Some days the universe insists on a theme—and all you can do is laugh, breathe, and take notes.
Some days the universe clearly has a theme problem. I woke up this morning, November 2nd, and discovered it’s Look for Circles Day, Plan Your Epitaph Day, and Dynamic Harmlessness Day. Apparently, the cosmos wants me to notice my patterns, write my own tombstone, and be kind about it. An oddly specific to-do list—but fine, I’ll play along.
As a hypnotherapist—and, once upon a time, a dentist—I’ve spent my life studying mouths. Some tell stories, some hide them, some just clench for dear life. Whether it’s teeth or trauma, people arrive with something they can’t quite release. The circle of tension, the loop of “I’m fine” that clearly isn’t—it all lives in the jaw. I used to fix enamel; now I listen for the words that ache underneath.
So yes, circles. I see them everywhere. Clients looping through the same fears, families orbiting the same scripts, me spinning through my caffeine rituals like a planet that forgot it already had gravity. Circles are my natural habitat. The work isn’t to break them, but to learn their choreography—to twirl through the repetition until it becomes revelation.
I even made myself a little ritual for Look for Circles Day. I make tea, stare at the mug, and call it therapy. The rim reminds me of wholeness, the stain on the table of acceptance, and the fact that I’m psychoanalyzing kitchenware reminds me that isolation has side effects. But it works. The circle is hypnosis itself: enter, explore, return. We think we’ve come full circle, but it’s really a spiral wearing a disguise. Each turn brings us closer to center, even if it looks suspiciously like déjà vu.
Then there’s Plan Your Epitaph Day, which sounds morbid until you try it. My first draft read, “Here lies the woman who thought enlightenment required good posture.” I later revised it to, “She helped people remember their own magic and occasionally remembered hers too.” In trance work, we write epitaphs constantly—we just call them “releasing limiting beliefs.” Each one is a tiny death: “Here lies the fear of being seen.” “Here rests the need to manage everyone’s emotions.”
I sometimes ask clients to imagine a little headstone in their inner garden:
‘She tried. She really did. RIP, Overthinker Extraordinaire.’
It’s funny how laughter and grief can share the same breath. I’ve buried plenty of my own identities—The Fixer, The Professional Listener, The Woman Who Thought Stillness Was Laziness. I send them off with gratitude and maybe a cupcake. Nothing says closure like frosting.
And then comes Dynamic Harmlessness Day. It’s a mouthful—appropriately—but it might be my favorite. The principle is simple: do the least harm while doing the most good. In hypnosis, that’s everything. You can’t force a subconscious mind open; it has to feel safe enough to unfold. My job isn’t to break defenses, it’s to create an atmosphere where they voluntarily take a nap.
Of course, harmlessness isn’t the same as niceness. Early in my career, I confused the two and spent sessions gently tap-dancing around the truth. Now I know compassion sometimes wears steel-toed boots. Sometimes the kindest act is to say, “That story isn’t working anymore,” and then sit in silence while the echo rearranges the air. Words can bruise or bless depending on tone—and as someone who once wielded dental drills for a living, I’ve learned that precision matters.
The hypnotic voice is like anesthesia for the psyche: it shouldn’t sting, but it should be effective. Over the years, I’ve learned that softness isn’t weakness—it’s calibrated strength. Harmlessness, done well, is an art form. It’s knowing when to speak and when to let silence finish the sentence. It’s laughter used as scalpel, not shield.
By now, November 2nd has become my personal holiday of existential housekeeping. I make a list of circles I’m still spinning in, draft epitaphs for outdated versions of myself, and identify one small way to do less harm with more humour. Without humour, introspection gets heavy, like dental cement of the soul—sets too fast, hard to swallow. Laughter keeps the psyche pliable.
Today, my circle list includes “over-managing outcomes” and “trying to teach serenity like it’s a curriculum.” My epitaph du jour reads: “Here lies the therapist who thought everyone needed her insight. She has been reincarnated as a woman who naps.” My harmlessness goal: stop rescuing people from their own revelations. They don’t need saving—they need space to hear themselves differently.
Looking back, my whole career feels like one elegant loop. Dentistry taught me precision and patience; hypnosis taught me surrender. One healed the physical mouth, the other listens to the metaphorical one—the stories people can’t stop telling themselves. Both require trust, stillness, and the ability to say, “This might feel strange, but breathe through it.”
I used to think healing was about straight lines and success metrics. Now I see it’s cyclical—like breath, like laughter, like a really stubborn tooth that refuses to budge until it’s ready. Each client, each session, is another turn of the spiral. Sometimes the circle closes neatly; sometimes it just softens at the edges and calls that peace.
If I were to write my epitaph today, it might say: “Here rests the healer who finally realized that wholeness doesn’t mean tidy.” And if I had to summarize my philosophy, it’s this: life isn’t about breaking cycles—it’s about learning to dance inside them, with a smirk, a sigh, and maybe a cup of tea shaped like a halo.
So here’s to the circles we can’t escape, the selves we bury kindly, and the quiet, ridiculous work of doing less harm in a world that keeps spinning anyway. May our loops be kind, our humour dark, and our mouths—literal and metaphorical—finally at peace.
Author’s Note:
If this reflection resonated, join me for Decoding the Spiral — a retreat on December 6th in Goa/Manipal, where we’ll explore story, trance, and transformation through circle-work and deep listening.
This post is part of Blogchatter Half Marathon.
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