Session #254: Melissa Tiers shares 3 Anti-Anxiety Techniques

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

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast. Session number 254 Melissa Tier shares three anti-anxiety techniques. 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, and what do you notice?

Hey, it’s Jason Ette welcoming you back to the program and welcoming Melissa Tears back to the program now for the third time, and if you’re keeping Score at Home episodes, numbers 60 and 202, which we’re gonna link to those in the show notes of this episode, which just as a quick preview of here’s how this week session is going to be different simply for the reason.

Purposefully invited Melissa on to say, Here are three techniques that I learned from you nearly 10 years ago and I’m still using to this day. And let’s just have you come on and share them. So we get to deep dive into not just the how it works, but also the why it works. And even more specifically, how do you start to integrate these methods?

Into the work that you do, and this is a bit of a preview that coming up in May of 2020 here in the Washington DC metro area. Springfield, Virginia . I’m hosting, uh, Integrative Hypnosis 2.0 with Melissa, uh, presenting that event. It’s a three day event, May 15th, 16th and 17th. Full day packed schedules of content that you will use.

The same way that these are things that I learned from her years ago and continuously use with my clients to this day. You can get all the details for that over at Melissa Tier dc. Dot com. And yes, she does poke fun of me as I promote her own event during this podcast, cuz that’s our friendship. So you can find more about the origin story and the uh, where Melissa’s work comes from and how it all works.

I’d fully endorsed any of her books. She’s got out there too. And as a bit of a bonus for this week’s episode, What we’re going to do is, I’m gonna go into the recording once it’s all edited and because what’s great about this is she doesn’t just talk about the techniques, She actually demonstrates the techniques.

So let me throw in the obvious that this program may be hypnotic in nature and don’t listen to it while operating a forklift. You know what I’m getting at because you’re gonna actually hear it delivered the way that Melissa does it with her clients. And we’ll pull out the transcriptions of those three specific segments.

And let’s make this easy on you. If you go to work smart hypnosis.com/. Three. The number three techniques do it all lowercase. That’ll just redirect over to the show notes where you can see the downloads, the details for the upcoming class, and then you can download those transcriptions there as well. So these three techniques of going peripheral, and then from there, the bilateral stimulation, perhaps the greatest hits album, uh, the jaw dropping strategy, which, uh, some wonderful stories of it just being weird, but it.

So use it. And really this amazing discussion is looking at almost every issue that would come into our office as some sort of habituated pattern. And as soon as we do that, we’re now activating that habituated pattern, interrupting it, and then using that as the catalyst to create that long term change.

So the. It’s an amazing platform of work, as you’ll hear her say towards the end. That’s wonderfully inclusive of whatever model of hypnosis you do. And then from there, a framework that really gives your clients the techniques they can use to take greater control of their life. And of course, again, for more like this, join us in Washington DC and the Springfield, Virginia area.

May 15th, 16th and 17th, you can find all the details. And again, a giant photo that looks like Melissa’s about 28 feet tall, towering over the Lincoln Memorial. Because, hey, why not? Check that out. Join us together, melissa tier dc.com. And with that, let’s jump into this content pack session. Here we go.

Episode number 254. Melissa Tears shares three anti-anxiety techniques. So before we officially jump into this conversation, I have to share a little bit of a moment of maybe pride, although I don’t think that’s the right word, that I saw Melissa Tier give the keynote at, uh, I think it was the I M DHA convention, and she goes, If I have to go in another f.

Fill in the word podcast and tell my origin story and something along those lines. And I had to kind of go, You did that on mine first, I think. But uh, Hey Melissa, welcome back to the program, . Thanks Jason. Always fun. No origin story. You promise. There you go. Which, uh, by the way, if you go to the work smart hypnosis.com site and look at the show notes for this specific episode, we will link to the other.

Two previous episodes where there were hints and traces of origin story, . Uh, but I wanted to have you on to kind of, we, we get the best feedback from the people who, you know, just come on and teach something and give some strategies that people can tend to share. And without daring to risk into the origin story waters.

Could you give like an overview as to this mindset of looking at a lot of the issues that we would face and a lot of the issues we would help our clients to resolve as kind of being a habituated pattern? Can you kind of expand on that? Sure. You know, and you and I have had conversations about the fact that almost everything I think people come to us for is some form of habituated pattern, which is why they need help.

Otherwise, they could have solved it on their own. So, anxiety, for example, which is something I think you wanted to talk about. Is to me, you know, a tenacious habit. It’s one that kind of creates almost a hijack of the system, and it feels that way because it becomes almost the default position for people that do it repeatedly.

And like anything else, The way that we break habits in the brain is by interrupting the pattern and, you know, forcing the brain to segue out of that loop and into something else, right? So I have a tendency to teach, you know, some of the same techniques that I would teach to smokers, to overeaters, to people suffering from any type.

Emotional pattern of anxiety of even depression, honestly. And, and you know, I know that when we say something like that, we have to clarify that we only work with these things in conjunction with their psychiatrists. So anyway, for me it’s, it’s about how do we make the solution. Easier than them doing the thing they already know how to do very well.

