How Hypnotherapy Works

You may have seen hypnotherapy on a stage or heard about its use for smoking cessation. But how does hypnotherapy really work? Could it help you? Is it safe? Why are some religious traditions opposed to it? We dive into all of these topics with one of our very own panel in this episode.   

Delve into Brad Tunis' unique profession as we unpack preconceived notions about hypnosis, learn tools for deepening our own connections to our mental state. In this conversation we also discuss how to manage anxiety, bolster personal growth, and even enhance performance. So tune in, and let's explore the power of the mind!

Meet the Advice Column Panel

Justin Reden
Justin is a husband and the father of two wonderful daughters. He owns a law firm in San Diego, CA, and his many hobbies include mountain biking and beekeeping. Reden enjoys strategy, including pondering life, and has a great love for people.
Justin's Website

Brad Tunis
Brad left his career as a hospital administrator to support people through his training as a highly sought-after Hypnotherapist and Mindfulness Coach. He enjoys surfing and riding gravel bikes with his wife, Sarah.
Brad's Website

Laura C. Reden
Laura is the author of the author of the Tethered Soul and the Phantom book series.
Laura C. Reden never considered herself a creative person, until a sudden spark of inspiration left her writing my first book. The endless possibilities for creativity and imagination have kept her dedicated to the craft ever since.
Laura's Website

Lisa Liguori
The founder of the Advice Column Podcast, Lisa is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and adventurer. She loves to host game nights, pilot a small plane, and write in her journal. She loves hearing what others are learning in their life's journey and sharing what she is working through.
Lisa's Website

Rico Molden
The producer of Advice Column's live steam events, Rico is a filmmaker and storyteller. Rico and his wife have two young children and are actively involved in their church.
Rico's Website


Let's Stay connected:
Subscribe to our written newsletter to receive bi-monthly inspiration directly in your inbox: AdviceColumn.com/Subscribe

Connect with the host, Lisa Liguori:

Website:https://lisaliguori.com

Connect with us at Advice Column:

Website:https://advicecolumn.com/

Instagram:@advicecolumnpod

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/TheAdviceColumnPodcast

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChYmoafMFOeL7HCNWrXPkJQ

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@advicecolumnpodca?_t=8juYOldEdcw&_r=1

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome to Advice Column, where we share crowdsourced ideas for living with intention.

Speaker 2: 0:09

Hello everybody, welcome back. It's been a hot minute since the panels been together and I'm really excited about it. And today we have kind of a special treat because instead of bringing in an external expert, we get to interview Brad, one of our own. So let me just real quick introduce everyone. We have Laura C Reeden, author Brad, who we're going to learn a lot more about, justin Reeden, attorney, and then myself. So Lisa Ligori and Rico is taking care of us on the technical side. Let's just dive right in because, brad, you have a really unusual profession and we have a lot of questions about it. And right before we started recording, we were talking about some of the ways that what you do can support people and play under our lives. So maybe just share how you introduce yourself and your very unique role.

Speaker 3: 1:02

Yeah, that's interesting and it's kind of evolved, I think, a little bit with time as I do more of this type of work. So I am a certified hypnotherapist, a certified mindfulness coach, a certified breath worker and I bring those three modalities together to help people manage different issues that they come to. So I'm late. People ask and to, not because everybody, oh hypnotherapist, and there's a lot of questions around hypnosis and a lot of misconceptions around it. They want to know everything about it and so I say well, if I'm in a social setting, I might say I'm a holistic mental health coach.

Speaker 2: 1:46

To avoid answering all the questions, to avoid sometimes answering all the questions.

Speaker 3: 1:50

I love to talk about it, but there are so many misconceptions about it that sometimes it can I get into the same thing over and over again, almost, like I'm defending it. I don't need to defend it and it's neuroscience.

Speaker 3: 2:07

And I think that's probably the biggest thing that I really help people try and understand is this isn't voodoo, this is neuroscience. Hypnosis and I use the words interchangeably Is a naturally occurring state that we all experience, and a couple of the more common ways is have you ever cried during a movie? Most people will answer well, of course. So why would you cry at pixels on a screen? Well, you've allowed yourself to enter into this other reality at such a deep level that you're having an emotional response, and that is hypnotic phenomenon. Marketers and marketing has used it for years.

Speaker 3: 2:59

You're tranced out into a game or a movie or something of that nature, and then the next thing comes up is break to commercial, the new Dyson vacuum, and a couple of weeks later you're walking through the store and you're like you know, I think we're due for a new vacuum, and it's this type of stuff that marketing actually capitalizes on, this state that people tend to fall into. Another one would be highway hypnosis, getting in the car. Maybe you're on a excuse me, a road trip and you go 60 miles or so and you go wow, I just went 60 miles, that felt like 10 minutes. Your brain is almost your conscious mind might be ruminating, listening to a podcast, listening to music. Your subconscious mind, because it's such an ingrained behavior, is operating the car, and so a lot of, a lot of things. There's an opportunity for a lot of things to happen there.

Speaker 3: 4:02

The conscious mind isn't available to sort of block new information and oversimplification and description of this is if you think of and this isn't oversimplification, so I want to be clear about that but conscious mind likes to block information If it's not information. That is part of our day in, day out pattern. Whether the information is helpful or not, the conscious mind is going to want to kind of pick it apart, block it. Now, when we go into a state of trance, we sort of occupy or lower that network of the brain's activity so that information can more readily be passed into this deeper subconscious mind which is a part of all of us. It's really the hard drive of who we are as a human being.

Speaker 2: 4:51

I think that's why people get nervous about it. From people I've talked to, especially people with strong religious views, or sometimes leery like, is this letting something bad have access or control, to my mind? And so if indeed a commercial can make you want to buy a vacuum because it's playing upon your natural emotions or your screening being turned down a little bit, how do you comfort people that this is a really you know it's used for really positive? I mean, for example, what is a therapeutic use where this is a very positive, powerful tool in the right hands?

Speaker 3: 5:37

And I'm going to just back up one step there and first off and just explain hypnosis is not mind control. No one can control your mind. Arguably we won't get down this rabbit hole. What is control and how much of it do you actually have anyway? But no one can control your mind. A hypnotherapist cannot take control of your mind. I explain it to clients is we're developing a deeper, more intimate relationship between you and yourself. This I'm more aware of my feelings, I'm more aware of my emotions, I'm more aware of my thoughts, because when we get taken away by a story we create, we are nervous. System starts to respond in such a way as if that's really happening. And so to becoming more and more aware of the worry about the future the ruminating on the could as shit as in the past is pointless.

