Session #251: Amye Scharlau on Hypnosis for Hot Flashes

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 251. Amy Scharlau on hypnosis for hot flashes. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. Welcome back to the program in a continued happy new year with some outstanding guests here for the program.

Kicking off in January, 2020, and this is a conversation, which is, I often do. Let me give a little bit of a sort of a preamble to this one. Not quite so much of a disclaimer, but a similar preamble that I’ll give to the episode with Zach psis that’s coming out in about two weeks, which is that just from my tracking, I’d say the overwhelming majority.

Of those of you out there listening to this Work Smart Hypnosis podcast series, the majority of you would fit into that category of the hypnotherapist, the hypnotist, and less so much of the stage hypnotist. We have a lot in the community that do a bit of both, or maybe even primarily just do stage and the mistake you can make.

With any training as to look at something and go, Yeah, but I don’t do that, so that’s not for me. So the mistake that someone could make with this episode with Amy or the one later this coming month with Zach would be to go, Yeah, but their stage hypnotist. That’s not what I do. Well, Amy is someone who very rightfully, as she describes herself, rides that balance between Carney and Inte.

That part of her time is often on stage doing stage hypnosis or even adopting the character of Lady Amelia in Renaissance Festival stage hypnosis shows, which is a place where you’re gonna hear some amazing insights in terms of being someone truly in the trenches on those stages and having to make it work multiple times over in a place where, and this is unique, people are not necessarily going to those venue.

To see her do the program, she’s almost a bit of an afterthought. They’re discovering that she’s there, so it adopts a slightly different pre-talk. She kind of brought to mind something of how I’ve purposefully built Virginia Hypnosis, the local office here, where I’m really only spending my time with those people who I’ve engineered the mechanism so they’re able to self-select themselves.

That’s a phrase of actually being my ideal clientele. The people who are already identifying, they’re willing to follow my instructions and willing to go through a couple of, we’ll call them compliance checkpoints, to really get the motion, the really getting the work in motion. So you’re gonna hear a different aspect of that, which I don’t think has really been highlighted here.

And all these episodes of here are people who are coming in that don’t have that initial buy-in and yet consistently, Amy pulls it off and you’re gonna hear a large part about how, Now the other side of this too is that a lot of her work as a hypnotist actually working with clients and some rather interesting research and study and somehow discovering this one little niche of working with women going through menopause and specifically hot flashes and some of the fascinating research behind it.

There is a very. Specific, extremely favorable piece of research that Amy references, which we’re gonna link over in the show [email protected], where you can get to know a little bit more about the foundation for the work that she does. And just a beautiful, elegant process of helping people to, well, specifically helping women to resolve this issue, although at the same time being under the hot sun in 30 pounds of Renaissance costumes.

You’ll also hear the story of how she uses these techniques on herself to not sweat and hate the world under the summer sun. So an amazing conversation. We’re going to hear someone who truly is a worker who’s really putting in the hours, continuing to level up her game, and really helping like many others in the stage world to introduce hypnosis to brand.

Audiences. So again, whatever your background is, whether it’s stage, whether it’s therapy, whether you’re brand new to this stuff, this is really a must listen to conversation, to hear some powerful insights about how we connect with the general public, how we connect to those people that are out there, who hypnosis may be new to, but also just simply how do we listen to our.

In the moment and then feedback a process that’s appropriate for them. So just an amazing conversation and great to finally have Amy here on the program. And while you’re checking out the details of how to connect with Amy online, of course, check out hypnotic business Systems. Dot com. This is where you can get the all access passed to my hypnosis training library, my business library.

So this is where you’re not gonna have to reinvent the wheel. You’re gonna get done for you marketing campaigns. You’re gonna get step by step tutorials showing you how to overcome some of these barriers of launching our business, whether it’s social media. Whether it’s writing for your websites, whether it’s putting out digital products and helping you to scale up your success year after year, these are the exact steps that I’ve done and I continue to do to build a thriving business.

And hey, we’re just kicking off 2020 and let’s help you to scale up that success, help even more people and really improve your skills and strengths in the world that we do as hypnotist. So check that out now available to get the all access pass over at Hypnotic Business Systems. Dot com. And with that, let’s jump directly into this outstanding conversation.

Here we go. Episode number 251, Amy Scharlau on hypnosis for hot flashes. My story for the introduction of hypnosis is kind of a torri. Tale that I would not suggest anybody actually do when they get into hypnosis. . Nice. Cause I, I graduated, I had a degree in theater, a degree in studio art, and two NASA space grants cuz I’m a total incomplete nerd.

