The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
The Simplicity of Wellness podcast is about learning how to bring your body into balance so that you get leaner, stronger and healthier as you age. Each week I'll share thoughts and ideas that help my clients build the self-awareness, self-confidence and self-reliance to lose weight, shed inches, manage muscle mass and master their mind so that they can stop dieting and enjoy living at their healthy weight with optimal wellness.
The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
Your Subconscious Mind: A Recorded Coaching Session
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Discover the transformative power of hypnotherapy with our special guest, Erica Antonetti, a certified hypnotherapist and CEO of Premier Hypnotherapy of Sacramento. Erica shares her compelling journey from military service to healing through hypnotherapy, shedding light on common misconceptions fueled by Hollywood. Learn how this natural therapeutic process can help align your subconscious habits with conscious goals, paving the way for personal growth and well-being.
The episode unpacks the immense potential of the subconscious mind, responsible for a significant majority of our brain's capacity. We discuss how hypnotherapy can reshape deeply ingrained patterns, address anxiety, and promote a tranquil state of mind, shifting from stress to relaxation. Erica and I explore the mind-body connection, offering insights into how perception and mental focus can influence body image, confidence, and overall health.
We also tackle the emotional triggers behind eating habits, distinguishing between guilt and shame, and how understanding these can help maintain a balanced diet. Through personal stories and practical exercises, we aim to empower you to harness the benefits of hypnotherapy for a leaner, stronger, and healthier self. Join us as we embark on this enlightening journey, with practical tips and upcoming sessions to support your path towards transformation.
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Welcome to the Simplicity of Wellness podcast. I'm your host, board-certified holistic nutritionist and professional life coach, amy White. The purpose of this podcast is to share information that you can use to become leaner, stronger and healthier by losing weight, shedding inches, maintaining muscle and managing your mind, all while living your normal busy life in this modern, sugar-filled world. Hello, simplifiers, today's podcast is a little bit different than my previous podcast. Today I'm going to post a group coaching call that I did with a guest coach. This guest coach specializes in hypnotherapy. During this group call she takes us through a hypnotherapy session.
Speaker 1:For that reason, I'm going to put a disclaimer at the beginning of this podcast. Please do not listen to this podcast when you're driving or operating heavy equipment or doing any task that requires your full attention and focus. The best time to listen to this week's podcast will be when you are at home in a comfortable place. So let's start with introductions so that people understand who you are, what you do, how it's different, and I guess that'll kind of explain itself when you kind of explain what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I'm Erica Antonetti. Kind of explain what we're doing. Yes, so I'm Erica Antonetti. I'm a certified hypnotherapist, a life coach and a CEO of Premier Hypnotherapy of Sacramento, out here in California, and I help people make changes through the power of their subconscious mind, since that's the most powerful part of our brain, but not everybody knows how to use it okay, so basically tapping into our subconscious so that we aren't intentionally or unintentionally doing things that we are unaware of.
Speaker 1:Is that how that kind of work?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I got a diagram. I'll break this down, but first I want to ask what is everybody's perception of hypnosis, what have you heard about it or what do you think you know about it, or what have you experienced with it?
Speaker 1:before. My only experience was in college. They had a hypnotherapist come in and I just remember thinking oh, this is a bad thing, I can't volunteer because I'll do something super stupid or really embarrassing.
Speaker 2:that that has been my perception of hypnosis yeah, and it's a common thing, because Vegas, you know Vegas they have us up here clucking like chickens and they want to show people. You know things, but show the like. Hollywood and the movies are very different from reality. We know that if we've ever, you know, seen nurses portrayed and the movies are very different from reality. We know that if we've ever, you know, seen nurses portrayed on the movies, or military, or you know, they tend to elaborate the truth a little bit, and Vegas shows can be the same way.
Speaker 2:So if anybody ever asks me if, like, are you going to make me bark like a dog, I would say, well, why do you want to bark like a dog? You can't make me do anything you don't want to do. So, um, I had the same fears as you when I first came to hypnosis. Um, I was served in the military and then, after I was done with that, I was on a healing journey and it led me to hypnotherapy school, and I always tell people I actually went to help a friend sign up. She wanted emotional support, like she didn't want to go into this new environment alone, and I was like, okay, I'll make sure they don't swindle you. Like hypnotize you and swindle you, you know, and all this stuff. And we went and she ended up not signing up that day. And I signed up and I always say that hypnosis saved my life because, after um challenges with PTSD, it, it saved my life. It changed the whole way I saw the world and, um, and the way that I saw my own power, and so, um, I always say it's just amazing and I wanted to understand how the brain worked and how the mind worked at a deeper level and, um, it allowed me the space to do this. So, um, what I will say about hypnosis is you won't go to sleep, you won't be unconscious.