Speaker 3: 6:36

And again, not telling people not to think, just saying be aware of the thinking mind, the default mode that happens, that ruminating mind that you're unaware of because it has happened before we know it. And this is why a meditation practice can be so helpful for people. Meditation is a strengthening of the mind. It's getting better at recognizing when you've been pulled out into this storyline. One of the things I like to tell my clients is a thought is just a thought and a feeling is just a feeling. It is not a problem until you create a story around it. It's just a feeling.

Speaker 2: 7:22

How does hypnotherapy help with that?

Speaker 3: 7:28

Much like meditation. We kind of move into and in. Hypnosis is a practice People can get. You know Dr Milton Erickson, who revolutionized some things and psychotherapy and was also a hypnotherapist, used to say all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, because I can't do it to someone. It's an allowing, it's an unfolding of a state that we use for our benefit. It happens naturally anyway. We're kind of unaware of it. There are many other examples I could tap into, like a flow state could be considered hypnotic. In ways it's a deeper connection between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. There's a flow between the two, A man's work that I study a lot and have done a bunch of training with. I really liked the way Dr Steven Gilligan explains it is that old school hypnosis was the conscious mind's ridiculous Knock it out. Feed the subconscious mind with other information, more helpful information.

Speaker 3: 8:38

Where we're moving forward in hypnosis is to realize well, the conscious mind needs to be seen more of a manager. It gets things done. The subconscious mind is this, where your emotions and your values and these deep things are held. Now you may have this goal in mind and we want to connect to that goal and it's sort of this quote, unquote, intercalling which you want to put out into the world. Well, that's great, but if we don't use the conscious mind to actually move that out into the world, then it kind of stays in this world of unicorns and rhinobos. So we want to be able to take our deepest calling and this could be an event and use the conscious mind as a manager to go okay, we need to do step one, step two, step three, and then keep coming back to that connection, to the calling which is held within the subconscious mind. So the pathway between the two needs to remain open so that we can use them together.

Speaker 2: 9:46

Interesting. So through hypnotherapy you can kind of open the connection or build the connection between the levels of consciousness, if you will.

Speaker 3: 9:59

Yes, and help the client build that relationship so that they can more easily access that on their own and as a tool and a resource place to come back to, because we tend to get caught up in the conscious mind and when we're caught in the conscious mind, we're limited about what we can really do.

Speaker 3: 10:20

And the conscious mind is then met with yeah, but yeah with them and the barriers. Somebody mentioned a barrier before. Right, oh, we've got to work through the barriers. There's a lot of brilliant work around fear and resistance and all of these things, and I think one of the things that I believe to be true and talk to my clients about is nothing great ever happened without working through some resistance and fear.

Speaker 3: 10:48

I mean that's just a part of it, and nothing great or brilliant ever happened from your conscious mind. It came from your subconscious. Maybe the books that you write typically, probably what weren't some of the things that got that book going, or the ideas. Or maybe if you hit a writer's block and all of a sudden you passed through it, you didn't pass through that block by consciously grinding on it, it was when you let it go moved away from it and then there's that insight.

Speaker 3: 11:24

This is where I need to go, and so helping people to trust that subconscious, intuitive wisdom is a big part of it.

Speaker 2: 11:34

Have you experienced that?

Speaker 4: 11:38

Yeah, I think a lot of creative stuff like writing comes from a flow state or, I would say, the subconscious. Yeah, a lot of times. It's like driving sometimes, where I don't quite remember what I've written when. I go back to read it, which is interesting, really Wow.

Speaker 3: 12:02

I've gotten into the habit more of keeping a journal of things. One day I would like to write a book. There's all kinds of things I would like to do, or maybe I'll just have an idea of around a difficult issue, I'm working with a particular client and I'm driving or doing something completely unrelated and an idea will come and so I'm starting to write those things down, because they are fleeting sometimes in nature and then you're like oh, I wish I would have wrote that down. It's important to write those down, keep it, because it is creative mind work. And one of the things yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I like to kind of portray to my clients or you are an artist and your life and your life's work is your masterpiece.

Speaker 3: 12:47

Now, how do you want to go about developing that masterpiece? We are all creatives, but to remain in that creative state and I consider hypnosis and trans work, creative mind work we have to stay creative. We have to stay open. As soon as we get sucked out and cut off and there's a couple of physiological things that happen that are quick identifiers of when we're sort of cut out from this deeper wisdom. We need to reopen that channel and neuromuscular lock is one of them. Tension Start to shoulders rise. Maybe your hands and your feet, your breathing starts to get faster. Excuse me, move up into the chest. These are two telltale signs that you're shut off from this deeper wisdom.

Speaker 5: 13:42

So could we? You know, when people go up and publicly speak, sometimes at least I know myself you'll start to feel that tense. And is that your conscious mind getting spun up in the moment and then not making that connection to your deeper mind to really pull, like the purpose of your speech or your message or whatever?

Speaker 3: 14:05

Right.

Speaker 3: 14:05

And it's yes, and it's. It gets very complex. I mean we could talk about this probably for days, but the mind is a, the brain is a pattern making machine, so it's running a pattern over and over again. Because you've been nervous, speaking a bunch of times Now, while I talk to Brad and I'm going to take control of this and I've got some tools we've got to interrupt the old pattern. So is it going to happen overnight, hopefully get better just by paying attention? Can it get better quickly by paying attention and interrupting that pattern over and over again, absolutely and relatively quickly?

Speaker 5: 14:49

So is. Is hypnosis a tool? Let's say I was going into court and I needed to give like the most important closing statement to a huge trial ever and there's millions of dollars riding on it and I'm very nervous and et cetera. Would hypnosis be a tool where you would take me before I walk out and do my closing argument and spend a half hour with me and hope and then that could maybe help me perform better?

Speaker 3: 15:17

Absolutely, and this I mean Tiger Woods, I mean Michael Jordan, I mean there are top athletes from throughout history that have used hypnosis and trans work, because it really is. And there's where the beauty of hypnosis lies in what will your life be like if you overcome this obstacle, or if you didn't have this panic? How does that improve your life? And there has been many studies done it through, like Harvard University, and there's various studies out there. People could Google that you can't just consciously manifest this thing, right? Well, I'm going to. You've got to really visualize yourself in it. Because I go back to our first principle Mine and the body don't know what's imagined and what's real. So if we start practicing it as this, as you would want to be, we're getting reps in.

Speaker 3: 16:16

You don't have to do it, and so I work with some professional athletes and that's one of the things that we do is we spend a lot of time just over and over See yourself with success, how you feel, how you look, really bringing it to life. So we're sending a signal. We've done this.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Yeah, so it's an imagination exercise until the subconscious kind of imagination becomes the reality when it actually happens.