And I was working for an entertainment company doing of all things kids’ birthday parties as the birthday princess and, The owner of the company was like, Oh, you seem pretty bright. Would you like to learn to do hypnosis? We keep getting asked for a female stage hypnotist. So I bought this big giant book by this guy named Orman McGill.

Yep. . And I read this big obnoxious book and I memorized, I memorized an induction and sort of the show and I’m like, Wow, this is something. And then, Agent called me and said, I booked you for two shows you’re going on tomorrow, . Cause the hypnotist was sick and this was down at the um, Oh my gosh. The big ballroom in the surf ballroom in Iowa and I was completely not ready.

I’d never hypnotize anybody in my life. I was standing off stage looking at this row of chairs. This is years ago, had no idea what I was doing and decided I’m just gonna like fake it. and I went on stage and because I have a degree in theater, it worked. Mm-hmm. , . So I walked off stage, I threw up, I brushed my teeth, I went back on stage, , I did another show, , and then I went back for all of my certifications after that.

I do not suggest anybody get into hypnosis, but that was how I, I took the, the polar plunge into hypnosis. Yeah, which I, I flash back to something, and this is gonna sound extremely negative, but I really don’t mean it as a negative , but, you know, I, I came from a theatrical background as well, and the, the actors, yes, there are teenage and child actors that are extremely skilled at what they do.

Let me, let me put that disclaimer out there. But sometimes at that age, it comes down to how well can they actually say the lines. And make them actually sound as if they’re speaking and not repeating something from memory. Right, right, right. Yeah. So really that was a skill that you already had cuz you’d been in that world.

And just to simply, this is one of those few exceptions of memorize those words that ought to work and it really did. It really, I, I, I totally just lucked out. It was pure hood spa, but, but yeah, it was . That’s what I did. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So if you had to, I mean, but let me ask you this, Let’s kind of bounce around on this.

Okay. Which would be that, by having that as that first experience, what would you say that’s given you as a result? Since then, Courage guts. I take some, I, I mean, I don’t take risks with the audience, of course, because, and with my, my volunteers because they’re incredibly important. But I try different things with like routines and also one on one with, with clients.

I, I’m willing, To try things and not just get stuck in a rut and be afraid to take it further. Yeah. Which we, we share a bit of a through line there, the beginning with the stage, and then afterwards going off and then getting the training to figure out how the hell that actually happened. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So walk, walk us through, did you stay much in the stage world at that point, or what was the next step for. I mostly stayed in the stage at that point, but I immediately knew that I needed more information because I could see how it worked, but not why it worked. Yeah. I got, I became, um, certified with the National Guild of Hypnotists, which was great.

I met a ton of people and I, I ended up with this really cool. This really cool area where I was being trained by really old school stage hypnotist, but I was also being trained by really fantastic hypnotherapist. So I was getting information from both sides of the game. Yeah. Which in many ways you see people who kind of dance between the two.

We were talking before we hit the record button here. That I was going, you know, for someone who actually removed himself from stage hypnosis, as of this year, I just issued eight contracts. Uh, , granted, other people are doing those programs, including, it’s like having to say to one guy, it’s like, Okay, now don’t screw this up.

We’ve been doing this show, this school for 12 years now, but it’s how the two do really naturally compliment each other. I mean, to take the skills of the stage hypnotist into the actual session, what, what do you find that gives you, let’s say, as an advantage, or at least as a. As an advantage? Well, there’s a couple of things.

I get a lot of my clients who have seen me do stage hypnosis, and they come to me specifically because they know for a fact that I can hypnotize people. They, mm-hmm. , they saw it. So I’ve got credibility right there. It also gives me some more tools, some more playfulness. I can work with the client to make them more comfortable, because as we know, client rapport.

Everything with success. So we can do, you know, we can do fun things in the office, like do little hand lock things, our arm keps or just sort of make it so less threatening and just have it be fun as they’re getting into the process. Yeah. Is there, is there a story that kind of stands out of someone coming in where you decided to go in that route more so than the normal perhaps?

I tend to do it with, with younger people, like teenagers. I remember one young woman who just sort of didn’t believe that her, her inner thoughts could really have any effect on her, and we decided to just play with the pendulum for a little while, and that just blew her mind. And she was like, Okay, my inner thoughts affect me.

Yeah, let’s work with this. You are, Anytime we give them that experience of, again, here’s how you’re already doing it and here’s how we can now do it on purpose together. So kind of walk us through what was that route of training that you went about for? For like. Learning intentionally. Vague question

Yeah. Intentionally vague question. Oh, you’re a wily one. You using that motivational interviewing skill. I know, I know. Let’s see, I, I started wandering through the fabulous world of the National Guild of Hypnotists and I also, you know, was working with a lot. Stage hypnotist. I don’t know if you remember Franco Master Heist, but I eventually ended up subbing for him at Renaissance Festival.

