The Power of Hypnosis

Craig, welcome this morning. I have been so looking forward to this conversation.

Andrea, me too. Uh, it's been on my calendar for a bit now, and I've been looking forward to this day. So I'm ready to dive in.

Yeah. Let's share a little bit about you and what we're going to be talking about. Craig is a certified clinical hypnotherapist, medical hypnosis, um, hypnosis specialist and neurolinguistic programming specialist. And he uses all of these skills to help people with test anxiety. And I know, I am super curious about hypnotherapy, and I also know that there are a lot of misconceptions about hypnotherapy, so I'm hoping we can dive deep into that and understand it a little bit better.

Yeah, absolutely. First, thank you for inviting me onto your show, Andrea. And, uh, yeah, we're going to go deep into it because yes, a lot of those myths, a lot of those misconceptions creates a lot of hesitancy. And, uh, you know, we're the witch doctors and I get that. Uh, we're at the bottom of the list. I've, I've had many, many people tell me that this is our last resort.

Uh, they've 

crazy to me because the stuff I've read about it says it's so effective.

there have been, there are thousands, if not literally tens of thousands of research studies published in peer reviewed journals over the last 50 years. If you want a quick scan at them, Google has a sub. Section that only searches research papers that have been published in scientific medical journals Google Scholar so if you go to regular Google and google.

com you put in there Google Scholar and you'll get scholar. google. com and Type in hypnotherapy or type in hypnotherapy and pain control or hypnotherapy and anxiety You'll get research study after research study research study that proves the efficacy of Uh, that proves the, uh, ability of this, uh, healing modality to help people.

And, and just to be clear. It's not that hypnotherapy is helping people, and it's not that I'm going to fix anybody. I'm not. I don't fix people, and hypnotherapy in and of itself doesn't fix people. People heal themselves. And that's why this, this, uh, method, or these methods, these, these techniques are so powerful. Because you're not seeking the healing from outside of yourself. You're not. This isn't, you know, if I'm in a car accident, take me to the doctor. If I fall off the roof shoveling snow, take me to the emergency room. Uh, if I need my appendix out, I need a surgeon. Uh, and I think a lot of people get stuck in the rut because they, maybe they're going to a counselor or a talk therapist.

And while there's great healing there, uh, that can happen. If you're not exactly sure what the problem is, if the problem is within the unconscious mind, because maybe you got hurt when you were a child, maybe very seriously, and you don't remember that. Or you're just thinking about the argument you got in with your spouse or the troubles you're having at work. Not thinking it has anything to do with the issues of when you were seven years old or five years old. Why would you ever start talking about it? But what's extraordinary is you know what the problem is. That's why your subconscious mind is trying to protect you from that hurt and pain. It doesn't want it to happen again.

Your subconscious mind is For you may not seem like that sometimes, but your subconscious mind is for you. It's for your protections for your safety is for your survival, which doesn't necessarily mean your happiness or your success, but it's for you once you alive and it wants to protect you from hurt and pain. Unfortunately, you may be using the instructions on how to keep yourself safe. That were set up when you're five years old or six years old and maybe they did keep you safe, maybe keeping yourself small, maybe hiding, uh, metaphorically or literally is what kept you safe in a home that was traumatizing and abusive. Uh, maybe emotionally or mentally or even physically. That was the best thing you could have done. But that's not going to work when you're in your 20s or your 30s or 70s or 80s. But nothing's going to change until you change the instructions that you set up. And not to say it was your fault or to blame you,

blame the victim, or say it should have, it certainly wasn't fair. But when you realize that, well, So, that six year old, that seven year old, that ten year old, they're the ones who set up how to keep themselves safe and set up those instructions. And that becomes very empowering because if you're the one who set up the instructions, that means you're the one who can change them. 

And that's what therapeutic hypnosis helps you do. Again, I'm not going to fix you. And hypnotherapy In and of itself, you fix yourself because you know what the problem is, your subconscious mind, maybe through the feeling state of anxiety or anger or overwhelm or worry or fear is sending you warning signals.

So not unlike somebody pulling the fire alarm in a building and the sirens and the lights go off. getting a warning signal that's unsafe somewhere in your world, maybe at work, maybe at home, maybe just driving down the street and all the idiots on the road, it makes you enraged. Like that's an automatic reaction. Might not, if you really analyze it, it isn't very logical, 

but you're dealing with the emotionalized side of the mind, the subconscious mind, you know, maybe unconsciously, but It's there. There is a reason why that anxiety is being created or that anger or that fear. Your subconscious mind knows exactly why it's warning you with those feeling states.

So you know what the problem is, maybe unconsciously, but you know what the problem is and more importantly, you know what the answer is. And

So, 

so I just want to clarify, I want to kind of put this into some sort of a framework for myself. So you've got, um, safety precautions that you've set up as a child to manage. And they are not working for you as an adult because we've grown and everything else. So you've got these triggers, but you're not managing that feeling as an adult very well.