Speaker 2:There's no way to get stuck in hypnosis, because we naturally go into hypnosis two times a day at the bare minimum, whether we know it or not. So it's not something you have to believe in in order to do it. There's no magic to it. It's a psychological process, it's a somatic process that works with your body-mind connection. What else? Pretty much everyone is hypnotizable. We've often heard, oh, you'd have to be vulnerable or super suggestible or gullible or naive in order to be hypnotized. That's not true. According to I believe it's a Stanford, it might be Harvard or Stanford research. Everyone is hypnotizable. You just have to talk to those two people differently. Hypnotizable you just have to talk to those two people differently. And because I know the power of language, I'm able to. I haven't never met anyone that wasn't hypnotized in my office.
Speaker 2:Um, I also have a white paper I want to share with you guys that I will forward to you, amy and you can share with people, um, and this is the um, the common medical issues that hypnosis has been scientifically researched to help with, like smoking, weight loss, ibs, all kinds of fun stuff. So I will make sure to share this so that you guys can actually see the science that backs this modality. And then I mean, yeah, because it's a proven therapeutic process. In California, hypnotherapists are trained legal therapists for vocational and avocational use from the DSM-5 or who has a medical diagnosis. We do have a process where we get referrals, medical referrals to work with those certain things like PTSD or trauma, stress, whatever. That is Pretty much.
Speaker 2:Hypnosis is a really natural process. Like I said, you go through it several times a day, one being right before you wake up in the morning, like about 30 minutes after you awake, your brain is still kind of coming online and it's in this a very zen place usually, and then sometimes it's about 30 minutes before you go to bed, you start to shift into a different gear, so to speak, and your mind's getting ready to go to sleep and those are known as the hypnagogic state. So I'm going to do a little bit of teaching today, but not a whole lot, and I don't want to get boring. But I don't know if you've ever noticed, if you've been driving down the road and you were listening to your favorite song and you were like, oh my God.
Speaker 2:I missed my exit or we got here so fast it felt like it just took a minute and it's because we were in autopilot, in hypnosis. We went that way so many times that our car we know exactly how to drive our car and jam out to the music and we're not under threat. So we don't have to be like hyper alert and that's pretty much a state of environmental hypnosis. Or if you've ever been in church and you just kept yawning and you couldn't quit yawning and your butt hurts and you're like, oh, my goodness, when's he going to be done, you're in a state of environmental hypnosis. Or if you've ever been in a movie theater and you know that the people are not real and the event that's happening is not real in that moment, and yet you're moved to tears or you're jumping out of fear, that's because you've temporarily suspended your critical factor in order to be entertained and you've gone into a state of hypnosis oh, that's so interesting and it right Whether you've ever cried in a movie or been afraid.
Speaker 2:it feels very real, but we know it's not real. But yet we're still able to access those emotions and those feelings and those thoughts around this environment that we have put ourselves in. So all of that is environmental hypnosis. It's very common.
Speaker 1:So I have a question, susan and Sarah have either of you had any experience with hypnosis?
Speaker 3:Only when I heard patients that attempted it for smoking cessation.
Speaker 1:Sarah's a nurse.
Speaker 2:Nice. Oh, that's interesting because I used nurse as an example earlier.
Speaker 4:Sorry, I've seen it in like shows. Like you're talking about, amy, and also I did have a class where a teacher it was a mind-body class and a teacher brought in a hypnotherapist and took us through something, took us through something and, um, I, I don't like I came out of it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I didn't know if I went in it or came out like do you know if you've been, you know, hypnotized, right? Um, it feels different for everyone. Some people feel like the light tingly sensation, or like they're floating, or maybe like feeling like a little bit of like, like like kind of groggy.
Speaker 2:Some people feel.
Speaker 2:I tend to feel very heavy, like my body weighs a gazillion pounds and in a really good way, like I'm in the most deep state of comfort and I just don't want to move because it feels so good.
Speaker 2:Deep state of comfort, I just don't want to move because it feels so good. And then some people feel nothing physical sensations at all, and and so, however you experience, it is just right for you and it can change over time, and that's another reason why we wanted to do this a few times with you, because it's with anything in life, it's just unlearning the old and replacing it with the new, and in order to do that, we want to do repetition right, because everything that we do more than once or twice, we get better at as we do it. So my goal for today was to introduce you guys to me and hypnosis and to do something that's very not even associated with weight loss or being, you know, like super healthy. It has no like really big goal. It's just like a feel good session where we want to just positize you guys in the right direction, where we want to just positize you guys in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Is it possible to get comfortable with hypnosis, like meeting with you a couple of times or however many times, to a point where we can sort of self-meditate and find our hypnotic state?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because once you start to feel what that feels like for you, and then you'll hear me a few times and you'll, you'll kind of know, like, how this goes right. So, um, you'll kind of like it sounds a lot like meditation, but I think the difference between hypnosis and meditation is meditation is very passive. It wants you to empty out your thoughts, which?
Speaker 2:can be really challenging because our brains have a lot to say all the time about everything. And with hypnosis I say it's like meditation. It feels good like that, but it's meditation with a purpose. And so you're going to be active and I will be directing you to be doing something in your brain and you'll be focused on that. And so, where a lot of people quit meditation, because I just can't do it or they think they're doing it wrong.
Speaker 2:Hypnosis can be a really great segue into the. The like more mind ninja, meditation, stuff later on down the road.
Speaker 1:yeah, I love that um meditation, a purpose that really pushes my buttons.