Yes. Even though it doesn’t feel good. Right. The devil that you know. Yeah. So to kind of unpack that a bit, here is this automatic pattern, and I do tend to find sometimes if I’m, at least if I’m talking about these themes with a client to really stress the fact that this is not a conscious mind decision.

This is something that. Whatever language we want to use, whether it’s the system, whether it’s the unconscious or subconscious that out of some reason and we become less and less concerned with the whyt instead about more, how do I stop it? But here’s this automatic function that’s firing off when it really doesn’t need to.

And phase one, as you said, becomes, Let’s first interrupt it to then perhaps get the foot in the door and then change it into something. Right, So, so the way that I describe it to my clients is, you know, anything done with repetition, felt with repetition, even thought with repetition creates a habituated pattern in the brain, right?

And so once something is done with repetition, it can be automated. . And once it’s automated, it’s no longer a conscious decision. Right. So, you know, we, we can, we can argue about when and where that actually happens, but most people get it. They get that. I’m not saying they’re choosing mm-hmm. anxiety over not being anxious.

It’s just the way the system is set up. Right. So the first level of my work with almost every. Is to give them a set of techniques designed right to create self-directed neuroplasticity. Right? So it’s that here’s a bunch of ways for you to change your own brain, but it’s also kind of, if you think about, uh, you know, a burning building, the first thing you do is get people out of the.

Then you can investigate how the fire started, you know? Mm-hmm. or why, and who did it or what happened. But, you know, so the, the, the first level of this work is to assure my clients that they can stop it. And whether it is the anxiety or the compulsive tendency or the craving, whatever their, their, their problem is, I’m gonna give them ways of interrupting the habituated pattern and in interrupting offer relief.

So it’s not just interrupt, it’s interrupt. And where are we then? Directional the landing, you know, where do we want their mind to? And so this kind of idea of, of self-directed neuroplasticity really appeals to people because they get it when they’re doing their thing. It, it feels out of their control.

You know, it, it does not feel like a conscious decision to feel anxious , you know? And so they, they like this idea. It gives them a way of understanding their issue, but more importantly, understanding that there’s a solution. You know, I work with about, I would say at this point, 85, 90% of my clients come by way of their therapists or their doctors, their psychiatrists.

So they’ve already been labeled. With some thing, some disorder. They know they have this thing and a lot of them are under the impression that it’s a brain disease of some sort, that it’s some chemical imbalance or whatever label they have. There’s no cure and they can only manage it with meds. Right? So that’s, that’s the frame they bring into my office and I quickly shift it.

I say, Look, I can’t, you know, I’m not a psychotherapist. I can’t even speak in that diagnostic terminology. In this office, what you have is a habit. Mm, You know, a tenacious one, but let me show you how to break habits in the brain. And so automatically I give them the reins, I give them the, you know, response mobility so that they can get out of anxiety, number one.

That’s the first thing they learn. And through any of the techniques that I. And then once we do that, then we systematically work together to neutralize some of the triggers that are, you know, associated with that anxiety. And I give them self hypnosis so that they can start to really move forward in how they wanna be.

And that too is a form of, you know, neuroplasticity, kind of rehearsing how you want to feel. In hypnosis allows you to start to get the brain more sensitive to that emotional state. You know, Rick Hanson said you can practice an emotional state until it becomes a neural trait. And I think that, Yeah, right.

It’s good. That too is the other, the other side of this, it doesn’t necessarily have to be, you know, all about starting from the negative and thwarting. Practicing the positive is also instigating brain change. So I mean, to keep it, to keep it topical. We don’t have to watch what’s on the VHS cassette tape.

We could just record something new on top of it. Yeah. What year is it? Absolutely. Yeah. so well, well, well, I mean, not completely. Well, it’s, that’s we can run multiple models at the same time. One of the things that a lot of people don’t get and don’t understand about, you know, eliciting certain neural changes, is that you do wanna have the, the problem activated in order to activate that neural network mm-hmm.

to then introduce the change. So that’s why, although through repetition, people can. Make change if they just practice. You know, if they just copy over that video cassette, it’s easier if the video cassette is, you know, Yeah. You can’t use that metaphor. I know , I’ll make it easier if it’s activated first and then we introduce the pattern interrupt and the change the different emotional state.

Basically what we’re talking about is, you know, activating a neural network and then slowly or quickly, Blowing out what, what, what we call boundary condit. Of the problem in the brain. But anyway, I’m, I’m, Let’s go back to the techniques you want me to share. ? Yeah. Which, uh, this is of course a preview that you’re coming to the Washington DC area, uh, coming up on May 15th to 17th, and you can see all the details for that, including a photo that looks as if you’re about 28 feet tall.

Towering over the Lincoln, uh, Memorial. Check that out. Yeah, I like that one. Yeah, check that [email protected]. And of course we’ll link to that over at the Work Smart Hypnosis website. But taking this time, which as a preview, if you go to, uh, we will make it simple, if you go to work Smart Hypnosis.

Dot com slash Let’s make it three techniques, the number three and the word techniques. Make sure that’s all lowercase. That’ll redirect over to this page for the show notes, because from this point we’re gonna make a transcription available of this so you can model some of the actual words. So work smart hypnosis.com/all lowercase the number three techniques, and that’s where you’ll be able to get that transcription, but inviting you on to, uh, share a little bit of the methods.