So what hypnosis does is it opens the door. Per se, to events that may have helped you create those coping mechanisms. So then you are able to go back and and maybe come up with coping mechanisms based on today's maturity, not on the maturity of a five or a six or a seven year old.

you have brilliant exact exactly it. I'm gonna replay this and write that down and, and say that to people. That's exactly it. And, and, and we're specifically right now, Andrea, talking about childhood trauma, but this may have happened. Last month or last week,

maybe you in your thirties got into an abusive relationship, or maybe you have an idiot boss at work, or maybe the stress or pressure of running your own business or starting out on a career, or you're a high school student about to take a math test, and you need to go to a good grade or you're not going to get into the college, uh, you're being pressured to go into or something, you know, so there's all sorts of life's situations and circumstances.

I And the main issue, again, is the subconscious mind is trying to protect you and keep you safe. And, and for your very survival, the kind of big problem is that the mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined. And this is most noticeable when somebody is having a nightmare. And maybe you've experienced this, Andrea, or maybe I'm sure a

lot of your listeners, your watchers have experienced having a nightmare. And it doesn't matter how ridiculous or how crazy or how stupid it is. You know, a gigantic cheeseburger and his two hot dog friends are chasing down the street, throwing coconuts at you.

Or it could be something super realistic, like a war veteran having a PTSD dream about the war, even though it was 30 years ago. Both situations, the person's cozy, comfortable, safe in bed, and yet the mind thinks there's danger. There, there's an attack happening that's imminent. These coconuts are flying around your head.

These bullets are flying around your head. And so even in deep sleep, we'll turn on the stress response. We'll literally start changing your brain chemistry, creating the hormones of adrenaline and cortisol. And I'm sure you've heard and listeners have heard about, you know, the stories of the Grandmothers lifting cars off of babies.

That's adrenaline in the body doing that. Adrenaline, cortisol flowing through the body. Uh, 300 percent more blood now moving to the big muscles of your arms to fight. 300 percent more blood moving to the big muscles of your legs to escape. That's coming from somewhere. So it's shutting down your immune system, turning down the power in your digestive system, all while in deep sleep.

Your heart is racing. You're, you're starting to sweat to cool down your body. Literally changing your physiology. So imagine what's happening in your waking world. And, and it's the kind of the idea of, uh, an example may be, let's say you're, uh, let's say you're at work and, um, you're working for a big company and you're in charge of the marketing department and you're working in your office on some marketing stuff. And Bill and Fred, the next office, the two accountants start their monthly argument because the numbers aren't adding up and they start shouting at each other. And to a lot of, uh, the other people in the office are like, Oh, there's those two idiots arguing about the numbers again. Why does those guys work together?

I don't know. And they just kind of laugh and chuckle and roll their eyes. But to you, maybe you start feeling really small and you start feeling afraid because those raised voices remind you maybe of what happened in the home while you were growing up. Because mom and dad argued a lot. And even though you're an adult, And you can logically and analyze the situation and think, Oh, yeah, Bill and Fred doing their monthly yelling at each other thing, but instead that's being filtered through those files that that have hurt and pain and trauma you experienced, whether it was last week, last month or 40 years ago. And it's saying this is a dangerous situation because it reminds you even just a little bit. Of the trauma and terror and fear that happened in the home that maybe you experienced. And so you start maybe getting clammy palms and you're feeling like, I need to get out of here. I need to run away. And that's what a child would do.

And that's probably what kept the child safe, but that's not going to work when you're an adult. But the instructions are, this is what you need to do. And so until you change those instructions. Nothing is going to change and that's what's, uh, empowering about hypnotherapy because again, you know what the exact problem is, maybe unconsciously and maybe

that person is like, I don't know why I'm all anxious over every time those guys argue, I get really anxious and maybe you don't know why, maybe you don't remember, maybe you think, yeah, mom and dad arguing that was, that was dumb and no big deal, but as a child, it was very frightening and that's, yeah, yeah.

Thank you very much. Thanks. still maybe instructing how you react to arguments you may encounter out in the world. And so with therapeutic hypnosis, what we do is by calming down the mind and body and moving into a more relaxed state, you can quiet down that conscious mind. Logical analytical side of mind and move over to like open the door into the subconscious and oftentimes it might just be as easy to ask, why do you feel anxious every time Bill and Fred? Uh, argue in the accounting department, where do you feel that anxiety point to it? Oh, I feel in my chest. I feel in my head. I feel in my gut. You know, what color is it? Where's that? And let's literally just pull it out and start pulling out all those feelings. Now you really pulling out these feelings.

Are you really seeing maybe a black glob of anxiety

or a red spiky ball of anger in your chest or your heart or your head? No, but the mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined. And so we can use these metaphors. And use the subconscious mind signaling you where the hurt is where you're storing it and remove it.

I mean, why not? I 

mean, if you can, if you can create a physical reaction. Yeah. Oh, go ahead.

when you go, when you're going into a relaxed state. Then that is basically, um, quieting the mind. Is that what it's doing? It's quieting that, that maybe interference, like if you think of a, you know, like static on a radio and you can't actually hear the words to a, to a song very well, you can only hear part of it.

