Eric Christopher

In the fall of 1984, I attended St. Olaf College for Psychology and Social Studies Education. Couldn't find a teaching job so I went overseas to teach English in Taipei, Taiwan, and had an interesting and enjoyable time. From there, I traveled to India, Nepal and Thailand. I was so enthralled with India, that my only priority was to come back and get a job so I could earn enough money to backpack around that interesting country for another 6 months. It was a mind-expanding adventure, and I ended up traveling throughout the Middle East as well for 3 months. I've gone back since on a couple of trips.

St. Paul then became my permanent home as I bought a very large run-down Victorian home and fixed it up, much of the time with our classmate Bill Taylor who lived upstairs for several years. It had been converted into 4 rental units in the 1950's, and it still has 4 kitchens in it. During this time I got married to my girlfriend of 4 years, only to have my heart broken 2 years later when she announced her love for another man, ironically, days after I was accepted into a masters program for Marriage & Family Therapy at UW-Stout. I finished this program in 2000, but then immediately began studying my passion, Transpersonal Hypnotherapy, which I've been doing ever since. Basically, I help people get rid of root, core emotional issues in long, 2-hour hypnosis sessions. I also work half time on a psychiatric unit.

After 25 years of up and down times, including the fairly recent death of a girlfriend to cancer, I've noticed that on the heels of tragedy or heartbreak there has been the biggest growth spurts for me, so to speak. Overall it seems the vast majority of the times have been good. Especially since the fall of 2008, when I met the woman of my dreams through the meditation center I attend. I never believed in soul mates or deep love at first sight until I experienced it with Maggie. In some ways, it feels like we are a mold for each other, and I look forward to our future. At this point in my life, it feels that things are going so well it couldn't be scripted any better.

Update 5 years later, June 2014:
Life seems even better as I quit the psychiatric unit job after 23 years, nearly half my life! I now just do my private hypnotherapy practice with a home office upstairs...can't beat the commute. Twin Cities rush hour traffic is to be avoided at all cost. Just had a 5-year anniversary with my soul mate, Maggie, and after 5 years it's grown even stronger...we had a sense it would be this way when we met. Just got into paddleboarding for fun.

I remember how much I looked forward to hot lunch. There was an entertaining game we used to play. John Nichols, Shane Loomis, Chris Colletti were some of the main players. The goal was to see who could create such a disturbance while going through the line that the lunch ladies would forget to ask us to deposit our ticket in the container at the end of the line. I remember the cooks screaming, "HEY! Only ONE cookie, do you think I can't see the one you're hiding behind your milk?...What are you trying to cover with that napkin, do you think I can't see that big lump? Show me now! ...Myrtle, did he pay for that yogurt? Put that back!..." We complained that they were trying to put us on the anorexic meal plan. We were role playing. But I believe karma caught up with me because I was a substitute school teacher for a year and had to put up with the same crap that I dished out a few years prior.

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Connecting with friends....football, basketball, tennis....Mr. Bean's gym class and Mrs. Metzdorf's spanish class were so entertaining. I'm glad Mrs. Burgess convinced me to go out for the fall play senior year, that was fun. I think some of the best times were those 4 short minutes between classes, clowning around while walking down the hall... a lot of sarcastic fun. I remember the hall jams when everyone around would just start screaming, "HEY... HEY!!" as loud as they could for no reason at all.

Bill Taylor, Chris Colletti, Gregg Stewart, Chris Spurgat, a little of Tim Nelson with just a sprinkle of Shane Loomis and John Rabe, and maybe just a dash of Kyle Brokmier, you know, once every 4 years or so.