Love and joy at the end of life ~ Becoming the Greatest Expression of You

End of life

This is a story about how the Greatest Expression of You process impacted a couple at the end of life.

One evening as I waited to board the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, I noticed a gentleman who had been a client several months previously. As soon as he saw me at the ferry terminal he smiled and came over to give me a big hug. He looked relaxed and happy. He had been at a school event with his grandchildren. As we chatted we walked onto the ferry and sat together for the 30-minute crossing.

He and his wife came to me in the final months of her life. He continued sessions with me for a few weeks after her death.

When they first contacted me, his wife had end stage cancer. She wanted hypnosis to help her cope with the stress, anxiety, nauseousness and pain that she was experiencing. She also asked if her husband could join in on the sessions hoping it could help him as well.

Joy

For most of this ferry crossing, I listened. He told me that in those final months that he and his wife relied on the joy that they had experienced in their 58 years of marriage. When she first called me, there was no joy.

At our first session, they were both caught up in the “horror” (his word) of what was happening to them. She was suffering and dying of cancer he was losing his best friend and the love of his life. He felt helpless because he could not save her from what was happening.

I remember that during this session he was skeptical and that he couldn’t imagine that they could be joyful at a time like this – or that hypnosis could help either one of them. I could sense his underlying anger. I let him know that it was OK for him to be angry (at the cancer and with me) and that my office was a safe place for him to express his anger.

When they came back the following week for their second session, it was like I had a different couple in my office. She was still dying of cancer, but there they were in my waiting room giggling like two teenagers.

They had gone home after that first session and each wrote their own Greatest Expression and they wrote an additional one for the two of them. They shared that in that week they started each day reading their Greatest Expression, brought to mind the joy they had experienced and meditated on that joy. While I had not yet taught them the full process, that was enough for them to make a huge shift.

They had gone from focusing on the horror of what was happening to the wondrous joy they had experienced through their love for each other. They were able to truly love each other through her death.