So if you quiet the radio or the static, then you're able to access the other, the, the, that memory or whatever, a little more clearly. Okay.

a good way to do it deep, but I'll, I'll tell you now we could do this. With your eyes open in a crowded airport, uh, if, if somebody was having a panic attack, you know, standing up, it's like you could do a stranger. It's like somebody's let's say, you know, a war veterans having a panic attack about getting on a plane because the last time they were on a plane, they had emergency landing or something that didn't go very well and a couple people

died or something. And now they have to get on a plane to go, you know, back home to their hometown. And they're starting to have a panic attack. I can just go up to them and say, excuse me, where are you feeling things? I want you to close your eyes. Where are you feeling things? I feel them right in my chest. What color is it?

What does it feel like? Is it heavy? Is it light? You know, Oh, zero to 10. Where are you feeling? You know, how big is this?

It's not even 10. It's an 11. It's a hundred. Okay. I want you to start pulling that stuff out. I literally take your two hands and start pulling that stuff out. Okay. Now I want you to put it in a big frame. And I want you to squish that frame down once you throw it behind you. Now, this is all just metaphoric symbolism for the

subconscious mind. But again, the mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined. And just like that nightmare, you can literally change your physiology by what you're thinking and feeling.

So are you literally pulling out that anxiety as a big black blob or whatever the, the imagery is? No, guessing not. But. Your mind thinks you are. You are ridding yourself of it. And I've seen healings of extraordinary trauma just by doing this type of exercise. Now, I'm, I'm doing it like this gets done in two or three minutes, 

but, uh, if you have 15, 20 minutes and and that's just one technique that I'm describing, I've had, uh, people pull for a half an hour before people have extraordinary trauma, just pull and pull and pull and then

like, 

there a lot of emotions that are going on when 

Oh, there's, there's, yeah, and there's tears

Yeah,

and there's crying and because it's a release,

that's the, the physiology, the neurology releasing, okay. Your body, mind releasing. And if tears need to flow, because that's a great way to release a lot of the, um, the molecules that create emotion. So when the brain is bringing in information through our five senses. And something triggers an emotional reaction like anger or fear, or even happiness and joy, but let's, let's keep it to anxiety or anger or fear. Your brain is going to start creating the hormones of adrenaline and cortisol, but it's also going to create neuropeptides. And these are molecules that the brain creates. The reason why you can differentiate feelings in the body, you can differentiate anxiety from anger and anger from worry and worry from fear. And joy and happiness is because these neuropeptides, these molecules, hundreds of millions dumping in your bloodstream to send the message of emotion to the cells of your body, to the tissues, to the muscles. And one way to get rid of them is once the message has been received, they get metabolized back into bloodstream. And of course, the bloodstream is flowing around, picking up all the carbon dioxide, gases, toxins, trash and garbage. Moves into your lungs and you exhale it out. So you can literally exhale out those emotions. That's why breathing is so, so restorative. 

Even that, that, those therapeutic modalities of breath work

and, um, and, uh, even just yoga or Tai Chi where, where breathing is such a big part of it. Um, because you were literally releasing those molecules of emotion. These are literal molecules of fear, molecules of anxiety. another way to release them is through tears or through sweating, you know, uh, any way the body releases toxins, you know, and, and so tears is, is a, uh, well, maybe an uncomfortable way because it's, it can be intense. It's a way for the body to release and let go. And. We have a tendency, maybe it's a Western culture thing, maybe it's an American thing. We have a tendency not to want to do that. To hold it in, not to embarrass ourselves by crying in front of another person.

Oh, I have no problem with that, Craig.

And some people have no problem with that. Um, maybe I'm talking more from a guy

I'm just kidding.

Um, but uh, if um, you're willing to just release and let it go.

And that's why creating a safe environment is very important and creating that rapport. But if you're, if you can sense where you feel that hurt and pain, you may not even know what it's about, but your subconscious mind's giving you that symbolism, that metaphor, because it's time to release it. So that's why those questions, what color is it? What does it feel like? Is it rough? Is it smooth? Is it heavy? Is it light?

It's so different than what, uh, I don't know, the media, the movies portray hypnosis like. They really make it seem like you're not in control. of what's happening and I think it does a disservice 

oh, it's really unfortunate because it keeps a lot of people away

from this medium and, 

to lose that control.

and, and really what it's doing is giving you back control because you're the one in control. No one can make you do anything you don't want to do. There's, there's two. primary keys to your subconscious mind.

One is intention and one is morality. You will not do anything that's against your morality. So I can't, while somebody comes to me and wants to do smoking, you know, quit smoking, smoking cessation. I can't also instruct them, and by the way, once you quit smoking, which you will today, once you quit smoking, you're gonna go rob a bank and we're gonna split the loot. Well, they're not going to rob a bank because that's against their morality, unless it's their morality, they're a bank robber, then they'll happily do it. But if that's against their morality, they're not going to do it. Uh, if somebody comes to me for, to quit smoking or to deal with anxiety and say, and for my own amusement, I want you to quack like a duck.