Speaker 2:This is just a quick explanation. It's not if you're all scientists like we would have a very different conversation if I had a neuroscientist sitting in front of me but for the layman, we give you just like the bare bones, basic science and psychology of it all. So let me see here, yeah, so let's just say this is your brain and this is going to represent what we call the theory of mind. And so we have. You know, you've heard that when children are born we start with a blank slate, right, it's not new. And we have this part down here in our brain that's called the primitive part of our brain.
Speaker 1:We can see it totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the amygdala. If you're aware of what the amygdala is? It processes our threat in our environment and it keeps us alive. Its prime directive is to keep us surviving, and so it has. Its job is to keep us alive and it screens our environment for threat.
Speaker 2:And we have fight, flight or freeze or fawn, and essentially this is how you deal with the stress of living everyday stress in modern day. Well, let's just say, in caveman days, fight would have been like I see a tiger, I have a club in my hand, I can beat the tiger down in order to survive. And in modern day it's anxiety. I have to go to work, I've got this deadline, I've got to go to college, I've got this debt, you know, project do, and you're just in the fight every day, trying to stay alive.
Speaker 2:And then flight is there's a tiger, I'm far enough away from it, I can run and I can escape. And that might look like modern day depression. It's like I just can't do this job at corporate another day. I'm going to take a nap instead. So we've got anxiety, depression, and then the last one would be freeze, and that's what we know as modern day procrastination if the threat is is so close, we can't get away. We just roll over and play dead and um, that's actually yeah. So we'll just fight, flight or freeze, that's anxiety depression and procrastination.
Speaker 2:Um, and procrastination can have a positive um. It can have a positive on us, dep. Positive on us depends, like, if we have a lot of us women, we love to make lists in order to keep our lives running in order, and If you have 20 things on the list, you might get to number three or four and then you're just like, okay, I'm done, and that's a kind of a built-in survival mechanism so that we don't burn out. So in that way procrastination can serve us because it says now just take a break, you've done enough for today and we'll pick it back up tomorrow. But in some ways it can be non-beneficial to us. And then we have to kind of work on why are we stalling on this thing that's so important to us?
Speaker 2:So from about zero to nine years old, all children hear everything that they hear. They take it in as absolute truth and that's why we believe that. You know, superman can fly. And we, you know, we see our little five-year-olds jumping off the couch and pretending they're superman or they. Why they believe in santa claus and the tooth fairy. Because they don't have that critical filter built yet enough in their mind or in their brain in order to, um, be able to decipher what's true and what's not, and, um, yeah, so they take that in as absolute truth. And then, around nine years old, we kind of build this critical filter. Now, everything that we've taken in is absolute truth. It could be like my brother says I'm stupid, or my mother says I'm special, or my mother says I'm special. And it could be like I love cake on my birthday but I hate spinach. Or I love hugs and kisses but I hate to be kicked in spanked.
Speaker 2:Or I love cats because they're so cuddly but got bit by a dog. So this here is our known associations and what we learn is good, bad, and and this becomes our subconscious mind. Now our subconscious mind is about 88 to 90 percent of our total brain power. It, it's the storehouse for all of our knowns, of our experience of the world and all the people and all the ideas and things we've come across. And some of you might be aware that this is also where the like, the pleasure, the pain pleasure principle comes from.
Speaker 2:So, like in cases of domestic violence, violence, we ask why does a woman stay? And it's well, she's all she's. Only now she maybe she was raised in a domestic violence household and she only knows love to be this type of way, controlling, abusive, whatever. And so we would, as a hypnotherapist, we've got to kind of make that a negative for her so that she can change her life if she's not happy. And what happens here is this becomes your known, this is all your knowns. So this is where you hear, like, the fear of the unknown, anything unknown to the brain, it's not going to go toward it. And this is where all your storehouse for emotions, memories, this is where the trauma kind of gets stored, but especially down here, around the primitive part of the brain. So up here is your conscious mind. It's 10% of your total brain power, but it's the part that everyone thinks that we're all using all the time, like every, we all tend to think, oh, I'll just make the decision and I'll just go do it, and that's a part of it, because it all works together. But, as you can see, it's not the part that that really motivates you to do anything, and that's why. Well, let me go back.
Speaker 2:The conscious mind is made up of our logic, our reasoning, analyzation skills, willpower, and you know it's, it's pretty much the thing that helps us to balance the checkbook every month. Um, when we have a thought like I want to lose 20 pounds, the thought will go in in the way we process it, through our conscious mind, our neocortex, and it's going to have to go through the critical filter and go check in with the subconscious. And if you maybe grew up in a sedentary family where nobody worked out, you might go to the gym for two weeks on January 1st and then you're going to run right back into old patterns and habits, because that's what's running the show. It's going to kick that thought right back out of the brain and you're going to. You know, have paid for a gym membership and not even gone the whole year, like we've all seen it before when we want to make like New Year's resolutions. So what we do in hypnosis is we bypass the critical filter, we open the door and then we go in and we change those. Whatever it is you want to change, we change those to positives and we close it back up and then your patterns change, your behavior changes.
