critical role in my regaining 60 of the 160 pounds I had lost 17 years earlier. : "And who assumed that role -- the role of the disapprover -- when your father died? Who stepped in and told you that you weren't good enough?" Someone did," Johns stressed. Baffled and increasingly uneasy in my moment-of-truth, I finally stammered, "Me?" Instantly, Johns responded, "Do ya think?" Bam! : This was life as one of Chicago Hypnosis Center's clients -- who pay $125 to $160 a session (an average three sessions) to lose weight, stop smoking, reduce stress, manage pain, improve performance, eliminate a fear or who, like me, desire to halt the self-destructive practice of looking into a mirror and declaring, "I'm too fat . . . I'm too fill-in-the-blank . . . This is going to be a crappy day." : What exactly is hypnosis? "Have you ever been driving home from partying or work and realized, wow, I'm already home. How did that happen? That's an example of being hypnotized," Hand answered. : "It's like being in a trance. You go from trance to trance to trance without giving it a second thought," she continued. : "In hypnosis, we can bypass the conscious mind's critical judgment and tap into the power of the subconscious mind," Johns explained. : In a compact frill-less room, settled into a massive blue recliner, wearing earphones, I soon discovered just how uncomplicated, how comfortable, how magical this phenomenon called hypnosis is. Per Hand's instructions, I concentrated on a spot on the white ceiling -- a spot I selected at random -- while she counted from 1 to 10. : I closed my eyes on uneven numbers, opened them on even numbers. Or did I open my eyes on the unevens, close them on the evens? It didn't matter. I was groggy; my eyelids were too heavy to open. : Minus the stereotypical trappings associated with hypnotism in films, there was only Hand's calming voice reminding me to relax and to use my imagination as she taught me a self-hypnosis exercise designed to flush out my negativity, doubt, confusion, cravings, tension, angst, stress, and "all those things" I no longer wanted. : "Notice how good it feels to be doing something so good for you," Hand reminded. She was right -- it did. : I vividly remember Hand guiding me along two forks in a road, stopping at one, five- and 10-year intervals. One was an imaginary path of misery -- one in which I repeated the same self-defeating behavior I've chosen for the last decade -- and the other was an imaginary new path she invitingly called "the high road to success" in which I could choose to accept, honor and love myself. : Near the end of our 30-minute session, Hand encouraged me to begin each day choosing to notice what's right with the day -- even on days when it's gloomy -- and to look into a mirror and tell myself: "I love you . . . I accept you . . . I'm in control . . . I'm OK." : In the two weeks since my hypnosis, I've practiced those self-talks. I haven't eaten, craved -- or even missed -- the Ritz crackers, cheese spread and ice cream drumsticks that had become best friends attached to my hips. I'm exercising daily. I've lost six pounds. My nights of tossing and turning have ended. : Thanks to hypnosis, I realize I control my happiness. : (Local free-lance writer Sandy Thorn Clark will check in in a few weeks with an update.)

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