Yeah, when? When he got sick, and that’s how I entered that world. I also met the amazing Jerry Kind, and I believe the first time I met him was in an elevator, and I learned more in that two minute elevator ride than I did . And a bunch of other, um, a bunch of other classes. I did have some trips and stumbles on the way.

Of course, I’ve been like certified in like five different hypnosis schools. I was really, and I’m not gonna name them all, but one one for sure. I, I finally looked up the credibility of, of the instructor cuz I was just skeptical. And it turned out that he was going by a fake. Oh yeah. So that was, so that was good.

So I’m now, I’m now certified with both the NGH and, and Omni, but I’m, and I’m kind of my own thing. Yeah. Um, do a lot of ericsonian stuff. I’m, I do real positive hypnosis. I’m also, you may know that I’m in grad school. I’m getting my, um, my master’s to become a a in mental health counseling, and the PhD will be in organizational psych.

Mm-hmm. . There’s an intentionally vague answer to intentionally vague question. No, I love that. It, you know, along that way we find here’s what aligns with us, but also at the same time, we start to define our own specific style that, you know, to look at where we can go in and, you know, the, the Omni, the Jerry Kind is more in line with that Dave ment approach, right?

When, meanwhile, the places to become, well intentionally vague, the places to add a little bit of artistry to it, where we dip more into that ericsonian style. Or just over time, you know, we have clients who come into the office and they say things and then we go, you know, kind of like in stage hypnosis, how do we make this thing happen every single time?

Right. How, how do we create this spontaneous discovery where, Yeah. I can give you a simple example that I kind of fell into on my own, which was that doing something like hypnotic age regression. Mm-hmm. , if it was either to the theoretical cause, or perhaps just towards some sort of resource state. To go into NLP submodalities and ask just simply where do you feel that feeling the strongest and exactly scan your body that new feeling that you’re experiencing.

Where is that one now? Family Feud style Survey says it always ends up in the same place. And to then claim it as a hit. And even if it doesn’t, we can move it. But, you know, to recognize that these are things that happen organically by just being in the moment. Right. Which these are necessary skills for that person on the platform.

Exactly. One of the most, I find that when I come across like a, a word or a process or a technique or an approach that resonates me, it’s more like I, it’s more like I recognize it more than I learn. Yeah. It’s like, oh. And that’s what I felt about the whole motivational interviewing thing. I’m like, Oh yes, this is what we’re doing.

Mm-hmm. , somebody was smart enough to write a book about it. . , yeah. Absolutely. So you mentioned, I, I wanted to come around to this one cause I know you do spend, well, we’ll kind of spend some time talking about the stage, but then I wanna get more specifically, cuz I know there’s some rather. Interesting work that you’ve been targeting in terms of your one-to-one clients, or even, I’m assuming maybe even groups, but Oh, yes.

Uh, this Renaissance world that you’re rather active inside of? Yes. Introduce us to the lady, please. Oh, right, so Lady Amelia is my stage hypnotist persona, and I had exactly three seconds to think of that, which is why it’s so creative. And these are extreme. Conditions and just show after show after show in big outdoor, huge, crazy, noisy, joyful, obnoxious Renaissance festivals.

So there are people in armor. There are literally. There is literally an elephant parade that goes through my first show every day in Colorado. Yeah. And you learn to just, you learn some crazy. Not only do you learn crazy mad hypnosis skills because now I fear no noise. Bring it. I can do, I can bring, Just bring it Demolish.

Middle of the demolition derby. Sure. Well, let’s do hypnosis Ambulance for the j. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, and, and it’s happened. Bears fires, we’ve had everything happen, but I’m also interacting with between 15 to 25,000 people a day, and I’m literally walking around with a sign that reads hypnosis free samples.

So everybody knows I’m the hypnotist. And I have just my finger on the pulse of what the general public thinks about hypnosis and is asking about hypnosis more so than a lot of other hy. Who their, their clientele is sort of, you know, self-selecting. They already know about hypnosis. They’re already sold on hypnosis, They’re in your office.

Right. And that gives me, I think, a really unique perspective as to what’s going on in the world with pop culture and, and how people are perceiving hypnosis and how it’s shifting and how it’s changing in different parts of the country as well. So I’m half Carney, half intellectual nerd, no. And. I float in between the two all the time.

