I feel empathy for providers who work with me, because despite all my very terrific qualities, lol, I can also be demanding, exacting, confrontational ... some have deemed me a "difficult" patient. Anyway, I was struggling with a stubborn, decades-long, behavioral repetitive and habitual pattern which I recognized that in a vacuum with my own efforts, I was not making progress, and needed expert guidance. But who was I gonna go to? All practices are only as good as the person practicing it, and hypnotherapy is more art than anything, and I was on a quest for an artist, someone who could sculpt healing through through presence, but not in a mumbo jumbo esoteric fairy way, but through years of solid experience and training. I also needed to feel a purity of intention, and there's no diploma for this--I just sense it intuitively and felt it in my bones, you know what I mean? It's the 'gut trust' sort of thing. It's easy to simply go through the motions of sharing information in a dry and intellectual part. But that wasn't my goal. In fact, having knowledge, especially being a psychologist, this was not one iota helpful to me, because the process I needed to undergo was a physiological internalizing and manifesting of an emotional reality. This is so damn hard. I needed to emotionally open up, but that's very hard. It's hard for me to entrust someone with my soul. It's hard, not at all easy for me to do what feels like "giving myself over." I heard about Alexandra from a former professor of my husband's and was compelled to make an appt. Immediately on meeting her (and on the phone), I felt a sense of quiet confidence. I could feel myself relax into the experience that I was about to have, a visceral sense of internal relenting, which I think was essential in my process of internalizing the visits afterwards. She exudes a conscientious and responsible, efficient spirit, with a warmth I felt comfortable with. I did not take this for granted, because practitioners simply by virtue of calling themselves "healers," are not necessarily healing. Since I live in Millbrae, her Palo Alto office is out of the way for me and since driving was hard, my husband dropped me off ... all the rigmarole of getting there was ultimately worth it, just to 'feeling-fully know' in my body or my body 'knowingly-feel.' One of the best qualities of my hypnotherapy with her was that I'm hyper-sensitive to feeling "pushed," contorted, or judged--if there's a judgement or critique (from a medical/mental health professional) within a thousand yards, I'll laser-like sniff it out--throughout my visits with her, thank god this was not an issue--boy was I relieved. In fact, in the first visit, when I was describing exactly what I wanted help with, I was hyper-vigilant about getting any sense of judgement from her, and instead, appreciated her very matter of fact, accepting, no-nonsense attitude. The upshot of my experience, though I had time-bound, finite visits with her: I felt sufficiently free, understood, and accepted to keep going back. From my therapy with her, I wrote some key sentences and phrases that resonated and impacted me, and to this day, I open my iphone notes app, and see those phrases, they transport me (almost like a time/capsule machine) back to sitting in that comfy chair, a cocoon-like safe office, serene and calm quietude. I read those phrases and feel awash in a reality that deeply relaxes, soothes and nurtures--there's nothing more powerful--for this, I'll be forever grateful. Thank-you! :-) read more