Speaker 3: 16:45

So what's the mechanism? We're running a new pattern. We're running a new pattern at the deepest level of the mind to go. This is how we're going to do it now. We're not going to get up there and palm sweaty and shortness of breath and all of the things you're fearful of.

Speaker 5: 17:05

Your conscious mind is running in and pulling all those levers because it thinks something's wrong or whatever right, and it's been here before.

Speaker 3: 17:14

Yeah, and this is how it went.

Speaker 5: 17:15

Yeah, and so what I'm hearing is that maybe it facilitates that connection where it tones your conscious mind to not pull those levers now and to stay focused on whatever the deeper things are that need to come out and then go to work and focus on that in the conscious and getting reps in that deeper subconscious because the reps get.

Speaker 3: 17:40

You know I'm kind of oversimplifying a lot of this, but the reps sort of you do it enough times, it becomes subconscious.

Speaker 5: 17:47

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3: 17:49

So what we want to do is so now there's a map of your world as it relates to public speaking. You've done it so many times. Every time you do it, you get nervous. That becomes a map in the subconscious of what's going to happen next time you give a public closing or have to speak in public. Hypnosis allows us to go in and start creating a new map of the world as it relates to public speaking.

Speaker 4: 18:13

Mm-hmm Does that make sense yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:17

So we're getting deep learning, we're interrupting an old pattern, we're creating a new pattern so that maybe next time you go up and you give that big closing, you're like, oh, this feels pretty good, you know. Yeah, I joke with people a lot, and it's interesting when I work with clients is we are wired evolutionary to look for threats. We never really notice when everything's going great, right, right. And so I give the analogy of you wake up one morning and you did a workout the day before and you wake up and your knee hurts. You're like, wow, man, my knee hurts.

Speaker 3: 18:56

I must have done something yesterday. You wake up the second morning.

Speaker 5: 19:00

Whew.

Speaker 3: 19:01

A knee is really sore. I must have really done something. Third morning, oh my goodness, what did I do? I'm going to have to make a call to the orthopedic surgeon. I tear my meniscus. You wake up the fourth morning, get halfway through your day and you're like huh, my knee didn't hurt.

Speaker 3: 19:20

We look for threats only when it's not going well. So you may get up, give this closing, be halfway through it, realize you're crushing it and go oh wow, where did that nervousness go? Yeah, so I actually kind of joke, and it's one of the difficult parts of my work. I ask people how you feeling, how you doing Well, I think I'm doing better and then I'll ask them a specific situation that may have been a problem for them. And they go well, you know I actually. Yeah, I guess it's going pretty well. We don't notice, and so I call the hypnosis and trans work kind of like shift work. It's shifting underneath Because we're so wired to look for threats we sometimes don't even realize that we're just feeling better about the thing that we were feeling crummy about.

Speaker 5: 20:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:06

So is that a real situation? Do you get nervous for closings?

Speaker 5: 20:12

I don't very much, but a little bit. I mean I would get what you call like performance anxiety. Anytime I need to go out in front of a judge or anything. I mean it's very low percentage at this point in my career. It used to be much higher when I started out. I used to be terrified to go in front of a judge and try and give an argument or present anything in court in front of a group of people.

Speaker 3: 20:33

Well and I think that's an important piece to say right there, because that's healthy, yeah, all right, we need the signal that's like all right time to go. You're not cruising in there and your flip flops like, oh, another day at the office. Yeah, you need to be ready to go.

Speaker 5: 20:51

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:51

So can you use that yeah?

Speaker 2: 20:55

So are there tools that someone can use if they don't have a hypnotherapist, that gives them access to a similar type of benefit?

Speaker 3: 21:06

Yes, I mean number one, your breathing. I mean your breath. You have to have in the. So the breath work facilitation is not separate when I'm working with my private clients, the first things I do nowadays with every private client on the first session is I say can I see a breath? Like you're just, and I'm watching them breathe. And it's crazy, especially with anxiety, because I do a lot of my client based reports and anxiety is one of their primary reasons for coming in to see me.

Speaker 3: 21:41

The first thing I want to see is you take a breath and the vast majority of people and this is a societal, evolutionary thing, because of phones and everything else that keeps us on the sort of highly sympathetic fight, flight or freeze kind of response because there's information is coming at us all the time, so we're always up they think they're not in tune with their breath and there's a mechanism in the brain called the chemo receptor. The chemo receptors only responsibilities to monitor the level of CO2 building up into the body. Well, when CO2 hits a certain level and everybody's a little different based upon your physiology and your fitness, and yada, yada, yada the chemo receptor gets triggered and the chemo receptors sends a signal. The body that feels just like anxiety and panic. So if you're already feeling anxious, now you lose your breath. Now you get the trigger, your chemo receptor your chemo receptor sending more anxiety to the body.

Speaker 3: 22:38

It's like whoa, we've just started off a almost an artificial panic attack.

Speaker 5: 22:45

Right.

Speaker 4: 22:46

Every time I've tried to do breath work, the second I start focusing on my breath, I start to feel panicked.

Speaker 2: 22:53

Oh yeah.

Speaker 4: 22:53

Yeah, it's like I forget how to breathe.

Speaker 3: 22:56

And I'll have clients come in and I'll say I'm going to take a big inhale and take an inhale and they suck in, like that's not how the body was designed, like you are limiting the amount of quality air that you can move into the body, moving you again into this state of sympathetic drive. Sympathetic drives good for certain things, but we don't want to live there chronically.

Speaker 2: 23:21

So how are you supposed?

Speaker 4: 23:22

to do it.

Speaker 3: 23:23

I mean your basic abdominal breath. Nasal breathing is parasympathetically driven. Mouth breathing is these are rules of thumb. Nasal breathing is parasympathetic rest and relax. Sympathetic will be fight, flight and freeze. So nasal breathing is inherently parasympathetic in and out through your nose. Yep, and there's. That's another podcast and maybe we could have someone on to talk more in depth about that.

Speaker 5: 23:51

But for the non-technical person, the parasympathetic is a reference to like a more calm way to breathe. Yes, thank you, okay.

Speaker 3: 23:59

The calm way to be. Okay. Nasal breathing is a more calm will help you move into that calm state. Mouth breathing is going to shift that the other way. The inhale is up, regulating, drive, drive, drive. The exhale is more parasympathetic. Calm, driven. Where you put your attention is likely what you're gonna notice where your nervous system starts to go. So I tell most people so, for something like pre-closing a nice four to five second inhale in through the nose and then dropping it out for six, seven, eight seconds, elongating it and not just doing it but feeling it, allowing tension to be released on that exhale. And this is tool number one.