Yeah, I mean, you bring up a really great point, and this is something that, quite honestly, the opposite of it, the inverse of it is what has has really helped to scale a lot of my business in recent years that I, we don’t have anyone taking the phone calls at the local hypnosis office. Instead, people have to go through what I’ve nicknamed the Velvet Rope Strategy, which is that they have to fill out a form, they have to complete an application to schedule a time to get a phone call.

Oh, which, which. Only those people who are beyond the tire kicking phase. Only those people who are really very clearly committing that they want to create this change are even getting through that consultative phone call, which we’re closing practically everyone, cuz it’s a genuine hoop you’ve gotta jump through.

Right. Perfect. Which means though, but let’s be honest here, that’s now self selecting my ideal clientele as those people who are already one, identifying their willing. Jump through some compliance hoops and they’re willing to follow my instructions too, are patient enough because you can never schedule same day with me.

It’s locked in that you have to wait at least a day. So these people are willing to wait for me, which makes it so now the whole dialogue, you often hear of, oh, resistant clients. I don’t even know what those are anymore. . So, but, but you’re in a great position where you’re exactly right. Those people did not come to the Renaissance Festival because of the hypnosis.

No, they came for the whole thing and yeah, I’ve actually had people, I mean like 99% of the people are just, you know, in love with it. But I’ve, I’ve had people come up, you know, being very confrontational. I’ve had people come up and, and, and it’s like giving me the sign of the cross cuz they think I’m part of the devil.

But I mean, it’s all very interesting and it also, in a way, I think I’m kind of doing something good because they’ve met a hypnotist and I’m not weird and creepy and like, you know, stealing their sons. Mm-hmm. , you know, . So, yeah. So you, you mentioned some of that pop culture perspective. What are some of those things that we should be aware of that, that you’ve experienced?

Most people, like most people, when I, when I do a show in an outdoor arena like that, there is an audible gasp when I tell them that ho hypnosis is something that has been scientif. Studied. They keep throwing it in the same box with like reading unicorn, glitter, auras. I get a lot of people that ask me if I can talk to their dead uncle.

It gets thrown in that, you know, seance box. Yes. So that’s something to be, to be aware of. And so there’s a lot, there’s a lot of fear, there’s a lot of misconception. in some ways, we’ve come a long way. In a lot of ways. We, we, we haven’t mm-hmm. . So I think it’s important for, for any Hema, just to just be aware of that.

A lot of people are walking in with these, with these misconceptions, you know? Yeah. Now, now the classic pre-talk is one of, you know, here’s what some people believe. Here’s why it’s not that, here’s what other people leave. Here’s why it’s not that. So having come in from this experience and really had more of a finger in the pulse of that kind of dialogue, Has this changed the way that, let’s say you do the pre-talk or even the process from the platform, Or let’s even bring it into the office too.

Okay. I change it depending on what part of the country I’m in. Nice. Because a lot of it has to do with, so let’s say I am in a smaller, um, a smaller town. If I, if I lead with the fact that, okay, I’m an international speaker and I speak in Zurich and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I have lost that group of people, and they’re not gonna listen to the rest of what I’ve said.

Because the first, the most, the thing that they are most afraid of is, are they’re very concerned about is somebody with like, like all kinds of errors looking down their noses at them. Mm-hmm. . And that this is also important. You know, I also do, I also see clients during the week, and it’s important for them to be seen and respected.

So for that group of people, I’m going to lead with things like, yeah, my father was in, my father was in the Army. Um, I throw in little anecdotes about like the area and things like that, and make it more earthy and then make the hypnosis. This is something I do that we can use to help. It’s a tool, and I know some people object to that language, but it, it works for.

Yeah. And when I’m in other areas that are more affluent, that are closer to big cities, then I’m introducing hypnosis as, as a, I’m, I’m adding, I’m, I’m throwing all the studies out there, like all of the cool things that’s being done with it. All of like the latest stuff with like neuroplasticity and they.

Eat that. Mm-hmm. up. And I think I have wandered away from the question, . No, no. I mean, that’s great. And look, looking at how, again, depending on it’s, it’s one of the challenges that if we all could at least first and foremost agree upon one definition of hypnosis, I think we’d all be in a better place. But at the same time, this is kind of highlighting that well, We’re gonna basically say the same things, but it’s depending on the audience of who we’re speaking to, of how we describe it, right?

That if I’m communicating, there’s the dentist who’s downstairs from my office. If I’m communicating with him, I’m telling all the stories out of Dave Alman hypnotherapy, and the work that he was doing there. Meanwhile, if it’s my fear of the television client, which I’ve had a bunch of those, cuz the Virginia West Virginia border is not too far away.