And you're like, I'm not going to quack like a duck. That's ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. My intention is to quit smoking. My intention is to deal with my anxiety. My intention is to heal my trauma. Not to act silly. So you're not going to do it. Cause you're in control. All hypno, a hypnotherapist does is facilitate the healing the person wants. And that's all that can happen. And, and people will point to the Las Vegas shows or the comedy club shows. Please understand everybody that gets up on that stage volunteered to be up there. Nobody was made cause that's not gonna make for a good show. You can't make somebody go up there and act silly. It's against their intention. They don't want to be out there. So guess what they're not and watch those shows. I mean, if you really, uh, there was a bunch of them on YouTube and oftentimes there'll be various levels of. You know, uh, testing people to see their level of responsiveness to the entertainment side of it. And there'll be things like, okay, and no people will volunteer to get up on stage. And they'll do, they'll do a grand, uh, process maybe with everybody in the room, just so people get an idea. And then, and who enjoyed that and who wants to come up here and have a good time, maybe we'll get 10, 15 people up and they'll say, all right, I want everybody to put their hands together.

Pretend that you super glued them together. Now try to pull them apart. Well, if somebody does this. They're off the stage because they're not going to be a good candidate to entertain

people pay good money to go see a show

and if people aren't going to are unwilling because they want to want to show them that they can't be controlled.

And it's like, fine, then don't be controlled and go watch the show from the audience. But everybody that goes up there, one raised their hand to volunteer and probably did. Yeah, please me, me, me. And who are they going to pick? The person, well, I guess I kind of want to, maybe, I don't

know. Or are they going to pick the person who's excited? They're going to pick the person who's excited, and they're going to kind of go through some different processes to test, to make

sure they don't, because it gets stage fried, and you think it through, oh wait, maybe I don't want to do this. But if you're an extrovert, if you're an exhibitionist, If you just want to act silly and have fun and entertain, then your intention is to put on a show. So what are you going to do? You're going

to put on a show. And so the thing with a lot of the misconceptions is because in the movies, they only have a certain amount of time and a certain budget to make this movie. And how are we

going to get Jason Bourne to assassinate the prime minister? It's like, well, let's just hypnotize him and move on with it. Move on with the storytelling.

And so instead of a big 20 minute, Oh, let's train them to do this and that and everything. Well, it's just in, in a three minute scene, hypnotize them to do it. And it's like, well, that's not how it works. Unless you have some morality issues and you want to go assassinate the prime minister, then you'll probably do it. But I'm guessing the people who listened to your show, Andrea, are of a morality where, yeah, they're, they're going to be safe. And they're coming to a therapeutic hypnosis session to create healing. They may not even know,

they may not know what the healing is. They just know that they feel that heaviness or, or that dread or that, you know, they experienced trauma and they can't remember it. And it's not to recall memories. It's to heal, you know. And so a great example, just real quickly, I'll give you an example of somebody I worked with. And, um, back in 2020 and 2021, I was doing zoom classes for the cancer support community of Arizona. I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona. And, and of course, back then with, with COVID, uh, first thing the cancer support community did, we have an office in Flagstaff.

The first thing they did is shut down the classes and the support group meetings and things like that because they have compromised immune systems. They were the first groups I noticed that were really shutting things down. And so everything went to zoom. And so we started doing zoom class. We do the series of classes. Uh, hypnotherapy classes once a week on pain control and healing acceleration and immune system boosting, things like that. And uh, during one series, uh, an older person came, I'm guessing she was about in her seventies and uh, we had done two classes and you know, there's like 12, 15 people in this zoom class and we're going an hour doing a process together. And on the third class, uh, she was early to the class and I was already there setting up the meeting. Zoom meeting. And so we're just chit chatting and she says, Hey, you know, I wanted to ask you, does, does hypnotherapy work with procrastination? And hypnotherapy works very well with procrastination because that's a defense mechanism. Even though the thing you need to do, the test you need to turn in or the report you need to turn in at work or the present day, whatever, even though it may be beneficial to you and help you in life, there's some fear. And so you want to back away. You want to make yourself small. You want to hide. Again, that's a great safety, uh, mechanism.

Down in Southern Arizona in the desert, you may be walking out in, uh, on a, in nature and there are rattlesnakes in the trail. You want to move away from that. You want to make yourself small and keep away from the fight in the street. You want to make yourself small, but when it becomes unresourceful, now you have procrastination. That's why it's a mindset issue and it works with hypnotherapy. So we set up a one on one session for the very next day at some time in the afternoon. And what's interesting about this work is when you realize you're going to be doing some healing work, the mind, the gears start turning and you can work on a problem, but why not work on the problem? And so we, she got to the session the very next day, 24 hours later, she, it's a zoom session. And she says, you know, I told you I wanted to work on procrastination, but what I really want to work on is why I don't matter in life. This is a 70 year old woman

who thinks she doesn't matter. She thinks she's worthless. And so that's a feeling stay in the body. You can feel that somewhere. You can feel that hurt somewhere in the body. And so that's the kind of process we started working on. So we start, start the, uh, the, the therapy, start the process. And we get to point where it's like, I want you to tell me where, when you think. That you're worthless and that you don't matter in life. Where do you feel that in your body point to it? What color you know start doing all the thing, but before we heal it Let's let's let's see the origin of it because maybe something else needs to be healed I want you to go back to the very first time you ever felt that so now we're going to access some memory She may not remember it.

