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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast session number 426 Lenora the “Voice Lady” Edwards on managing the voices. 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. Welcome back to the program. It’s Jason Linett. And I’ve got to tell you, this is a conversation that came about because I was just recently up in the Chicago area at the Mid-America Hypnosis Conference, and I’m sitting in the room watching someone speak in real time, in person that I’d mostly had interactions with online by the name of Lenora Edwards. She’s out of Pennsylvania. And there’s this moment where I was then picking up my phone and then sending a text message and sending an email. And I try not to be that person when someone else is speaking.
Though to be fair, it was because I was directly inviting her to be on this program and I wanted to fast track this episode and get it out to all of you. It is a phenomenal conversation where we’re going to talk through themes of how often it is that singular moment where we reach a specific turning point and in our lives, we just simply cannot go back to the old way of living. We also very heavily approach the story as to how much of our own personal story do we actually bring into the journey of our businesses? How much of ourselves do we reveal and share along the way?
And it’s Lenora’s very unique background from communications and being a speech pathologist, then getting involved with coaching and personal development and Hypnosis and NLP, and then specifically getting involved with a process referred to as holographic memory resolution. And the approach to how so much of our perception of the world is, yes, based upon language, but also then the breaking down of language into the individual building blocks. And for any of you who have perhaps done any work similar to this, or perhaps even in the category of sub modalities, stick with this conversation.
Because there’s a gorgeous moment where we both kind of nerd out on the effective ways to ask questions, to get the client to then discover the inner building blocks of what their experiences are, and not only to discover it for the insight, but also then to move out of it as well. So this is session number 426. So easy. To track down the show notes of this week’s episode, head over to worksmarthypnosis.com/426. Put those numbers there, that’ll magically redirect you over to the page with the player of this episode, all the written show notes, and then specifically while you’re over on Lenora’s website and I’m just going to keep this easy for you and just point you to one place worksmarthypnosis.com/426.
While you’re there, take a look specifically at the ebook section because in the midst of this conversation, she mentions that she co authored a book on holographic memory resolution, and that’s available for free on the page over there at the website. So go check that out, grab it, read it. I’m going to do the same thing here as well. So, again, worksmarthypnosis.com/426. That’s where you can find all the resources associated with this, as well as the final revelation as to her business, DTB Horizons, exactly what that stands for, exactly what that spells out, exactly what that means. I just love giving you a reason to stick around to the end of the recording because it is a really cool moment there. And while you’re checking out those resources, also head over to worksmarthypnosislive.com.
We’ve just recently announced the next live online interactive training and certification program. And I say training and certification because something that’s unique about the Work Smart hypnosis live event is the fact that first of all, there are two instructors. It’s myself, it’s Dr. Richard Nongard, and as much as we may be BFFs, we don’t agree on a lot of things. And that does introduce some entertaining moments throughout class time, though, really the reason why we do this event together is helping you to create greater confidence and flexibility in the work that you do. And that’s also part of the reason why that classically half of the attendees of this event are brand new to hypnosis, and this might be the first official training that you’re doing.
Meanwhile, the other half are people who are listening into this, who already are trained, perhaps are already working and seeing clients professionally. And perhaps it’s my style of conversational hypnosis and conversational influence as well as hypnotic phenomenon so that the client can feel the change taking place. Dr. Richard Nongard with his approach to specifically evidence based methods and taking the last 30 or 40 years of research and bringing it into a modern day approach to hypnosis rather than only continuing the model the way that things were done 60, 70 years ago. So this is how we bring in that split audience. So for those that are coming in fresh and seeking certification, you can qualify for that as part of the event.
For those that want to get more consistent, positive results and have more confidence in your work, this event is also for you. You can check that out, watch the video tour. And if you’ve got questions, we also offer a new student interview. Check out all the details over at worksmarthypnosislive.com. And with that, here we go. This is session number 426. I told her during the conversation we wouldn’t use the full title, and then I insisted, yes, we will. Here we go. This is Lenora, “The Voice Lady” Edwards on managing the voices.
My first introduction into self help and hypnosis. I would say my first introduction into self help would be the movie The Secret, which I lovingly refer to as the infomercial to personal development. They had so many great things in there and there was so much information, but ultimately I had no idea what they were talking about. And it came across as if you wish for it’ll happen, or if you believe in it. And to some extent that is true, but that’s not quite how it worked out for me.
Well, then, looking at it from the angle of now, and we tend to bounce around in this conversation, how would you kind of define what was missing? Or let’s say what the next step of that was?
