So this is a question that I get asked quite often so I thought to share everything from start to finish
Mind you this will be a pretty long article!
So get your popcorn ready 😉
Essentially, it all started on the day I nearly died
I woke that fateful Tuesday morning, a little bit breathless and yet, I had to go to school to deliver a presentation
It was the last week of school, for my Year 1 Term 1 of my course, Child Psychology & Early Education in Ngee Ann Polytechnic (and I was 1 of 6 boys in a cohort of 84 students!)
So yea, I had to go to school to deliver a presentation (obviously it was graded), and while I was there, halfway through the presentation, I found myself getting harder and harder to speak and breathe…
You see, in order to speak, you need to breathe, and I couldn’t breathe so I couldn’t speak either
After the class was over and everyone gave their presentations, a few of my classmates and myself wanted to get together to continue a group project
However, by this time, my face was pale, and every step I took, for some reason, I had this sharp stabbing pain at the back, on the right side
It felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing me, or shooting electricity at my back
In fact, it was so bad, I was taking steps in inches… INCHES… I was walking worse than an old man with a cane!
Anyway, my friends decided it was best that I see a doctor, cause they could see I was in pain
So we took a bus to the nearest doctor or GP clinic
Boy, was the bus ride a horrible ride…
I had no idea why back then, but every vibration of the bus (which is essentially all the time) sent jolts of electric pain at my back… what was going on??
We reached the clinic, and when the doctor had a chat with me, he listened to my chest (my right side mainly) with his stetoscope and said, “You need to go to the A&E now, do not go home. Do you understand?”
I was like, shit what is happening?!
My friends got a cab and we went straight to the hospital (and the taxi ride wasn’t any better than the bus really)
Random thoughts were running through my mind… (it happens when you watched medical shows like House hahaha)
I was thinking maybe I had fluid in my lungs, like blood or water, and that the vibration (any vibration) will move the fluid and hurt my nerves hence the pain from walking, bus or taxi rides…
Anyway, we reached the hospital and the receptionist said only 1 of my friends can accompany me, and so I decided to thank my friends for the company but they should all return to school for the next lecture at 1pm
The nurse interviewed me, took an X ray and gave me a wheelchair and a blanket while I waited
Finally, I got wheeled into the A&E room and a doctor showed me my X ray of my lungs
Holy shit?!
My X ray showed that my right lung had collapsed to the size of an egg!!
And I knew a bit of biology, in the sense that you need both lungs to breathe equal portions of air, so it’s not like you can breathe normally when one side had collapsed
I was in a state of shock and that’s when the doctor said, “You will die within days from suffocation or within minutes when the air crushes your heart, unless you do the procedure now…”
At this point, I dropped to the ground, I was in shock and tears, crying as I saw my life flashing before my eyes, seeing my life’s regrets
It was just 2 months before my 21st birthday, so technically I wasn’t an adult
These were my regrets…
- I didn’t study for my PSLE
- I didn’t study for my O Levels
- I didn’t study for my A Levels
And that’s when I realised, hey! Why am I regretting about my studies??
It’s not like Saint Peter up there (I’m Catholic) is going to say, “Hey sorry man, I cannot let you into Heaven because you didn’t study for your Chinese…”
And Jesus isn’t going to say, “I’m sorry McKing, you were a bad boy for not studying for your exams, so you got to go to Hell”
God isn’t going to say, “My son, I cannot allow you into Heaven because you didn’t get good scores for your exams… so you have to go to Hell..”
Like what?!
And that’s when my regrets became more… human (for lack of a better word)
I regretted not telling my mum and my brothers that I love them
I regretted not telling my extended family, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my nieces and nephews that I love them
I regretted not confessing to my crush that I like her, and regretted not knowing whether she liked me back…
Meanwhile, I was still on the ground crying and weeping, and I had this vision or image of the angel of death approaching from behind me, coming with his scythe and ready to take my soul…
And that’s when I heard the doctor (I forgot to mention he was a male doctor) say, “Why are you on the ground crying?”
I wasn’t processing much but on hindsight, I realised he might have said some other stuff but I just didn’t catch it you know?
I was effectively traumatised by all this
So anyway, a female doctor came along, slapped him away and told me I will be fine and it’s ok cause I am in the hospital right?
Then she got me to call my mum but I ended up just crying into the phone and she took it from me and told my mum some stuff
Let’s pause here for a moment because I want to share something really important
You see, what I didn’t know back there, was that the male doctor accidentally hypnotised me
Huh?!
I know you are confused so let me explain
When we talk about hypnosis, we essentially talk about the conscious mind and the unconscious mind, and how hypnosis is all about bypassing the conscious mind (the gatekeeper) and entering the unconscious mind
The thing is, we have gradual ways like the traditional methods of deep relaxation and just keep relaxing
And we have faster ways known as instant inductions that we find in stage or street hypnosis
We can also find really fast instant ways that occur naturally in life – traumatic experiences
You see, using my trauma to illustrate, when I saw my X ray where my right lung had collapsed to the size of an egg, and I was in a state of shock, my conscious mind (the gatekeeper) was temporary down and this allowed any surroundings (such as a particular male doctor) to input any suggestions (such as “You will die”) into my mind directly with no obstructions
That’s how people get traumatised, they experience a shock and or fear and it sticks yea?
