Why does love hurt so much? And what type of painkillers can you prescribe?
This is a question I posed to Jason Principe, who penned the self-published book Bakit Masakit Magmahal? Aside from being a certified hypnotherapist and certified neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) practitioner, Jason is a self-confessed former “ladies’ man” (I am still checking for his confession with the neighborhood parish priest and police station) who has since “reformed” from his heathen ways and sworn to use his Jedi mind power techniques to help people get over their biggest love hangups — regardless how well they are hung.
RJ LEDESMA: You described yourself in your book as a “former” ladies’ man? So after leaving that life behind, what do you call yourself nowadays? A ladies’ boy?
JASON PRINCIPE: I was once part of a “seduction” group.
What is that like? A party-list group?
It’s one of those online groups who study and try to find out how to pick up women. I was part of the group since 2008 until late last year.
What made you decide to leave the group? Was the government planning on declaring it a terrorist organization?
Interestingly enough, the reason why I wrote my book Bakit Masakit Magmahal was because I broke a lot of women’s hearts.
Man, you must be the bane of cardiologists everywhere. Just how many hearts did you break?
I really don’t know. When I was part of the seduction community, I wasn’t in it for the sex or the love. I was in it for the (thrill of the) chase.
(Dirty Old Man [DOM] representative: You need to get your priorities straight, young man.)
I put a lot of women in the grey zone and in the friend zone.
(No Girlfriend Since Birth [NGSB] representative: Is that something like a no parking zone? And how much are the fines?)
Grey zone means you don’t know whether you’re “on” or “not on.”
Ah, so it’s the equivalent of the “It’s Complicated” status on Facebook.
(DOM representative: I thought grey zone meant that you were dating a senior citizen.)
But in 2014 I spent a month in my hypnotherapist clinic treating women who came to us with devastating stories or heartbreaks and breakups. That got me to thinking that the universe was knocking on my door to fix up what I had done.
You’re fortunate that karma came to you before you were fifty shades of grey-zoned. Can you use hypnotherapy to convince yourself that you are more attractive to the opposite sex?
(NGSB representative: Because I’ve tried hallucinogenic drugs and I still can’t convince myself that I am attractive to the opposite sex.)
Yes, if you are able to convince your “unconscious mind” that you are attractive or confident.
(NGSB representative: So I have to knock myself out, first?)
Most people who come to the clinic have confidence issues. I had a client who, for most of his life, was a really meek and shy guy. When I put him under regression, it turned out that when he was around five years old, he broke one of his lola’s favorite China plates. After breaking those plates, he told his young self that he “wasn’t good enough” — which is (a hangup) he carried into adulthood. So we addressed this problem by “fixing” the memories of his childhood. The good things about memories are they are all “electrical impulses” that can be changed. We remove the emotion from those memories and replace it with another emotion.
(DOM representative: Wow, you can do that!? Can you fix my memories from when I was still a single-celled organism?)
On top of hypnotherapy, you can also use affirmations.
(NGSB representative: Where can I get a prescription for that?)
Affirmations put positive inputs straight into the unconscious mind, diluting the negative suggestions you have been putting into yourself for the longest time. They sort of work like last song syndrome (LSS): if you listen to it long enough, it (becomes your anthem).
(DOM representative: Really? My anthem is Sexual Healing, but the scars still won’t heal.)
Can hypnotherapy or NLP be used to convince other people that you are attractive?
There are techniques, but I basically don’t like to teach it to people unless I know for a fact that they are looking for “the one.” Otherwise, the technology will be misused.
(DOM representative: Why did you have to grow a conscience!? I’ve gotten by without one for the past thousand years.)
The best way to make other people think that you are attractive or confident is to fix your unconscious mind first. If you convince yourself that you are confident, other people will feel it as well. You won’t need hypnotherapy at that point.
(NGSB representative: What will I need? A lobotomy?)
Turning the situation around, is there a way to tell if someone is trying to use hypnosis on you to make themselves appear more attractive?
There is a formula for hypnosis: first, you absorb the attention, then bypass the logical mind and finally the suggestion. How do you know that you are being hypnotized? If you are doing something where you are not logically thinking? Sometimes, women who belong (in con artist gangs like the Budol-budol gang) use their “bodies” to “hypnotize” men to (do things they wouldn’t normally do).
