Living Proof

by Sheila Swenson

I have been a Clinical and Medical Hypnotherapist and Energy Healer for 20 years now, and I love what I do. I mean, I really love it! If you have a blank look on your face because you have no clue what it is that I do, don't worry because no one does. In short, I help people hack their subconscious mind and body in order to create the life and reality they want. You may think working with your subconscious mind is impossible and that it can’t be changed or controlled, but it can. You have far more control than you think. I know, because I have reprogrammed my brain, my body and my reality extensively.

People are always asking me how I became a healer and why. I’ve never shared my back story publicly because it’s so deeply personal and hard to read. That said, I want people to know that anything can be healed and just how powerful the subconscious mind is. The impact of domestic violence and trauma cannot be overstated but it can be overcome. And so, I offer the best testimonial I have…my own. Although it’s a long story, I can assure you that it has a happy ending.

Back when I was seven years-old my parents divorced. My mom remarried an extremely abusive, alcoholic man. From the age of seven to 18, I was regularly beaten, molested, strangled and tortured by my stepfather. One example of such torture would be my kneeling on rocks for six hours straight with no breaks, not even to use the washroom. Rather than protecting me, my mother used me as a human shield for herself. I remember being strangled at one end of the couch while my mom was at the other end reading a romance novel. When I came to her outraged that her husband had forced himself on me, she shrugged saying, “You know how he gets when he drinks.” There was a steady stream of cruel, vicious, degrading yelling. For hours a week for many years, he would regularly stand over me with his finger in my face berating me with a cycle of phrases like “waste of life,” “piece of shit,” and “devil's spawn,” as he insulted my face, hair, body, clothes, my way of doing things and my very existence. Everything I did, and all of my being, was ugly and wrong. I lived in terror, singled out just for being who I was.

Mixed in with all of that was the psychological warfare. Petty mind games in an endless maze of setting me up for failure, which would lead to more horrible consequences like being forced to wash dishes in scalding hot water or his driving me around in the car while he was drunk, in a rage. I was constantly filled with terror, unable to walk across the house or even move without the fear of violence. I was force fed. I wasn’t allowed to wear make-up or to date and was forced to dress in ways that covered me up completely. Despite living in an ordinary middle-class home, I personally lived in poverty without being provided essentials or regular school clothes. Meanwhile, I cooked, cleaned and did all the household chores while raising my half-sister, who is nine years younger than I am. (My mom would joke about the benefits of child slave labor.) My weekly visits with my dad consisted of me crying on his shoulder as he continued to do nothing.

Having had such extreme, overt abuse, it took me many years to see how devastating and deceptive inaction and neglect are. My entire extended family knew what was going on, yet they did nothing. After holiday gatherings, they would drive away, not having said or done anything to intervene. I would watch in horror as they just left, doing nothing but feeling sorry for us.

There was a moment during all of this when I had a vision: a glimpse of a reality that would inspire me for many years to come. Although I was not raised with any measure of faith (and deeply resented the notion), I would come to know this vision as my first “God moment.” I was struck with a powerful awareness that the world around me was off its axis, was not right. All at once, I knew this wasn’t the way life was supposed to be. This wasn’t the way families are meant to behave. I began to feel very alien in my world, even though I had never known anything different and certainly had not been told this. There had always been this immense pressure to break down and accept this hopeless world. But now I refused to do so.

Somehow, a humanitarian belief system was born in me and began to take root. Though feeling profoundly unworthy, I somehow logically knew I had the fundamental right and I began to fight for it, even if it was in my own head. Despite steeling myself, the grim reality of daily life was relentlessly moving in and I was struggling, badly.

By the age of 15, I was filled with despair, hopelessness and was dreaming of suicide. I confided my struggles to the high school counselor who then called my parents. That night, my stepfather confronted me and dared me to kill myself so he could watch. In that horrible moment, a switch inside me flipped. I found a strength and fierce determination to survive, to never give up and to never let him win. I became a warrior that day, counting the days until my 18th birthday. That strength would get me through many years. First, I fought to survive. Then fought to feel safe and whole. Growing up like I had left profound and unimaginable scars on my body, mind, heart and soul. It would take years to heal. But heal I would.

