On the 19^th December 2025 I was leaving home at 6.30am to drive to this hotel near the airport in Toulouse. The morning session was scheduled to start at 9am. I was there just a few minutes early. With the French farmers demonstrating on motorways and major roads, the journey had taken a while longer but thankfully I wasn’t late.

I had not checked on Jean-Jacques Chardonier’s website. Had I done it, I would have read to bring a blanket as one can feel cold while under hypnosis. I would have also read what to expect as possible results and the importance of leaving all expectations at the door. 

The benefits ranged from feeling some real deep peace in the face of death, some healing for the participants or the people in their lives, some meeting with loved ones who had died, some answers about the meaning of life ….and sometimes nothing would happen until days or weeks or months later.

The fact that I had not checked on this information before hand is important for what happened at the end of the hypnosis moment.

I had registered 10 months earlier when only 4 places were still available. At the time I was just curious. My cousin Catherine had long talked and shared with me after she had been on quite a few of those hypnosis groups. If there was a way to meet with my mum and dad I was interested.

So as I walked through the doors of the hotel, I joined dozens of people with bags and blankets all over the corridor, some standing and chatting, some resting, some alone and silent, all waiting for the conference room to open.

When it did, we were met by JJ Chardonier and his two colleagues  who ushered us to get seated in one of the 50 chairs placed against the wall all around the room. As I was sitting down in my chair, tears started to swell and it took all I had to stop the emotion coming up, an emotion I had not expected and didn’t recognise….I didn’t want to dwell on it as I was eager to hear what was being said from the front of the room.

We were told then how the morning was going to go, and what was involved. When this first part was over, we were invited to sit ourselves in comfortable deckchairs in the middle of the room, all equipped with headphones and eye patches. In the front JJ Chardonier and his partner stood, one with a microphone and the other in front of his musical equipment as he was accompanying JJ Chardonier with sound. Behind them was a giant screen with abstract images.

I was ready. I had covered myself with my big woolly coat and my scarf, I was feeling relaxed, happy to be there, willing to be taken away….

2 hours later we were all brought back. I didn’t think I had been hypnotised. I was conscious all that time, or was I? but as I was taking my eye mask off, my face was wet all over from tears. Tears??? I didn’t remember crying. I had followed JJ Charbonier’s voice, taking us in the past where good events had taken place, then where not so good events happened. We were taken to the future, to past lives….i remember thinking there was nothing there for me, anywhere.

Then Jesus appeared when JJ said that some people who loved us were here for us. Jesus is not one of those people I was expecting so I pushed him aside, only wanting to see my mum and dad. But I didn’t see them. Only Jesus’s kind face looking at me with so much love. He looked like the images from my “ communion” when I was 11: A good-looking young man, with pale skin and blue eyes and long curly hair falling on his shoulders and as if floating in mid-air surrounded by a beautiful light.

The next part was the sharing after participants went back to their chairs  around the room. The microphone was passed from one person to the next and people shared ( or not) for a few minutes what they had seen and/or experienced. When the microphone came to me a huge emotion again overtook me and I passed the microphone  straight to the person next to me. I had nothing to share as I had not experience anything at all…or so I  thought.

Because we had been told to be mindful of the next few days, weeks and months, I was looking forward for something to happen then.

Then we all left.

The next morning, I noticed that my belly was not hurting anymore. The previous week I had lifted a heavy oak door onto some trestles to work on and at the time I remembered thinking I should not be doing this on my own. I ended up with huge stomach pains, very similar to birth pains.

I had had pains like this before when we were training to walk the Machu Pichu with Tina and Chris in the Midlands. Too much walking and not enough warming up. At the time I thought I had damaged myself beyond repair when I was unable to do anything but rest for weeks.

 The pain lasted until that morning after the hypnosis. When I had had arrived at the hotel, I was holding my belly as I was getting out of the car. It had been over a week and I was so used to holding it every time I stood up after sitting or lying down that I didn’t even think about it then. I knew that eventually the pains would disappear, and that was that.

Well, the pains didn’t disappear gradually. They went on that morning and that was that: I was healed. And then I remembered what had been said before we started the experiment the previous day . Some of us may get a head-ache or some other kind of discomfort or even pains and that would be when we were receiving some healing. I had not paid any attention to any of this but I felt some twinges in my stomach at some point and wondered then what was that all about, given that my particular pains were never felt when I was sitting or lying down.

Then from talking to my cousin Catherine, I got that Jesus appearing during my hypnosis, was not a coincidence. It was a gift. I am not sure what it means but I am taking it as such. Because I had taken an interest in reading the Bible (which is something I had never done), I thought my mind was polluted with my readings…

I have now put my name on a list for another workshop in Toulouse and in June this year. The workshop is full but I might be called if someone cancelled.