And we kind of briefly talked before we jumped in, and I’ll tell you up front the, the three things you’re gonna share here, uh, at least as we planned, are ones that I consist I consistently use in my practice seeing my clients ever since I think it was. 2008, 2009 ish that I first did a class with you.

So these are things that you’ve taught around the world and I, I personally use myself. So how about you take it from here with the first one? Okay. So, Well, first just let me say in, in working with clients for almost any habituated pattern, I do give a a, a lot of techniques because, you know, some are more appropriate in some context than others.

And also I like variety and the brain likes novelty. And so, you know, . I don’t just depend on three. Mm-hmm. , because, well, for various reasons. So some of the ones that would be easy to learn just by listening to a podcast, one of my favorite ones that I use almost every day, , is shifting into your peripheral vision.

So if everyone listening would just take a moment and find a focal point, kind of front and center for their eyes. And once you find the focal point, without moving your eyes, start to lean into your peripheral vision. In other words, start to notice all the space around that focal point and start to shift out so that you can become more aware of all the space to the sides of you.

Maybe the walls on either side of you kind of shifting out as if you could become even more aware of the edges of your peripheral. and almost as if you can reach for the space behind you

and then you bring it back in to focus and just take a moment and notice what that was like.

Now when I teach people this in my office and I, I tend to do it two or three times and then practice with whatever their particular trigger. when I say, what was that like for you? Almost every single person does this. They go, uh, and the look on their face as they’re reaching for words to try and figure out what it was for them.

I always, you know, smile and I say, That’s perfect. Because the reason I teach this shifting into peripheral vision is because by shifting into peripheral vision, you seem to access a parasympathetic response. But more importantly, for our purposes, you stop internal dialogue. And so in that moment, it’s almost as if the, you know, the, the, the dominant hemisphere, you know, the language centers go offline somehow.

And I’m not even sure how that happens, but it seems pretty consistent over the years. And so for me it’s, it’s almost my, my daily mantra. You know, we live in a crazy fucking country, and so I am constantly easily thrown into a, you know, crazy anxiety or anger spiral. And obviously it’s hard to keep those things going without internal dialogue.

So I am almost always shifting out and shutting. There’s top of my head. Yeah, and there’s something inside of that too, which. You know, when we’re in that craving cycle, I, I’d kind of describe it as like the horse with the blinders or you know, like the spotlight is shining directly on one thing, but then to shift that vision out and now take in everything.

If it’s craving, if it’s some sort of addictive substance pattern, now that becomes the smallest component of the bigger picture. And also at the same time Exactly right. About quieting that mental dialogue. And you’re right, that when I asked that question of what did you notice? There’s this loss of words that’s there, that’s just, Yeah, it’s that quieting of the mind.

That’s right. I mean, I have had, I had one person who was diagnosed with O C D and, and his form was, you know, these repetitive loops that were never ending, um, since he was, you know, a child. And when we did this the first time, he almost fell off the chair . It was as if there was a vacuum created. He had never, ever experienced silence in there and it was kind of fascinating to watch, you know, It was, it was really interesting.

So, and what you just said, Jason, is, is really on point in that when we have that foal constricted, Vision. I mean, that is for rallying the sympathetic nervous system. You know, that is the, the, the collapsing of not just vision, but every, every part of us rallies to, to, that there’s a threat. And when there is no threat, we can widen out that aperture.

So yeah, there’s that. And also what you said about that craving or that trigger or that problem becoming just one small part of a wider field. It is definitely about opening up the aperture, you know? And as my friend John Overdr would say, What’s everything else you’re not noticing that’s not that? I love that.

And yeah, and it totally takes you into that like expanded scope. And so all of that happens with just the simple technique. Now for those of you practitioners, you wanna do this two or three times with your clients, they can really get a feel for it. And then you wanna take them into the problem situation so that they can use it there.

So it goes from just being this technique in your office to how do I use it? And I typically will explain, you know, if I’m walking down the street and I’m starting that internal dialogue loop, the back of the person’s head in front of me is the focal point. I shift out and shut. I’m telling you, that’s my new t-shirt.

shift out and shut up all . We’ll have those, uh, we’ll have those available in May. When you’re down here, and I, and I talk about being on an airplane when there’s turbulence, you know, and how the screen in front of me becomes the focal point. I shift out. Mm-hmm. and shut up. Because you cannot keep anxiety or a craving going without internal dialog.

which what you just said there is beautiful, because then if we wanted to, we can reverse engineer this to now begin to create that intensified focus, create that intention. So if it’s the person who wants to focus on something more, we can take some of these ideas where they’re noticing everything in the environment and now zero it in exactly as you mentioned with the, uh, with, with the television screen in the back of the.

Right. Yeah. And, and it would be interesting really to, to, to try a balanced state, right? Because there, there is a, a balanced focus of awareness and that would be an interesting thing to play with, you know, from a more expansive state of being. How do we then, like a laser focus in without collapsing into that foal constriction?