I would say what was missing is you don’t know what you don’t know. So that was the very tip of the iceberg. And the component of really starting to learn more about yourself and to find ways to trust yourself and to find ways to help yourself are the most important pieces that I really found to be true. And the self help community, which I am giving a TEDx in December, so I’m super excited for this talk and I am hopeful to somehow work in that. The self help community needs a rebrand of help yourself. It should be considered a smorgasbord of finding ways to truly help yourself.
And in working so many different ways to help myself, and I looked into EFT and breathing and so many ways of truly trying to help myself, I found that they were great tools, but they weren’t getting to the core of my problem. And when I was younger, I really experienced a lot of anxiety and an eating disorder that was ruining my life. And it came to the point that I was in the dentist chair. So I don’t know if you know of anything about an eating disorder. Your teeth ultimately get a massive sacrifice. And I was getting my second false tooth placed and I came to the conclusion of, there’s something you don’t know, Lenora. You need to find a way to change the strategy, something else. You need to reach out to people. You got to find another way from there.
I love self paced programs, but what I found to be of greatest help to me was reaching out to professionals. Reaching out to experts who really understood the subconscious, who were truly able to help me help myself. And I don’t know about you, I love YouTube. I call it YouTube University. There’s so many fantastic things on there. And when I started to reach out to professionals and I started to learn that my body was giving me cues that it did not feel that it was okay, that something else was going on, there was a reason for your anxiety. And when I understood that, it started to make a bit more sense. But ultimately, when I found Hypnosis and NLP and Holographic Memory resolution, my entire life started to change for the better, thankfully.
Yeah. And that’s part of where we got to hang out briefly over at the Mid America conference up in the Chicago area. And this theme of how do we break down reality into these smaller components, how do we break down our perceptions? And it’s to even go back to how this conversation began, it’s not necessarily that EFT on its own isn’t quality or this concept, which I love that you say it was a infomercial for the self help space. I go, it’s the movie version of a lot of things from Napoleon Hill’s thinking Go Rich, which were also packaging a bunch of other previous sources. And he was in the role of the reporter in that book. So it wasn’t necessarily stolen, as some would claim.
It’s like this was published with permission, yet it’s how sometimes we just need the concept of something, or maybe theme of something to move us forward, yet other times it needs to be a process. It needs to be an actual journey completely.
I love that you said that. And that was a component that I didn’t understand, that it was a process, that it was a component, too. I thought when I was younger, I also thought, and I think Disney is responsible for this one, that I would go through the I went through school, I got a bachelor’s degree, I got a master’s degree, and then I got married, and then there I would be in ultimate happiness. And I was very confused as to why this promise of ultimate happiness wasn’t there. I didn’t realize the things that I was experiencing throughout my life were contributing to my unhappiness and that I was responsible for cultivating that happiness in my life and becoming the person that I want to be and show up as in this world. And that it is a process.
And as much as it is a process, I want to go back to a specific moment that you just mentioned, though, which is, here’s theme that I tend to put out, that, yes, the changes we create in our life are things that happen over time. Yes, there’s a number of different pieces that then come together, yet when you look at it, sometimes we can see that this major life change happened in an instant. And like you mentioned, that experience of getting the tooth replaced being this turning point. And I’d be curious to ask you, from the perception of the work that you’ve even done with your clients, if there’s a story that comes to mind of here’s, this moment where, yes, it may have been over the course of multiple sessions or multiple techniques.
Yet that ability to pinpoint here’s the exact moment where everything shifted and could not go back to the old way.
Yeah. Oh, I love that could not go back to the old way. And especially when we learn so much. The more you learn, you can’t go back. Once you learn it. And when I say learn it, when it makes sense to you, and you get that AHA, and we can hear things 200, 300 times, but that 301st time that you heard it made a massive difference because you know more. And that information wouldn’t have made sense had you not gone through a process had you not gone through things over time.
And when I really understood that it is a process when I approach things, say I’m coming up to something that in my life is making me feel uncomfortable or it’s going to push my limits of what I know, to be true about myself, and it’s going to push me out of my comfort zone. That it’s okay, that it’s part of the process and that you can actually get excited. Yes, it can be really terrifying, but you can get excited about it. When I was speaking at the conference, leaning, going up to it, I was excited. But then there were also pieces of me going, well, what about this? What if this happens, what if that happens?
And all these voices going off that said what if, what if understanding that’s part of the process and that’s cultivating you and helping you move forward, ultimately coming together to a new level of you.
