Session #361: Trauma and Relaxation

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 361. Trauma and relaxation. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Linett, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Linett. Now, a bit of an interesting thing happened in a recent hypnosis training event that we were running, and I’m gonna keep the intro relatively brief this week because we’re actually about to bounce away from this podcast recording.

And instead to an audio replay of a live stream that I did over in our Work Smart Hypnosis community, which by the way, if you’re not yet a member of that community, head over to work smart hypnosis.com/ 360 1. That’ll be the show notes for this week’s episode, and that’s where you can see the link to join that community and also, Well, at this point you have an option.

Option one is to continue listening to this podcast episode in which you’ll hear the audio of that live stream re replay, or option number two is you can actually watch it as well. So either way, here’s the story behind it. There was a question that was asked that had a bit of an insinuation around whether or not someone could respond to suggestions of relaxation or if that would even be a possible danger inside of a session, and as it would be.

That question popped up with like 90 seconds left on the clock of the class, and we’d like to make sure that we wrap up on time as promise to our students. So instead I said, Well, let’s join each other in the community in a little bit, and I will share some thoughts on that. And as you’re about to hear, there’s a lot to the answer of the question.

So take note of a few things as you hear this upcoming dialog. It would be the mindset that you should not necessarily jump to the absolutes and generalizations as frequently as some unfortunately may. Instead, The most powerful word you can apply in terms of critical thinking in your hip, not accession is the word, Maybe.

Maybe that’s the case. Maybe that isn’t. Maybe you’ll find a lot of valuable insights inside of this audio replay. Do you see that? I didn’t plan that transition, but man, it sounded good. And hey, for more like this, head over to work smart hypnosis live.com. That’s the ongoing certification event that we run, which actually brings together myself as well, aser non guard to share differing opinions, different views, but it’s all about helping you to become even more confident in your skills as a hypnotist.

It’s part of why, as much as it is a certification and training program. Classically, about half of the people are brand new to hypnosis, and this is the first thing that they’re doing. Meanwhile, the other half for people who have significant training yet perhaps are not yet getting the results that they want, they’re a little cautious to jump in.

Or perhaps it’s kind of like where I was about, you know, about 15 years ago where, okay. I know a lot of great techniques, but now how the heck do I actually put it together and help people? That’s why we attract that split audience. It’s also part of why, Hey, since September of 2018, we have sold out every event that we’ve done.

So if this is of interest to you, grab your spot sooner than later. Check that out at work smart hypnosis live.com. And with that, let’s jump over to the audio replay of the live stream. Here we go. Session number 361. trauma and relaxation. Hey, everybody who is up for a live stream training to talk about how trauma can affect your ability to actually run through the basic processes of hypnosis.

That’s what this is gonna be all about. For those of you that might not yet know me, I’m Jason Linett, and part of my backstory. Is that I opened up a local business called Virginia Hypnosis back in November of 2009, and ran it for about a dozen years before making the decision to migrate down here to Orlando, Florida, move my entire business online in terms of seeing clients and all the details they’re in.

And now that I’m in Orlando, we let the name Virginia Hypnosis go. Cuz clearly I’m not there anymore. Still have the website though. Uh, . And I wanted to hop on here and you can see there’s a big description. Up above in terms of what this presentation, uh, is gonna be all about. And there is a segment of the audience out there that knew I was doing this.

Usually we will put up some sort of alert or announcement and like a fancy countdown to say, Hey, we’re going live at 3:30 PM on my time on Wednesday. In this case, I’ve been teaching a class and then recorded a podcast episode like, um, up until three minutes ago. Uh, so I’ve been talking all day. So if I’m a little wiry.

We’re gonna have some fun here, and I’ll give, first of all, as the room begins to fill in, and as people begin to gather for these thoughts and insights and, uh, strongly held opinions I’m about to be sharing here, which I will say, don’t come from just a place of armchair philosophy, but instead come from experience.

And let me give you one segment of the end result of everything I’m about to share. , it doesn’t matter how clever you think you are, it doesn’t matter how clever you might think I am, which thank you. Uh, instead, the brilliance that can come from opening up your ears, opening up your perceptions, and truly listening to your client and hearing how their perceptions begin to change.

