Session #45: Alena Guest- From the Cradle to the Grave

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You’re listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 45 with a later guest from the cradle to the grave. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business six. Sets. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. Hey, it’s Jason Lynette here, and I wanna welcome you back to this program and here we go.

We are launching up and getting ready for officially convention season and at least in terms of the way that I look at things. Coming up in early August, the National Guild of Heist Convention, followed by in later August, the Hypno Thoughts Live Convention, and specifically here on this program session number.

Five by way of a wonderful introduction through Michael Elner getting a chance to first meet up with Elena Guest by first having her as a guest here on this podcast session. And at first glance learning more about Elena was absolutely fascinating. In addition to having her own practice, Elena is actually on staff at the Mendocino.

District Hospital out in California, and I love the title that she holds as Medical Support Hypnotherapist. Such a wonderful title to have and amazing gaps being bridged thanks to some of the work she’s doing out there in California. Let’s jump right in now. I’d encourage you head over to work smart hypnosis.com and find the show notes for this page.

You’ll learn all about Elena’s practice. You’ll learn about the work that she does. They’re at the hospital in California, as well as some upcoming opportunities as well. Stick around to the very end of this recording too, because after I officially, uh, ended our interview as it goes, we kept talking and there’s a really, really cool story at the end of it that you just gotta hear.

It’s a great experience from all things, uh, hypnosis, whether it’s hypnotherapy or stage stick around to the end. This is a great. Here we go. Session number 45. From the Cradle to the Grave with Elena Guest.

I gather that you have a background and an interest in theater performance film even possibly, and that’s. Some of my background, which I’ve certainly been able to draw upon. I mean, , the idea of using scripts and having a ous voice, which I actually didn’t think amounted too much, and still I stood until I got into this field and realized, Oh, it’s a big asset.

But I wanna go back even further, as I just recently realized that I’m a fine artist as well, a painter and a painting that I did as an expression of outrage about nine 11. Which I could send you a copy of so you can see what I’m talking about a little while. In any event, it was a painting of an underwater scene, mostly with the bottom of the ocean floor being strew with all kinds of Detroits and a destroyed American flag.

And then as you would move up through the water to the surface, There were neon fish, and then when you got higher, of course squids, and then getting to sea lions toward the top of the surface of the water, and then a woman bursting out of the surface of the water with a lower part of her body, just watery looking, you know, very diffused by the water, and then her really bursting out of the top of the water with a flying fish over her.

And I didn’t realize that at the time, it was only when. I had been doing this work, the great work of my life, that I was able to look back at this painting and realize, oh my goodness, , I’ve painted the subconscious and the conscious metaphorically and myself in both worlds, you know, with part of me definitely sort of been trained in the subconscious and part of me above the water with a totem above me.

You know, that represented both world. . And the thing that was really an epiphany, Jason, was that I started this painting when I was seven years old and it was as if I completed the painting. You know, many, many, obviously many years later. And you know, as we both know, we have so much wisdom when we’re young.

And it was as if I had this future memory or certainly some kind of prescient about my future work and what was the right work of my life. You know, the great work of my. . I love that. And, and I’d share that we tend to bounce around a little bit. So nowadays, I read into this that you’re actually on staff at a hospital offering hypnosis.

Yes. Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about how that really transpired in the early days of getting that set up. Cause I’m sure red tape and details and or big part of that story. Well, you know, , I often say, you know, it was divine grace because I happened to be very much just at the right place at the right time, and at the same time I had been.

Doing good work with clients. Thankfully, you know, I got really good training and I love this work. I was doing good work in my private practice, and one of the clients with whom I’ve been working was a gal who was a self described couch potato. Came into me wanting to lose 65 pounds and she was a really compliant and very good client and, and actually lost the weight and became kind of a, um, a poster child for.

Jim work, you know, and everybody would come to her and say, What have you been doing? In any event, as we know, there’s often a domino effect, you know, that is beyond what the client has come in saying that they want. And as it turned out, This woman feeling better about herself and losing the weight and becoming more fit, it improved her marriage.