But in the somewhere in the subconscious mind is that original? Uh, ground zero event and what she felt like she didn't matter in life. So I'm going to do 10 down to one. And by one, you're going to be at that very first time, the very first time you ever felt that you didn't matter in life, no matter what age it was 10 down to one. And I say, okay, please tell me, where are you? And she says, I'm standing up in my crib and my father's screaming at me because I won't stop crying. And so guessing she's around 70 years old. That's the late 1950s, early 1960s, men maybe aren't trained on how to be nurturing parents to children that young. And maybe dad's having a bad day, a bad week, a bad life, mom's out of the house and the baby's crying and he doesn't know what to do. And in his frustration, in his anger, in his, you know, he just, the only thing he knows how to do is to scream louder than the baby and tell the baby to shut up. And in that instance, that child. It needs to justify why this is happening. There needs to be some sort of explanation about why this is happening. There's a person who's supposed to love her and nurture her and, and, and, and protect her, is screaming at her. And I guess it means I don't matter in life. I guess that means I'm worthless.

Now, is that true? Of course, that's not true. But in that instant, that one year old child, that 14 month old child thinks, well, I guess that's the only reason this makes sense is that I don't matter. And she kept that instruction, that suggestion until one day she decided to let it go. She decided it was time that she no longer needed that or wanted that, and so she let it go. Change happens in an instant. Now, there may be some lead up time and some set up to that change, but change happens in an instant.

Hmm.

And just as a trauma can be installed instantaneously, why wouldn't you be able to heal it instantaneously? Who said you couldn't do that? And what is their benefit to you having to spend, you know, 30, 40, 50 sessions? Of therapy to heal something and how long was it going to take her in some sort of talk therapy session To get back to being one year old,

you know, and so I never saw her again That was it. That's all she needed to do and we kept in touch I started to check in and and

make Sure.

she's doing right She emailed me over the course of a year.

We check in every few months and did fantastic doing fantastic So she did two group sessions Of just generalized things like healing, acceleration, pain control, immune system, boosting one solo session. We're done.

You know what I find interesting about this example, and I'm sure that it comes, it plays over and over and over again in your, um, in your practice, is that The trauma wasn't what we all would think of as trauma. She, she wasn't, you know, yes, she was yelled at, right, which is traumatic. But at a one year old, two year old's perspective, that is traumatic and that is very scary.

But it doesn't necessarily, um, I don't know, translate into what we would consider trauma. And sometimes it's perception of a situation that traumatizes ourselves. And it's not necessarily, and sometimes it is a big, horrible event, but I think so many of us will diminish our own feelings about things because we don't feel like that is actually trauma.

When and because it's not as dramatic or as you know, but I think it's important to note that sometimes those events are a perception or a feeling that you had in that moment that is maybe now years down the line or months down the line is being, you know, miss, uh, I don't know, construed or 

Yeah. No, I know what you're saying is brilliant and spot on. And because why would you think that something that happened literally 70 years ago could be affecting you in your life? You're an adult. You have so much life experience. You have gone through hurt and pain and loss. Why is this thing that happened?

I mean, you're a child and like, get over it.

Right,

But that file is still in the subconscious mind that hurt that pain and your subconscious mind acts like a, you know, computer hard drive and you're installing software and it's just going to run the software you install. And if you install accounting software that you wrote and it says two plus two equals five.

Then 2 plus 2 equals 5. And it doesn't matter how much you type on your keyboard, or slam your keyboard with your fist out of frustration, or talk to your friends, or talk to your talk therapist about how unfair 2 plus 2 equals 5 is, or take a marker and write on your computer screen 2 plus 2 equals 4. It's not until you go into that computer code. Look through those lines of computer code and say, Oh, there it is. That's what's that all about? Well, let's, you know, amend it, edit it, delete it, put in two plus two equals four, plus save. And now your equations equal out, you know, it, it, it, I don't want to say that it can, it's easy and fast. Because people take the time they need to heal, but it can be that easy and fast. What I can pretty much say to people is this, well, talk therapy, and I don't mean to denigrate talk therapy because it'd be very helpful, very useful done it myself. You always, it's always helpful to have that second pair of eyes, especially in

relationships.

Any, Any, champion, any gold medalist, any super bowl winner, any world series winner, uh, anybody 80, 000 people is going to have a coach. Yeah. I mean, Pavarotti, one of the greatest opera singers of all time, had a vocal coach every year went to a vocal coach. So it's always great to have that second pair of eyes to help you maintain success and whether that's emotional success, mental success, relationship success. So talk therapy is very useful and very, very helpful if you find, uh, uh, an extraordinary person to help you with that. But that's not this. This is the instructions that may have been installed unintentionally. Through duress, unconsciously, that you may be unaware of.

Again, how much time in talk therapy was it going to take her to remember or go back to being one years old? You know, uh, and it's certainly helpful to talk about if you've gone through loss or any sort of trauma within your life, but in terms of relieving that hurt and pain, And installing new instructions on how to feel safe and how to feel more at peace and calm. That's, that's under your control. Not me. I can't make you do that. That's why smoking sensation is not 100 percent guarantee. I can't make anybody, uh, stop smoking. Or stop drinking or whatever their intention has to be to stop smoking to stop drinking to Do release that trauma. I

can't make them do 

tool in your toolbox, really, for somebody, um, because I could see this actually pairing very nicely sometimes with, with talk therapy, because

you've got these, um, defensive behaviors or reactions to things that you don't know why. You're, you're reacting like that, but you still are, so you've got the, you know, after flow of all of that that you're dealing with.

