HOCKEY, HOKEY, AND HYPNOTHERAPY: A MOST NATURAL PROGRESSION

RCMP CPL SHAUN BEGG PLAYING POND HOCKEY

It is March 21^st.  It is minus 5 degrees Celsius/ 23 degrees Fahrenheit!  It is the second day of spring and I do not feel like busking in the blowing snow!

Hmmm … Not so strangely then I can write about HOCKEY one more time before the last melt and before my busking season begins.

It is fitting that this week began with RON MACLEAN and his HOMETOWN HOCKEY show happening in downtown Regina.   

Of course we went, we being my favorite drummer busker, BARON CHILD, and my favorite NHL scout, BRAD HORNUNG, and self.  We didn’t buy the hats but we did see MARTY MCSORLEY, ex-NHL enforcer for the Edmonton Oilers and later, the Los Angeles Kings;

MARTY

WENDEL CLARK, best known for being the gritty captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs; and we just about saw RON MACLEAN, (DON CHERRY’S sidekick on COACH’S CORNER), central host for ROGERS HOMETOWN HOCKEY. 

Strangely then, as I was attempting to get pictures of RON MACLEAN behind the smoked glass, someone through the looking glass, some ROGERS HOMETOWN HOCKEY professional photographer, was taking pictures of me in the process.

  
Later in the week the REGINA PATS of the WESTERN HOCKEY LEAGUE were in action against the BRANDON WHEAT KINGS, and they were sporting their REGINA IRISH green, in place of their regular blue and red and white.

WENDEL

And the very next day the cat came back (again), NHL scout BRAD HORNUNG, sent me a picture of my favorite player ever, BOBBY ORR, standing alongside actor and game show host, ALAN THICKE, a Canadian zelig of celebrity, a FORREST GUMP among NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE all-stars.

Last night Baron and Brad and I attended the last regular season game of the REGINA PATS hosting the PRINCE ALBERT RAIDERS.  Though the PATS lost in an overtime shoot-out, it did have a sweet ending with my favorite PATS player and best friend, COLBY WILLIAMS,   (GOOGLE my blog entitled COLBY SAVES CHRISTMAS) achieving the MOST VALUABLE PLAYER (MVP) of the year AND … the FIRST STAR of the three stars selection at game end.

BOBBY ORR AND ALAN THICKE

Now it is time for the hokey.  I like hockey; I like busking; I like hypnotherapy.  Save for the playoffs, hockey is over.   This shall be the last post hockey until next season.  I choose not to busk when temperatures are below freezing, and though this is typically a busking blog, I’ve really not any freshly baked busking stories to share with my readers.  And now in a big way I’m into hypnotherapy.  From writing about hockey and then on to hypnotherapy is, I know, noticeably contrived.  But what the heck and here I go with the commix of hockey, buskology, and hypnotherapy.

RON MACLEAN BEHIND THE LOOKING GLASS

My captivating and brilliant Amazonian colleague, Kimberly, has just completed creating my hypnotherapy website (neilchildhypnotherapy.weebly.com) and I am pumped to begin such a therapy in my private practice.  (Check out my website by clicking the top-right column of this blog entry.) 

My office is quaint, in a professional building filled with other counselors and psychologists, and just a ten minute brisk walk from my front door.  This I like.  This I like very, very much.  I’m a downtown guy and it makes perfect sense to operate my private practice right downtown.

And just what kind of hypnosis shall I practice?  There is Ericksonian Hypnosis, the methods of which I studied in graduate school at university.  There is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), the methods of which a couple hypnotherapy friends of mine employ only.  There is Age Regression Hypnosis, where the hypnotherapist increases the client’s access to childhood memories.  There is Past Life Regression Hypnosis where the therapist draws from the clients, their past lives or incarnations.  And there is even Erotic Hypnosis, where the hypnotherapist offers clients the fulfillment of their wildest erotic desires and fantasies, all without a hand caress, never mind a finger wiggle.

(I must confess that I do not fraternize with others in the community of hypnotherapy -- one I’ve chatted with a couple times on the telephone; one I taught in a university Psychology class; and one I met whilst on a European buskation, and that would be Michael Payne, the most celebrated hypnotherapist in all of southern Ireland!)

RON MACLEAN (AND NOTICE BRAD AND BARON AND SELF IN THE BACKDROP)!

 Hmmm …

My friend, MICHAEL PAYNE, a hypnotherapist in Limerick Ireland (Google him), operates a Traditional Hypnosis practice, that being the bulk of his clients seeking therapy to stop smoking, lose weight, or overcome insomnia.  Methinks this shall be my practice, at least in the beginnings when I am inside my office.

REGINA IRISH PATS

 

However, when the weather warms and I am on either a buskapade or buskation, slinging my guitar and blowing my harpoon, or drawing people portraits with my pencil and sketchpad, I shall practice the busking art of STREET HYPNOSIS.

This shall be my kismet.   

This shall be my bildungsroman.

WELCOME TO MY PARLOR SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY!

COLBY WILLIAMS MVP