Hello...? Helllllllllooooo...? I am still here! Honestly. Cross my heart and hope...well, you get the picture. I would forgive you for thinking I had dropped off the face of the earth as my silence has been uncharacteristically long, but I have not. I am here, see; *waves manically*
I have no explanation for my long absence, however, I am back and I am back for good. I have missed pondering the world with you all and I promise not to leave it quite so long in the future. But now on with the show as they say in the theatre.
An interesting thing happen on New Years Eve. I recreated Beyonce's 'Crazy In Love' video in a Carpet Shop with Maybelline's girlfriend. This isn't actually what I am referring to but I have felt the need to share this fact with everyone and anyone I know since that rather fun event. Alas, there is no photographic evidence of our almost identical rendition Beyonce's classic but mark my words, it was...pretty damn awful. No, the event that I would like to share with you is the hypnosis I was placed "under" during this drunken celebration.
This New Years Eve was spent how all New Years should be spent; playing word games and getting a little too merry with Dynasty and The Blonde One. This may sound dull to you but perhaps your words games have never lead to someone yelling out the word 'wanking' as a suggestion for 'something that is good for you'. Embarrassed of myself I may have been but dull it was not.
This year the setting for NYE was Dynasty's parents new abode. It was after midnight, I had drunk half my body weight in cheap fakeo-no-makeo Champagne and one of the other party guests wanted to show off his hypnosis' skills. As ever I was the one that was pushed into participating. The Blonde One even admitted her bullying ways in her merriness when asked why "Jo" should be the first victim, her reply was simply 'Because we always bully Jo into doing everything first'. My Best Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen.
However it came about, it matters not, there I was sat on a chair in the kitchen with half a dozen intoxicated individuals staring down at me, my oversize eyes wide with scepticism and my head beginning to thump from all the alcohol. I was feeling as awkward as an Alpaca in a field full of Llamas. The hypnotherapist asked if I had any reason in particular to want to be hypnotised, "because it'll be amusing for Dynasty and The Blonde One" seemed a little immature and disrespectful so I plucked for the original and ever coherent "Eeer, maybe, well, I don't know, what about, urm, something like...confidence? Yeah!? I mean, yeah, OK, confidence?" It seemed the least dangerous. So confidence is what he aimed to give me and in five short minutes I was going to wake with a new found self - esteem. And if it failed, well, no harm done. Yes, there was a chance that I would perform a "fake orgasm" each and every time I heard the word 'Poughkeepsie' but I was too tipsy to worry about such tomfoolery. The Blonde One and Dynasty wanted to be entertained.
Before, during and immediately after the actual hypnosis I felt no difference. When he said "Sleep" and pushed my neck down I obeyed, not because I fell into a deep sleep but because even under the influence of alcohol I just couldn't bring myself to be rude. Everyone was watching him 'perform' and I couldn't let this stranger down. In hindsight this seems ridiculous but as I mentioned before, I was more than a little squiffy. While I was "under" or "asleep" I could hear everything that was going on, including Dynasty's mother belting out a musical number with her husband in the adjacent room. Perhaps I wasn't really "under" at all or perhaps Mummy Dynasty is just that powerful a singer that her talent breaks through the barriers of space and time or wherever you are suppose to be during a hypnosis. Perhaps we shall never know. Which ever it was it made it increasingly difficult to convince myself that I had in fact been placed under hypnosis. My mother, however, has raised a me to be polite and so when it was all over I pretended I felt a warm buzz of confidence and thanked him graciously. I, of course, didn't believe anything had happened whatsoever. I felt no difference. Apart from a little embarrassed that people had witnessed this man tell me that I was "a strong, intelligent and beautiful woman" while lifting my arms up and down like a rag doll.
With all this being said, it has now been 18 days since NYE and I can honestly say that I have felt more confidence in these last eighteen days than I did for the entirety of 2011. I have been antagonised at work and felt claustrophobic living at home and yet my confidence has not faltered once.
I am not saying that this man is a genius, perhaps a decent amount of time with my besties after a longer than average absence from them and the power of suggestion was enough to firmly kick my own self-esteem back where it belongs. Perhaps I have always been a big headed git and 2011 was just a blip. Perhaps I am in denial about my January blues and February will hit me like a tone of bricks and you'll find me slowly rocking back and forth in corner. Whatever it is, I am not complaining right now. I will now always wonder whether my own power of positive thought has helped me put my shitty 2011 behind me or whether I really was hypnotised, but frankly, feeling this good, I don't give a tiny rats arse.
Thank you, you wonderfully bizarre UB40 singing hypnotherapist, I think you may have helped me more than fifteen jars of Nutella. And that is saying something.