That’s where some of the most valuable insights can come from. Any style of change work that we can possibly do. And I did tell the group I was gonna be sharing this as an insight. We don’t need to get into whose question was this, because I’ll say there’s a more generalized perspective. inside of this question, so it’s no longer about the individual who knows that I’m sharing this as a teaching point.

Let me kind of set the stage though. The Work Smart Hypnosis Live event that we do is a training and certification class, and surprisingly, over time, half the audience tends to be people who are brand new to hypnosis, and that’s the first thing that they’re doing in terms of their education. You and I both know that there’s a lot of people though, who are stuck inside of rigid protocols or afraid to break away from scripted techniques, which is part of why the other half of this audience are people who already may have significant training in education and might already be representing themselves professionally.

And I’ll call this out. There was a moment where someone goes, I don’t know if I wanna do a video intro. You probably saw this last week. I don’t know if I wanna do a video intro, uh, in that group because my former instructor is also in that group. Um, and the opinion I’d share is that if you operate from that as an idea, it’s gonna hold you back a lot longer than it needs to.

The more successful the person in this industry is, the more likely they have a passion for ongoing education. And that’s something I consistently find is the case. I’m heading out to a mastermind event next week in the other side of the country and something that I appreciated was here’s the two people that clearly run that event and when they had another speaker up, they sat down front row and they were taking notes as well.

Kinda like when I would do back in Virginia guest training events, I would only bring people in that I wanted to see. Myself. So the environment today, today was class number two, and I spent the first half teaching a classic Dayman induction, which I always promise is not just a training on the day. Ment induction, though it is a training on the day, Alman induction, It’s really a lesson about how to work interactively with your.

How to work, not by assumption, but by real time feedback and how to troubleshoot on the fly and how to build an element of unstoppable confidence in your hypnotic induction because there’s no wrong way for it to go. However it plays out is how it should go, and here’s how we customize. The reason I love the Dave Ment induction is by the time we’re done with it, I’ve now learned how to give instruction to my.

So that it gets a result, and my client has learned how to follow the steps of what I’m guiding them through because no, all hypnosis is not self hypnosis. All hypnosis becomes self hypnosis eventually. And my favorite part of the conversation is then my cohost for the training. Richard Non guard Swos in for the second half, class two, and teaches his contextual skills building hypnotic induction.

And we’ve done this together enough that we always politely jab at each other that he doesn’t do the Dave Valman induction, and I don’t do his contextual skills building induction. But at the end of the day, we agree on a lot of stuff, and this is why the course has been designed. It’s why I brought Richard on board to.

I’ll say at an event I was already selling on, on my own, I brought it a co-host because this is what gives the students even greater flexibility. That preamble is kind of necessary for the context as to the question that popped up, because inside of the Dave Alman induction are suggestions for relaxation.

Phase one is what we call small muscle catay. Relax your eyelid muscles all the way to point. Where it’s as if they just don’t wanna work, test them. Satisfy your, It’s a relaxation instruction. It’s specific and pointed relaxation. And then even the second step is quit testing and send that relaxation down across your body.

So it’s not quite progressive muscle relaxation, it’s more, let’s say, intentional relaxation. Even if you’re doing the floppy arm drop as the fourth step, it’s a relaxation instruction. Or, hey, relax those numbers out of your mind to the point where it’s as. There’s just nothing left to count as much as it’s not a progressive muscle relaxation induction.

There’s a lot of the R word inside of that process. Hypnosis is not relaxation. Hypnosis by way of definition, is a process that creates a more receptive state of mind, which is just a bit of an. From the old word of suggestibility, and by way of suggestive techniques, we can suggest relaxation. And by doing so, the client can now feel relaxation.

So the hypnosis is not the relaxation. Easiest example of this, the majority of my clients now are high level entrepreneurs who want to become identity based brands. They want to become the face of their business. They wanna break out of a commodity based offering of, they’re just another financial advisor.