You just did that thing, by the way, where I’m over here taking notes on my phone because I’ve learned that my keyboard makes noises and my editors got on me about that. Yet you then answered it as soon as I put it out there. So let’s just pretend and go back to it. You had said something, though, about the perception I was hearing is that sometimes yes, it is a journey and not that you use this language, but the change sometimes can be perceived as this thing that’s going to be hard. I’ll make the short version of the story. It’s this moment where a weight loss client of mine had this odd experience where a family member said, you look great. I know how hard it is to lose weight. Congratulations. And he couldn’t figure out why this compliment was bothering him.
It’s his wife going, just take the compliment, go to bed, you’re fine. And it was this revelation. He goes, the biggest change was that in the six months it took me to lose this weight, I never once labeled it as being hard. Oh, that’s the change. But then what you said was great there about it can be terrorizing, it can also be exciting. What are your thoughts on how we look at even just the structure of the feeling and how we approach it from that angle within change?
And I’m so glad that you asked that because there are so many voices in our head and ultimately it’s our voice, but sometimes they take on different parts of us or other pieces of recall that we experienced. And it might be your mother’s voice or your father’s voice. We have these voices that are a part of us. And when they’re a part of us and we’re hearing them, it’s important to understand that they’re voices and that we can actually start to play with those voices. And if something is coming up as this is really hard and I feel it feels so hard because it’s in my body. So I’m literally experiencing a weight, a heaviness, a pull down of a sluggish feeling. Whatever is coming up for me, I get to have.
And this is what I teach my clients to notice that feeling and put it out in front of me and say, okay, this is hard. I’m going to look at this. This is what hard looks like. And this is a version of myself that is experiencing this. What do they want to tell me? And they may tell me, I don’t want to do this. I’m really uncomfortable. This is really scary for me. And I can go, Great, let’s keep talking about that. And as I literally talk to that younger self or that energy that is feeling that it’s hard, I start to reframe it. And I’m also able to let that piece of me know that it’s okay, that it’s hard and that they’re being heard.
But as I start to talk to it and say, that’s okay, it’s all right, we can do hard things, and I’m not yelling at it, I’m not criticizing it, I’m not judging it, and I’m not chaining it all the way down to nothing. I’m letting it come up. And as I can let that energy come up, that emotion come up that it is hard, but I can do hard things. I can learn from this. There was something else in my life that was really hard. What else was that? When have I experienced this before and notice what I learned? And in doing that, I ultimately reframe it to experience growth, to experience excitement, to experience movement forward, which is ultimately exactly what I want to be doing. I want to be taking that next step and moving forward.
And so much of it, too, really becomes that perception of it, that label on it. That how one person labels one thing could become every reason why it’s easy. How someone else labels the same situation could become every reason why it’s difficult. And I do want to do something I’ve never done here before in 400 plus episodes of this program, which is that behind the scenes there’s like a quick form that I send people to have them fill out in advance. Because it used to be a battle to go, we’re releasing tomorrow. I need a photo. And now you can’t schedule until you’ve sent it. Thank you, by the way. Yet one of them is, quote, this is my prompt. We often will brainstorm the title of the podcast episode. After the recording, though, feel free to make a suggestion below.
And you’ve brought us perfectly into this, and I have to read yours, which is Lenora quote the voice lady, end quote. Edwards on managing the voices. And just small warning, it will have to go out as Lenora. Edwards on managing the voices because I’m always trying to get the promise into the little span of space that we have on a podcast, though, talk this through for us in terms of when you say managing the voices, like, first of all, how does that theme show up in the client work, even to begin with?
When they start to talk, and especially even as I’m starting to talk, there is constantly we’re always communicating. And in my experience so I did four years undergrad and two years in graduate in the field of communication sciences and disorders, and I learned all about language, how we’re communicating, how to clearly communicate, how a child learns language, and how to get that child to express themselves. So tons and tons about language, but nobody taught us that not only are we talking to ourself we already knew were talking to ourself but that we can actually start to effectively talk to the language within our head we can effectively talk to ourself within our head, but also to the language that our body is using. And when I started to learn about Holographic Memory Resolution, I knew that I was getting a feeling.
But Holographic Memory Resolution taught me that I can notice if this feeling is inside or outside of my body. Is there a color? Is there a shape? Is there a size to it? Is there a texture? Is there a weight? Is there a temperature? Is there anything else that I noticed about it? And when those questions come up, what Holographic Memory Resolution taught us is that our body is speaking in a language it has created. And it speaks to us in metaphors, in colors, in shapes, in sizes. And the reason it’s so important to notice that our body has language is because this is what we started to learn first. We didn’t start to learn the difference between a fork and a spoon. That didn’t come for a while. Our body was starting to learn its environment.
And as we grew up, we continued to interpret our environment and build this.