Speaker 2:Now, it's not a magic pill, because obviously you've got a. It's nothing I can make you do without you wanting to to do it. You know it's um, but we do it through hypnotic suggestions that are positive, that are what we've already agreed on, that you want to work on. And, of course, how it relates to this group is Y'all are on a journey for a healthy, healthier body and healthier lifestyle, and so those positive suggestions would be tied to that.
Speaker 2:Pretty much how it works, like that's the magic of it, and it has to do with your parasympathetic system and your sympathetic system. Right, like if your sympathetic system is activated, that means you're in fight, flight or freeze. You know, we know how the body responds. I always say that this primitive part of your body is like the emergency room and we don't want to be in the emergency room more than like 10% of our whole life. You know it's like if you want to. You know if you get a tough diagnosis or something, you want to be able to handle it, but you don't want to stay there. So we want to engage your parasympathetic system so that you're in that. You know restful space, that calm space in your body, so that you can make decisions and make changes that you want to make.
Speaker 1:That was really cool, very interesting. I loved how you put the fight, flight and freeze from primitive to modern, but the fight, flight and freeze from primitive to modern. It was really interesting to see the anxiety, the depression and the procrastination just broken out. I was like, oh that's so interesting. And I loved, your. I love when you said roll over and play dead, right, that's procrastination.
Speaker 2:We're freezing, we're just like, ok, I'm just going to pretend, if no one can see me, that this is not a thing. Yeah, because we're, like, we all deal with daily stress and, like you know, I feel like time's even moving. I like, I just feel like it's gotten, you know, it's more stress right yeah, yeah and yeah.
Speaker 1:All the things right but you think and all that. So one of the big things that happens with my group when everybody starts managing their food in a way that's kind of working for their body and they're feeling better is that anxiety goes away, so that that you know we come out of that fight mode. I have to think a lot more about this, with the anxiety and the and the fight, because I always talk about traditional weight loss as being this fight against your body, and then what we're doing is we're learning how to work with our body. So we're coming out of that fight mode and we're going into that sort of calm space that you described. Yeah, that's so interesting and it's just one of those things that I don't often tie in for people is this idea about calming anxiety.
Speaker 1:But my daughter made a really good point with me the other day. She's 31 and she said her the millennials, they are body positive, it's a body positive group. They're like it's not about weight for them. They're like yeah, you know I love the way I look and you know, whatever it is, she goes. Their focus is all about their anxiety. She goes mom, I don't know one person, aside from myself and her husband who isn't on anxiety medicine. She's like everybody's on anxiety medication, even more than one and and so I was just like, yeah, that's so interesting because they don't know how to manage that sympathetic nervous system and they have this crazy level of anxiety, which is so interesting.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, I'm a millennial so I feel that so hard. I'm not on anxiety medicine but that's because I went.
Speaker 1:Well, you've learned how to work with your mind.
Speaker 2:And it is interesting about the body because I was like I've always, you know, I'm like I was raised in the South and their ways can be a little different than how we do things out West. You know, like every area in our country is like like regionally different. It has its differences and cultural differences and, um, so I was raised like doing pageants, you know, and, uh, being a child performer, entertainer, singer, dancer, so looks were very important, but I was not raised with like I didn't, we didn't diet in my household, we didn't step on the scale. It was like, oh, we just like learned a lot, like we just loved our bodies.
Speaker 2:And then we didn't have any thoughts about our body being against us. So, it never was, and then when? I went into the military where it was very body focused, very like. It was wild as far as like they would break out the measuring tapes and if your waist is not a certain type, you know it's certain amount it it. And so it's like then I started having body issues and I'm like it's because my thoughts about my body, my body, precisely yeah so that's the power of the mind, right?
Speaker 2:it's like what we focus on follows so are we focusing on the negative or are we focusing on the positive? Are we accepting what we can control? Are we accepting what we can't control?
Speaker 2:you know, where are we taking personal responsibility? It's all. It's kind of all a dance, right, yeah, okay, so our first, um, little experience I'm gonna have you guys do is we're going to do like Charlie's Angels here, we're going to dance here and clap them together and give ourselves a little gun, okay. And then I want you to like pull your fingers out wide and so that you can look and put them, you know right eye level, and go ahead and just focus on those fingers and yep, there you go and just stare at the space in between those fingers and keep focused on them now and looking at the tips of your fingers as they start to come together in little jerky motions.
Speaker 2:Now keep focused, keep focused, keep focused on the tips of your fingers. That's right. It's interesting, Almost like how a string is just pulling them closer and closer together, closer and closer. And just imagine that hypnosis feeling the fingertips now and feel the fingers coming together now and allow that hypnosis, once they touch, to go down through the fingers, letting them touch, letting them move closer and closer, closer and closer, in little jerky motions. And we'll wait for everyone to get there. That's right, because sometimes it's a little slower, sometimes it's a little faster. And just allowing that to happen now, that's right, very good. And as you allow those fingertips to touch, allow that hypnosis to go down through the fingers and into the knuckles and into the palms of the hands and into the wrists and the elbows and the shoulders, and allowing that hypnosis to move up the neck and down over the back of the head and over the front of the face and the forehead, and allowing that hypnosis to trickle down over the eyes and the eyes may want to blink.