Speaker 2: 25:03

Trying to do it right now.

Speaker 5: 25:04

It's making you feel panicked. Huh, every time I try and nose breathe, I feel panicked. I'm like I'm not getting enough air.

Speaker 3: 25:11

A nice little visual I like to give people is your breath should be like filling up a glass. A glass fills. You pour into a top of a glass, but a glass always fills from the bottom up. Your breath is the same way. It comes in through then ideally the nose, with the nose in the mouth, but it should fill from, like the pelvic floor upwards and expand in a 360 degree. So think of your torso as a cylinder that when you take a nice deep cleansing in breath it should expand 360 degrees. Your belly should pop forward. If you're sitting in a chair, you can feel your back sort of the pressure into the chair. The first thing you'll probably feel is your pelvic floor into the base of the seat and then it fills and expands up and then it releases. So that if people could focus on that. I've had people come in with things. I've got so much terrible anxiety and I teach them how to breathe right and they're like I'm 50% feeling better.

Speaker 5: 26:20

You just weren't getting enough air.

Speaker 3: 26:22

Yeah, you were just walking around life holding your breath.

Speaker 5: 26:25

Well, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 26:27

After you.

Speaker 3: 26:27

Sure.

Speaker 5: 26:29

Is something that I think is interesting, because I freedive a lot Actually, I was just lobster diving last night and so we pay a lot of attention to our breath and our breathing and staying calm. But I took some freediving courses and they taught us, I think, along these lines. I'm seeing a connection with what you're saying there. You know, when you hold your breath and you're running out of air and you get panicked and then you that panic feeling is what you're talking about it's not cause you're running out of air, it's cause your body wants to breathe off the CO2. It wants to get rid of that. That's the feeling, and so when people are getting anxiety, it may be that they're not breathing off enough CO2. They're not star for air, they're not breathing deep enough to exhale.

Speaker 3: 27:16

The yes.

Speaker 5: 27:17

And then it's making their brain feel anxiety and it's exacerbating everything.

Speaker 3: 27:23

Then it becomes a one thing feeds the other thing.

Speaker 5: 27:26

But people may be thinking oh, you need to breathe a certain way to get more air. That may be true, but it also may be you need to breathe deeper to get rid of the byproduct which is actually the trigger for the anxiety Cause. When you get hypoxic, which is low on air, you feel drunk, you don't feel panicked, you feel like everything's fine. So if you're ever holding your breath and you feel really euphoric, you have a problem. You're about to run out of air. So anyway.

Speaker 3: 27:55

But yeah, and that's I mean, that's a beautiful example of exactly what happens. And you and with free diving, big wave surfing, some of these sports where you have a chance of being held underwater, they'll tell you you want to use, you want to be as calm in your mind as possible because the thought to breathe is going to come far before the actual need to breathe, and that's that trigger. Then the mind starts going oh my gosh, I'm going to die here, I'm going to, and we go into panic, we start using more energy, exacerbating the need for oxygen, and we have a disaster.

Speaker 5: 28:37

And I'm going to focus on in professional environments, in breathing out more to lower the anxiety level on the heart rate. I'm going to try that and talk about it next time we get together.

Speaker 3: 28:50

And it'd be, I mean, if I could give one thing to anybody that listens to this start paying attention to your breath and then have fun with it. It's like, it's like, it's kind of fun. Like you know, double inhales, triple inhales, drop the exhale like dance with it.

Speaker 4: 29:06

Make it a new toy.

Speaker 3: 29:07

you can do when you're waiting in line at the grocery store, because it is the key to your nervous system. You can't ask your anxiety to go away, you can't think your way out of this thing, but you can breathe your way.

Speaker 5: 29:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:23

I'm trying to articulate this question that I have. So the body and the subconscious and the conscious don't know the difference between each other, right? So if our bodies are acting nervous, we think we're nervous, so like if we're breathing too rapidly but, we can take control of slowing down our breath, to therefore signal to our body we're not panicked. But then there's this philosophy I've heard which is name it to tame it so like I just did this thing at NASA, where I got it submerged and flip upside down and I had to try to get out.

Speaker 2: 29:59

Yeah, I was really nervous. So I was trying to actually have a story around it to tell myself well, you're nervous, that's natural to kind of like therapize myself. But that almost sounds contrary to what you're saying, because I'm actually telling myself well, you're nervous. I was kind of, I don't know reinforcing it, but acknowledging it and trying to have a conversation with my conscious mind about it.

Speaker 3: 30:25

So there's a fine line here. The name it to tame it. Is that an awareness of it?

Speaker 2: 30:34

Okay.

Speaker 3: 30:34

What we resist persists. What we want to hold on to and never let go of because it's so perfect, wants to elude us. And this is a general principle of Buddhism and Buddhist psychology Everything's impermanent in its nature, everything, and so the more we either resist it or try and hold on to, we're going to suffer because it's impermanent. What you're talking about is oh, I'm feeling this feeling, oh, feeling anxious here. Okay, recognizing it, not creating a story about it. The name it to tame it part is so you don't then create a story around the anxiety. So if you go, oh, I'm anxious here, I don't know, from what you experienced, sounds like something you should probably be a little anxious, for I can't wait to ask about it.

Speaker 5: 31:24

Yeah, I know I like.

Speaker 3: 31:25

It Sounds like a reasonable thing to me. But the difference then? So you name it, you're aware of it, you create awareness around it, it'll pass. Okay, here it is Versus nervous, anxious, oh my God.

Speaker 4: 31:41

What if I?

Speaker 3: 31:41

can't get to see if I'm done.

Speaker 5: 31:43

What if they don't get to me?

Speaker 3: 31:44

What if they don't understand that I'm so. Now here comes our storyline Creating more anxiety, more sympathetic drive Does that make sense, so the name it to tame. It is really not different. It's just putting it out there into the world and go huh. I'm feeling this way right now.

Speaker 4: 32:05

Could you use the story in a positive way, like tell yourself the story that you're actually just excited?

Speaker 3: 32:12

Yes, so that's part of the awareness to go. It's okay to be a little anxious right now. I'm about to get turned upside down and do a thing and drop to new. That's fun.

Speaker 4: 32:23

I'm so excited to be here and be doing this.

Speaker 5: 32:25

Yes, what a neat excited to drown.