Anyway, that’s, that’s for another conversation. Nice. Nice. Which, I mean to share some applications, any kind of, we can define everything as being habituated pattern, so. Mm-hmm. , you know, for, I had someone I used this with recently that was having some anger issues at work, and as soon as we did that, and exactly what I’ve heard you refer to as looping, and now bring that into that environment where you’re there at work and do this, what do you notice?

Oh, I can, I can respond to all these other ways. I can just not let it bother me. I can focus on the fact that in a half an hour I get to go home and I don’t have to deal with this anymore. And they’re beginning to resolve their own issue because they’re realizing that they’re not just the victim of that feeling.

And it’s a stuck state. It’s instead now something that they can play with. They can bend and they can morph. Yes. And once they have that right, so, So they can play with it. They can, they can bend it, morph it, all of that stuff. They can also internalize it. And here’s where it, it starts to go generative.

For example, the other night I was concerned my daughter was having an issue and she was, she’s, she’s away at, at school and she was getting upset. And I started, you know, kind of mentally looping, you know, like we do with our, when we worried about our kids and you know, uh, what about this and what about this?

And oh, how is she gonna do this? How is she gonna do this? And I literally, in my mind, Expand it out. Mm-hmm. like, like in other words, internalize the question of what is everything that I am not noticing about her thing in college that’s not this. Or that’s not that. And what that does is, oh, she has these friends.

Oh, she’s finding this, Oh, she’s doing this. And all of a sudden this, this, this anxiety she was experiencing becomes just one little piece in this bigger picture. Like, no, Melissa, you don’t have to get on a bus and go , surprise your daughter with a takeout, you know, dinner up at college and no.

I am the first person to be like, You’re not happy with college. Quit. Come on home. Yeah. You know, I don’t care. Let’s, let’s travel, let’s spend the money some other way. You know, like, I am that mother. Nice. I have stayed at three different Airbnbs up in New Paul.

So let’s, let’s move to another strategy. And I, I, I have to, so, so just, so, just so I close that loop real quick. Yeah. So it’s internalizing the effect of the constant use of peripheral vision so that it goes beyond just the actual peripheral vision and becomes a way of busting out of any restraining thought pattern.

Does that make sense? That does, yeah. And that’s, Okay, good. That helps to highlight something that I’ve not been using appropriately and I can now do, uh, better. Thank you, . Sure. My pleasure. Yeah, bringing it down here for everyone else, but also for me. Let’s call it out . So let’s talk bilateral stimulation.

All right, so this is a really, really, really simple one, and I always caution my students that when they’re teaching this to a client, make sure that the client is currently feeling some anxiety or craving or anger, whatever their issue is, you’ve gotta activate. Otherwise, this thing is gonna look so ridiculous that they’re gonna, you know, wanna leave your office.

They’re gonna be like, What the fuck did I come in here for? Sorry, Jason. It’s all good. . It’s, it’s okay. Everyone’s a grownup. There’s actually that going. And if I get the number right, I’m gonna win something. So, Enjoy

Great. So you know what I, The, the reason is it looks so simple and it, it is ridiculously simple. So, I’m gonna share this with you, but more importantly, I’m gonna share some ways to deliver this so that you get conscious buy in. Mm-hmm. from the client, which I know, Jason, you and I have had discussions about, you know, the, the, the need for conscious buy in.

I’m here working with New Yorkers. They like to know how things work. They like to know, you know, why they. And if I’m gonna expect them to utilize it outside of my office, I better give them a damn good explanation. Yeah. And I’d share before, I think it was the second time you were on the podcast, which from looking back, I think it was around like episode number 200 and.

Two. It was where That’s really why I had you. I’m cheating. It’s in front of me. Uh, that’s why , No, that’s part of why I had you back on to go think. Let me think. I think it was 209. Yeah. Well, the first one was episode 60 on May 19th, 2016. But who’s counting? Uh, . No. It was that without the right framing, this next technique could have become the moment, as it did for me a few times of, yeah, this is interesting, but are we gonna actually do the hypnosis?

Right. That without the right framing and that that can be true of so many things that we do without the framing that needs to be there. It kind of gets lost in the weeds as opposed to what I know you’re about to chat about to go, here’s how we set it up and here’s how we future pace. How they’re gonna make use of it too.

Right. So, and I think if anyone, I, I mean, it might even be on YouTube at this point. I break this down. This particular technique I use as a teaching tool in my classes. In the explanation of it, I talk about how we are utilizing not just our ability as a hypnotist to be a bit more influential by using embedded commands, our body language, pacing and leading temporal shifts, spatial shifts.

All of these things go into the explanation. You know, I don’t waste any time in my office. I am always aware of working on a few different levels at once, so utilizing the explanation as a hypnotic induction helps everything along. So, The bilateral stimulation. What I’ll do first is I’ll say, All right, think of that thing.

Or imagine getting into the elevator, or imagine going, you know, up on that stage, whatever it is, I’m going to use my, my powers to instigate the anxiety in my office. That is the only way for me to change it, is to make sure that I activate the neural network of it, right? So, so first we get the anxiety. I say zero to 10, where.

right? So they’ll say eight or whatever, I’ll, and I’ll hand them either a water bottle or whatever, you know, I have, I’ve got these little spongy brains, that sounded funny. Anyway, like we do, And I, and I, I hand them to the person and I say, Follow me. So the technique, just to be clear, is to pass the ball or water bottle back and forth, making sure to cross the midline.