They’re just another personal trainer. They’re just another contractor. They want to become the face of their brand, which now requires an entirely different influential respect of how we communicate through our market. And now as the camera turns on, feel that relaxation flowing through your body as you’re telling your audience about this incredible story.

You’re so exci. No, this is a phrase that stands to be true consistently, that we need to point our change process to the emotions. And just like the athlete is relaxation, the thing that they’re going for in that moment. As I have worked with, there’s several dozen of these now, uh, as I worked with one of the power lifters who can put a thousand pounds, uh, weight, um, not money, cuz a thousand pounds in money is a whole lot lighter than a thousand pounds of physical weight.

Um, a lot of kilos, uh, on a barbell do a full barbell squat. Um, forgive the language, but this is the terminology in that world. The asked the grass. and then stand back up. Right. And then rew the weight, um, feel relaxation flowing through your No, no. Instead we’re talking energy. We’re bringing excitement.

We’re bringing his word. He brought to the process this vicious nature of your muscles. I’ve never attached that word in any bit of exercise, but again, not about how clever you are. How clever I am. He brought that to the process. That was the word we had to use to. So clearly suggesting another feeling beyond relaxation was the hypnotic change method.

Let’s keep going with relaxation for a moment. Uh, and I know I haven’t even told you the question yet. There’s a lot of a foundation. It’s why I told the group I can’t answer that. And the three minutes we had left, and they’re gonna get this in there, uh, people who go through work smart hypnosis live, there’s a private member library where all the resources go into it.

Um, I know I send enough email out as it. I know , which is why all the resources for them go in one lifetime access library. So Richard then kicks into the skills building contextual hypnotherapy induction, which let’s call it out as much as the man says he doesn’t do a Dave Alman induction. It’s. Very similar in structure.

Dave Elman Induction is basically five or six steps depending on how you count it. You only move to the next step when you see you’ve received the intended result. Richard, Skills Building induction, I like it so much. I with permission, put a copy of it in the manual that I give my students. Even if we’re not training together.

It’s five steps. You only move to the next step when you see you’ve satisfied the goals of the step before. , There’s a logical nature to how you progress. And again, his nature of that technique and the classic element approach, hurdles, you’re only moving with forward with intention. You’re not working by assumption, which is, I think, a fault of how a lot of people do hypnosis.

They look relaxed in the chair, therefore they now become a sponge, maybe. Maybe not. So relaxation has been a component of both of these. And let me credit Richard for this nuance, by the way. Uh, the work of Dr. Herbert Benson, the classic book, the Relaxation Response, when you really think about it, relaxation is kind of the opposite feeling of most, not all, but most of our clients’ issues that they’re going through.

Relaxation has a benefit if they’ve been anxious in public speaking, and if they can recreate a feeling of relaxation, clearly that’s gonna help them. I heard Michael Elner for many years say, If all you did was progressive muscle relaxation, you can expect a significant increase in comfort and a reduction of.

Absolutely. Let’s go to some other categories. Irritable bowel syndrome. Clearly building relaxation is gonna be beneficial for that person. A person holding onto even fear of public speaking if they can relax on the flight. So let’s respectfully or disrespectfully call this out. There’s a segment of our community likes to say, Don’t do, relax.

So therapy. , which Thank you, Richard, for this nuance. The research doesn’t even suggest, the research proves it’s a viable modality to create change, and as hypnotists, it’s a process of creating a more receptive state of mind. Relaxation, absolutely valid. A 12 minutes and 24 seconds. Then here’s the question that was then asked.

You needed all that as a foundation for this. But there’s a lot of people, This was a question from someone in the group. There’s a lot of people who are carrying around hidden trauma, and would the relaxation be, I’ll add a word this person did not use. Would the relaxation be, let’s say, contra indicative?

Did I say that right? Yes. It’s a contraindication, so therefore it’s contra indicative. Would it be something that gets in the way of, let’s use a simpler word here. Would that actually cause problem in the session was one part of the question. The other part of it was can those people not relax the way the question was presented?