So if you can understand this piece and unlock this, then you can continue to work on the stuff that you've got going on currently.

Yeah, 

To help move through and, and I, I mean, I, I can just 

that's a brilliant insight because uh, this is adjunct Therapy not alternative. This is as well as not

instead of and i've worked a lot a lot with you know the triad of awesomeness of Talk therapy hypnotherapy and the person doing the healing Because if, you know, you're, you're doing the counseling work, which is really important, uh, again, to have that second pair of eyes on it.

And you're saying it seems like you're blocking your success and you don't seem to know why I think hypnotherapy can help you with that.

I know somebody who can,

help you with that, and then, you know, we can work together.

so can hypnotherapy be used on, um, any age? 

Oh yeah, kids are brilliant at hypnotherapy because the foundation of hypnotherapy is imagination and pretending.

Hmm.

you're imagining and pretending that you're feeling, you know, you're not imagining you're feeling it, but you're imagining and pretending that it's What color is it? What shape is it?

What does it look like? You're pretending that you're pulling it out. You're pretending you're standing under a beautiful waterfall and this blue energy is cleansing the stress and the anxiety from you and it's washing down the pool into a beautiful, you know, you're pretending this. Who better to pretend

and to use their imagination than children?

I worked with a ten year old a little bit ago who was struggling with, with uh, A really intense nightmares for and had been for years and they've done every again Hypnotherapy is usually at the bottom of the list and so they've done all the child counseling a family counseling and nothing was working and My wife Christina she opened up a wellness clinic She's been a massage therapist for 30 years and over the last couple years just kept growing and growing her business And, uh, to the point of having to have employees.

And then finally, how she's going to finally realize her dream of opening a wellness clinic. She opened up this building of which now I'm a part of that. And, uh, she was massaging the, the, the mom and the mom was just like, Oh, last night he had just an intense nightmare again. I don't know how we're going to deal with this. It's every night for years and

we have to sleep in bed with him and he cries and he can't get good sleep. We aren't getting good sleep and we're snapping each other. She says, you need to see Craig. You need to see, he needs to see hypnotherapy. She's, she showed in Desperateness, which is usually when people come see hypnotherapist and their utter desperateness, they say, okay, and this 10-year-old kid, and I talked to the mom a little bit beforehand, gets him inside and found out he was a Star Wars. A big Star Wars fan. And so that informed a lot of the work we did together, and a lot of it was. Not the typical here, watch my, um, pendulum or my stopwatch or whatever. It was like talking to him with his eyes open. I said, if you're ready to do this work, get up out of this chair. Let's walk back to the office.

Well, my office door was closed. I'm saying, I want to make sure you're ready for this. Only open that door when you're ready to be done with these nightmares. And change how you sleep at night so you can get a good night's sleep. Opens the door. And it's this kind of process where it's maybe not hypnosis,

but it's conversational hypnosis.

It's conversational therapy, and not talk therapy, but therapy in that when you're ready, pick a chair. The chair that's going to help you release all these nightmares. Okay, he picks, it doesn't matter which chair. Just pick the chair that he thinks is the one

that's the Right.

one. And then, um, if anybody that's been, you know, your listeners have seen like the Mandalorian. Uh, TV show, the Star Wars show and, and baby, uh, Yoda, uh, there was one of the scenes where, uh, I don't know, he's doing some sort of energetic meditation thing. Baby Yoda wasn't, he, he created this, uh, force field, um, ball around him, uh, kind of this ball of force field energy around him. So we're using that.

I want you to pretend that, uh, GoGuru, Baby Yoda is in front of you and you're creating this ball of energy around you to protect you. And I want you to imagine all these monsters that come after you. And what happens to them now, now that they can't get through that ball of protective energy. I want you to put Mandalorians on the side of your bed. You know, on the four corners of your bed and over the top and underneath. And now, send those monsters. after you and see what happens to them now. Now you have this blue force field around you and the Immanuel. And so we're doing this kind of work, this imaginative, uh, pretend work, uh, of just storytelling and metaphor and symbolism. And he never had a nightmare again. It's 45 minutes. He never, Had a nightmare again after years

trying to, and again, it's not to toot my own horn or say that I fixed him, but I gave him the resources and there, but, and there was still homework and mom was in the room and I made sure you wouldn't understand.

I sent them an email and said, this is what you do at night.

You make sure that force feels around me. You make sure those Mandalorians are guarding his bed. You even maybe practice before he falls asleep with the monsters coming at him and running away, they bounce off, they, they disintegrate, whatever happens. It's his imagination and then go to sleep and do that for multiple nights for like a week. And, but the first night,

nothing, that was it. And again, it's not, it's not that I'm fixing him. I'm giving him the resources that you already had in the first place. Just

using it to his advantage and doing it on purpose.

And you're giving him the tools on how he can best protect himself or manage the situation so that now he's in control of what's going on. 