Language well, even to build on top of that, it’s the fact that here’s a time span of people before there was even language and the ability to at least notice the difference of colors, notice the difference of feelings. It’s bringing it back to that more, let’s say, pure state where it’s not the difference of this word versus that word. Instead, it’s here’s this feeling. And then here’s what we can do with that.
Absolutely. So when that starts to come up, when you notice that you have a feeling, there’s a voice connected to that feeling, and that voice is in the form of a memory and how you experienced that. So what I like to I personally do this, and I encourage my clients to do this, is talk to that voice. And this goes into a little bit of internal family systems. That memory has information for you, and if you’re uncomfortable or if you’re anxious and something’s coming up, it has information for you. It’s doing its best to keep you safe. This is a great thing. We’re designed this way, thank goodness. But at the same time, to take that information and to learn from it and to move it forward.
And that’s where the beauty is in that voice, is being able to take that voice in that memory, what it shared with you, and move it in a direction that you want it to go and making sure that it’s acknowledged, it’s seen, it’s heard, but also that it feels safe so that you can keep going forward.
And you’ve referenced this as holographic memory. What’s the origin of that specific approach to this?
This work came from Brent Baum, who’s a licensed addictions counselor, and he’s been practicing this work for 20 plus years. And it builds on color psychology and somatic psychology and energy psychology, and it creates this beautiful hybrid that we can talk to our bodies, we can talk to our memories that are stored within our body. And our body is 100% memory. So. Especially the book by Bessel Vanderkok. The body keeps the score. Before him, there was another book written and was titled The Body Remembers. And our culture likes to separate mind and body, but truly, we are connected. And the thoughts that we’re thinking, the voices that we’re hearing, are coming through and showing up in our body.
So, for example, if you remember maybe when you were younger and you were really looking forward to something and you were so excited, you can feel that excitement. And you would say that excitement feels like such and such within your body. The way you coded excitement is different, the way that I coded excitement. And we describe how we code it through the words that we’re using, and you get to control that. You can say, okay, I feel that excitement. This is inside my heart, and it’s a little tingly. And now I get to take that out, and I get to expand it and move it through me. And as you move it through your body, you get to even move it further out of your body and expand it in the room.
And then you start to play with this energy, but also this memory and this voice that ultimately comes from you.
And this is the part where I ask your permission in advance if it’s okay if we nerd out for a couple of minutes on some specific themes and communication inside of this a billion times, yes. Awesome. Okay, so we’re talking into a category which I’m always looking and pointing out that everything kind of my bigger picture perspective of the world just to get lofty for a moment is everybody kind of agrees and basically has the same values. We just have different ways that we arrived at those values. And that’s the thing that we argue about the most.
Oh yeah, at the end of the day we kind of agree on things. And I give you that as a disclaimer. Because even as I reference out of the NLP model Submodalities, I’m always then to also point out well, NLP was a modeling exercise that then left behind a trail of methods. One category of which is Submodalities and specific to that style of work, I’m sure similar to the holographic. Am I saying the words right? Holographic memory reconsolidation resolution. Resolution. Thank you. So in that approach, there’s some overlap from one to the other and things that may be similar. The place that I often see the practitioner getting stuck on and even at just giving this example, it may give us some of the quick answers here would be that the new student of something of that nature would often ask the question are there any colors?
And then we get the answer no. And instead well, quality of the answer we get is directly proportionate to the quality of the questions we ask. What I would share is that, okay, well, as you’re aware of the sound of this specific voice that you’re becoming aware of, start to notice the colors, what colors are present. And we’re kind of pacing and leading what we’ve already achieved from doing this work. I’d be curious to just get into the specific semantics that if you’ve run into some of these scenarios where someone doesn’t find something perhaps at the beginning and what you’ve done around some of.
Those moments with holographic memory resolution. And I go into this a bit more in the book that I co authored with Brent Baum recently and I’m so excited about that. And it’s a free e book on my website. And when that happens and language is so important, this is where I pull from my speech pathology background is there a color, shape or size? So in questioning that and then the next question is there weight, texture or temperature? The reason it’s worded that way very specifically in this technique is because the language is very clean. This is a very client centered, body centered approach. And what we’re doing is we’re tuning into what the body has to share with us.
And when I ask those questions, if my client is having difficulty being able to truly pinpoint if there’s a color, shape or size, a weight, texture, temperature, if they’re having difficulty with that, I’ll bring them back through what I refer to as a safe place so that they can tune back into their body. They notice if there’s any area of tension or tightness. But I will also then shift my question might there be a color, shape or size? So adding that word might and the power of this word might has completely shifted my life. I use it so frequently because you’re questioning them, but you’re also offering what might that be? Or might there be a color first impression?