And you could also read between the lines, her sex life and just it. It just improved her whole family system and all of her relationships. And as it so happened, and I didn’t know this at the time, her husband was on the hospital board. And his best friend was the CEO of the hospital. So when it came time for the CEO to have the first surgery of his life, his hernia surgery, he called me saying, I’ve heard such good things about you that I’d like you to prepare me for this surgery.

So, Of course we did very good work together, Ipna therapeutic work, and I also recorded one of my famous CDs, . And um, and the CEO was thrilled with his results. He was amazed that he had so little bleeding and you know, all the things you can expect. You know, it was able to get off pain medication much.

Then he expected, or, or his surgeon expected and he was able to get back to work really quickly, a lot more quickly than they told him He, they thought he’d be able to, And so because of that, he of course, became one of my biggest fans. Now at the same time as it happened at a board meeting that I decided to attend for the first time, again, this is some of this divine grace, you know, coming in because I don’t even know what inspired me to attend a hospital board meeting.

But I decided to one day and I was sitting in the lobby waiting. To be allowed to go into the, the portion that wasn’t a closed session. And there was a gal in the lobby who I didn’t know, and I’m friendly, you know, so I introduced myself and gave her a card, and she gave me one as well. And then we were ushered in and as it turned out, this woman.

Was the former CEO of a neighboring hospital who now had a program called Healing Hospitals and was pitching the board with the idea of. , they’re having an integrative program and be one of the first healing hospitals, which they agreed to do. And during her talk, she gestured to me and said, I’m talking about, you know, people like your clinical hypnotherapist, Elena, guest here, who could be part.

A wellness program. And so that’s the sort of thing. I mean, now I will say, and you know this very well, that there’s inspiration and perspiration, and I’m so passionate about this work that, I mean, I, I always say I’m somewhere between an ambassador and an evangelist. I’m so passionate about this work that what happens is.

I come across as being bold, I think, but it’s a boldness about what I do, not about myself, not about self-promotion so much as really helping people understand, you know, about the value of what we do. Well, I think that’s a message that a lot of people really need to hear. It’s amazing that, you know, I’d be at a convention and talking perhaps on the subject of how I built what I do, that I was doing a lot of network marketing, a lot of Chamber of Commerce, the bni, that, that sort of thing.

And it was amazing to hear people at these events who would say, Well, I can’t go there. They’re gonna look at me like I’m weird. And my response would be, The issue isn’t what they’re saying. The issue is that you’re agreeing with them. I would go to these events and it comes across as the same thinking that let me represent what I really care about with passion and by accident that’s gonna get me clients.

If I was going there with the idea of I need to fill the schedule, I need to get clients, this is a good fit for that, that’s when I was crashing and burning. Mm-hmm. . So to bring that passion to be your own best spokesperson for it is just the fabulous way to get other people on board, because that’s more contag.

But I mean even beyond that. Yeah, I agree with everything you just said. And I, what I meant was that I called this gal, after all, I had her business card and said, Since you’re out of town and you don’t even know some of the other people in the area who are. Good complimentary practitioners of various disciplines, acupuncturists and naturopaths, et cetera.

I said, I know who all the best people are. I would be happy to help you. You wanna have lunch and talk about this? And she was thrilled. Because, you know, she didn’t have anybody to help her. So that’s, that’s partly what I mean about being bold. And of course she really appreciated my assistance and partnership and so we were able to partner together in the first phase of installing that wellness program.

And she invited me to be the keynote speaker for the first wellness there that they had at the hospital. And, and that sort of, Now why happened to be the first person to be asked to be on staff at the hospital in this capacity as a medical support hypnotherapist on staff there? And that’s been true for over five years now.

Now, you know, I wanna get back to the subject of boldness because I’m sure this will be no big surprise to you or anybody else listening to this, that even with. This kind of support, especially top down, you know, from the CEO and the chief clinical officer was a client as well, and many staff members and board members.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the old guard, you know, the traditionally trained surgeons and doctors on staff were all. Absolutely in favor, of what I was doing. I wanna be really frank and transparent about that. So I knew I had my work cut out for me when I was presenting at the first medical staff meeting in this capacity.