And again, I told the group and got a nice thank you for saying I want to go longer on this answer and share this with all of you. Cuz it’s the thing that often pops up because there’s some embedded stuff inside of the question that needs to be addressed. One thing I did share with the community in that class, there’s like 36 people around the world for this one, which side note, I’ll get in one gentle plug here.

Work smart hypnosis live.com. We’ve already got the next one scheduled in March. If all of this sounds like concepts you would find to be helpful, hey, join us. Next class is coming soon. Work smart hypnosis live.com. The the one thing that has to be added to that question, maybe not the word, but more of a concept.

Maybe, yes, there are people. Richard gave a really cool insight. We’re all carrying around some form of trauma, whether it’s the clinical definition of trauma or the, let’s say, catastrophic example of trauma. Where to say it politely, there are people who have had to live through events that people just shouldn’t have had to have gone.

Is the simplest way I can say it. But then again, even the birth, the experience of going through birth as the baby is traumatic, you’re suddenly changing environments. So life as itself is a source of trauma, obviously with different ranges attached to it. So the word that needs to be attached to this is maybe.

Maybe they are king around trauma and maybe it might be a reason why they would find it challenging to be suggested to relax, which let me quote Richard here. Uh, I’m not realizing this might have been helpful to invite him as well, but I’m also remembering he’s not available right now. And I called out the time and thanks, Richard, for watching.

The, the situation would be that yes and not a yes, but yes and clearly if that’s the case. Using hypnosis as a modality to teach them how to consistently relax all hypnosis becomes self hypnosis eventually. Well, this is where classically, this is not my phrase. This is a common held statement. If you ask a better question, you get a better answer.

So it’s not. You can’t do that technique with that person. And, and there’s a lot of that in our hypnosis industry. You can’t do the losing of the numbers moment with someone who’s analytical or their life is dependent upon numbers. Yeah. You can set the frame follow through. I, one time back when I was in my origin story of stage heist, had an accountant as the volunteer, and Barbara, wouldn’t it be.

If suddenly we could make your entire life 10% easier, if that sounds good. Nods your head yes. So we all know she nods are having a big all smile. Well, wonderful because you know there’s 10 numbers from zero all the way up to nine, and all other numbers are combos of those numbers, whether they’re in the thousands or in the decimals.

And you know what? Here’s how life can become 10% easier. The number six is about to take a bit of a vacation. You’re not gonna miss it at all, and not to worry. We’re gonna bring it back before you even leave the stage tonight, and we’re gonna have some fun with this because for the next few moments, it’s as if that thing isn’t there at all.

This whole idea of life becoming 10% easier just by simply removing one thing, just temporarily. We’ll bring it back later if that sounds all right. Nod your head, count your fingers. The classic routine, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10. aor, you’re an accountant. Do you ever count on your fingers? Yeah. Payroll’s gonna be interesting this week, isn’t it?

Set the frame. Follow through when all else fails, apply suggestion. This may seem like a transition out of nowhere, and this, I will say, is in the greatest hits of things I talk about. So stick with me here. If you’ve heard this before. There’s one day in my office that everything. Two men who did not know each other, who oddly enough had the same goal and had an almost identical backstory.

One was my 10:00 AM appointment, one was my 4:00 PM appointment, so they didn’t even cross paths, both of them. Now that I’m retired, I need to lose some weight. I’ve had a life of being a consultant for the government and, uh, I mean, ridiculously similar. I’ve had this life of being the consultant and that involves a lot of lunch meetings and a lot of, um, you know, sort of on the level of lobbying type stuff and entertaining dignitaries to suggest legislation, and it’s often a lot of food.

That’s kind of how I got the weight on. I’m at a desk most of the time, but now that I’m retired, here’s the 10:00 AM. This is gonna be so much easier cause I’m not doing that stuff anymore. I can cook healthier foods for myself at home. I can choose what I go have when I’m dining out. I can go to the gym and focus on getting better at things.

I’ve been putting this off for years because I knew this would be a lot easier. Here comes four o’clock, I don’t even know if I should be doing this right. because, I mean, it’s my retirement. I’m gonna wanna sit around at home. I’m not gonna want to cook for myself. We’re gonna be going on vacations. I don’t even think I wanna go to a gym.