And pulling on NLP and Hypnosis very carefully with the wording to encourage them or invite them to share with me what color, shape, or size, or even tune in if there’s a color, shape, or size, and if so, what might that be? And telling them, go with your first impression. You may have the urge to edit it. It may sound like a quiet voice. You may question yourself a little bit, but those are all the characteristics that we’re looking for. And being able to let them know that they can trust themselves and that they can trust their body to share with the information that they need is truly where we get to empower the client and empower the body to move forward.
Yeah, and I love that little bit of an insight there, because sometimes it does come down to those very specific changes. And even just simply giving a list and looking at the first one you shared there of color, shape, or size, there’s a moment I do just in a standard Hypnosis pretalk, which is, hey, there’s some parts of this that, depending on the methods we’re using, you may feel this heaviness like you’re deeply relaxing into that chair. It may feel like a light and floating sensation, as if you’re almost out of your own body. And then sometimes this one’s my favorite, you might discover this absolutely miraculous feeling that it just feels like you’re sitting there listening to me talk to you. There’s not one specific feeling.
And again, because of the variety of methods we’re going to use, sometimes it’s a blend of all three. Now, the anecdote is when you say that and you see them then slowly begin to drop down into their chair, then elevate up, and then find the center point, it’s like, oh, I’m not working hard today. But it’s the power of really what it illustrates from the way that you phrased it, there is not necessarily going after the binary result. And I think that’s where a lot of people find challenges with anything of this nature, where it’s easy for someone to then default back to, well, let’s explore this one. Have you run into the scenario where someone claims that they’re just not visual and there’s no images attached to.
Also?
And what is Lenora’s official opinion on that?
Especially the way that you shared how you share with your client during the pre talk. Being able to share that, at least to me, demonstrates a skilled practitioner. You’re able to share with them what they’re to expect and what it might feel like. And in doing so, you’re not walking them forward and doing the work for them. You’re holding their hand and you’re walking with them. And to be. Able to share what it may feel like goes to even show further. You’ve done the work yourself, you know what you’re talking about and you’re also helping them tune into their body and tune into these other things that were not taught naturally to trust in ourself or to even talk about. And I had one teacher share.
We spend so much time in our head that we often don’t realize that our breathing is shallow, that we have poor posture because we are running a mile a minute in our head and often over caffeinated and running way too fast that you have to remind yourself, oh, right, I have a body. Oh, I need to come down into my body. And a lot of the time people come down into their body through food because they are so disconnected to their body. So as I’m with the client and sharing with them, if they tell me they’re not visual beforehand, especially in the consultation that I have them fill out in a background so I know what they’re experiencing, how they best practice.
I know my techniques, but I also want to learn from them what is best for them so that I know which approach may be the best suited for them. When they share with me that they’re not visual, I’ll dig a little deeper to make sure. Can you picture this? What happens when I say tell me about a blue bird and are they able to pull that visual up? And oftentimes they are able to pull that visual up and then how I can navigate the language. From there, I will do my best to continue to encourage them to just share because there are plenty of people that I talk with and they will only tell me a color, that there isn’t a shape, and that there isn’t a weight and that there isn’t a texture.
The only icon that they can anchor to is one visual. And from there they don’t have to tell me anything else. They just simply have to say yes or no because it’s also nondisclosure based. They’re welcome to step into the memory and tell me more about it or into the picture they have in their head, whatever the case may be, if they are visualizing or if they’re just noticing it in their body and simply follow the directions from there. Is this feeling better? Is this feeling worse? Because a lot of the time people don’t want to go into or necessarily share a great deal and that’s perfectly fine. We can still help with the techniques that we have.
There’s also an aspect of this that I’m just curious to hear that the background as the speech pathologist, the background from communications, what specific skill set do you say came from that really informs this approach to the work that you’re now doing?
Oh, that’s a phenomenal question. From being able to understand language, but also and when I was much younger, I learned a lot of foundational skills. And as I started to go throughout the field and being in the career that I was and also navigating through the environments, one of the biggest things I learned was rapport is key. And having that person, especially when I’m working with clients, being able to communicate effectively with them so that they understand that they’re not being judged. Now, if I was in the workplace, whether it is in the NICU or the AICU, or in a skilled nursing facility, or in a school, being able to hold my posture, that I am approachable, but also that I am kind when people start to talk with me and that’s truly important.
And this tone, this ability to be approachable is something that I learned over my career from working with other people, but also through NLP and through hypnosis and through holographic memory resolution. To really have that approachability about you and let people feel safe when they’re with you was a huge component. Because you can be the linguistic god of NLP and hypnosis and you can say everything right, but if you don’t have rapport and you can’t connect with that personally and sincerely, they will read that and that will stop the changes that they want to achieve.