Strangely, when I was finally legally able to leave, I found it harder than expected. My 9-year-old sister was more like my own child and leaving her behind was devastating. I knew that she was safe from my stepfather, being his child, but I was denied all forms of contact with her for many years, knowing she was being brainwashed against me. Our relationship never recovered. I moved in with my Dad, weary with exhaustion, anxiety, panic, PTSD, tons of trauma, repressed and not, plus a whole host of acute and chronic physical injuries and issues that would take many years to pull apart and heal. Having no resources, no support and no one who could relate or understand, I turned to self-help. Devouring every book on the subject I could find, I became an advocate for myself and discovered a passion for learning, growing and healing from the past. I am forever grateful for these many resources, as I moved toward a vision of a world I had only dreamed of and had never seen.

Despite my “newfound freedom,” I would feel trapped in an onslaught of freak accidents and bizarre traumas that would rain down on me for many years. I would recover from one trauma, take a breath, and get hit with another. I'd get to a good place and then get run over by a truck crossing the street, breaking my shoulder and knee, putting me in physical therapy and court rooms. I'd recover from that and, while at a dead stop on the highway, be rear ended by a car going 50 mph, totaling my car. I'd recover from and then at a NYE party, a drunken friend would physically pick me up and drop me on my head, cracking my skull so loudly that a crowd of people came to a full stop. I'd get a bad dye job and all my hair would fall out as if I'd had chemo. Then, a massive icicle would fall from a light post on the highway, shattering my windshield. Then, I'd go out one night, get drugged and brutally raped.

Even my father's nervous breakdown occurred like something out of a horror film, in the most dramatic fashion. He called me up one day, saying all sorts of delusional things, causing me to fear for the safety of him and others. Then he went missing for five days. I'd go to his house looking for him only to find the door ajar with all the lights on and music playing, expecting him to be hanging from the shower curtain. He would be found five days later having tried to kill himself and being admitted to the psychiatric ward for months, needing ECT and medication to stabilize his depression and psychosis. His hair had turned gray overnight and he looked ten years older. He is still regularly unstable, with my getting frequent calls from the police and admissions to the hospital. The traumas continued, almost beyond comprehension. I somehow felt both cursed and lucky to still be alive. At this point, I had learned quite a lot about self-help but was frustrated, feeling the limits of my will power. I began looking deeper for solutions. Randomly researching alternative modalities one day brought hypnosis into my awareness and a light bulb went on. A bright one.

Enter hypnosis and energy work: Excited and impatient, I began practicing on myself, doing very advanced techniques to clear the 12 car pile-up of trauma, heal the deeper wounds underneath that as well integrate years of conscious level knowledge. With so much to do, I would spend days healing, resting on my days off. I'd start to get stronger faster as I got more excited and inspired, shedding limiting belief after limiting belief. A whole world opened up for me. I would go on to hack my body and mind to lose weight, regrow my hair, clear my skin, heal broken bones and injuries faster, feeling safer, stronger and more empowered along the way.

By this time I had the career, guy and the life I had fought so hard for, but my healing had plateaued and I couldn't figure out why. Feeling like the past was clearing, I turned my attention to the present and was stunned to see I had created a life of security, love and support . . . for everyone but me. I was one of those people who prided herself on never needing anyone. Rather, I would be generous to others, knowing deep in my heart that if I needed something, my loved ones would be there for me. Unfortunately, when I did need help, no one was there. Worse yet, the more I asked for help and support, the more criticism and judgment I got from those closest to me. I've always been grateful for what I had, but when I started looking at what I didn't have, there was a glaring blind spot in my perception, and apparently in my relationships. I started fighting to be heard, validated and cared for by others, shifting the dynamics of all of my relationships to create more balance. It didn't go well. My long-term boyfriend had always struggled with depression. Over the course of our relationship, his depression devolved into severe alcohol and drug addiction. I found myself living with an alcoholic again, in an unstable situation. The beautiful life we had planned was on shaky ground now and was slipping through my fingers. For years, he'd get worse and I'd compensate, empathizing with his struggles and holding onto distorted notions of unconditional love. I fought hard to keep him stable, to keep us stable, investing everything I had. I'd end up walking away with nothing to start over, grieving over this loss and the loss of the family I would never have.