Speaker 3: 32:28

And one of the other basic tools that I often tell people is, when you catch yourself in a story and we tend to think in the worst way because we're wired for threat, flip that over. Okay, if you're gonna think, brad, the mindfulness thing doesn't work for me. I can't stop my thoughts. And it's not about stopping your thoughts, but okay, then just think about what you want to happen.

Speaker 5: 32:58

The positive outcome.

Speaker 3: 32:59

Yep, so it's kind of answering. Your question is, yes, create the story, turn the story around. All right, I'm gonna go in this thing. I know what I need to do. See myself unbuckling swimming out effortlessly and easily, remaining calm.

Speaker 4: 33:15

What's the best that could happen?

Speaker 5: 33:17

I like that mindset Because you can choose which story the one where you drown or the one where you get out right.

Speaker 3: 33:25

You always have a choice.

Speaker 5: 33:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:28

I know, I've heard that when you make a goal you're supposed to make it in the positive, or like when you, if I was to tell you, laura, don't drop that glass, it just puts in your mind drop the glass. So, I say carry the glass carefully, that is the more positive image. So I was trying to remember that when I was writing my goals, flip it around. And then, not what I am trying to not be, but what I want to be and we can get.

Speaker 3: 33:54

Yeah, that's an interesting one too, and so that's like hypnotic language. You'll never hear a hypnot therapist or an NLP talk in the negatives.

Speaker 5: 34:03

Right.

Speaker 3: 34:04

You don't. The conscious mind does not like being told what to do.

Speaker 5: 34:09

Don't drop the glass don't tell me what to do. Yeah, I'm gonna drop that glass, that's for sure. So is this on video?

Speaker 2: 34:17

Yeah.

Speaker 5: 34:19

No, you're NASA.

Speaker 2: 34:21

Oh, oh, no, no.

Speaker 5: 34:24

So you went to NASA. You did some things there, and one of them was you got dunked in a pool, strapped in a device and had to get out. Yeah, oh, my gosh.

Speaker 2: 34:32

Yeah, it was an anxiety procedure and I was the only one who seemed scared.

Speaker 3: 34:37

That was the crazy thing to do no, I was the only one who was scared. Everyone was yeah, you think so. Yeah, that's the story.

Speaker 2: 34:43

Yeah, that's the story I'm telling myself.

Speaker 4: 34:45

But so I have a question. Say you, your client is good with the breathing, you've got their breathing under control. How do you move them then to the deeper subconscious level?

Speaker 3: 34:58

So hypnosis and Dr David Spiegel, who's chair at Stanford University Psychiatry Department, I like his working definition of hypnosis, and hypnosis is heightened state of relaxation and focus. So what I would do is now, everybody's a different kind of learner and so and some people aren't great visualizers, but they can sense things really well so I'll take people through a hypnotic induction, induction that absorbs their attention, relax them even further through like a gentle muscle relaxation or something like that, and then I'll shift their awareness to sensations, to feelings, to sounds, and I will absorb them into the experience. As soon as I have them absorbed into the experience, they're in this trance and we see this in kids a lot, right, and anybody that has a kid playing a video game or watching TV and you're hollering at the kid hey, it's time to go, or dinner or whatever and they do not hear you. You think they're ignoring you.

Speaker 3: 36:03

I'm telling you they don't hear you. It's an interesting thing because I do some work with kids from time to time and there's a thing that floating trance. So maybe you have a kid come in with their favorite Lego set and I'll tell the parent and I'll say hey bring in their favorite.

Speaker 3: 36:23

They like Legos. Bring in their favorite Lego set, but have it, don't not. Put together and bring it in a baggy and then you can have the kid on a table in my office. Hey, I heard you like Legos and you put this thing together for me. Watch them get absorbed into this thing and then you can almost stand over them and tell them a little metaphorical story or talk to them about things that information, as we understand it is actually.

Speaker 3: 36:53

The subconscious is always listening, and so we've occupied their conscious mind by doing this thing, engaging them and immersing them in this activity while you're over there, kind of talking to them and I tell parents I'm like you know it might be an opportunity there.

Speaker 5: 37:11

What do you need to? Say to them Well, just for the record, when you were explaining that, I was kind of like getting into a trance. Maybe Just listening to your voice I was starting to feel really relaxed.

Speaker 3: 37:27

Don't let me go Hypnosis trance.

Speaker 5: 37:32

Can you shut my headphones off?

Speaker 2: 37:35

I was telling Brad, though, I read this book by a hypnotherapist in Delmar, and he stops people from bleeding during surgery with his voice.

Speaker 5: 37:43

Oh really yeah, and he'll kind of like.

Speaker 2: 37:48

he gave us some really interesting examples. You know when you put something in someone's mind like this doctor made this frantic phone call and said we're losing the patient and then, of course, the patient heard that and thought and body went into panic and by contrast, he would. This woman was bleeding profusely and then he just started, or actually she was in tachycardia, whatever you call it when your heart rate gets uneven.

Speaker 2: 38:15

And he just said to her your heart knows how, and he just said it in the beat. He went into the heart and he said to beat. It's been doing it your whole life, which is such a positive thing, right, like you're like, oh, my heart does know how to do this. I've my heart's been beating my life and he was kind of mirroring and he has stories like that that are just so incredible.

Speaker 3: 38:39

It's a beautiful book. I actually read it on your recommendation.

Speaker 2: 38:42

Oh, you did.

Speaker 3: 38:43

And I've read it. I bought the audio book. I've probably listened to it over.

Speaker 3: 38:48

He's a brilliant guy and he does medical hypnosis and so I do a fair amount of pre-surgical hypnosis because of what you're talking about the subconscious and there's been a lot of studies about this lack of blood loss, quicker recovery, recovering from anesthesia and I mean the medicine they use to put you under for surgery is pretty toxic and some people have really adverse I mean sometimes up to a year recovering from the anesthesia of a surgery.

Speaker 3: 39:20

And so there's been a lot of documentation about less blood loss during surgery, quicker recovery times, quicker recovery times from the anesthesia just a lot of really beautiful outcomes. And so I have a personal story that with my sister who had this really rare tumor, and we did some work the couple nights leading up to her surgery and it was like a 14 hour surgery and she did really well and my dad said, man, that was your sister hasn't been that calm in the whole six months leading up to this big procedure. And she's my sister but she credits our work for how she kind of came through this whole thing and I've worked with plenty of people since then. It's really neat.

Speaker 5: 40:10

Do you think you get hypnotized? An entire jury for me, like when we're doing Vordir. You just be there with me and you ask them questions like to the beat, to the beat, and just have them catch their breath.