And he can use this in any other situation,

Right.

It doesn't necessarily have to be just for now. He has the skills, uh, available because he can tap into his own talent, his own ability to change his thoughts and therefore change how he feels in the body.

Wow.

what a gift to give a 10 year old, let

alone a 16 year old, let alone a 20 year old.

Um, and so, kids are great at this work. And, um, and it's even like with Ted, we mentioned that before, and I know we've kind of run up against time, but you know, one of the issues with kids, and not just kids, adults have to take tests, of course.

Uh, police, firefighters, plumbers, electricians, real estate agents, lawyers, uh, they all have to get tested, get certified or licensed in the state.

Real estate agents, you know, no matter what age you are, whether you're 65 taking a real estate exam or you're a 16 year old taking an SAT or something, all these different people have to take tests. And there's this, sometimes the fear of judgment, sometimes fear of failure, more than likely because there has been failure in the past. There's been judgment in the past and you failed and you got punished and you got grounded and you didn't get to go to the homecoming dance or whatever. And so there's, instead of looking at a test and saying, oh boy, he really doesn't know the revolutionary war very well at all. We need to hit that a little bit harder.

Here's this book to read. It's like, oh, well, you're, you got a D on the test. Well, now you don't get to go out with your friends on the weekend. You know, now you get to do yard work all weekend or something. And so there's this pressure and this tension that now gets associated with taking a test, even though you know the material. Or, and you can carry that with you all the way through into college, into getting your master's degree, into getting your licensing, uh, uh, for, for, to start your career. And in fact, the reason why I started the test anxiety course is. Because one of the first clients I ever worked with had such extreme test anxiety she couldn't pass.

She wanted to be an audiologist, an extraordinarily intelligent woman, and had, uh, got her master's degree but now wanted to niche and become an audiologist and work with children with hearing impairment, uh, deaf children. And she couldn't pass the licensing exam. She was top of her class. And that was part of the problem that we found out as we worked together is. Went in high school and getting her bachelor's. She was top of the class, top 1 percent valedictorian. But when she went to get her master's, who went to graduate school, it was a school filled with top of the top,

you know, everybody was a top 1 percent

So 

so. She was not unique anymore. She is filled with unique people. And so she. Had to work even harder in her own mind to remain on top. So that meant extra study, that meant extra stress, that meant extra, you know, not an A is good enough. An A is good enough now. And so what you practice you get better at. Whether you're learning dance or martial arts or the guitar or piano or to ride a bicycle or learning to walk as a kid, what you practice you get better at.

But what if you're practicing anxiety? What if you're practicing anxiety as relating it to a test or schoolwork or Or something else. And so she spent all this money to train as an audiologist. Tens of thousands of dollars a year of her life. She's spending $800 per test. 'cause these are like two two days, five hours each.

Taking this test, she spending $800. She failed three times. Plus the embarrassment and humiliation of having to tell your family and friends. And the starting salary for an audiologist, at least in Arizona, is $80,000. So this isn't just, uh, an emotional hit. This is an economic hit. And, uh, so we worked together and she dealt with the anxiety and got some tools on how to, to manage stress and anxiety and fear. And cause you don't want to get rid of it. Fear and anxiety, what keeps you from walking down the dark alley at midnight.

You know, because it's a shortcut home. No, stay, stick to the lighted streets and it takes you 15 minutes longer. That's okay. And so, uh, with her, she was able to use the tools to pass the test. And as I worked with other people, whether they're teenagers or in their 20s or even in their 40s and 50s, with test anxiety. I was looking around like there's nothing out there. There's lots of things about smoking sensations. There's lots of things about weight loss and they're great programs out there.

So I was like, what do I have to offer? That's going to, uh, you know, add to that community of products, uh, to help train people with weight loss or smoking or whatever it may be. But what wasn't out there was anything decent for test anxiety. There's some blog posts and there's some, you know, uh, five minute YouTube videos and a couple of books on, on Amazon and a couple, you know, picture books for little kids on Amazon, but there wasn't a comprehensive course. And so that's why, that's why I created the ACME test course. Um, to kind of niche down to focus on this one thing and not just tests that you might take in school, a written

test or a test nowadays you do it on laptops and things, but what about an audition? If you're a musician or an actor, what about a job interview? What about giving a presentation, giving a speech? Um, these are all forms of tests because there is the risk of failure and there definitely is, especially with auditions and maybe presentations and job interview, you're being judged. so, um, it can be used for all sorts of things, and the skills you learn in it can be used with all aspects of life.

These are great tools for managing your nervous system because you're in control. And that's the thing, like, we, you started off, like, on, you know, almost an hour ago, and I know we got to wrap up here pretty soon, but you start off almost an hour ago, it's like, it's a control thing. But the hypnotherapist isn't in control. What actually is being happening is you're being given back control and being taught how to maintain that control. And, and that's the, the power of it. You're not doing anything you're really not doing already. You already know how to relax the mind and body, whether you're bored back in high school math class or meeting at work and you just start staring out the window. You're already altering your state of consciousness by moving into a daydreaming state. We know how to do that. Or you've driven home. And you start

thinking about, Oh, I got family coming over and I need to get the house together and I need to go shopping and we got to get the barbecue together or you got a big presentation on the end of the week for work and you got to get the PowerPoint. You start thinking about all these things you got to do and all of a sudden you're in your driveway or near your parking spot and you don't remember the last five blocks. You put yourself in a state of hypnosis. You're bored at work, and you just start staring out the window, you put yourself in hypnosis.