Acknowledging I didn't know what was “right,” I started listening to my body and doing what supported my health and happiness—letting go of what didn't. My body brilliantly communicated what was good for me and what wasn't. It helped me make tough decisions that suddenly came down to basics, as my orientation to the world and to others dramatically shifted. I would rebuild—body, mind and soul, filling the gaps in my foundation and expanding into a freedom I never felt before. In order to survive, I let go of all I had taken on. It's become one of the tenets of my process. The mathematical equation of it all suddenly became clear. I changed my subconscious programs and energy so that I'd be able to receive and replenish my energy and my body. There was a whole host of medical issues going on and it felt like life had caught up with me. Everything hurt all over and I was exhausted beyond comprehension.

I realized that I had unintentionally set up a system of always giving and never receiving with everyone around me. I had worked hard on forgiveness and anger and found myself overcompensating there, too. Toxic relationships were still in my life. Lost in a sea of mixed messages about faith, love and acceptance, I had been pouring love and every resource I had into people and relationships that never gave back. By now having nearly bled out of all my resources on everyone and everything, I learned the value of letting go. I would let go of my dream of having a family and would walk away, exhausted, sick and broke. I’ve cleaned house now. I have let go of everything and everyone that couldn't help replenish me, including foods, people, experiences, environments, etc. I had become oversensitive to everything and over empathetic to everyone. I would spend the next year just healing the deep foundational beliefs and helping my body to replenish my life force. Reprogramming and recharging, building a new foundation of self-love and profound respect for my body. Over those years, trauma and drama fell away as wonder and awe took their place.

The more I learned, the more excited I became with the unlimited possibilities that quickly became reality as my knowledge and experience expanded. I would take every hypnotherapy and energy work class available to gain comprehensive knowledge in order to handle the wide range of issues that are so often deeply intertwined. I saw how, even though my situation had been unusual in its extreme nature, everything was connected to everything else in the healing process and that it takes adeptness to know where the subconscious and the energetic blockages are. I'd see how my subconscious mind and body were showing me the way on this journey and I developed a strong relationship with myself, my body and life.

Day after day, I am still amazed at the sheer brilliance and wonder of it all. It never gets old. Nor does the triumph of the human spirit or the body's ability to heal. My clients offer daily evidence and inspiration as we work together for the common goal of being healthy—individually and collectively. I wake up every day, lucky to be alive and actually thankful for everything I've been through to become the person I am now. I am happy, healthy, fit, have a deep sense of safety and wonderful relationships. People who meet me are stunned to hear of my past trauma. I am most proud of the fact they would never guess what I’d been through. It’s my greatest joy to connect with my clients as I can always relate in some way, bringing my hard-won knowledge to help others not just heal, but to discover that the answers and miracles they are looking for are within themselves. To help people access their innate gifts, use them well and always have hope and resources.

We all want to be happy and empowered but so often just don't know how. Usually we know what we need to do, but why is it so hard or seemingly impossible? Willpower is essential, though it has its limitations, as we can choose only within certain limits, hence the term “limiting beliefs” and “blockages”. Understanding this is why some fail and others succeed. The power of the subconscious mind is the greatest discovery of our time, and the application of hypnosis is the most effective way to harness that power. The realm of quantum physics is also underutilized. Being a very big concept indeed, we need only use our intention and subconscious to direct energetic changes for truly stunning healing and miraculous benefit. The powers of these two modalities are impressive individually but together are astounding. It is said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” The Swenson Method is a unique blend of advanced hypnotherapy and energy work designed to shift the subconscious and energy matrix powerfully toward health. It’s how I’ve healed myself and the process by which my clients rely upon. I’m living proof that it works and if I can do it, so can you.