Speaker 3: 40:23

Yeah, I noticed nobody's breathing really well. Slow everything down what's neat about the hypnotic state or this trance state, that again naturally occurring state, I don't do anything to you. But when I work with an anxious client who says to me I haven't been able to relax like that in 20 years, and I say good because I didn't do anything to you. You have to allow that to happen, so it's within you.

Speaker 2: 40:53

Are people who are anxious anxious to go through that process Because it seems like it would be a kind of a catch 22.

Speaker 3: 41:01

It is, and so there's a day. So you know I say I don't do anything to you. Maybe I don't give any credit, but there's some craft to helping someone relax. I will tell you, and people can take this for what they want. I don't care who you work with. The number one thing I need to do is get my clients to trust me. And any therapist, any coach, anyone, anyone sees, if you don't trust the person you're working with, they could be the most brilliant person on the planet, it won't matter.

Speaker 3: 41:38

So it's developing trust and developing rapport, I think, always number one on my list of when I'm working with the new clients. How do I develop that rapport? And I tell people quite honestly if you don't like me, you should probably go find someone that you can work with, because it won't be effective and will both be frustrated.

Speaker 5: 42:00

I want to just give you a quick opportunity for everyone listening. So I have in my head Jerry Springer show Hypnotist does the whole panel and then tells them to get up and do stupid things and they all look like idiots. Right, that's obviously not an accurate representation of hypnosis as you've explained it and as you know it. But to the listener? How do we explain that away to them? Okay, love it On just a basic level. Basic level, here we go.

Speaker 3: 42:34

So if you've ever been to a hypnotist show or the Delmar Fair, Jerry Springer- I just pulled that out of the opening, copyright violating me.

Speaker 3: 42:45

But yeah, first of all, I don't. Sometimes those hypnotists now, I personally don't have a huge love for that because he sort of muddles down the work that I do and really create some scary people and fear around it. But, in a nutshell, they don't. First of all, they don't pick people out. They ask for volunteers. They don't take the person that's got their hand half up, they take their person that's jumping out of their seat to get on stage. Nobody volunteers to go on stage at a hypnotist show that doesn't have the general inkling that they're going to be asked to do some stupid right, right? So there it's already working for them. The hypnotist which is some of these people are super talented I have.

Speaker 3: 43:40

There are some things we look for is a person falling into trance and you'll notice that by the end of it they're only actually working with a couple of people or they've let everyone else go back to their seat. So they're only taking the people that have allowed hypnosis to unfold quickly and easily. And it's a whole other topic to talk about hypnotizability and we should probably just stay away from that today, but to know that they're only keeping and working with the people who are allowing this state to unfold most deeply. So the people are in hypnosis, but they volunteer to be up there. They likely know they're going to be asked to do something stupid, so they're already willing. Now you bring in this heightened state of relaxation and focus where you know you. Sometimes you'll hear hypnosis talked about higher level of suggestibility. They're more suggestible to the, to the instruction of the hypnotist, and so they. They do it. So it's not that they're not hypnotized, it just isn't what it appears to be.

Speaker 5: 44:49

And is it a true statement to say that they're doing something they actually are willing and want to do?

Speaker 3: 44:54

So the way I like to say it is I say, justin, if you and I were at a pub, crowded pub, and we each had two beers, and I said to you, I bet you a hundred bucks you want to jump on this bar and quack like a duck in front of all these people. If it's not in your moral and value landscape to be the kind of guy that would be like, I'll take your hundred bucks, a couple beers, that kind of melly out and then the hundred dollar incentive. If that's not in your moral and value landscape to be that guy to do it, I get hypnotized you for days and ask you to quack like a duck and you never would likely you would come up to a full waking state and go, would you just say to me.

Speaker 5: 45:33

I'll take another beer.

Speaker 3: 45:37

But I also think you might be that guy.

Speaker 2: 45:41

So they're still under making their own decisions. It's just that when something suggested to them there they've already self selected that they're going to say yes.

Speaker 3: 45:53

And because they're in the hypnotic state that conscious, should I, should I not piece is dampened. So they're kind of like huh, okay, yeah, I'll do that.

Speaker 5: 46:08

Or is just the piece? Should I not be dampened? I guess it's what I mean. You look at it.

Speaker 3: 46:16

Yeah, right, or should I not? Like they will do it, unless they convince themselves not to naturally and because you're in trance, you don't have that interference of the conscious mind to start picking it apart and go that was my.

Speaker 5: 46:30

Maybe it's any good idea. Right, it was a good idea until their conscious mind tells them not to Right.

Speaker 3: 46:37

Yeah, I got, but you have to be that outgoing gregarious person that doesn't really care, because I'm about to make a hundred bucks. All I got to do is clock out, get duck in front of a bunch of strangers. I don't care.

Speaker 5: 46:47

Yeah, that makes sense, I got it.

Speaker 2: 46:50

I thought your question was really interesting about how so you're breathing what creates access to the subconscious, because that seems like where a lot of the gold is right For creativity or trusting your instincts. So do you feel like you get it? I still don't quite get it.

Speaker 4: 47:07

No, I'd love some suggestions.

Speaker 3: 47:11

Okay, so what question are we?

Speaker 2: 47:12

how do we access our more of our?

Speaker 3: 47:15

subconscious. Oh sorry, we did. We jumped right out of that.

Speaker 2: 47:17

Breathing is maybe the first step, it sounds like.

Speaker 3: 47:20

And then so settling yourself and call, centering yourself, breathing in. You could close your eyes and remember a time that you just felt so calm, so peaceful, could have been a vacation, just any memory. I've got hundreds of them to choose from those little moments where you felt so connected where, if I'd left you, wherever you were at in that moment, and just said we're just going to leave you here forever.

Speaker 3: 47:51

You'd be like I'm good, Right those moments. For me it could be a minute of hiking in a canyon or surfing a wave or something where I wasn't thinking, I was just present to it and being Really. Revivify that experience. Absorb yourself into that experience Right there. I'm going to be clear again. Hypnosis and trans work is creative mind work. As soon as you get someone working in their creative mind, they're going into a level of trance.

Speaker 3: 48:25

Okay, they're accessing that, that place. So you've moved into this creative mind, you're absorbed into this memory, this feeling, and then, right there can be a beautiful time to give yourself a self affirmation in the positive, as we spoke about, about something that you want, and you can relate your memory to the thing that you want. It doesn't need to happen that way. I tend to fall back on, you know, again this moment in buckskin Golch and Southern Utah, on this three, five day backpacking trip. I was on in day three. I just had this sort of like I've heard somebody explain it and it's like that hug by God, you know. You just felt warm inside, everything was perfect in just that moment and you really revivify that. And then I bring to mind what it is that I want to create in the world. What is it? Who's the type of person I want to be? How do I want to? And that spot right there is kind of the sweet spot.