Speaker 2:That's a natural, normal thing, and just feeling that hypnosis, no matter how it feels to you, there's no wrong way to do it.
Speaker 2:And just imagine your eyes becoming heavier and heavier, heavier and heavier, and it might feel right to close your eyes becoming heavier and heavier, heavier and heavier, and it might feel right to close your eyes and just allow them to lock into place now, that's right and allow every nerve and muscle to relax, from the top of your head 10, to the top of your toes nine, eight. Feeling that hypnosis flow through your body all the way down, touching every fiber, cell, muscle, nerve. That's right, allowing it to touch and relax To find that comfort, that hypnosis, all the way down. Feeling it drifting ten times deeper, deeper, as it moves down, deeper into your body, drifting deeper now, allowing it to go down to the hips and the knees, if it hasn't already, down to the calves and the feet. And you can drop your hands if that feels more comfortable, or you can stay right where you're at and enjoy that feeling of hypnosis and, as you notice that calm and that peace, however that relaxation feels to you, you can go to that special place, that place that feels just right in your body, that place that feels clear and calm, with every heartbeat and every breath, and just enjoy being there right now and finding that comfort level that's best for you, at 10 times as deep, 20 times as deep, 30 times as deep, and as you relax more and more and you listen to the sound of my voice, it's interesting to notice the state of mind that you walked into the room with and the state of calm and relaxation that you might be in right now, or the state of wondering.
Speaker 2:And yet it's interesting when you're wandering in your mind and you're in this room and you've gone out of the room in your mind and it's all very interesting. And whether you're right here or far away, allowing it all to be is just right. And it's interesting how we can be in this room. But we can be traveling in our minds, coming in one state of mind and going out another, and scientists tell us that our galaxy is moving through space and time at a great rate of speed. And it's interesting how we're in the Milky Way, but also in a familiar country, the United States, and you're in your room and you're certainly in your mind and not out of it, and it's so interesting how we can be in one place and yet another at the same time and so just allowing your mind to relax and find that peace and calm, following along, or just allowing yourself to go even deeper. There is no wrong or right way it's just what's for you.
Speaker 2:And so, just taking a deep breath in and slowly exhaling and allowing normal, natural rhythm of breathing to occur, and there's a sense of breathing to occur, and there's a sense of just letting go, that it's all okay to let go now, that this is the time and the space Becoming more comfortable and aligned, more relaxed, and remembering, as you open your mind to positive thoughts, ideas, positive attitudes, allowing your subconscious mind the time and the space to absorb, to assimilate, to integrate each positive thought, creating your own strong, positive attitude, setting the intention that you're establishing the positive. And all you need to do is be comfortable and relaxed, slowing down, going within, looking inside and remembering that negative events of the past can no longer affect you. You see them as they are overdone and gone, knowing that feeling, amazing, feeling that stress leaving your mind and your body.
Speaker 2:And the best way to think about the past over, done and gone, every day being a new day, a positive day, and moving into the future with the attitude of self-assurance, liking yourself better and better each and positive changes in the future. More and more. Liking yourself each and every day in new and positive ways, allowing these positives, the attitude, the self-assurance, liking yourself, becoming more important now than ever before, drifting down, allowing the suggestions to absorb into the deeper mind, becoming a permanent part of the being. Liking yourself, feeling that new confidence, becoming a permanent part more and more each day. The attitude, the self-assurance, very important.
Speaker 2:Some might call it confidence, some might call it joy, some might call it security. Finding those positive attributes and enjoying them. Finding those positive attributes and enjoying them, enjoying yourself, new attitude, new security, new body awareness, permanently replaced by strong positive thoughts. And so, each and every day, you will have strengthened the filter that blocks the negatives and you'll be less affected by negatives around you because you remove them by facing them, always, replacing them with positives. That's where your control lies Liking yourself, confident, self-assured, finding those positive attributes and enjoying them.
Speaker 2:New attitude, more positive about the future, positive about the direction you're taking. Liking yourself more and more each day, feeling more empowered as you go, because it's more important to be more important to yourself, more now than ever before, always looking for more ways to feel more positive and confident, self-assured and secured about yourself, in your body, in your mind, in your life. And so now, when you know you're ready to start a brand new chapter in a new life, in a new body, when you're ready and you know when you're ready you open your eyes, feeling fantastic. 5. Feeling amazing, feeling on top of the world.
Speaker 3:So at zero.
Speaker 2:We're going to let it all settle in what you've heard today and at one feeling every day 3. It's a new day in your life, a new you, a positive direction. 4. Coming back to where you placed yourself in the room and 5. Wide awake and alert. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Feeling, amazing, feeling on top of the world.
Speaker 1:Okay, nothing too wild, right definitely made me want to take a nap. I was very relaxed.
Speaker 2:That's that rest and digest. We know our body is right where it wants to be because it feels so good.
Speaker 1:I felt super relaxed. I don't know, did you guys feel relaxed? How did everybody else feel?