Should I even be doing this right now? And to give hypnosis some credit, I continue to work with both. You can guess which one. The weight was dropping faster until the day I respectfully snapped and told guy number two, the story of guy number one, and it’s left like flipping a switch. Weight was falling off once again.

So here’s the whole thesis of this lecture I wanted to share with you. It’s not the event, it’s the reaction to the event. Embedded inside of the question is the fact that one of the most dangerous situations, one of the most dangerous words, one of the most dangerous words that people can use in their language.

Is the word because, because of this situation, that’s why I can’t relax and I’ll, I’ll leave the specific diagnosis out of this other anecdote, but here’s the client who walked into my office one day saying, I smoked because I’ve been diagnosed with. emotional diagnosable situation. We’ll leave it at that without ever addressing it.

And yes, he was sent by way of a referral. His words not mine. I’ll censor it to stay polite. I’ve got enough. Fill in the blank. Your favorite four letter expletive. I’ve got enough blank going on in my life. I don’t need cigarettes on top of that, the same way into the problem it used to ratify why he was stuck with the.

Then became every reason why he threw them out. And this story is now at least 12 years old. I’ve kept up with this guy, hasn’t touched him since. So my real intention of hopping on here, don’t hypnotize yourself before you hypnotize your client. If you start to convince yourself of categories and circumstances and situations and going.

This is why this person is gonna be this way, which means I can’t do this maybe, but then again, most likely not. And instead, what is to give Richard some credit here. What is the skillset the person can have? Having utilized this technique, and let’s share our sort of subtext of a lot of what we teach in this event.

Um, stop doing hypnosis just to impress other hypnotists. Start doing the stuff that actually has research to back it up and is gonna give your client the skillset to not only be hypnotized to produce a change. This sounds so good, but to live hypnotically in control of their own. So does trauma prevent them from relaxing?

Maybe. But then again, maybe not go into the session with this open mindset. Go into the session without any specific preconceived notions or reasons why. This is an old story. My student, Luckily the football team is no longer called the Redskin. There was enough uproar over that name, and even better, they couldn’t come up with a new name.

And I’ve never followed any sports at all. Um, but now they’re just called the Washington football team. But back in the day, student of mine calls up, I’ve got someone to come in who wants to quit smoking, and he’s a football player on the Washington Redskins. What should I do? Help him quit smoking. Yeah.

But he’s a professional football player. Okay. I don’t know what to do with him. Well, you’ve seen other people for quitting smoking, right? Oh yeah, I’ve seen a budget. How’s that gone even? I’m shocked. Most of them are quitting . All right, so do the same stuff you’ve done with those other people, but listen to his reasons.

Listen to his motivations, and as we’ve taught, you customize appropriately based on why they’re in front of you. Yeah, but he’s a football player. Okay. I mean from someone who used to work in production theater, uh, and was often around celebrities quite a bit. Can I share One of the best things you could ever do is, um, treat people like people.

I’m doubting myself as to whether I should share this very specific anecdote, but one time we’ll simplify it at a theatrical event. We’ll leave it at that football player, Dan Marino shows. And this like kid who’s like involved in theater walks up to him, football player, and goes, Weren’t you the guy in Ace Ventura?

And just to see, to give the man some credit and respect here, to see him just stoop down to this kid’s level and talk about the movie. What was your favorite scene in just one of the nicest people you could ever possibly meet? Everybody else’s? Football player. Football player. Iso tos? No. The kid who wanted to talk about the fact that he was like the sub character in a funny movie.

Which I’m now realizing as young as this kid was, probably shouldn’t have seen that movie, but that’s a whole other, there’s a source of trauma. So again, stop convincing yourself that this has to be one thing. If you only have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. And I, I, I’ve swooped in over the years in conversations where someone goes, That issue is all I, I walked out of a workshop years.