And apparently that’s where the power keeps going out. And that means that’s the zombie apocalypse if you’re nine years old. And I see a lot of them. And I only started watching Walking Dead because I was bringing enough clients. And then the show kind of disintegrated, but recognizing who, who it is in front of you.

And I, I, I agree with you to talk about hypnosis. As a tool because it’s not that here’s this almighty power that I have, right? I, I, I flash to the line from the magicians pen and teller that we’re a couple of people who have learned how to do some pretty cool things. Right. Which even better from the client perspective to talk about it as a tool.

This kind of eradicates the dialogue of either worked or it didn’t work. It’s instead, how best can we use this tool to address your specific goals as you’ve shared them here today? Right. And the one, the one international line that seems to just resonate with everybody is, What we’re doing is all psychology in one sentence is you are the story you tell yourself.

Hypnosis is a tool to allow you to change the narrative, change the narrative, change your life. But, and that seems to work with everybody. It’s like, yeah, okay. I am the story. I tell myself, What about my story? Do I need to be different? Yeah. So how, how much of these themes do you often bring in to the stage program?

I. Sneak them in, in a really positive way. I, I do have, I, I make sure that it’s not obvious and it’s not preachy, but every time, any time I get a chance to say something positive about people on stage, I do it. It’s like if I have them with like, You know, the old chair stuck to the stage. I’ll, I’ll point out, look what is determined.

Amazing person. This is, this is somebody that’s going, that’s going far in life and I’m known for a uniquely positive stage hypnosis, and my goal in every routine is to have my volunteer win at the end of the routine. That’s great. Yeah. If, if, if something like, like the chair routine, if that makes them look weak for a second, at the end of that routine, they’re the strongest person in the room.

Yeah. I always leave them on a, always leave ’em on a high. Briefly, this brings about a guy who came into my office, I think about seven or eight years ago, and he’s, he’s someone who, he’s done a number of hypnosis trainings. He never had the goal of actually opening up shop and doing it. He was just fascinated by it.

So I mean, he’d learned from all sorts of people. And he found me online and he called up and he came in and he said something. He goes, And this is, this is what I love about that phrasing of uniquely positive. He goes, You know, I’m really fascinated by hypnosis phenomenon. However, most hypnotic phenomenon is based upon me not being able to do things, which is kind of counterproductive when you think about the fact that I’m here to actually accomplish something and that can’t be brilliant.

About a week brilliant. It’s so true. Yeah. It’s like. I’ve always wondered with, with some particular, you know, with some various stage shows, it’s like with the whole incredible range of human behavior and, and things, why do so many people just do, like you said, just have them not do things when you can make them into freaking rock stars, you know, , which is just as entertaining.

Yeah. Although it’s sometimes just that game of a slightly different phrasing that the moment of let’s say arm epilepsy, Never again became the You can’t bend that thing. You can’t bend that thing. Exactly. That language might be in there, but now it’s about you can produce this level of strength in your body to create something that you’ve never experienced before.

Yes. Perfect. Absolutely. We should write that down. Uh, , which again, these are those things that we find by. You know, it was stage hypnosis. It kind of fits into the game, especially doing so many programs in that environment. I, I never, I did the, like summer fairs at one point where I’d go and it’d be like six shows a day.

My real sort of education of all things, you know, entertainment at keeping it fresh. Was of course when I was like 19 years old and doing a magic show at Bush Gardens Williamsburg, and they tell you, don’t count your shows, which of course we did . But then to figure out, you know, how do we keep it fresh every single time.

And so in that kind of capacity of that many programs and that kind of environment, what is it that you’re doing to, to keep it fresh for. First of all, I keep myself really in the moment. Yeah. And to motivate myself. I can’t do it. I don’t, I don’t perform out of, like out of a place that’s just like my own ego and I’ve got something to prove that just doesn’t, I know that works for some people, but it doesn’t work for me.

I have to look at it like, okay, these nice people drove a long way for their entertainment and they work really hard in their lives and this is their chance to escape and see so. Amazing. That can make them wonder and could actually change their life. So I need to deliver. Yeah. I need to give them the best experience I can and then I’m always playing and tweaking with things that are going on.

And the fun thing about the fun thing and the challenge about, um, doing like renaissance festivals is they’re. They’re outdoors. I’ve had like rabbits run across the stage. There was one time I was doing an induction and people are wearing all those little flowery wreaths on their hair, and there was this darn hummingbird that kept sticking his beak in the people’s ears.

Oh, nice. Whenever you feel a tickle in your ear, you go down even deeper and to try to really get the most out. Every performance, I try to make every performance just my own game a little bit more. Perfect. Mm-hmm. , I’m, I’m competing against five other stages, so the thing has just got to fly. It’s all about pacing.

