Eric J. Christopher, 1735 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104, 651.649.1952, [email protected], ericjchristopher.com
Eric J. Christopher, who is in private practice in St. Paul as a marriage and family therapist and certified regression hypnotherapist, has a life passion of helping clients connect to their inner wisdom that can uncover and heal the roots of limiting fears and beliefs, thereby enabling them to experience the freedom, peace and clarity of their wise soul self. We checked in with this vital member of the holistic community to learn more about him.
Eric, what inspired you to become a hypnotherapist?
I was at a workshop during my Marriage & Family Therapy training and saw a hypnotherapist heal a deep-seated anxiety issue of a volunteer from the audience in one session. Months later, the person reported that it was life-changing, and I realized how fast and effective hypnotherapy can be to help people heal, compared to the talk level therapy that I was training in. And when I read Michael Newton’s book Journey of Souls, I finally knew without a doubt that I wanted to get training by Michael Newton and learn spiritual hypnotherapy. That book has been a “life-changer” and “paradigm-shifter” for many people and demonstrates how very powerful and healing it can be to help connect a person to their soul self.
What’s your favorite niche when it comes to hypnosis? And has this evolved or changed throughout your career?
I’m most passionate about helping people uncover and release the roots of anxiety and depression. I like to use a technique that combines several effective methods I learned over the years. I call it the Emotional Healing and Awakening session and it combines releasing major or minor traumas from the cellular memory of the body while simultaneously connecting clients to their Higher Self. It’s also very gratifying to do past life regression and the Life-Between-Lives session, as they are almost always profound for the person.
The way I do hypnotherapy has indeed changed and evolved over the years as I have grown personally and spiritually myself. I now have a deep knowing that everyone’s true self is whole and complete already, it just gets covered up in this human experience. Healing then becomes a subtraction process, uncovering and releasing the thoughts, feelings and beliefs that veil one’s wholeness. This is easier to do from the vantage point of one’s Higher Self.
Throughout your years of professional experience, what’s been the most rewarding or inspiring case where you’ve helped a subject make major transformations in their life?
That is very hard to choose from, but one that comes to mind is a man in his early twenties. He wanted to do past-life regression because I had helped his girlfriend take away her intense needle phobia in a past-life session three months prior.
In his email detailing what he wanted help with in his session, he wrote: “I have a fear of all good things coming to an end in relationships, among other things. There’s little extras, too, like maybe why I smoke or pace so much, but mostly why I fear being abandoned or betrayed. I have an empty hollowness…I won’t be good enough, then betrayed, then abandoned, a sadness, I don’t know what to do.”
In our session, he regressed to the life of a man named Richard who came home from work one day to find that his wife had gone insane and butchered all three of his children with the help of another man. He dialed the police on an old rotary phone and then sat outside on the street curb of his house, in shock. One of the policemen tried to get Richard to look at him and talk, so he gave him a cigarette to try to draw him out of his shock. It was his first cigarette and he smoked it, then he smoked the rest of the policeman’s pack, and he kept smoking the rest of his life. His wife ended up going to an insane asylum, her accomplice went to prison and Richard started drinking heavily. He eventually drank himself to death, passing out in freezing temperatures on the grave of one of his children.
After the death, his soul stayed stuck there and didn’t move up to a higher dimension, so he called upon the soul of his closest son to bring him up to the light, where a deep healing and cleansing happened. On rare occasions, when the soul doesn’t move up to a higher realm after the death, it’s because a sliver of their consciousness remains stuck, and then we do a soul retrieval.
One month after the session, he emailed: “Life has been infinitely better since our session. There are so many pieces I’ve connected together after that experience. My fear of everything is just falling away. It’s still so vivid, and my perspective on things has been so drastically altered. Thank you again so much for everything.”
Please share a compelling case study from the Life-Between-Lives Therapy that you offer.
A man came in with a long list of questions to ask his guides. After his vibration frequency was raised enough to be able to have clear communication with them, there was the typical joyful reunion of having a conscious connection with each other. But as he began to ask his questions, he was surprised to learn that they all revered him as their own teacher, telling him that he already knew the answers to his questions.
He then was told, and began to remember, that he made a choice to incarnate to Earth so that he could demonstrate and teach others the process of voluntarily cutting himself off from Source and the awareness of his Higher Self, and then to awaken to it while in the density of Earth life. He saw that many of the souls who surrounded him were “taking notes” on his journey of awakening. Upon this remembering, he immediately knew the answers to his questions and this experience shifted his perspective of who he was as a person and as a soul, and helped him to further awaken.
I had another client write up the entire transcription of her fascinating LBL experience, and it can be viewed at www.ericjchristopher.com/a-transcription-and-narrative-of-a-life-between-lives-session/
For those who have never thought about having hypnotherapy, what is your best argument for giving it a try?
For one, it’s a fast, efficient and effective way to uncover, liberate and heal any of the limiting thoughts, feelings and beliefs that hold us back in life. Secondly, hypnotherapy slows down the brain wave activity from Beta waves down to Alpha, Theta and even Delta waves, and this allows one to consciously access their Higher Self, higher guidance system, and even loved ones who have passed over. We have the opportunity to realize and experience ourselves as multi-dimensional beings, and thus access and identify with the higher dimensions of ourselves. Then Earth life becomes much easier.
How does hypnotherapy relate to healing and happiness?
It can connect you to a part of yourself that is already whole, complete, has no fears and is pure love, joy and peace. From the vantage point of experiencing your Higher Self, it becomes much easier to see through and no longer believe thoughts of shame, unworthiness, or guarded hearts from past pain and loss, etc. — any issue that is not easy to relieve with talk level therapy alone, because it brings you to a higher level of consciousness. Einstein said you can’t solve a problem at the same level of consciousness that created it. Thus, it’s an effective way to help discover and heal the mental and emotional roots that underlie depression and anxiety.
Even if you can’t think of an issue to work on, you can still do a past-life regression, because your Higher Self will automatically show you a life that will help you grow, awaken and evolve whether it be a difficult life or a beautiful life.
What are your personal interests in your spare time? What do you like to read? What is your ideal getaway from the office? Any hobbies?
I used to enjoy going on aimless bike rides throughout the city with no set direction in mind. But now that my wife and I got a little Papillon dog, Bodhi, we love to hike with her in nature. I try to do this every day if I can. It’s so helpful and grounding for me after a session. The books I’ve most been drawn to the past few years have been by teachers who have awakened, or become enlightened. A few of my favorites are Adyashanti, Eckhart Tolle, and Leonard Jacobson, who thankfully, has recently moved back to the Twin Cities from California. My favorite website is batgap.com, which stands for Buddha at the Gas Pump. It features interviews of hundreds of “ordinary” people who are awakening spiritually.