Right from one hand to the other. And as I’m doing this, I look at my client and I say, Okay, so the reason this is working, and I nod my head as I embed the command this is working is because, and here’s where I might talk a little bit to my students about the power of the word because, but. I don’t do this with clients, so I’ll say the reason this is working is because that anxiety, So here is where I would teach my students about the spatial, you know, language of this and that and how that dissociates.

But anyway, back to the client. I’ll say the reason this is working or that the reason this is working is because that anxiety. Is primarily an overactivation of one hemisphere. And right now we are stimulating right brain and left brain and right brain and left brain, and so we’re spreading a bunch of activity across both hemispheres and that anxiety can’t keep it shit together.

That anxiety circuit just can’t keep its shit together. As I shake my head no, as I use a dismissive facial expression, right? So there’s the little bit of. Of the explanation while it’s happening. Okay. And how I can use it in my classes cuz many people listening might, you know, be, uh, trainers to kind of start to seed some of these other concepts.

Of using the language of dissociation, of bringing in a little sing song to activate a different part of the brain, bringing in tempo, tonality, things like that. But the basic technique is ridiculously simple. So that my daughter in fourth grade taught it to her whole class before their tests. Nice . And some of these parents still email me.

This was a long time ago. So even a fourth grader can teach it to a whole classroom just by giving them something and saying, Okay, now pass it back and. right now, the conscious buy-in comes by explaining what’s happening in the brain. Now, I learned this, like I learned everything the hard way. . Mm-hmm. . I had a psychiatrist, right?

Because my clientele at this point tend to be either somebody else’s. Patient, right? They come by way of a therapist, psychiatrist, or the therapist, the coach, the psychiatrist. So I have these two main groups that come to me in my as private clients. And just think for a moment, if you’ve been struggling with anxiety for however long, many years, the only thing you know to do for anxiety is, you know, medication or maybe some breathing t.

And all of a sudden somebody gives you this, you know, this, this ball or water bottle? Squishy brain. Squishy brain. I didn’t wanna say it again. I have . And you’re passing it back and forth and your anxiety goes from an eight in intensity, down to a zero. You’re gonna be pissed off. Mm-hmm. , you’re gonna be like, What have I been doing for 40 years?

That, that this ridiculous, stupid thing has stopped anxiety. And they will, they’ll resent. So if you give them, and sometimes with someone like that, someone who’s been in the field for a long time, I’ll say, you know, they’re just finding out, or research is now indicating, so it sounds very current. And of course you couldn’t have known that

You what I mean. Sorry. I love that. Yeah. , the power of the right phrase at the right time to excuse the, how did I not yet know this? Because you need a conscious buy in. People need a way of understanding it, number one, right? And to feeling good about using it and not to use it is yet one more indicator that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.

You know, and you don’t want that. So to me, bilateral stimulation is so easy that the kids that I work with can do it. I mean, uh, you know, I’ve had a three year old client and this stopped their, their their panic. You know, they would go into panic, they would wake up screaming and, and now the mother just does this.

They do this little game. So, I mean, it works. So then it appears to ask, just to expand upon it, what, what applications, how would you then future pace, how they’re gonna make use of. Right. So in the same way that our future pays everything, right? So it, it, it depends. So once we’re doing that, then it’s okay.

Now imagine, you know, walking into that thing or sitting in class, I work with a lot of kids, so I taught them how to do it under their desk. I teach them how to do it without passing, uh, an actual object back and. You know, and whether it’s just even the butterfly hug or the bilateral tapping from emdr, you know, it’s all really instigating that that’s that full hemispheric kind of balance state.

But what I would typically do, I mean, if, if someone is, is coming to me, I mean, I, I will typically attach it to whatever their issue is. That’s how I future pace it. Nice. If it’s something I can get my hands on, if they are claustrophobic, then I always stick ’em in an elevator. If, you know, I had someone terrified of the dark, I take ’em into one of the offices that in my center that doesn’t have a window, so it’s pitch dark.

You know, like whenever possible I test in real time. You know, I’m a big proponent of if the change is gonna fall apart, please let it fall apart in my office. Right? Yeah, that’s fine. Cause then I can, then I can double down, then I can fix it. Then I can do something. You know, too many hypnotists are too afraid of, of testing vigorously because they’re afraid that somehow the problem’s gonna come back.

And, and I always, you know, say that if, if you are so worried that that changes, that fragile, then you haven’t done enough work. Thank you. . Yeah, there there’s two sort of frameworks that I give to people in my office nowadays, which is that, you know, for your benefit in mind, I’m a little impatient and I’m not impatient to kick you outta here and move on to the next person.

We’ve got all the time that we need, but instead of the fingers crossed and hope this works, you’re gonna see that we’re gonna be testing this the whole way through and challenging what we’re about to create. So neither of us is leaving here until we know we’ve. Sound good? Yeah. And they go, Yeah. And at that point, the next phrase is a smile with a come on back, and then they get to go into the hypnosis room.