So any I at the, at the end of every show, I come up with something that I can fix and I can improve. And then the other fun thing I like to do is I like to see what I can do for suggestions to make the. Think that they are incredibly comfortable and the weather is perfect even when it’s not. Yeah. And that’s like a fun, that’s a fun game that I do as a pre-talk every, every time.

Cause sometimes, you know, it’s 105 degrees and you’re and I’m basically using the same, um, the same. Language I would use to, uh, train people to reduce hot flashes. Yeah. Which was a perfect transition to exactly the next topic I wanted chat with you about. Oh, I’m like . Yeah. No, and I mean, I’m sure I, as we often do it, I mentioned this before we hit record, that I go in afterwards and that’s when I do the intros and the outros and you know, like several episodes from the past it.

Most likely have already said to the audience out there, Hey, and even if you’re not a stage hypnotist, stick around because here are the things that you learn. And it, looking at how it’s really the same set of skills and it’s just a matter of now of how do we then customize it for that specific industry.

So, I know this is something I’ve seen you talk about before, working with women with menopause, working specifically with hot flashes and just outta curiosity, was that something you saw there was a need for and then began to go after? Or was that something that people were reaching out to you and realizing that we have a need to start to figure out solutions to help with that?

What was that thought pro? What was that entry point for you? It was kinda, Both. I was getting so many clients coming in and the word menopause kept popping up and they were coming in from anything from anger management to weight gain to hot flashes, and they were using the word menopause. Like they like it, like they’d been diagnosed with a disease.

Mm-hmm. and I finally realized, wait a. That’s the through line for all of these are is this meme actually real? And it reminded me a lot of when. Trained with Jerry Kind. He had this amazing video of a woman who was giving birth using hypnosis, and she had a C-section and he was talking about how we have this, this meme in our society that that childbirth is this horrible, tremendous God awful thing that you’ll barely going to survive, and that it’s not like that in other cultures.

And I’m like, Holy cats. That’s the same thing we’re doing with menopause. Mm-hmm. . So that’s how I kind of wandered into that. Yeah. I mean, anytime we can, just a general influence strategy, anytime you can get someone to think differently about their issue, then how they thought of it before you’ve got rapport.

Exactly. Um, you’ve got intrigue, you’ve got that foot in the door and you know, basically what if instead of A equals B? What if A equals C? And they go, Go on. Exactly. And what if it’s something that doesn’t, that doesn’t happen like to you, but is just hap something. Is happening with you? Yeah. Or you know, with your life.

And on those same lines, do you know the two factors that make hot flashes dramatically worse for women? I would guess one might be expectation, the other might be stress. There is, there are two socioeconomic factors. Okay. You’re, you’re right on those. I wasn’t specific enough with the question. Okay. What, what sort of, like, what sort of like environmental factors would make hot flashes of all the weird things worse, what would they be?

It is education and income. People with lower education and lower income report much more severe hot flashes. Isn’t that interesting? Yeah, I, I think it’s a self-efficacy thing. This is my, my non peer, peer reviewed hypothesis on this. I think when you feel out of control, And you don’t have a lot of choices in your life.

Mm-hmm. , then you feel that your body is outta control too. Yeah. Which even I, I keep coming back to, I keep referencing, which even for some that don’t like his brand of comedy, but Bill Mar his, uh, Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. , Yeah. The, the, the routine that he does, I don’t know if this is a fact, it just Sure. Sounds like it’s true.

Yes. Yeah. Which even that gets the foot in the door. Has that influenced how you, how you work with them though, is what I’m curious to. I would say yes. I haven’t looked at it quite like that. It’s interesting when you start talking about it and you start with with your client and you talk about the different factors involved with like menopause and hot flashes, that as soon as you start sort of like pulling the string of that sweater and like suggesting that these things that they were taking for granted aren’t necessarily true.

Mm-hmm. , they’ll start taking the ball and running with it and they’ll be like, wait a. So what I’m only looking at is maybe like, you know, a change of, as I age, a change of calories that’s like going to equal maybe 200 calories a day. That’s not the same as inevitable weight gain that I’ll never be able to lose because like Right, it’s not the same thing.

It’s not but mean the classic pattern of just learn helplessness that well, once I hit this age, this is what’s gonna. Yep. I’m 52. Time to bring out the mou. The same as we, We had to have a chat with our, our daughter the other day of her going, I don’t wanna have a baby one day. It’s gonna hurt. And she’s eight Isn’t Wow.

That the idea is already implanted. And I mean, Mickey Mongan with hypno birthing who passed away earlier this, she, sadly yet she was known for at various conventions. Here was the person who did the stage hypnosis show. And in a moment, gentlemen, you were the world’s first male pregnant man and you’re gonna give birth.