You're watching a movie, and you get lost in the story, and maybe it's a drama, and you start crying, or, or you get angry at the villain for being so heinous. It's just a story, and yet you've created an emotional response, you've hypnotized yourself. And so, really, a lot of this work, we're all in a state of hypnosis. Uh, because, especially if you're reacting unconsciously. And creating the feeling, state of anxiety or anger, overwhelm, you're driving. I know people who are the calmest, most beautiful, wonderful, peaceful people. Most pacific, pacifistic people, if that's a word, uh, you've ever met. And you get them on the freeway?

They're crazy.

Oh my God, it's frightening the, the, the change in personality

and again, what you practice you get better at. So not only is it just your, the, the, whole car situation is triggering with the hands on a steering wheel on the brake and the X, uh, um, uh, and the gas pedal. And it's just the feeling of the seat. All this is, is triggering a response to once you get, you see one idiot, you see two idiots, you see three is, and then a rage happens and you're, you're hypnotized yourself to react in a certain way, unconsciously. To certain triggers in your environment. We're all hypnotized in some way or another. So a lot of this work, really, like with the story I told about the older woman, is de hypnotizing you. She was hypnotized to think she was worthless and didn't matter in life. Was that

true? Absolutely not. There's not one person in the world that would tell her that.

Right.

You know, and yet she had hypnotized herself to think that that was true until one day she let it go. And so that's how powerful you are.

You're allowed to, you're allowed to heal. You have the power, the ability and the right to do that.

So Craig, you do do this, um, hypnosis and the, um, ACE test taking, but you do those online, correct?

Yeah, the, the

ACE AnyTest is an actual video. training course that you

can just, um, download or just watch online, stream it and also watch at your convenience at your, um, uh, with, with your own time, uh, in terms of hypnotherapy sessions, I'd say 80%, 85 percent of my sessions are over zoom now, like many people, whether talk therapy or doctor's appointment or, or whatever, uh, certainly therapeutic hypnosis works well over zoom.

Okay. Uh, what the research shows is not only, uh, does zoom sessions again, whether talk therapy or therapeutic hypnosis or doctors, not only does it work as well as in person, but there have been some studies that show that zoom sessions work better than in person. And the reason why they believe that is, is because people feel safe. And relaxed and comfortable

in their homes. And if you live in a large town, Phoenix, New York, you know, wherever in Los Angeles, you don't have to drive across town in rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon to make your appointment. And so it's just comfortable, relaxed and, and, uh, works really, really well. And, uh, so mainly I do. Zoom sessions, it's always enjoyable to see people in person, but I live in a small town Flagstaff, Arizona. So, but I work with people around the world. Next week. I'm working with somebody in Vienna. I

mean, not to do my own horn, but this is just to show the, the

possibility of this. So, not only just around the, uh, around the country, but around the world, and we'll set up, we'll figure out the time zone. I'll, I'll. Be seven o'clock in the morning, there'll be eight o'clock at night or whatever, and we'll make it work. And, um, yeah, if you, if you're interested, I, I'd love to talk to people about this.

As you can tell,

I took, I took your 40 minute podcast to an hour. So, you know, I

can go on and on and on and talk, but, um, usually we start with a, just a free consultation call because if you want more information, you want to just talk about the issue, whether you may not even know what the issue is. I sent out an intake form and some people just write. Anxiety. You don't even know why. That's fine. Well, we start there. And if you're feeling that there's some blocks, you're feeling you're stuck in a rut and you're feeling that, you know, yeah, you're worthless or that you don't matter in life, you know, that's something that you're in control of and you can change and I'm not going to fix you.

You're going to fix yourself. So at least at the very, at the very least, we can. Set up a consult free consultation call and talk about it again. I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona and Name of my practice is Arizona integrative hypnotherapy, and it's a mouthful But if you just google Flagstaff hypnosis, you'll see Arizona integrative hypnotherapy And that's me

and or ace any test that's easy to remember ace any test calm and email me about hypnotherapy from there, too Or check out the course whatever you

want to 

we'll have all of this stuff in the show notes for you too. You know, I think you summed it up, um, and you've said it so many different times, but I took from all of this is that while the initial perception of hypnosis is that you are out of control. The reality is that it puts you back in control.

Yeah.

you so much. This was fascinating. And I, um, I may have you come back for the, uh, the test taking piece because we didn't get to spend 

Yeah. We can talk a whole lot about that.

but 

it's so, it's so much fun. I appreciate you inviting me on your show, Andrea, and, uh, I love talking about hypnotherapy and I appreciate, because like you said at the beginning, there's so much such misconceptions and

about, and I think it keeps people from wanting to explore

this kind of healing modality.

So,

um, yeah. You're, 

no fear. Thank you so much, 

you're you're welcome.