Speaker 4:I was very relaxed, oh very.
Speaker 1:I could have laid on the floor. I should have started on the floor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so. So nothing scary, nothing like it's, it's just a feel-good space. I always imagine when, when I go and look, I do self-hypnosis, I do hypnosis on family members, sometimes when they ask me to, and to me it's just like oh, I get to go into my cocoon. This is the place where, like, I just go within me and I'm surrounded by all of this like warmth and comfort, and like I get to be reminded, like how, how good it feels, but how amazing I am because I get to see myself in a different way that we don't normally get to see out in the world like we
Speaker 2:don't usually have everybody telling us how safe and amazing it is out there. Yeah, yeah, so hopefully this way, you know, and, as I said, like the more you do it, you'll be able to go in faster, I know, and oftentimes, if this is the first time you've ever done it, you might be like, okay, why is she slowing down? Or like, where do we go next? Right, our brain wants to talk to us and it's like it's okay if it talks to us, and then you just pick back up where my voice is and you keep going.
Speaker 1:You can't do it wrong.
Speaker 1:I honestly, I I don't know how many years ago it was now but I took a meditation class which sounds weird, but it was just something. I was just I saw it and I'm like I'm doing that and it was now. But I took a meditation class which sounds weird, but it was just something. I was just I saw it and I'm like I'm doing that and it was a group thing in the evening and it was basically a lead meditation group that we did, I think, for like a month or me eight weeks, I don't remember. But since that because I was never Jeff's big meditator, I was not I find that I can get to that inner space really fast. Even you know, with you, with myself, if I just sit and go, I'm going to meditate for five minutes, I can, like I can drop in so fast, whereas prior to that it was just. I guess it was like you said, it was something that I learned.
Speaker 2:So it was a feeling that I learned, and so now I know that, you know, I know when I'm there, I guess these feelings are really good too, because, like when life gets really busy, like we're entrepreneurs and we've got families to take care of, like we've got jobs to go to, it can get wild. And what's really cool about like when the outer world is pushing us too hard? Sometimes we like I was like oh, I'm kind of far away from that feel-good feeling that I'm so used that I know that I can get to. That's like a cue to me. That's like, oh, I need to, I need to do some hypnosis. I'll call my own hypnotherapist and say, hey, we need to tune up.
Speaker 2:I need to get close to me again and you know, I know, that my body is saying hey. I want to be back in that space, even if it's just for five or 10 minutes, right, so it's it's really helpful it can be if you get used to how that feeling feels for you and becoming aware of like, ooh, I'm feeling a little bit burnt out.
Speaker 1:I might need to do some self-care. Yeah, I think my feeling is similar to what you described, which is I get real heavy, like it feels, but it's that really good heavy Like I'm just like really settled in. So, erica, we had talked about coming. You're coming back. On what day in January did we decide it was the 2nd?
Speaker 2:2nd of January for the holiday overeating reset yeah. And 16 January for the goal setting jumpstart yeah, okay, good.
Speaker 1:It's funny. I mean, ideally I want everybody to come through the holidays not feeling like they need a reset. That's the whole goal. Holidays not feeling like they need a reset, that's the whole goal. But at the same time it doesn't hurt to go. You know, am I having some subconscious thoughts that I don't even realize? Are there things that are sort of driving me that I aren't typical Like? My experience last week was just with chocolate and it took me a minute to realize that this is just a big no for me.
Speaker 2:I did the same thing last week. That's so interesting. I hadn't had an ice cream in like probably six months, but it's a very slippery slope right so. I was like okay, I'm done, Like no more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I referred, I did my podcast on it this week and I referred to it as eating instigators, like understanding. You know people call them trigger foods, but it's really an eating instigator, right? It's a food that then sort of opens the floodgates for you to go. Well, I think I'm going to have more of that, or, now that I have that, I think I'm going to have this and it's just that instigator. So what is the? What is the?
Speaker 1:If you can put your finger on the instigator that sort of sets you off in sort of a direction that you're not typically on these days. It's good just to understand that. Like, what are those things that are driving that behavior? So I think that holiday reset is a kind of a good way to sort of check in and go. Are there any things that are kind of lingering? I also kind of refer to it as are there any of my sometimes foods that have sort of shifted over and I'm eating as my almost most of the time foods when they shouldn't be there. They should be over in that sometimes category. So last week those fancy chocolates were definitely flooding into my most of the time food and I was like this is not okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's interesting because, like with one ice cream in six months, that's no big deal.
Speaker 1:Right. Like we're allowed, like we can allow ourselves. Your body can handle that Sometimes.
Speaker 2:But, like you said, it led to going to see Wicked and we had like popcorn and greasy pieces and like raisinets. And then I started to feel so, even before I noticed, about the food. I was like I had a feeling of like guilt and I was like. And then I asked myself like, why do I feel guilty about that? And it was like oh, because you're allowing yourself to take part in foods that you know like that's not really part of your plan.
Speaker 1:Well, and you made a choice that you weren't going to do those things.