(NGSB representative: That is appalling! Where can you find these budol-budol women? I need them to teach me how to use my body for attraction.)
In your book, you talk about dissecting the anatomy of love and relationships from a hypnotist’s and former ladies’ man point of view. How did you dissect love and did it require anesthesia?
From a hypnotist’s point of view, the persons who are most hurt are the ones who are most open to change and learning new things. One of the reasons people think kung bakit masakit magmahal is people think that they can find love from other people.
(NGSB representative: That’s why you should always show love to yourself first.)
They think that even if they don’t love themselves, other people will love them. That’s not true. You can’t give something that you don’t have. You have to fix yourself first.
(DOM representative: I’ve had myself fixed years ago. I don’t have to worry about giving anymore.)
There are also times when you carry the traumatic experience from a bad relationship. When that happens, some people say forgive and forget. I say forgive and forget the “emotion” associated with the event. With hypnosis, you can have someone forget a traumatic event through amnesia. But once the “trigger” is there (i.e. you see the stuffed toy he once gave you), the emotion will come back to you and the feeling will be much worse.
(DOM representative: Hay naku. I say forgive, forget and find the KTV nearest to you on Waze.)
So instead of inducing amnesia, what I do through hypnotherapy is change their “point of view” of that traumatic incident. I put the person in a third person point of view (as if they were just witnessing the “traumatic” event instead of being the one experiencing the emotions attached to it).
(NGSB representative: So it’s like being a voyeur into your own life? That’s amazing. It’s a good thing I’m used to being a voyeur.)
Another thing I learned from my patients is their concept of ligaw. Some people fall in love with the idea of the person and not the person.
(NGSB representative: I have fallen in love with a lot of female Japanese manga cartoon characters. Is that the same thing?)
Sometimes women ask me “Bakit hindi (siya yung tao na) minahal ko?” That’s because when a guy makes ligaw, he gives it his all — they text all the time, they give flowers, they give stuffed toys —
(DOM representative: Pre-paid load. Always give pre-paid load.)
Men think that getting women (to say “yes” to them) is like a conquest — like conquering the peak of a mountain. But what often happens is that once (the man is in a relationship with the woman), they revert back to their “true selves” and he is no longer the man that he “projected” himself to be when he was making ligaw the woman. Women end up nagging their partner because they want him to be the “idea” of the man that they fell in love with.
(NGSB representative: Sigh… I can’t even get women to fall in love with the idea of me.)
Hypnotherapy can help (these men) out by making people who misrepresent themselves to feel more secure with themselves. There’s no need for misrepresentation. I wrote, “Don’t make long-term promises on short-term feelings.”
Whoa. Nosebleed.
For example, men will say “I will love you forever.” That might be true for now, but tomorrow or even in two weeks? The feeling is different already. Feelings change. So I teach men how to be honest and open to everything that they are feeling.
I guess you don’t get many politicians as clients.
Instead, I tell them to say, “I love you. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. But I know for a fact that I love you now.” Don’t make promises on things that you can’t control.
(DOM representative: Or that can be used against you in a court of law.)
And this is the last piece of advice I share with my clients: you don’t own people.
(NGSB: Unless they are inflatable.)
Think of relationships like a butterfly that lands in your palm — I love its beauty and the fact that the butterfly freely chose me. What I can do is to slightly curl my fingers so the breeze won’t blow the butterfly away. But I am careful not to crush the butterfly with my palm or else it will die. If the butterfly leaves, I will be sad. But I know that I don’t own her. If the butterfly comes back, then I can choose to open my palm once again. But if it doesn’t, I will never lose the memories that we once had together.
(DOM representative: Ikaw kasi ijo, you’re too late in the game. Don’t look for them when they are butterflies. Look for them while they are still caterpillars.)
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For comments, suggestions or hungry caterpillars, email ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.com. Follow @rjled on Twitter and @rjled610 on Instagram.
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Check out Jason’s website www.trancemanila.com. For copies of his book, contact 0927-7814195.