Summary: <br> Hi, my name is Flavio; I am a de-hypnotist.<br> The name of my occupation is not simply a new spin on an old idea; it more accurately represents what we actually do. It may be easier to understand this if we start at the beginning.<br> If nothing had ever happened to you, you would be totally innocent like a happy baby, but you would lack the wisdom of the serious adult you are.<br> Ideally then, all life experiences should make us wiser, but in practice that is not what happens. It seems that pain hurts more than pleasure pleases, about five times as much in fact, according to scientists. Consequently, we seem to be willing to invest much more energy into avoiding pain than in obtaining any sort of benefit.<br> The emotional impact of a negative life lesson can be so devastating and painful that we forget, or rather, archive those memories, emotions and lessons learned in a part of the mind where they serve the intended limiting purpose, while freeing everyday thoughts for more immediate concerns.<br> This arrangement allows us to go on with our lives, not having to think about each past pain all the time, while at the same time protecting ourselves from experiencing that pain again. Indeed this arrangement is quite functional, for some time at least.<br> Just as a baby who masters crawling discovers that the skill is no longer useful when he learns to walk, all life “lessons” also cease to be useful at some point. Letting go of previous ideals and mastering new ones is what leads to evolution and growth. Thus, no matter how big the lesson learned was at one point, eventually but certainly, it will cease to be useful and will be replaced with a higher truth. Life will invariably put us in a situation where our “learned lessons” no longer work, they no longer get us the intended result; in fact what we knew to be true before now seems to hinder us.<br> We know this is the case when we are unable to do something, or to stop doing something, despite our best efforts. Read the following two examples; the first exemplifies the inability to do something, enjoy reasonable heights. The second is an example of the inability to stop doing something, overeating. I will then offer an explanation of what may have limited these two people, and why they had to be de-hypnotized to improve the quality of their lives.<br> Some years ago, I was at a water park with my daughters. I skillfully avoided the really high structures, pretending the low drops were better for the kids. Eventually I gave into their insistence for the high drops and triumphantly climbed the first few steps into the wild blue yonder. As we waited in line, high above the earth, I clung firmly to the metal structure, palms sweating and all. When my daughters asked me how I was doing, of course, I said something about checking the underside of the structure for corrosion.<br> There was no reason for alarm or concern. The structure was indeed safe, and we were only a few feet above the ground. But I was terrified to the point of “seeing” the curvature of the Earth from high above it.<br> It was obvious that there was a limiting lesson engraved on my mind, even though I could not remember it or free myself from its claws. I had to admit to myself that I was unable to enjoy reasonable heights. That night, after the girls went to sleep, I went to work. I used hypnosis to de-hypnotize myself. I first remembered how casual the news was: oh, he died. Then the whole thing came back to me.<br> I was three or four years of age. All of us boys climbed on trees and played outside back in those days. But that day, my buddy Mat had climbed and fallen down. Yes he hit his head, but we all bumped our heads from time to time. Mat went to sleep that night and never woke up the next morning, all because he climbed a tree, fell and bumped his head. “Climbing is dangerous; it could kill!” was the lesson firmly implanted into my mind in order to deal with the pain of l