Speaker 2:Most of the time it sabotaged my plan and and then I felt like really guilt is I've done something wrong, and it's like oh, the guilt is there for good reason, because I went against my plan. Yeah, you know, I went against my protocol, right, and I have this bigger goal, right. And so it's like oh, let me reevaluate.
Speaker 1:Right, so your brain is? It is so it is. It is sort of that red flag and it's going this is something you want to look at. You may feel this guilt, which we, you know, know you don't need to feel, but why so? It's a, it's one of those checkpoints. It's like why do I feel this guilt? What is my brain trying to tell me? It's saying you have a plan, so you know, recognize, you know what you're doing and how you're not on your plan or whatever. Yeah, it's it is.
Speaker 2:it's really cool, like I Like I've practiced all of this so much, like the life coaching and the hypnosis and stuff that I'm very aware, Like I don't a lot. A lot of people do pair guilt and shame together, but I never shame myself Like I'm not bad for eating chocolate. I just did something against my plan Right.
Speaker 3:I love that distinction.
Speaker 2:Doing that against my plan, like I'm not a bad person, I'm just, I just ate chocolate. I I sabotaged myself essentially, um. So it's really cool when you start doing this deeper work that, like you get your brain does. The subconscious says wait a minute, that's not our plan. So it sends that little red flag and for me it sends it through an emotion Of course. Yeah, look at that emotion and like okay what are we doing?
Speaker 1:that's such a good point though. I mean I love that, the distinction between guilt and shame. So the guilt is sort of your brain checking in with you. It's going red flag over here, let's think about this. And the shame is that spiral of self-judgment that is just useless and, in fact, detrimental Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like doing I did something bad is very different from I am bad yeah.
Speaker 1:We are just about out of time.
Speaker 4:Sarah, Susan, anything you want to add, susan, anything you want to add. I just want to say that I am really glad this was recorded, because I would like to be able to go back and, you know, do it again, and maybe if I do it enough times I can then do it for myself. But it's good to, you know, just be able to close my eyes and hear your voice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, and coming back on the second and then on the 16th, we'll get a whole nother same thing, but just a little bit of a different narrative, which here's a question. I, quite frankly, I don't think I listened to the narrative like consciously I heard at the beginning. I heard your words, I heard the direction on what to do with my hands and my fingers, but after that I wasn't really hearing the words. That's great.
Speaker 2:That's exactly you were in yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1:I got to my exit and I didn't realize it and I'm like, oh look, here I am.
Speaker 2:The trigger words, like if I use a trigger word like deep sleep, it doesn't mean sleep, it just means relax more. If I use a trigger word wide awake, right, so you're gonna hear certain words bringing you in and out of state. Essentially, we're like a car that we're just shifting gears in your brain and hypnosis is like this super learning state it's an ultra learning state. This is why we don't hypnotize babies like their.
Speaker 3:Their brains are already running on here because they're having to learn so much in their first year, right like so, um, us humans, our brain states shift to a much like lower frequency, and then we have to intentionally shift our brain gears well, what I'll offer not as a downer but in contrast is uh, I'm cynical and I was trying, and my somatic response was one of extreme tightness in my head, probably because for me, what that has represented in the past is just my intellect is being compromised in some way, and I might have had moments, but the chatter was very loud.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And so it was. I did not, like I said, I had maybe moments of calm, but I think throughout there was still that sense of the vice clamp which is not, which physically is a very unpleasant feeling.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep not, which, physically, is a very unpleasant feeling. Yeah, yeah, because the fear of the threat, the loss of control, is there.
Speaker 2:Something, and so this is why I made the suggestion to you to find your right level of comfort, because I know some of you are going to go right in, and so you know I didn't even test you guys as suggestibility today, and but I I assume that we have several different suggestibilities in the room, and so the suggestions I'm giving you kind of speak to all of you yeah, I was like I like what she's saying.
Speaker 3:But then there was there. I was like, yeah, fuck that yeah there was like this sure, there was just this fight going yeah, for you it's.
Speaker 2:It's just not quite safe enough and that's okay, because we have to go on our own, on our with our, you know, not too fast, not, you know, you're like, I just met you right. So if there's some maybe building that relationship and and that familiarity and and as you get more comfortable practicing this for yourself, you may find that you can go deeper at some point. But maybe you won't and that's okay, do you, sarah?
Speaker 1:do you meditate at all?
Speaker 3:I have in the past and I've always enjoyed it.
Speaker 3:I don't. I mean, I do find it as something like I, I I find it an experiment to see if I can just calm my mind. I mean it'll, yeah, they'll. They'll inevitably be like oh, I'm making a grocery list and I don't have a. We all have monkey minds. Mine's not super over the top all the time like I. I have um heard from people who they absolutely cannot meditate because it scares the heck out of them to try and wrangle their thinking at all. So I have found, when I have meditated, like it's very enjoyable. And again, it's not that I don't know you, there's something just inherently about this, because there's a whole lot of things that you're saying that are all familiar terminology.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm very familiar with the nervous system and I'm very you know, I mean all of things that you're saying that are all familiar terminology. I mean, I'm very familiar with um, the nervous system, and I'm very you know, I mean all these things that you're blending in and that's all you know. It sounds sort of like emdr, a variation of you know um. So all of it makes sense. But even again, like, as we're talking, like there is just something right here, that's just and it for me. And again, if we get into all like the spiritual, like you know, there's something intellectually which I think a lot of us it's not just a uniqueness to my household, I think, particularly in the West we have always been taught to you know, know, really praise intellect, and so even rationally and emotionally I can understand it. But there's something, there's something that my intellect is like. This isn't working.