Where someone says significant wait. Someone who’s morbidly obese is always punishment or protection maybe. But then again, maybe not to quote Sheila Grazier, I, I give credit where it’s due as much as I can, but I love her. When I heard her say, Sometimes people just fall into a pattern of behavior and it just becomes habit and there may not have been this breakdown, emotional moment where, Unfortunately, in the world that we’re in, people may often have to live through things that they, they shouldn’t have had to live through.

But what can we do to turn them into the hero of the story? What can we do to help them to step into the advocate? The, I’m hesitating even to use the word survivor. I like the other words even better, and it’s not I’m this way because instead flip the, because, because of this, it now means I can do X, Y, z.

Isn’t that a better question? A framework to be asking in terms of how we can better serve our clients. Go in with a blank slate. Go in with no preconceived notions as to why they have the issue. This is not a Roy Hunter quote, but I’ve heard him quote it. So this is like the inception level of a Roy Hunter quote, but it’s him quoting someone else.

When you go into a situation with a preconceived notion as to where the issue came from, you at best have a 50 50 chance of being. You might be right. There’s the, maybe to give the credits and validity, but again, let’s not convince ourselves that because this person, back to the day of Alman induction, I’ve heard this for years.

Oh, someone who’s very muscular doesn’t have the ability to relax the muscle, so you can’t do the floppy arm drop. As, um, I have to mail one of these out today, one of the, uh, blurbs in the back of my book that I put out years ago, Work Smart Business is someone who’s very well known in the strength and fitness world.

And because of that blurb, that was my foot in the door to see a lot of bodybuilders and powerlifters and other fitness people as my clients. And having worked with the people who can squat the thousand pounds and lift many more in other events, yeah, they can relax that group of muscles. Buckle up though because lean muscle mass is heavy and it takes some effort.

I had to lift up one person with two hands. Now I’m all online. Lift up your arm, let it plop down. So to wrap this up here, be careful of going into it with the assumption, because as we know, when you make assumptions, you make an asset of Whoo Thurman. I’m pretty sure that’s the quote that everyone says.

It sounds enough to be true. Go into your session with the expectation of listening. It doesn’t matter how brilliant you think you are, or how I am or someone else you may have learned from. Listen to where they’ve come from. And again, the quality of the process we can create is directly proportionate to the quality of the questions that you ask.

This is why I spend a ton of. On intake. How do we break things down? How do we really connect them with the outcome? How do we figure out not only how they tick and not only what their outcome is, but I think one of the most missing elements of most people’s change is yes, we have to create. Instant gratification.

We’ve gotta celebrate those small quick wins because that’s what creates momentum to this place where we wanna be. Where now they own the change. All hypnosis becomes self hypnosis eventually, and they know how to make it even better on their own. So sometimes the lesson is when you ask a question, , it needs a much bigger answer officially, maybe.

And I did, I did give that answer in the class. In these last 28 minutes, there’s the rest of it. I, I want to hear your feedback on this on two points. One, um, does this kind of change how you think about hypnosis and related to that, does this kind of ratify how you’ve been working with people and where appropriate keep it general?

Of course. Are there specific stories or situations where you’ve seen things that kind of mirror. Where again, it’s not that they can’t, it’s that now this can become a skill set. I, I had a client one time who goes, I need to stop focusing on losing weight. I need to now focus on becoming incredible at the things that keep me healthy.

And I wrote that down and I dropped 40 pounds over the next several months. Having heard that it’s not X equals y. It’s X and y may exist at the same time, but don’t necessarily have to be connected. Change the questions you’re asking. You get a much better answer. All right. See you all soon. Jason Leded here once again, and as always, thank you so much for subscribing to the program, leaving your comments online, as well as continuing to use these episodes in your ongoing conversations in the industry.

Once again, check out the show notes of this [email protected]. 360 1 and while you’re there to check out the details of Work Smart hypnosis live.com. It’s a guided tour through hypnotic workers. It’s a certification program. It’s content from Richard non guard, and once again, Classically, half of our audience are brand new, looking to jump in with the most solid foundation you can find.

And on top of that, the other half are people who have significant training that are looking to sharpen those tools and get much better results. Either way, we help people and we love to see you succeed in this profession. Check that out. Work smart hypnosis. Dot com. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.