And he’s up there, he’s screaming and carrying on the routine, and she would very politely walk up afterwards to that and just go, I really wish you would not do that. That’s hilarious. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. That is sort of like promoting that, that meme. I mean, one of the, I, I talk about it in. In my, um, my hot flash presentation that when I was little, my aunts actually used to sit around, Oh my gosh, my aunts are gonna listen to this.

Um, , they used to like sit around and I was little like playing on the floor and they would talk about their birthing experience, like they were talking about war stories, you know, And that’s when my heart stopped beating and I had, and, and I remember I re, I remember deciding that I was never going to have.

You know, I was like four. And I’m like, that’s kind of an early, I mean, just the story, all the power of those stories. Yeah. So then getting into the actual work, how do you, how do you begin that process in terms of addressing the hot flashes? Usually a client now, now that my clients have started talking, That I work with hot flashes and that it works.

Mm-hmm. , I get, most of my clientele are women between like 45 and and 60, and it’s mostly word of mouth. And there are, there is so much need in that demo demographic. I mean, there are so many women that are working so, so hard and they’ve got so much going on. And now when, when they first, when I first started working, With menopause and hot flashes.

It was something that I had to actually bring up that I could do something about. They, the idea that you could come in and work with hot flashes was just not even known, but now they’re starting to talk to each other about it, so that, yeah, there, there’s a phrase that I’ve been dropping this year, which is that when you’re the person who does the thing, you’re the person who does the.

Exactly. Yeah, that’s exactly . So same, as, same as that. Imagine that you did one Renaissance Fair and then that turned into several others. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So I am, yeah, I am the person that does the nail biting and I am the person that does the hot flashing. That’s, that’s me in the, in, in, in the Twin Cities.

So I’ll mention that this is something I can. We can work with and we can learn to do and they’re absolutely amazed. And then I will actually, if they’re interested, I’ll actually send them the Baylor study. Baylor University did a beautiful study on working with hypnosis and hot flashes, and they do all kinds, I’m sure you know, they do all kinds of, Great studies with hypnosis on a variety of different subjects, working on pain relief and things like that.

And once you have the magical backup of a legitimate medical society behind you, you already have all this great credibility. And then I basically do exactly what the Baylor study did. We do a really. Basic change the sensation of the hot flashes. So if they’re having one, beautiful, if they’re not, they can imagine what, what it’s like when they’re having one.

You know, they can feel their face flashing, blah, blah, blah. The face turning red, the, the, the heart beating faster. And then just do the opposite with their visualization. And again, use, Use what your. Gives you, if they’re ta I use their lang, their exact language. Okay. What it, what would it feel like? What does it feel like when it goes away?
Okay. My face cools down. My, my, my mind is like a nice, clear, smooth lake, da, da, da. and then I re I usually record that session for them and so they can listen to that in, in the Baylor study. They listen to it every day, and then they came in once a week for live one on one with a client. I have, I found that it doesn’t need to be that un intense, but they certainly can if they want.

And within a couple of weeks they’ve learned to reduce the hot flashes. And all they need to do is visualize that, that usually it’s, I live in Minnesota, so usually it’s that cold, that cold winter breeze against their face, and it’s amazing because you can actually watch it happen. Nice. It’s really cool.

I use the exact same process with myself when I’m, when I am doing shows in Colorado, because like I said, it’s over a mile up in altitude. You raise your arms, you hit the sun , and there’s like no oxygen to protect you. So, and I’m wearing, you know, the, the 30 pound full Tudor Woo costume and I can. Feel my body starting to overheat really badly and I’ll do the exact same cold visualizations and you can just watch the red just fade from your face to pink, you know, To a nice, to your nice, whatever your natural color is.

Yeah. And, uh, by the way, I’m gonna put in the show notes [email protected], this specific study, which, what’s great about the article, about this numbers of, uh, reduction as much as 80%. Yeah. Mind body therapy study of 187 women over a five week period. And, and I’ll share a little through line on this, which are you, are you booking them into a similar length of time as a plan, or are you meeting with singles, or how do you typically run that side?

I have not, I don’t run the full, I haven’t needed to run the full five weeks with, with people, Although they certainly, they certainly are welcome to. Yes. What, what I usually do is maybe we work with it, I’m a pretty brief therapy type of person. Mm-hmm. pretty usually work with it like, like four weeks cuz we’re usually working on other things as well with the, then just the hot flashes because they’re, they’re.

