Hospital, hypnosis and headlines

I’ve been having hypnosis for the last few weeks for pain management,  I’ve also had a medical procedure in hospital. But its not the headline experience that really makes a difference, it’s the build up, the context, small actions, ways of being, words, interactions and follow up. 

At work, how often do we think in headlines?  All around us media speaks in big bold letters and we slip into this so easily in our work.  Time poor and impact hungry, we describe final outcomes, champion end results, creating a culture that strives for perfection and misses the point of the experience.  Shifting focus from the headline to the subtext, from the destination to the journey takes effort and attention. 

Here is how these 2 recent experiences of mine played out…

Hypnosis

Tucked away on a backstreet of Prestwich, I found the hypnosis practitioners room for the second time  As you’d expect, soft lighting, comfy chairs, a soothing voice.  I’d expected some kind of deep meditation, relaxation, maybe some techniques to ease pain but on that rainy grey day, what I didn’t expect was a technicolour, deep and mind blowing journey! I’m sure I’ll write more about this another day, but for this article I want to rewind to the first session in the hypnosis room. 

For an hour and a half, I was listened to and had my thoughts reflected back.  She wanted to know the specifics of my pain, tiny details that a doctor wouldn’t ask.  She uncovered a collection of (I thought) unrelated nuances, like my strange aversion to having my head touched, and the fact that often the pain comes when I am my most relaxed- or asleep!

Hospital

In contrast, at my first appointment with the specialist doctor, he barely looked at me.  I was buried, in medical sentences, in the stack of files on his desk. He asked no questions about my lifestyle or choices.  He quickly made a handful of assumptions based on the fact I have children and recommended a camera to see with his own eyes, what I was telling him about my own experiences. I then spend several minutes watching in silence as he stuck the sticker on my file upside down, whilst muttering that he would get in trouble for seeing me again so quickly. It was no surprise then that after a general anaesthetic and a small but invasive procedure, he did not debrief, I was left with 3 lines of scrawl, that the nurse couldn’t even read, an instruction for a follow up appointment in 3 months and no information or solutions in sight. 

Seeing past the headline

Reflecting back today on these experiences, it strikes me how differently I showed up to these sessions and how differently I left these sessions – The reason for being there (the headline) was the same, endometriosis, but they were almost opposite experiences.  Seeing past the headline the subtlety of the experiences included:

• The lighting, the space, the care taken

• Listening, speaking and hearing my words reflected back. Time to find the right words to communicate deeper meaning and complex experiences

These small, shifts, when added together completely shifted my experience. At work too, paying attention and caring enough to create an experience rather than just deliver results, will often ensure the results happen by default.

In my coaching sessions and calls today, whilst I feel the urge to rush into the work following a day off, I will slow down and pay attention to the small details, the words and actions, the space and time because small cumulative things matter.

I’ll be reminding myself that the brilliant thing, is the way we do things, not the end result.