Speaker 1:This is the only way I can describe it and that's interesting because for me it's the kind of the opposite. I'm like I don't feel like I even tap into a smidgen of the intellect that's available to me and that being able to get into my subconscious mind to me is how I believe that I actually will learn more or, in um, internalize more or whatever. I feel like I I feel like that's a place that I have so closed off and then I'm like if I could just get in there. So that to me is this this to me is somewhat of access to something that I can't typically do by myself.
Speaker 2:That makes sense yeah, there's no wrong way here, like I. It's like I'm reading her suggestibility just a little bit, based on some of the things she said, and there's nothing wrong here, yeah. So I would say take all the good from it that you want and that you can and let the rest go.
Speaker 2:There's like you know, we're all going to process it differently. You may look back in a few weeks of working together and be like I've. You know I've been feeling a little bit more or less anxious, or I've been feeling like I'm getting a little more from it. You might not. You also might. So just being open, willing, courageous, these are the things that I think make successful adults.
Speaker 1:You know like susan, did you have a question?
Speaker 4:I just wanted to say one thing, and that's that I I think I would, as I was going deeper, I think I just kept coming up because I was, I was um, not wanting to forget what you said, and I so I repeated it in my head, but I think I was um, so my, I would say my conscious mind was wanting to make sure that that or something or stayed with me, or something. Yeah, and you know, I'm thinking that in the future I should really be able to just not have to, not have to engage my conscious mind and just listen and let it yeah, I don't know be absorbed by my subconscious is the best thing, yeah I mean, I'm very much like sarah.
Speaker 2:Um, like again, I shared with you guys a little bit just about my you know, um my past and um, I am very like hyper vigilance is the name of the game for me and very intellectual and, um, I totally get that. I I there were many times where I sat for it. It took me a while to like gain, you know, trust in the process. So, yeah, let it just be whatever. However fast or slow it needs to be, there's no wrong way. What was it that clicked in your head, though, when you went with your friend to sign her up and then she didn't sign up but you signed?
Speaker 1:way. What was it that clicked in your head, though, when you went with your friend to sign her up, and then she didn't sign up, but you signed up. What was that? What was that moment where you're like?
Speaker 2:this is for me so mine's a little bit more personal um it. Um I was, you know, I got out of the military, I was struggling with complex ptsd by all accounts, I was suicidal and um, so I was actually having like some spiritual experiences and really just having like an existential crisis. I think and um, I don't know. I don't remember like the exact moment where I was like I need to be here, but I think it was something like I need to know how the brain works. I need to be here, but I think it was something like I need to know how the brain works.
Speaker 2:I need to know how, what am I experiencing? Like what I am experiencing. How is my brain allowing that to be processed? Like how is this coming into my, into my how, into my experience?
Speaker 1:so I was like I'm going to surround myself with all these mental health professionals and I'm going to learn how our brain is able to do this and what this all means, and, um it, like I said, it saved my life yeah, I think it's really interesting and just the different parts of the brain and what you know when that, when that primitive brain takes over, and just the awareness, just the simple awareness of being able to know when our primitive brain is running the show. It's just, first of all, knowing there's there's two things there's your primitive brain and then there's your modern brain, and then then being able to go oh my god, my reptile brain is totally trying to take over now. And just that awareness, it helps you kind of jump back into your modern thinking brain the hypnosis world um.
Speaker 2:We always say that I desensitization. We don't call it emdr, but it was like the original emdr and then it was um.
Speaker 2:So it's like mental health professionals have. They call it one thing and then hypnotherapists call it another thing. We call it eye fascination. But essentially it's the same work and it uses the same parts of the brain and it's so cool how gentle it is hypnosis, because it's not like it doesn't re-traumatize, right. So it's so gentle. It's not like you're going to walk out and be like, oh, you know, it's a brand new day, right. But what happens is you can look back. So like when I look back 10 years ago in my life, versus like the abundance I have now, who I am in my confidence, like what I've created.
Speaker 2:I can see the evidence of the hypnosis working, so it's very interesting just how gentle the process is. I want to say thank you so much for having me. I loved getting to meet you guys. I hope to see you again, so thank you, thanks for coming.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sharing so good. Thanks for coming. Thanks for sharing. It's so good. Do you like the idea of eating for the body you want? Is there a piece of you that's eager to learn how to become leaner, stronger and healthier without having to overhaul your entire life? If this is you, then you're in luck, because this is what I do. I can help you reconnect and work with your body so that you can enjoy the body, comfort and confidence you deserve, eating foods you love. Click the free consult link in the show notes. Let's talk about where you are, what you want and how you can get there. Music.