So the process begins that way, which, you know, that sets it on edge to go, here’s how we’re really gonna workshop this thing and really set it in motion. And it’s even, you know, to give some of the structure too back to. A client calls me, whether it’s the peripheral vision, the the bilateral stimulation, or the next thing we’re about to talk about.

These are things that I’ve been using and, and one of those other frameworks is, and along the way I’ll be teaching you self hypnosis strategies you can do anytime, anywhere, and practically no one knows you’re doing something. So even if there is the moment where some of that old issue pops up, you’re gonna have the ability to interrupt that and change it to something.

Makes sense. Yep. So giving them that framing. And I know at the event coming up in May, it’s again in 2020 in Springfield, Virginia, all the [email protected] will link to that in the show notes as well. Uh, we, we have to, uh, getting into more, You really are an inspiration here, Jason. Cause uh, I mean, I gotta.

This was the person who has not launched her own book and has sold more copies than my book that I launched Steve Martin’s business Model. So good. They can’t ignore a book launch. There you go. We’ll make it work. It doesn’t matter if it’s 15 years late. I know. Someday. Someday I will gather a fucking marketing list in some sort.

I keep waiting for the day. You know it and I know it that you’re gonna say, Melissa, I’ll do it for you. Let me . Let me set that up and sell whatever the hell you wanna do. You’ve seen the pace. My brain works is always all you have to do. The number of stuff I haven’t get done. no one day. I always say one day I’m gonna get at Chris Thompson.

But now Chris Thompson took your training, I think, and now he’s delegated all of his. Things to other people because , and I’ve got a Chris, but she’s in the Philipp, known Chris Thompson. So you know, I don’t even know where it’s, where, where, where it’s gonna go. All the stuff works. We just have to do it.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about trying to get clever. Let’s just talk about jaw dropping

So this is another ridiculously simple one that requires a bit of finessing as far as the conscious buy-in, right? And this is really a good one when it comes to forcing people into confronting their own , their own ideas of, of beauty, because nobody really wants to sit there dropping their jaw , but because it works so well, my clients will do it.

They’ll do it on the subway, they’ll do it anywhere. Have you, have you been around Lance Baker in Australia? No. Okay. There’s a way, and he uses this, I think as an entry point into Bob Burns the Swan, which is that he’ll find a place, and I may be paraphrasing this slightly, but he’ll find the place to playfully interrupt the person, I think, and just throw in the phrase, Hey, do you mind if I jump in for a moment and ask you, is it okay if things get a little weird in here?

As long as it gets the result that you’re here? And I, and I gotta tell you, ever since I heard him say that I have been using that nonstop, which kind of gives you that creative license to get away with so many new things. It’s like, is it okay if things get kind of awkward in here? As long as it works well, I usually use something to that effect when I’m about to introduce like maybe a tapping technique or, you know, I’ll.

You know. All right, so things are gonna get a little bit weird, but I mean, you’re in a fucking hypnotist office, so what do you expect? There you go. You know, people are just like, Okay, , Or I might just say, I’m about to get a little Californian on you, so please forgive me. Nice. And most New Yorkers will laugh.

Yeah. And then I’ll introduce maybe heart breathing or something that feels really like, you know, California to me. So this one is, is is another way of accomplishing what, uh, heart breathing will do, which is to downregulate the vagus nerve, right? The, the, the, the nerve that is in charge of the fight or flight or rest and digest and all of that.

It is the, it is the, the feedback loop. between the brain and the body. The body and the brain. Anyway, so this, all it does, or rather all it requires, is for the client to, you know, when they’re feeling any anxiety or anything like that, anger, anxiety, stress is to drop their jaw. And if you want, as you’re listening right now, just drop your jaw and when you think you’ve dropped your jaw all the way, Drop it some more

and now what most people will notice is a slowing down, slowing down of their body and most people will then have to take a deep breath in. Okay. That is a very interesting way of. Kind of, uh, getting into the whole Vegas system. So this, you can do anywhere, right? And, and as I said, the only problem is when I’m working with, you know, mainly young women who don’t wanna look like they’re a, you know, cave woman, dropping their jaw on the subway, but the fact that it really works, It, you know, gets them to do it.

Yeah. Now we can talk about why, Right. And, uh, to get the conscious buy-in. I explained just a little bit about the, the vaus nerve and how, you know, there’s kind of two branches and there is one branch that, that is in the jaw and in all the facial muscles, around the eyes, around the mouth. And how it is the, you know, the social signaling that we kind of have unconsciously built in.

As you know, we’re heard animals, right? And so we have ways of unconsciously reading very quickly the vagal state of our tribe. And one of that is through facial express. And so, you know, this is where, when I’m, when I’m talking about the vagus nerve, I, I bring in some of the interesting research about, you know, what signals danger to the vagus nerve.

And I, I, I’m doing a whole talk on this actually, because I think it’s so relevant for our work and what we do, because almost every reading of the vagus nerve is, is unconscious, right? It’s what Steven POEs would call neuroception. Which is the perception of your nervous system, and it’s always reading.