Speaker 3: 49:32

So that's a very easy practice Breathe, center yourself, close your eyes, go back to a memory that you felt really good or maybe a memory that you felt the way you want to feel for the thing that you're putting yourself into a little hypnosis, self hypnosis, for Then what do you do? Next Sorry, I'm sorry. You can visualize what it is that you want.

Speaker 4: 49:56

You can give yourself a mantra.

Speaker 3: 50:00

All okay, does that make sense? Yeah, this is a real easy, basic way to start playing with this state. And we could go even deeper. We could say breathe in center, bring a memory, that sense of connectedness or peace or ease that you felt, identify where you felt that in the body. You feel it somewhere, pay really close attention to where it. Maybe it's a warmth in the solar flex, it's a warmth in my solar plex, focusing on the memory, the warmth in the solar plex, and then really kind of stating what it is you want, or visualizing yourself moving into this place of performing the way you want to perform or how you want to be.

Speaker 4: 50:49

So is it any memory that has a strong emotion tied to it?

Speaker 3: 50:54

That will be best.

Speaker 4: 50:55

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 50:56

But a calming one. Yes, you want to revivify the experiences. If you were there now.

Speaker 5: 51:02

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 51:04

Can you ask yourself a question if what you want is more access to your subconscious at that point, yeah, there's a tool that we call it kind of dropping it in, and then you wait for 48 hours and you see what kind of comes up. So you put yourself in this kind of deep trance, creative, meditative state, drop the question in, let it sit there and then just wait see what comes up. That's interesting. And that's just like another tool.

Speaker 5: 51:39

In addition to the breathing or with it, are you also focused on heart rate, because everyone can monitor their heart rates now, right? So are you trying to get the heart rate down also?

Speaker 3: 51:48

Just more stuff, right? It's like I would tell people probably don't throw more stuff to pay attention to. Just focus on your breathing. We know that if you get good at focusing on your breathing and slowing your breathing right down, your heart rate is going to go down. The one's going to follow the other, so I would say not to overcomplicate it. Again, we all do this. When you get caught away on a memory of a vacation, you're gone, you're in this other world, you're there and you can practice that skill.

Speaker 4: 52:20

What do you do for people who can't visualize?

Speaker 3: 52:24

Maybe absorb into feelings. So something I might say would be like and I'd like for you to just notice the way the sleeves feel against your arms, the touch or the fit of the pants touching your legs, and I will have them turn their attention inward more, into a sensation, get a focus on a positive sensation. Just a sense of absorption.

Speaker 2: 52:56

What has this work done for you? Oh, I'm sorry. Are we going to see this Nope In your life? Obviously you're helping other people, but I'm assuming that this has had transformative power for you too, because you're a big believer in it.

Speaker 3: 53:12

So, when you look at my background, it was a lot of mindfulness, certifications and trainings and studying of Buddhism, and then the hypnosis came a little later. I really think that the states that we're talking about and all these different, we tag them with different things, but a lot of the time there's a common thread between, whether it's meditation or hypnosis or yoga or whatever does it for you. It's not even for me to say it has allowed me to create this more deeply intimate relationship with how I'm feeling, how I'm thinking. For example, if I find myself getting worked up about something, maybe I'm running late, or my wife, though she would never annoy me.

Speaker 5: 53:59

So I'm going to say if the assessor does something we're going to edit a few things on this one, you mean if I get you worked up and annoy you.

Speaker 3: 54:09

Yes, thank you, my attorney. I will. Initially I'll catch myself. I do that breath automatically now. So I've been able to literally train myself to just be like next thing. I know I've got this big long exhale and I just feel a little bit better. So it's a quick. Through practicing I've been able to create. The area in which I can respond versus react has gotten bigger and bigger. So I have more of an opportunity there to do those things.

Speaker 3: 54:43

That's amazing and this is the thing that I say is we plan a seed in the office, but if we don't water and tend to the seed that we planted and you don't take some level of responsibility to do some work, we're only going to get so far. And so you know my business, instagram or whatever. One of the hashtags that I really like to use is it's not magic, it's work. And when in our society we tend to have this big drive and need and want for a quick fix, I don't feel good. I don't want a quick fix, I don't want to do any work. Sorry, and I'll tell people I'm probably not the person you want to work with, because I'm going to be on you. That's the coaching part and really why I see myself. A lot of what I do is in that coaching framework of like remember, you got to do this, we got to break. We're breaking old patterns, we're making new ones, but you have to take responsibility for the work.

Speaker 5: 55:54

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 55:55

Is there a certain amount of repetitions that it takes to reprogram somebody's way of thinking you?

Speaker 3: 56:01

know there's been science, there's been stuff that they've tried. You know, we only know such a small amount of how the brain actually works. I mean, the most brilliant people in the world will tell you we probably only know a fraction of how the brain actually works. And there's eight theories of how hypnosis works.

Speaker 3: 56:21

We know it's a state because we know through imaging it does things happen in the brain when you go into that state and there's some theories on how that actually plays out and transpires. So you know, I think it's again. For me it's always okay, we know we go into this sort of learning state. I've heard it described as deep REM, waking REM, because sometimes when people go into transfer, eyelids will flutter like you do when you're in REM sleep, so it's just kind of running with the idea.

Speaker 2: 57:01

How many times would you say it?

Speaker 3: 57:03

takes, so they answer the question.

Speaker 5: 57:07

I don't have a good answer. I mean, we need a number.

Speaker 3: 57:10

I've heard six to 12. I don't know. Some people get changed. I tell people I expect you to start feeling better the first time you see me, because we're going to start bringing awareness to these things.

Speaker 4: 57:23

So say, somebody comes in to see you and wants to stop smoking, that's not just like a one, one time hypnosis and they're they're good to go.

Speaker 3: 57:32

Okay, now you're going to ask me on the hard questions.

Speaker 4: 57:36

I was just thinking about it.

Speaker 3: 57:38

It made it sound like it was just you know going one time and I have this incredible success rate with smoking and I'll be honest, it's not my technique. I paid a man who has been in this field for 60 years and I paid for his process. I've made it my own and we did. It's a parts work process. It's not super innovative, it's just using utilizing parts work for it. I have probably a 90% success rate with smoking in two sessions.

