A bedside gift: a hypnotherapy session for my mother

This is a deeply personal post. In February 2020 I sat at my mother’s bedside after she broke her back. She was bedridden, exhausted, and in constant pain. I brought what I could: a custom hypnotherapy session written and delivered for her body, her history, and the particular kind of tiredness she carried. I filmed it on my phone simply to keep a record of the moment between us. My mother had lived with disability her whole life, and she died last month. I am sharing this because that recording holds something true and gentle that I want others to see.

At 16:52 in the video you’ll see her in deep trance—slumped, softened, breathing slower, a body finally allowed to rest. This was not a demonstration for spectacle. It was an act of love.

Parts of the script went like this, because those were the words she needed in that room:

“You can drift down more and more deeply than before, into that sensation there in a more relaxed and comfortable way. There really is no need to make the effort to stay away from that feeling or to fight it. As you drift toward the center of that feeling—the very tiniest center of it—you can recognize that it is not an evil monster. It is simply trying to tell you something: that something is wrong. Thank it for its concern, and know there is nothing left to do. It can now relax, let go, quiet down, and you can too.”

The script did not try to erase pain. It invited the pain to be seen, to be heard, and then to release its hold while her nervous system found a different rhythm: “Let it do its thing while you do yours… drift into a space of relaxed letting go… a place beneath the pain of quietness and calm awareness.”

I used images and cadence—a pebble in water, the soft blue sky, the drift of waves—not to distract, but to create a poetically safe passage where her body could relinquish the extra work of guarding.

This work was written for the incredibly strong woman in that bed, in that moment. It was small, practical mercy: language crafted to meet the nervous system where it lived, permission for rest, and an invitation to let something else hold for a while.

She gave me that time. She gave me the trust to sit with her and speak into the quiet. The phone on the nightstand captured it, imperfect and raw. Watching it now, after her death, feels like reading a love letter written in pacing and tone: both a record of grief and a proof of what we can offer one another.

If you are living with someone in pain, or if you carry pain yourself, know two things I learned there: words can be instruments of care if they are chosen for the person in front of you; and presence can change the shape of suffering, even if only for a moment.

If you would like a session written for someone you love, I create custom hypnotherapy that is specific to the person, the pain, and the moment.

This was what I could offer my mother. It was not a miracle. It was a mercy—and it was enough for the time we had.

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