You know what I, what I always say to my students is, you know, your clients and you and all of us, Our nervous system is constantly scanning the environment. It never stops, really, and it’s always asking a question, the same question over and over and over again, and that question is, Am I safe? Mm-hmm.

right? That’s its job to keep us safe, and there’s certain things that will signal that we’re not safe, and one is a flat affect on someone’s face. That means a face without any express. . It’s also the lack of toity, uh, tonality, musicality, right? So people that have a monotone voice, they signal danger to the nervous system.

So I always joke about the old Hollywood hypnotist, you know, you are getting sleepy and how it is the very thing that petrifies people. Yeah. Or I talk about how Hollywood has already figured out what scares our nervous system because almost all of this scary monsters have no facial expression. , You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. . Anyway, so jaw dropping is something that I just teach very, you know, as one of, as I said, one of 15 different quick techniques designed to be utilized in the moment when they’re feeling that unwanted feeling. And as I said, whether it’s anxiety or a craving or a compulsive tendency or anger or stress, whatever it.

To immediately just drop your jaw, shifts you in a way that is, is hard to explain, which is why you want to do it with your clients. You can’t just tell them about it. Yeah. And you can’t just show it to them outside of a problem, emotional state because they’ll think you’re crazy. But once they feel, when they’re, when they’re feeling anxious and then they do this, and all of a sudden the anxiety just starts to just dissipate.

Then that is, you know, that’s what gets that conscious buy in. So to kind of tie it together, then what would be. Is it as simple as asking and what do you notice now? Or is there some other sort of checkpoint to see that yes, it actually has produced a result? Well, so yeah, I’m always saying, What are you noticing now?

Yeah, I mean, that is, that is, that is a mantra of mine, and I’ve used that ever since day one. I thank you for that . Sure. Yeah. Um, and there’s a catch phrase and some of my trainings of stop being a hypnotist and suggesting crap . It’s not, And now feel that confidence moving down through, It’s like, no, no, no.

And as you do this, what do you notice? Because Yeah. Whatever they give you is the map of the next step to continue. Well, that’s it. Process. It’s a dance, you know? And I don’t know, Anyway, you and I are on the same page here. To me, this is a co-creative thing. I don’t wanna just sit there doing some monologue.

Right. You know, and but also, What are you noticing now or what’s happening now? Presupposes change that question. Yes. Because the unspoken part of that is as opposed to then, Right? But also it, it allows you to constantly be changing the set point. Right. If change is about iteration, and if every moment is a new moment, Then what’s happening now collapses everything into the present moment and not how it was or how they’re afraid it will be.

It’s just allowing you a new start point. And so, you know, it’s just constant. It’s just one of my everyday phrases, you know, And I’ve been doing that for forever because I was first into hypnosis. Out of curiosity, I wanted to know. I still do that, you know, I’m still the annoying person that, you know, when people, when I see someone in a, in a demonstration of a new technique I’ve never seen, you know, I will find them in the.

And I will wanna know how it felt from the inside. What did they notice? What was different? You know, because, So that kind of habit started at, at the very onset of my, you know, hypnosis career of, you know, what’s happening now, what are you noticing now? What’s happening inside of there? And so it was nice years later when I was learning from John over df, when he.

Kept asking that and he called it, what did he call it? Oh, welcome to the church of what’s happening now. . . Nice. Yeah, really. There’s actually a song I heard called the Church of, You know what’s Happening now, but maybe I, Maybe I’m hallucinating. I’d do that. We’ll take it. . Well, this, this has been great to be able to actually share specific techniques for those who have not yet seen these.

And again, these are ones that I’ve been using ever since I learned them from you. And we’ll get, uh, we’ll pull out the transcriptions of those individual segments, which work smart hypnosis.com/number three techniques just to put that out there. Great. Uh, for the folks, let. Let me just add one thing before you Yeah.

Kind of continue that pitch simply because I feel like three techniques, I feel like jaw dropping is just such a quickie that it doesn’t really, So lemme just throw in another little quickie. Oh, wait, wait. There’s more . Well, just, just a little bit it. It’s just another little Go for it. Anybody thing. But I found myself using it yesterday when I had a very stressful, intense day and I found myself using it about 10 minutes before this.

Okay. And it is another one that sounds absolutely ridiculous until you use it in the moment when you need. and it is something, I think its origins are, are in C B T somewhere along the line could have been Well anyway, and it’s whenever you have the what ifs, the what if lines, right? Like for me it was, you know, what if the, what if I don’t get internet?

What if during to, you know, practice night, uh, I, I. Internet. What if people are just stuck on zoom? You know, there’s all these what ifs, right? What if I’m late? That that was how it started. Cause the train stopped. What if I’m late? What if my clients are waiting outside my door? So to just add one simple little two letter word to every what if statement actually changes everything for me?

And that is the word. So, and you’ll never get it until you actually run through your own. What if. So what if I’m late? What if my client is waiting out there? What if the internet goes out during my Skype session? What if all of a sudden it becomes, so what if I’m late? So what if my client is waiting outside my door?

