Enough Is Enough
Recently, my wife and I had dinner with friends. Very well-to-do friends. They live in a stunningly beautiful home, with a lit up swimming pool, views across the sea, other views across the countryside… They have a boat and their own mooring and two Bentleys in the driveway…
The reason I mention this is because they are ‘old school’ traditional English people, with Lords and Ladies for family. At the end of a sumptuous meal in which I had quaffed more than my fair share of Chateauneuf Du pap 1988 – a delicious red wine… Out came the cheese and port…
On that plate rested a block of cheese, cheese biscuits, grapes, apple segments, pickled pears, pickled walnuts and a ‘thing.’
I had used a ‘thing’ similar to this which my parents used to use, but not at an intimate dinner party. I always used the cheese knife with the curved end if I had guests…
Anyway…
This was a cheese slice, though they referred to it as a cheese plane… It looked like a pie server, with one edge dull, the other slightly serrated, and a hole in the middle, which reminded me of a bottle opener.
I pondered the etiquette for using such a tool… It didn’t look like a very efficient knife. As such, it would be clumsy and unwieldy…so, how would one use it? I mean, am I to slice thin layers of stilton or brie??!! I think not. And I surely can’t just hack lumps off with my own table knife…
Self-hypnosis set in. I imagined the funny things that could happen and what could go wrong here… Uh-oh, I’m creating a ridiculous problem for myself… One that does not exist and certainly should not…
I watched our host as he served himself up. He pressed the flat side of the server into the top of the cheese, drawing it backward. A curl of cheese appeared through the hole. This was fine for cheddar, I suppose…
Did I drunkenly dare try it with a different cheese? Oh just stop it Adam, stop imagining all the scenarios where things could go wrong…
The break came when Katie decided to cut herself a piece… Giving me the opportunity to say, “Honey, while you’re cutting yourself a piece, could you cut one for me, too?” I figured that this would not be seen as strange, simply a courtesy between spouses…but I realised I couldn’t spend the remainder of the evening doing this. Being an adult it would be generally assumed that I was capable of self-service. If not, what would that mean?
I was desirous of the cheese and the port was poured… I went for it. I thought to myself, “enough is enough” stop with all the ridiculous thoughts and get on with it. Most of us have experienced an “enough is enough” moment, where we got fed up and boldly marched into something that we may have had a fear of doing, or prevented ourselves doing for some peculiar reason. That is what this hypnosis session is all about.
As it happens… While the others were deeply engaged in their own conversation, I decided to take the plunge. I reached for the “plane” and commenced cutting. Immediately, I found myself in the midst of a struggle.
When I pulled back, the plate came with. When I steadied the plate, the cheese began to come off the plate. Having seen some of the others softly steady the cheese with the tips of their fingers, I attempted to do the same, knowing, of course, that this should be kept to a minimum since it’s rude to touch others’ food… I could feel my fingers digging deeply into the cheese… hahaha….
The tool was so deeply embedded in the cheese that “softly steadying” the cheese wasn’t working. Before I realised it, I had almost my whole hand on the cheese trying to keep it in place while I cut. I was struggling, but committed now…having made a hack job of the cheese, I couldn’t just leave the piece half-cut.
Then I had an appalling thought…Was the hand that was holding the cheese the same hand that I’d pet their cat with?
The hosts were looking at me now, and I wondered what they were thinking… Had they made the cat connection? Were they wondering what was wrong with me? Thinking I was rude? Or was I just over-reacting?
I didn’t want to be rude.
I finally finished cutting the slice, placed it on the cracker and ate it. Then, deciding I had had enough, I sat back, knowing that soon we would retire to the lounge…
I cracked up laughing out loud and so did everyone else… I had imagined exactly what would happen, I made it happen… I made some other jokes about it and referred to it a couple of other times throughout the evening… had I not given it another moments thought, nothing of the sort would have occurred… Very funny experience and indicative of so many things…
Why consciously involve yourself in something that is incredibly simple? Why not just let it happen unconsciously? That is what this hypnosis session is all about.
Often when people overcome fears, they reach a point where they got fed up with being afraid. They got fed up with having the fear and they got fed up with the silliness of it all.
In the scenario I mentioned earlier, I realised the ridiculousness of what I was thinking and doing.
When someone has a fear of dogs, if they then walk through the park and someone walks by with a Chihuahua – very small and non-ferocious dog – then they know that they are being ridiculous. if someone has to sit at the bottom of the Eiffel tower while the remainder of their family zoom to the top to watch the stunning views across one of Europe’s most amazing cities, then they may feel ridiculous.
When we realise the ridiculousness of our fears, we can often have a switch flicked inside our brain that says “enough is enough.” And as Barbara Streisand and Donna Summer sang:
Enough is enough
We want that fear out, and today we are going to say “enough is enough.”
Here you get to finally say Enough is Enough to old fears as I guide you through the process of letting go once and for all.