And I’ve already said I have, you know, a background in theater and so. I don’t always expect a standing ovation, but I . I certainly expect people are gonna at least look at me and, you know, maybe well look at me if they’re not gonna applaud and I was not expecting when I had prepared a really good presentation, I’d really done my homework.

You know, I made sure that I was relying on good abstract. And evidence based material that would even be tailored to the people that I expected would be there. And they all were just looking down at their notes and and physically writing and not even looking at me. And I can tell you, Jason, that the way I was before I had my own hypnotherapeutic intervention, so that I became, you know, so passionate about this work, Of course, because of my own experience.

The person that I was before would’ve just thought, Oh, I would’ve taken it personally and kind of tucked my tail between my legs and slunk out of the room, and as it was, I thought, No, it wasn’t personal . It must have to do with a misunderstanding of what I do. And so I did something that was so uncharacteristic of the person I used to be, which was that I contacted two of those doctors who I didn’t even know after all and said, Have coffee with me.

I wanna know how I can do this better. And one of those doctors with whom I had coffee. I realize that the reason I have not referred to persons like yourself, alternative support practitioners, is that it’s a tacit admission of my own failure. Hmm. And I love that he admitted that to me and, and I must say we developed such a good rapport that from that time on, he became one of my best referral partners.

Beautiful. Yeah. And over time, It’s taken time, of course, with this passion for what I do and continuing training and continuing work on myself, you know, so that I’m still getting neurolinguistic programming myself and not just training, I’m talking about working with good practitioners and getting hypnosis myself beyond self hypnosis.

I really believe in this because I think we are all works in progress and that as we true up and even. Work through our, our own things that we become better at what we do. And I’m, boy, I feel pretty strongly about this. And even that there’s more to what we do than just positivity. And there’s more than just having a positive attitude and just holding a person in high regard.

Because one of my favorite sayings that I even have framed in my office by Carl Young. One doesn’t become enlightened by imagining beings of light, but by making the darkness conscious. And so, you know, by this I don’t mean that you’re necessarily going to regress someone to cause every single time. I don’t mean that at all, but that for me, lots of times the linchpin is an initial sensitizing event.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about this class you’ve got coming. I know you just recently did it down in Daytona, right? Yeah, we did a version of it. However, this class that’s coming up is longer, so we’re actually going to be able to get into the material of course, a little more deeply, which I really appreciate.

It’s amazing, as you know, how quickly 50 minutes passes, you know? Absolutely. And I also really like when I’m teaching, And kind of learn the hard ways. Isn’t that how we often learn things to make them interactive rather than it just being a lot of lecture? We really wanna make sure that it’s open for plenty of feedback, commentary questions, and having more time to devote to it really allows for that, which I appreciate.

So the class is actually called Medical Hypnosis from the Cradle to the Grave. And the idea is that in this time when we, and I must say even including myself, are so interested in positioning ourselves as experts, branding ourselves as specializing in something. And I wanna be clear that I don’t disagree with that idea because interestingly, You know when you position yourself that way as a specialist, the generalists still come to you, of course.

But the idea, even in the whole field of medical research and medicine as a whole, what’s happened is, We have continued to consider one’s body and the person as something that you would look at and just keep looking at in smaller and smaller increments, you know, in order to determine what the problem is and perhaps a cure.

And of course, what that means is it’s turned into let’s just prescribe a drug for that. And the beauty of what we do is, as I see it, that right at the beginning, We have an opportunity to provide homeostatic self-regulation, which I already mentioned this earlier. You know, you’re starting with one issue and one thing that you’re working on, but immediately, even by providing homeostasis for somebody right at the beginning, you know, there is a domino effect where the person becomes healthier.

And rejuvenated beyond what they came in for. You know, maybe just they just wanted to lower their blood pressure or be able to sleep better, or to not be so anxious. And of course there are a whole host of things that. Occur that are great benefits beyond what they were initially looking for? Well, it’s the symptom that gets them coming in the door first.

