Trauma & Past
Hypnosis for grief
Grief in waves, between waves the world returns.
Grief is a session for the times when it arrives in waves and the world feels distant. It focuses on the shape of the wave itself, then on the quiet return of ordinary things in the gap before the next one.
The aim is to sit through the rise and fall without pushing.
The hardest part is not always the sharpness of the loss but the waiting for the next hit, never knowing if the morning will bring a clear day or a sudden, crashing wave.
It feels like the space around you has become smaller and harder to navigate, leaving you standing still while the rest of the world keeps moving.
What’s in it
A gentle way to ride grief in waves and let the world quietly return in the spaces between them.
Why do it
Grief moves at its own pace, so a few kind minutes here helps you meet each wave with more ease and steadiness.
- Theme
- Trauma & Past
- Delivery styles
- 3
- Lengths
- Quick ~10mStandard ~20mDeep ~45m
- Ends
- Calm and present
- Stages
- 5
- On this shelf
- 9 sessions
Timeline: Start to Finish
The middle section is spent riding the waves and then practising the return of the ordinary world in the spaces between them.
4 of the 5 stages are named techniques with a published origin, credited under each.
-
InductionStage 16 min
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
A classic head-to-toe relaxation. Tense and release, or simply soften, each muscle group in sequence.
After Edmund Jacobson PMR (1929); Dave Elman Hypnotherapy · what progressive muscle relaxation is
-
DeepenerStage 23 min
Staircase Descent
Visualized stairs descending into a deeper level of trance. Each step takes you down.
After Ledochowski, Deep Trance Training Manual
-
SafetyStage 39 min
Personal Sanctuary
A custom safe space designed by your unconscious. Your refuge any time, anywhere.
After Battino, Guided Imagery; safe-place protocols
Inserted before the suggestion for every Trauma & Past session, so there is a stable place to be.
-
Suggestion ScriptStage 410 min
Grief Processing — Balanced
-
AwakeningStage 52 min
Calm Alert Awakening
Awake and present, but calm rather than energized. Good for evening or pre-meeting use.
After Yapko, Trancework
Three ways to say it
The same goal, written three ways. You pick the one that sounds like something you would believe — and you can hear a different one tomorrow without rebuilding anything.
Balanced
Ride grief in waves and let the world return between them, at your own pace. The default.
Future self
Meet the you ahead who rides each wave gently and lets ordinary life back in between them.
New identity
Be the person who knows how to grieve in waves now, steady through them and open between.
Where it sits
Old material, approached slowly and with a safe place built in first.
Before you press play
- This one asks for a bit of care. In the app it opens with a consent step before anything plays.
- Not the right session right now if any of these are live for you: active thoughts of suicide or self-harm.
- A Personal Sanctuary block is added automatically before the suggestion, so there is somewhere stable to be first.
Hypnosis is not for everyone. If you have epilepsy, a psychotic illness, or you are under psychiatric care, talk to your clinician before using this — here or anywhere.
Why this works — and what the research actually says
Group-level, not session-level: no study has tested this exact session, and we will not pretend otherwise. Every source below was opened and read on 2026-08-25 before it was quoted.
Why do it as hypnosis?
Grief is a load that is too heavy to carry all at once, yet the mind tends to pick it up and hold on tight for hours.
This sets the load down for a few minutes and gives your full attention to the rhythm of the waves instead of trying to stop them.
It is not about getting over anything, but about practising the moments in between when the world returns.
Grief: what the research does not say
Worth knowing: There is no meta-analysis of hypnosis for grief. What exists is case reports.
We are showing you the evidence for grief work in general precisely because the evidence for this session's method specifically does not exist yet.
The exact wording and figures
A systematic review of grief interventions across 12 randomised controlled trials found they reduce grief symptoms from before to after, but were more effective than control treatments in only just over half of those trials.
The review does not examine hypnosis at all.
Published in Innovation in Aging. Included here as the honest answer rather than the flattering one.
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