Speaker 3: 58:11

The first session is to just get people comfortable. And so I always, if you've not done hypnosis, I always say, well, we can't. Just some people might do fine, but we're going to. Our odds are far better by it. Let's just come in, let's talk about it. Let's we're going to talk about when you smoke, how you smoke, the triggers for smoking, the reasons you want to quit, and then this, and then we'll do some hypnosis, and then the second session. I mean you do whatever you want. When you come in on this date it's done. And I need you to get it in your mind you are an on smoker. On this date, when you come see me, you walk out of my office. You'll never smoke again. So my success rate is high. But I also equate that to. I really talk a person up. If somebody comes in my office and goes well, my wife sent me in here, I don't really want to quit smoking I go whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop.

Speaker 5: 59:10

Let's have a cigarette first.

Speaker 3: 59:11

Yeah, Okay, let's just. Yeah, let's stop. You have to want to quit? Yeah Right, people want this magic thing. There's just you've got to want to quit. We can. We're utilizing your own inner resources. The same reason I can't quit. Let's look at all the hard things you've ever done in your life. That took a lot. I'm pretty sure you can probably quit the smoking thing too. So I actually, as we turn their attention inward, it might be a process of remembering all those times that they've used this strength, this internal strength that they possess within them, and now we start applying that to this quitting smoking thing. Right, I'll quote Dr Erickson again. I'm not asking my clients to do anything new. I'm just asking them to do what they've done in a different context, to apply the strength and the resources they currently have to the problem at hand.

Speaker 4: 1:00:15

Yeah, and change the story right. Right. Yeah, they're strong enough. They've done it before.

Speaker 3: 1:00:21

Life has never given you anything you can't handle. It's true, because here you are and it likely never will. And then this gets into some of this resilience training and stuff and the David Goggins of the world and things like that. I mean brilliant people, right, like cool, inspiring folks, but there is some of that and it's helping people tap into the deeper wisdom, not just the conscious mind of white knuckling. It willpower it's like. No, let's make this a little easier by getting the deeper, wiser part of ourselves involved in this process too.

Speaker 5: 1:00:59

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3: 1:01:00

Makes sense.

Speaker 5: 1:01:02

Yeah, I don't want to be overly dramatic, but I don't know how many people you've helped stop smoking, but you've literally saved people's lives in doing that.

Speaker 4: 1:01:11

I appreciate it, I mean that's amazing.

Speaker 5: 1:01:13

That's got to feel so good if you think about that.

Speaker 3: 1:01:16

It does. Yeah, I just, and that's why I left pediatrics, I mean. I was a hospital administrator for 20 years prior to all this, it wasn't like I woke up and was like I want to be a hypnotherapist.

Speaker 5: 1:01:28

Well, I think it leads myself. I mean, I always thought of hypnotherapy like the Jerry Springer image, you know, or it required some special deep thinker to go on some Buddhist journey in their mind or something right. I didn't think of it like a practical solution to things. But after hearing everything you've said today, but especially the smoking thing, I just had this thought like, oh my gosh, this hypnotherapy has actually changed these people's lives on something as simple and complicated as smoking, which would actually shorten their life medically. It's pretty.

Speaker 3: 1:02:11

Again, we're just activating the person's resources that they already have and we're applying it to a particular thing. My soapbox on this is chronic stress. Again, we talked about the phones and the watches and we're getting tinged. And every time we get tinged, if you pay attention to it, everybody has a different reaction to it, but sometimes people have this experience where every time they're emailed, tings they just. If that's happening all day, every day. That's not good. Stress is not a problem. We need it. It's a signal that you should look out for something when you're living in that state which more and more I find that we are news media, everything's bad all the time and we live in that state. That's a real problem. That is really detrimental to our health Mental and physical. They're tied in deeply.

Speaker 2: 1:03:17

Now, on that note, I would love to just each of us maybe share one thing we're taking away from this conversation before we wrap up, because it's a lot of really good stuff. You want to go first?

Speaker 5: 1:03:28

I can Thank you first of all. I feel like you've changed my life in this hour.

Speaker 5: 1:03:34

I appreciate it, my take. I've been sitting here thinking about all this trying to learn and download because as a result of stress, I'll wake up at 2.30 in the morning pretty frequently and then it's that couple hours I lay away. I'm going to try this technique and I'm going to try to put myself in a little hypnotic state to try and get back to sleep. That's what I've been thinking about as a takeaway, as a way I don't have to actually get a doctor fully immersed in it. I'm going to start with just trying at home, when I'm awake in the middle of the night, to calm myself down and get back in.

Speaker 3: 1:04:13

You might be really surprised just by paying attention to your breathing and the rise and the fall of the abdomen like a wave out at sea. It does it, that's it. Are my eyes fluttering Sounds relaxing already.

Speaker 2: 1:04:27

How about you, lisa? I'd say the increasing the space to respond it reminds me of that Victor Frankel quote. Something like between stimulus and response lies the freedom to choose. There's that little moment and I feel very reactionary a lot of the time, so that's something I want to improve. This sounds like, even if it's maybe commit to one breath in between that thing that's upsetting me and what I'm going to do about it One breath and two breaths and we can build that ability.

Speaker 4: 1:05:07

I think that I'm going to start looking for signs that my kids are in a trance. Oh, I think you said you were cleaning your room today. Right, I'll just slip in a little message.

Speaker 3: 1:05:23

It's neat. The idea with the kids is like they're in trance, typically most of our deepest traumas and trauma isn't necessarily the thing that happened, it's how your brain processes it. So being called out in front of the class in third grade by the teacher could be a highly traumatic event for someone. That allows them to feel not good enough into their adult life. And then they come see somebody like me and go. I don't know why. I had a great childhood, so it's like well, let's dig a little. Maybe we need to discover you don't always need to go back, and I only go back when I think we need to go back. But kids, so you are kind of their conscious mind. You're telling them what to do, what not to do.

Speaker 3: 1:06:11

Don't run across the internet time for dinner, let's go here. They kind of check out this conscious thinking, so they kind of walk around in hypnosis. So kids are actually kind of these little hypnotic beings. They're just everything's new, I don't know what's hot mean, or on TikTok, if they're teenagers. Right, which is a whole other. That's all they're talking about.

Speaker 2: 1:06:34

Well, any last word, Brad.

Speaker 3: 1:06:36

No, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it and maybe, if anything, just kind of normalize what this beautiful state is that we all have access to and use it to improve each person's life. I mean, you have that ability.

Speaker 2: 1:06:51

Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to share.

Speaker 5: 1:06:54

Thank you.

Speaker 4: 1:06:55

Thank you.

Speaker 5: 1:06:55

Thanks.

Speaker 1: 1:07:00

Thank you for spending this time with us. My prayer is that this conversation gives you ideas and inspiration for living the kind of life that is meaningful to you. See you in the next episode.