There’s often like an insomnia piece to it. There’s often a weight piece to it, but then we have the through line of just kind of checking up with, uh, checking in on, on the hot flashes. They’re actually kind of surprisingly, I mean, it’s not like easy, but it’s like surprisingly easy to, to learn to, to handle those

Yeah. And I, and I love that you just mentioned that it tends to pop up as something that. Along with everything else, and as soon as we get that foot in the door of one specific change, you know, the reason I was asking about the length of time was I just worked with somebody who was trying to base, I forget exactly which condition it was.

It wasn’t, it wasn’t irritable bowel, but something in a similar category. But the whole thing was that the work was wanting to be the whole evidence based, and here was the study. That was 12 weeks and 12 specific sessions. And the challenge became, she goes, That’s good, but that’s kind of a big leap for someone who’s brand new to this process to buy into 12 sessions.

And you know, that’s where the phrasing that we crafted together was based on a program of 12 sessions. However, we actually do it over the course of four. because I’m teaching you how to do it on yourself. Exactly. So some people, like a personal trainer, some people can continue onward and do the rest with assistance, though, you’re gonna have the skills to quote exercise on your own even long after we’ve worked together.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That’s, that’s what I tell them to, It’s like we’re teaching you how to do this. Mm-hmm. . And the other cool thing is, you’ll notice in the study they talked. That not only did they receive relief from the hot flashes, but they saw improvements in other aspects of their life too. They all reported a reduction of stress.

Most of them reported better sleep. And as you know, when people sleep better, the cortisol level goes down, they make better choices, it’s easier to lose weight. It’s just you start that, you start that, that ball rolling that direction and all kinds of awesome things happen. Yeah, the the positive domino effect of.

Yep. Yeah. Ooh, I love that. Yeah, it’s a positive one. , I’m writing it down too. Yeah. So then what’s the, what’s the kind of balance of things nowadays? Like how much time do you tend to put towards the performance versus the time actually, you know, actually working with clients? It is, it, it varies for the time of year.

Mm-hmm. , because of course, with Renaissance festivals, I’m doing tons of it in the summer. Uh, so I do about five months on the road and established clients I can see, you know, via, you know, online via Skype or Zoom, things like that. And now I am back in Minnesota in my office. And I also, I also, I also run a couple of, Hypnosis certification courses, so, About 50 50.

Yeah. When you get, when you get down to it, Which is nice because I find when I do, when I see clients one on one, that’s really satisfying and that reminds me why I’m doing it. It it adds like depth and meaning to it, the process. Mm-hmm. and then, and when I’m doing the stage work, it reminds me that it’s fun, so they, it, it lets me kind of go back and forth with those.

Nice. Yeah. The intentional, as I call it, the intentional three ring circus, that not every week is the exact same a. Oh heck no. And then, like I said, I’m, you know, and then, hey, let’s do grad school in between, right? Yeah. You’re not busy at all. No, not at all. Yeah. , I’m such a slacker. If only I knew a good hypnotist, Jason, that maybe it works.

Uh, . Well, this has been great. Where can, where can people check out more about you online and learn about some of the upcoming events you’ve got? You can either go to amy.live, a m y e.live, or amy the hypnotist.com is the one that will take you to my show page, but it has links to everywhere else. Nice.

And like Amy, the Heist. And you can spell Amy. Either way, because I know that people don’t understand that it’s a m y e. Oh, thank you. . I, I was on stage at a marketing event back in April, uh, last year, and there’s a moment where I said, if you have questions, just go to jason lynette.com. Don’t worry about the spelling.

I own all the misspellings. They all point to the right place. Awesome. I did and, and that was the right place to crack that kind of joke. Anywhere else they go, Why would you have that many websites? Internet marketers? They all went, Yeah, that makes sense. That’s worth an extra eight bucks a year, . Oh, absolutely.

I did the same thing. It’s like, you know, Amy, if they go a y, fine. If they go a Y, great. I didn’t take it any further than that. I probably could have. Seems work, excellent, which we’ll link to those over in the show [email protected]. And Amy, this has been fantastic to have you on here. Thank you so much.

I appreciate it. And you’re good at this. Ah, thank you. Any, any final thoughts to share with the audience out there? We’re gonna go back to the good old you are, the story you tell yourself. You are the story you tell yourself. Jason Ette here once again, and as always, thank you so much for sharing this on your social media streams, leaving your reviews online and just really considering it an ongoing resource in this profession.

So head online. Leave a review. Check out the links to Amy’s websites over at the show [email protected]. And once again, join the online community hypnotic business systems.com rather than having to reinvent the wheel and losing time and money and consider those people you wouldn’t have helped as you’re trying to build this stuff out on your own.

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