Yeah, it’s one of those biggest elements that there’s been times where it’s been trying to figure out which is on file, which is on record based on research, the most effective technique. And here’s how. So often it comes back to the quality of the rapport in the experience directly correlates to the quality of the change. And then, of course, matched with the ability to work with the person in real time. And like you said, listen to what they bring to it and learn from them along the way. And in the shape of all of this, is there a certain category of client you tend to find you’re working with the most?
Jason, these questions are phenomenal.
You do something like 430 or so times, you kind of get slightly better at it. Don’t listen to the first 15 episodes. We just leave it at that.
They are spectacular. They’re all part of the learning process. The clients that I work with do vary, but ultimately I find the common key is that sometimes I work with older gentlemen and they’re sharing with me that they hate their job. And that is what we like to refer to as the presenting situation. So as we dig deeper, what else is going on there, and they’ll share with me a bit more about their experience. Sometimes it is emotional eating and difficulty eating, which is great, and I will always welcome those. Sometimes it’s also people who are terrified of speaking in public. Sometimes it’s performers who this is their career, but when they’re on stage and working to get that audition, they’re freezing. What else is going on.
And I do find that it does go back a lot of the time to memories and that individual is afraid to show up or somebody had ignored them or they felt abandoned. And to be able to offer that resolve that they are okay, that they’re safe, that they’re seen. And when they understand that on a visceral level, their entire life changes. And I can honestly speak personally from that because who I was five years ago is not the same person that I am today. And A, thank goodness for that, but B, I was paralyzed in fear and I could not get out of my own way even though I did my absolute best to get out of my own way.
Yeah, that’s amazing. And thank you for sharing that part of the story too. In terms of what those turning points were for you along the journey of that, I’d be curious to ask, and this is something that many people fight over, struggle over, and it’s more of an internal thing that you’ve brought a lot of your own personal story and what you’ve gone through and what you’ve lived through and I would even say come out of. How do you tend to make that judgment for yourself in terms of because I would assume anybody who feels comfortable doing that. We also have a balance. And notice I just brought myself into that too. We have that balance of here’s where I can tell the story in this way.
The audience doesn’t necessarily need all the intricate details and all the various specifics, though I’d ask if that was something that came natural to you.
That was not something that came natural to me. And I would often, anytime I tried to share, or even had you asked myself five years ago, tell people what’s going on in your life, I would have sooner died, hands down, would have never, ever shared anything that I’ve gone through because I was so ashamed of it. I was so embarrassed by it. I was humiliated by it. And even when I had the person that was walking me through the HMR techniques and my coach, I had shared with them what I was experiencing only after spending about 16 hours of time with them beforehand in coaching time, because I would not expose this part of myself because I was so horrified by it. And even as I had shared it with them, I was gasping for air. And it was a very painful moment.
And again, even in that had you asked me that day to tell this story to people would have sooner passed out. The reason I share it is because I have now had come to a neutral experience of it’s okay to share this. Because I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t as horrifying of a version of myself as I thought I was. I was doing my best to survive. And ultimately I want people to feel better. And I don’t want to show up and say, yes, everything’s great, and it’s just say these lovely affirmations and you’ll be fine because that’s not it at all. Being able to share also lets people know that they’re not alone.
And that these horrible things that we try to hide and we do our best to hide from people, you can still share them in a way that you can show up for yourself with integrity and say, yeah, that happened, and I’m okay. I showed up. I got better. I was able to stand up for myself and help myself. And I don’t go into gory details because I do take into account that people don’t a probably don’t want to hear about it. But also I do hold that respect because I know for some people who are very close to me, it’s difficult for them to hear that I was in so much pain and that I would not share it with them because I experienced that much shame. And I just showed up for a smile for over ten years and hid it from everybody.
I hit it so beautifully well that people closest to me are like, really? And they’ll hear recordings and they’ll hear me share this with people and they had no idea. So I do my best to share authentically but also to be respectful to myself and to my loved ones because I don’t want them thinking that they did anything wrong. And it wasn’t they did anything wrong, nobody was. It’s simply how my nervous system needed to cope.
Yeah, that’s amazing. Thank you for sharing that.
Me too.
Was there just to go back to Turning Point, is there a specific occurrence, a specific moment where it kind of opened up to go no, either I can or let me go into listing pattern as we’ve already done here multiple times over expertly. Was it here’s the I should share this, I must share this or something else to that to finally make that pivot and go, okay, I can talk about this.