In stage or street hypnosis, the shock might be a handshake jerk and the suggestion is “sleep”
Mine was unfortunately, about dying and death
And my unconscious mind was trying to connect the dots of me dying now in the A&E room, to a collapsed lung and presto! It thought that me having breathing difficulties during the school presentation was the cause of this collapsed lung…
So I developed PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder where in the next 2.5 years in polytechnic, every time I did a presentation, I will run to the toilet, with this intense amount of fear, collapsing onto the sink, crying like there is no tomorrow, my mucus flowed like a waterfall, and my mouth salivated like a running tap
I honestly thought I had severe stage fright… I didn’t know I had PTSD until many years later!
I subsequently fell into depression during this period of time
I was lost, clueless, and just suffering, mentally, physically and emotionally breaking down after every single presentation in school…
My other fears and anxieties naturally escalated too
Finally, I gradually from my diploma and I found myself learning numerology
The background story here was that the numerology master was sharing how numerology can be used to determine a child’s learning style, whether it is visual, auditory or kinesthetic which got me rather curious because I had to use a learning style assessment to determine my kids’ learning style (I was giving some tuition)
And strangely enough, there was a 100% match, the numerology of a child who is a visual learner match the learning style assessment stating he is a visual learner, etc etc for all my kids!
Anyway, I wouldn’t dwell too much on this now, the key is actually meeting a face reader during this period
He saw my face and his face went pale, he had a look of shock on his face, as if he just saw that I should have been dead long ago!
We chat a bit and I subsequently shared my story, and he felt it was fate that we met, and took me under his wing and taught me about energy, as well as eating the right food in order to bring back my health
Here, I realised the importance of health, that without health, you cannot really do much!
Some time passed and with this refocus of health, things got better
And then one day, a Facebook ad pop up, talking about NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming in which, they talk about learning holistic health techniques
I got curious, and did some research, and I found that NLP in Singapore is usually marketed for business, success, wealth, presentations etc, whereas this Facebook ad belongs to an Australian school and talks about a lot more stuff, from relationships, to health, from family to career and more
That got me very curious, and I decided to go for it and learn the Basic NLP
And it was here (or after the course) where I realised my issues is characteristic of someone with PTSD!! And that I could be cured!!
The only thing is, I don’t know if I can trust a fellow classmate with my mind ahahah so I decided to take the Master NLP course in the same year
It was one of the techniques that I was the demo subject for my trainer which helped me resolve the PTSD
And it was during the Master NLP course in which I realised the power of hypnosis
I mentioned I am Catholic right?
My whole family and myself actually honestly thought hypnosis was black devil magic!
So it was only during the Master NLP course did I realised that hypnosis is really psychology and linguistics (that didn’t convince my mum though… and that’s another story for later)
You see, NLP came about when John Grinder and Richard Bandler came and put the best practices at that time together; body language, hypnosis, coaching, etc etc
So whatever you know of NLP, is probably just a tiny fraction of what is really NLP
My question to myself though, was whether did they take hypnosis techniques or hypnosis principles?
I mean, I honestly wouldn’t know right? And I am just sharing my thought process which led me to today
So as luck will have it, I received an email about a conversational hypnosis course that was coming to Singapore for the first time, and will be trained by a German master hypnotist
Boy was I excited! My mum wasn’t hahaha
We had a bit of argument, conversation, chit chat until finally she was ok with me learning hypnosis
That hypnosis course blew my mind sky high
Personally to me, NLP provided a basic foundation as well as provided width in terms of various forms of understanding and techniques while hypnosis provided depth of understanding and focus in a particular area
It’s like building the floor and subsequently the walls in order to get a house!
And i started putting what I learnt to good use
To treat myself
I mean yea the Master NLP course helped with my PTSD but I had a lot of issues by then
So I begun resolving my issues one by one, using my newfound skills and knowledge
And yes, you can hypnotise yourself – it’s called self hypnosis
After I fix pretty much everything I know of, that was it!
YAYYYYYY!!!
And that was it
But then, I started helping a few people, a few of my friends with their issues
They bought me lunch or dinner and I will help them resolve an issue
And things just carry on like this… until my mum came into the picture
So my mum is very short and she went to the super market and injured herself when she reached up and grabbed a heavy bottle of detergent
There was a “snap” sound at her wrist and her arm started swelling!
As with elderly women sometimes, she didn’t want to see a Western doctor or seek Eastern sensei for a consultation
My youngest brother and I were telling her to consider some pain relief hypnosis with me, but she rejected it
So anyway, on the 4th day, my brother was enlisted into the army and my mum and I were on the bus to have a tour of the Pulau Tekong army camp, and I saw my mum rubbing her wrist
So i said to her, that in 5 to 10 minutes, we are going to get off the bus, and in 5 to 10 minutes, I can potentially reduce your pain and heal your arm, would you like that?
She hesitated but accepted this time round
After the hypnosis, we continued the tour and went for the last meal with my brother
Before we ate our lunch, I looked at my mum’s arm and it was back to normal!
The swelling had went down completely!
My mum was so surprised and in shock and she knows how fast it went down, in addition to having the pain gone too!
And this was when I realised I have a unique set of skills, to help people so much more than what is conventional
Subsequently, I researched about starting a business, and used hypnosis to resolve any limiting beliefs I had in my mind about business
And tada~ it’s been 3 years since I started my hypnotherapy practice!
And yea, that’s how I became a hypnotist!
Since then, I live every day as if I might die later that night, and I wake up thankful that God gave me another day to live
This is that I will strive to do my best each and every day, to help the people around me 🙂
Now I don’t know how you might feel, maybe you are inspired, or shocked, or feel relieved
So if you like, do comment below your thoughts as you read this or if you have other questions for me, and I will be glad to answer them
And if you felt inspired and want to inspire a friend, do share this with them too! 🙂
Til next time, and have a great day ahead!
