Back Handspring - Fear Resolved in One Session

Megan’s mother called me on a Saturday. Her 16-year-old daughter had a tryout for her high school’s cheerleading squad coming up on Wednesday. But she had “a block” with one maneuver that was a requirement for the tryout – the back handspring.

To do the back handspring, Megan would have to leap backward, landing on her hands, then push off the ground to generate momentum and rotation, finally landing on her feet.

Her mom said she could do it sometimes but not other times. Even with someone holding her, Megan was afraid. We agreed on two 90-minute sessions, Monday and Tuesday mornings. Megan had a practice Monday afternoon, so we would be able to get feedback, to see how well she did after our first session.

Megan seemed a little non-committal when we connected on Zoom, she told me the difficulty had begun four years go. Before that she had had no problem with the back handspring or any other maneuver. She had no issue now with forward moves.

“Did that include the back flip?”, I asked.

“The back flip too,” she said.

“Well, we’ll just have to give you eyes in the back,” I joked.

I wondered what had changed four years ago.

“So, what happened four years ago?”

“I had a fall. It was no big deal.”

“But you remember it,” I thought to myself.

Now I knew where to go, but I would start with some hypnosis. Meagan had never experienced deliberate hypnosis (we all go in and out of trance states all the time – watching movies, playing video games, even reading); she didn’t even meditate.

I did my usual pretalk, explaining and giving examples of hypnosis and a “convincer” visualization exercise – in order to set her up to have a good experience. Then I guided her through “The Zone”, a self-hypnosis/meditation exercise, and the “Power Self” (see my YouTube channel, “HypnosisSilverSpring”). And then we went to work.

Even though Megan didn’t think so, I thought the fall she had had at 12 years old might be significant. I guided her through the “Fast Phobia Cure” (aka “V/K Dissociation”), a classic NLP procedure that can remove the emotion from a traumatic or painful memory (there are lots of examples on YouTube). With several repetitions of the last part (running the move backwards), Megan’s subjective level of feeling went down from 6 all the way to 1.

Then, in order to neutralize any fear that might still remain, I guided her through Wholeness Work: “Where is that feeling?”, I began, and when she said “the top of my head”, we continued on the somatic level, with just the physical sensations, the perceiving of them, and the merging into the Field of Awareness (look up “Wholeness Work” in YouTube). The outcome was to neutralize the fear feeling – Megan couldn’t get it back!

***

I got a text from the mom early the next morning, saying that Megan had done really well in practice; that she had gotten a congratulatory note from her coach.

When Megan and I met over Zoom for our second session, she told me that the practice had gone really well and that she felt very confident going into the tryouts the next day. I probed, to make sure that confidence was genuine, but from her answers, her facial expression, and her body language, it was clear to me that it was real.

I cancelled that second session – something I almost never do. But I felt that any further work at this point might convey a subtle suggestion that could undermine Megan’s confidence, her feeling of being sure of herself.

***

When I talked with her mom a few days later, she told me that Megan had indeed made the team and that they were asking her to join the traveling squad.