That has taken a couple of years to be able to share over time. And the stronger I emotionally got, the stronger I mentally got and spiritually got, it was, okay, share this part. It’s okay, it’s okay. And also reminding myself that when I share, I for the longest time had somebody in my head shaming the bananas out of me.
Language, language, please, language. Okay, sorry, go on.
That’s why I chose Bananas. For the longest time I had somebody or versions of myself shaming myself and putting myself down. And because of the work that I did, the inside work, those voices have diminished and they’ve gone away because I was able to reframe and to continue to nurture myself and help myself get to where I wanted to. Be so that I could show up sincerely and truly and say this happened.
And I’m okay, there’s a couple of things that I wanted to highlight from what you were just talking about. The one being I think the biggest word in what you just shared was the word continue. Because there’s people out there who are fully trained and ready to dive in and seriously ready to start helping people to change their lives with the skill sets that we’ve been addressing here. And it’s where they play the game. They tell the internal story. There’s that voice that’s saying, yeah, but people would think weight loss. And because I look this way, I can’t. To which I’ve got both ends of the spectrum on that one. At one point when I was much heavier, okay, it’s fair, not necessarily polite, but I got shame to go, hey, how can you help me?
You’ve got more to lose than I need to. And then here’s the couple of years later when I was into endurance running, and there were the half marathon medals on the door, and it was fit shamed, which was, you don’t understand what I’m going through. Let’s find the before image. There you go. Oh, I’m sorry, but it’s the phrase that we don’t have to be perfect as the practitioner. And that word that you used was just simply the word continue, that it doesn’t have to be this before and after. Here’s the journey. And I’m sure this same question another several years from now will get a very different answer.
The easiest reference that I give to this is that in some of the business training content that I put out, it’s that I talk about how over time, our values can change, our targets for our goals can change. And it’s where this is said publicly, being one of the first people in my family to be responsible with money. And it was important to me that we didn’t have to have my parents worry about how they lived in their retirement. Now, did that need to reveal exactly what that meant or define helping them retire and move down here? It’s clear that they’re not in the same house as us, but we don’t need to get into the details as to who’s on the loan, who’s on the deed, and all of that here.
What I’d amplify on top of this, too, would be that yes, this is from the business perspective that we I’m on your website right now, by the way. I’m just nerding out and going, OOH, optimized press. That looks familiar. I know the platform, it’s really good. Yet it’s where we can look at something and see here’s all the testimonials. And at the same time, though, looking at some of these, that was that opportunity for the client to do the same thing that you’ve just done, which is to further ratify that story of success, that journey of continued improvement. And it’s not just for the sake of yay.
I’ve got this really great quote to stick on my website now and inspire more people to book with me, which, yes, it is in some part, but at the same time, too, it’s that opportunity for that person to put a button on the story, put a turning point at the end of that, which it might just be the cliffhanger for the next bigger journey that they’re on yet. It’s replacing well, to use the language of this episode, it’s replacing that old voice, that old narrative with now something new. And every time it gets reiterated, well, we call that compounding in hypnosis. And it’s becoming the stronger story, and it’s further amplifying that change that has been made.
Very much so. And we’re always telling ourselves stories, and these voices are sharing these stories with us on the continuum and being able to notice them and also allow yourself to. I’m going to look at this, especially when it comes to money and physicality people. Making comments about your body is incredibly painful both ways. And ultimately, who are they to decide? But when we have that internal ability to stand there and say, yeah, I’m good, I understand that you’re not good, okay, but I’m good here, and people are constantly putting these judgments on us and sharing their judgments. And it’s important to be able to learn, at least I feel that I’ve learned over time how to acknowledge something and not take it. So I look at it as a buffet.
If somebody is sharing a grilled cheese with me, oh, you look such and such, okay, they’re offering me that food. I’m not in the mood for that. So I’m going to say, okay, thank you, but no thank you, ultimately reframing it and putting it back on them, and especially when it comes to money, because people have no problem making comments about how much they want more money and how much they disdain people that have money. And it goes back and forth and being able to say, you know what? That’s what they’re offering. I’m okay, not eating that right now, and moving your plate along to somewhere else that you would like to enjoy. And it’s truly an art to be. And I think of Jim Rohn so often every day, stand guard at the doorway of your mind.
Because when we participate in those conversations, you let that guard, let that information in. And do I feel that it’s important to how am I going to manage this now that I’m involved in this conversation?