So what if the internet, you know, goes down? Welcome to the world, You know? And it just immediately shifts things. And I find that by sharing that little bit, so many of my clients with anxiety, They lean on that one and it really helped. I mean, it’s similar to the classic, Well then what would happen and then what would happen, kind of patterning makes me go back to the day years ago that my, uh, I drove into my office park and there were a bunch of the trucks from the power company and the thought was, I’m not gonna have power today.

And I got in. Of course, they’re working on everything, and I called up the first appointment to go, Hey, do you want to reschedule? It was like the third appointment in our series. It’s like, Hey, do you want to reschedule? Uh, there’s no power at the office today. And he’s the one who goes, You talk to me in a dark room and most often my eyes are closed.

All right, I’ll see a 10 . Well, on some level it is very much like. And then what will happen. But because of the clientele that I work with, I’m not necessarily liking that one. Yeah. Simply because they catastrophize everything. Yes. So then it’ll lead down to a dark place, you know, like, Oh, then what’ll happen?

They’ll hate me. Then what’ll happen? They’ll, you know, my life will be over. Then what’ll happen? I’ll fucking die. Mm-hmm. , you know, like that is where a lot of my clients will go. But the, so. It, it forces you to change the tonality in your head. Yes. You can’t do it otherwise. In the same way that when I, I, I rescued my last dog.

I really wanted to name him Bozo , and I got out voted, but my rationale was, I want you to try and yell at Bo. Nice. Yeah. , you can’t, you’re like bozo and you just laugh. You can’t yell at the dog. Right. now that his name is Gus, I yell at him all the time. Oh yeah. Yeah. But Bozo, so it’s the same thing. It’s, it’s this little thing, but in order to actually say it to yourself, it forces you to change your tonality.

Mm-hmm. . And it changes the entire fucking. Damn it. Love it. . So to tie it all together, for those that are curious about the event we’ve got coming up in May, uh, beyond these three things, what else could they look forward to in terms of whether it’s trans work, whether it’s additional strategies? Well, you know, this is integrative Hypnosis 2.0, right?

So it’s really. Kind of a state, state of the art where I am today. And so it is, it is really how I work with clients. So yeah, they’re gonna get a lot of techniques. They’re gonna get the three levels of my work that I focus on these days, you know, and so many different ways to use it. But more importantly, it’s an inclusive.

Structure. And what I mean by that, Jason, is I think you and I had had a conversation already at some point. I don’t know about how sick and tired we were of going to these workshops, because I’m always going to training still. You know, I’ve, I’ve been in this field over 20 years, but I’m still always learning.

I’ve got a big workshop I’m going to next month, and you get there and they’re like, Forget everything. You, you know, this is the way to change. Mm-hmm. , or this is the technique, you know, like, don’t use any of that. And I’m like, you know that it’s so absurd because you’re telling people that have been successfully helping people to change that their way is not the right.

So this protocol is inclusive. In other words, everything that you love to do in your change work has a place in this form. I’m just giving you a slightly different lens, and I’m adding to the flexibility. Into the system. So you get the self-directed neuroplasticity and everything that I do to foster specific, you know, brain changes and you, you get a little more nuanced view.

You get the second layer of how best to, you know, neutralize. Triggers and inspire generative changes. And then you get some of my favorite deep, deep trans states that are bigger, broader than any one or two or three particular issues. And so it’s really. It’s, it’s like my greatest hits, but put in a full on system of change that is still open for, for you to put everything else you’re doing inside of it.

And so I, I really think it’s, if anyone, Has read Integrative Hypnosis or even took, you know, one of my workshops years ago. Then this is the updated version, and it’s so funny, somebody was in my class and they said, you know, because they had taken my, maybe my second certification training, some, you know, maybe 17 years ago or something, and they said, It’s so funny because you.

I’m not teaching anything that I used to teach that long ago, you know, because I’m always adapting, synthesizing, simplifying. And you and I were talking about how ultimately I’m gonna put myself out of business simply because, uh, it’s getting simplified and simplified and simplified to the, to the extent that I use the same types of thinking or creating, or even protocol as I.

For, you know, anxiety as I would for any other issue that shows up because this is the way the brain changes, you know what I mean? And then to bring in what I feel is really vital to us as humans, which is, you know, clarity and understanding and meaning, you know, as I said, The, these techniques are designed to get the person out of the burning building, but we really do wanna know why it caught fire

And that’s where we go a little deeper and we look at the why. Because we’re human and we like to make meaning, you know? So anyway, so that’s, that’s what I’ll be bringing and I’m, I’m excited, I’m excited for it because it, every time I do something like this, it synthesizes a few things for me as well.

You know, I, I do teach to learn and sometimes a question will, you know, will give me months of. Creative thinking. Jason Leded here once again, and as always, thank you so much for sharing this program, for interacting with it, leaving your reviews online. And once again, you’ve heard a bit of a preview. Join us together.

Live in Springfield, Virginia. Easy to travel to the Washington DC area. Two major airports. We’ve got a great hotel deal, three days of basically a inclusive training experience to really learn some strategies that, quite honestly, I’ve been using ever since I learned them. And I wanna see what she’s been up to since then, and that’s why we’re bringing her into town.

Check that out. Melissa Tier, dc. Dot com and we will see you in Virginia in May. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.