I mean, I’d also add to that fact that all communication is going to be influential in some direction. And I just think of one occurrence, and it played out really well after this moment, surprisingly, which was that I had told a story of my own, and it was the story from the weight loss and roughly 30 40 people in the room to give a rough percentage that I’m making up right now, which is pretty darn close. Like, 98% of people afterwards. Like, oh, I never knew that. Wow, that’s amazing. You did that? Wow. And then they’re asking the details about the second part of the story, and one person came up after, and the dialogue was, I can’t believe you ever let yourself get to that level.
And I had to go, Could I just and I just did the international sign for the timeout to go, could I just pause this chat for a quick moment and just ask a question? Isn’t it interesting that of the 40 or so people here, all of them who came up to me focused on the 90% of the story, which was what I did as a result of that? And only one person good to meet you, by the way. I’m Jason. Only one person came over and focused the story on the part that is scripted the way that I tell it.
Because again, I’m shining the spotlight of the parts of the story that I know not just are what are important to me or important to the context, but also the things that rise above even my story and become a universal experience for everyone else, even if that wasn’t their specific issue. So I can tell you that the entry to that story is two paragraphs and the rest of the story is three pages. Isn’t it interesting that’s the part you focused on? And then it was this polite pause, and I don’t intend it to go, Ha. Clever. But they go, Apparently, I need to be your client. Okay, good. I’d ask you this question just because it came up in this chat around it. What are you typically doing these days to bring clients into your world?
What’s working for you in terms of having people discover you and then come in to work with you?
I love that question. Lots of different things are working, and I also believe in timing, very much timing. I find that the more people that comment, when I share authentically comment on my social media will reach out to me personally. And when I get to actually participate in conferences and share and be in the room with people, I really enjoy that, and people are able to feel it very differently. And I understand why I have coaches also telling me, share vulnerably on social media, because you do want people to know that, at least for me, I want people to know that I didn’t just wake up and be like, this is what I’m going to do today. This is truly I walk the walk. I talk the talk. I get how difficult things can be, and I just want people to feel better.
Ultimately, I want people to feel better. And any way that you can feel better is a great thing.
Okay, I wrote this down 43 minutes ago, and now I’m finally going to say it. Are you saying that the voice lady found her voice?
OOH.
Boom.
Mic drop. Jason, the voice lady did find her voice.
Look at that. Love that with that. This has been phenomenal to have you on for this conversation and looking forward to sharing this with the listeners that are out there, too. Where can people track you down? How can they get in contact with you if they’d like to learn more?
I had such a fantastic time talking with you, Jason. Thank you so much for your phenomenal questions and your amazing insights. When people would like to find more of me, simply visit dtbhorizons.com and DTB.
What does that spell out?
Oh, do you want to guess?
I’m going to guess horribly, so I’m going to refrain.
I keep track of what people like to guess. For me, DTB is determined to be whatever you are determined to show up as, and to be as is entirely up to you, and I will do as much as I can to help you meet the horizon that you’re wanting to achieve.
Very nice. And we’ll put links to everything over in the show notes [email protected] where we’ll link over directly to this week’s episode. If you hear me frantically clicking it’s because I’m looking up the specific episode number. So worksmarthypnosis.com four two six is where you go. That’ll just redirect magically over to all the details of this week’s episode. And I’m looking forward to continuing this chat another time, of course, too. And before we wrap up, any final thoughts for the listeners out there?
I had an amazing time talking with you. I believe I’ve already said that keep going. Keep finding ways to help yourself, because you absolutely can help yourself. Not only is it your right, it is also your responsibility to keep going.
Hey, it’s Jason Linett. Thanks again for listening to this program, for interacting with our phenomenal guests inside of our private Work Smart hypnosis community, as well as keeping this conversation going with the rest of this incredible hypnotic industry, you can head over to worksmarthypnosis.com/426. That’s where you can see directly how to connect with Lenora, as well as get a direct link over to check out that ebook that she co authored. And stay tuned because this episode is coming out in November, and coming up in December is when she’s doing a TEDx Talk and we’ll swoop back in. If you’re listening to this, let’s be conservative here. If you’re listening to this episode after February 2024, that’s a safe bet. We’ll swoop back in and put the video link up there so you can check that out after the fact.
Also, while you’re on the web, check out worksmarthypnosislive.com. What’s unique about this event is that it’s taught by two people together who have seen thousands of clients on our own, still continue to see clients. And it’s not an event based upon what worked 1015 years ago and we haven’t seen a client since. No. Even as we continue to see our own clients to the day. It’s helping you to capture exactly what’s working right now in a professional Hypnosis business in terms of the techniques and the methods to help people break through and create incredible changes and share with you techniques you’ve simply will not find anywhere else. So head over to worksmarthypnosislive.com, watch the video tour, and we’ll see you in class soon. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast.