It’s the symptom that has them reaching out for that help. I mean, I can even refer to a client I saw earlier this morning that we started on one path and now by her choice we’re on a different path. And I love the moment where a person can use the phrase of, I’m so excited that I get to work on this part of it now,

With the previous issue now gone, there’s now an entirely different layer of this, which now that we’re on that new layer. That reinforces everything that was there before. But you’re right, that domino effect of really freeing somebody and to get that domino effect in place as an infrastructure earlier on, it’s why I love the title from The Cradle to the Grave.

Well, and so to continue with that, then it of course opens up the idea for the person who may have just come in for one symptom, as you say. Then they have an aha moment where they realize, Oh my goodness, I have a whole host of things. That I could be working on with this person. And indeed they do when you know this and they realize, well, for instance, that client that I was talking about before who came into me initially to have weight loss and succeeded so well.

You know, she did come back for work on relationship with her mother and work on relationship with her daughter. And I mean, , so many clients I know you and I both have, they will come in with one symptom and then realize, Oh my goodness, not only can I work on so many other things, and they do successfully, but then they start referring other family members.

And so you’re working with a whole family. And I know you’ve had the experience, as have I, to work with people. Indeed. All the way from, say, preparing a woman for childbirth or as I have at the hospital. In fact, I worked with a, they called me in because a gal had come into the emergency room in her first trimester of pregnancy, horribly dehydrated and anxious as can be with morning sickness and no anme.

Was was working and they were at their witz end not knowing what to do. And of course, that’s exactly the point when they said, Well, let’s call, let’s call it later. And this woman was boy on, on an analog scale. She was at a 10 and within 50 minutes, I had her dial down to no more than a two, and had also even taught her how to recreate this level of comfort herself so that once she was released, should it ever occur, of course she could provide her own relief.

And what was wonderful about that, beyond of course, being able to provide that relief for the patient, was that I found out from the chief clinical officer that at the next medical staff meeting, That attending physician reported at the staff meeting that hypnosis works better than any drug they have.

Wow. And so , you know, those are the kinds of things that over time have, you know, gradually won over some of those, you know, ally oriented physicians. Well, in many cases it, it comes down to that quote earlier from the doctor that you referenced that from their previous position. It was almost as if it was a place of weakness to refer out.

Yeah. When really explaining what our role is and how we can assist and what value we can provide. I even had the fun experience in the last week or so, there was a threat on Facebook where someone was saying that doctors will never refer to us, and meanwhile my response politely was, That’s interesting cuz I actually have three doctors as clients in the office this week, and, and for one of them, it’s the first time ever that I was able to define for this physician.

Okay, here’s what would not be a good referral for me. Hmm. Here are some of the qualifications that I would say, this is where it perhaps wouldn’t be a match based on what I know that you do. However, here are the scenarios where it would. So to give the pluses and the minuses where, you know, given that specific specialty that this doctor had, of course, leaving the details out for good purpose here.

Yeah. But giving that, that sort of roadmap, that menu, if anything, of this is what value we can provide. So let me ask you this, is this gonna be, it’s Sunday at one o’clock at Hypno Thoughts Live. What would you say you want that takeaway to be from the people attending this two hour seminar? Great question.

What I want the takeaway to be is while you’re still positioning yourself as an expert in the area of this work that you love the most, and know that is a really good fit, and you know who your ideal client is, I’m not saying it all to veer away from that. But at the same time, to realize that you can absolutely help people throughout the whole course of their lives, and really importantly, right to the end of someone’s life.

I’ve had some of my most profound experiences, especially in the hospital, with people at the end of life who want an either more conscious and or comfortable passing. And to be able to, you know, be something of a midwife for that. And also just the privilege of witnessing that is remark. It’s really remarkable.

And so, you know, very literally, you know, I’ve worked with people all the way through their life cycle and their families, and I would hope that people are freshly inspired and feel like they have. The knowledge and the means to do this, and at the same time, feel strongly connected to the part of the work that they’re most passionate about.

Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast. And work smart hypnosis.com. Hey, it’s Jason with two last quick things, as I promised after this little brief announcement. Stick around because there’s a really cool story that Elena shared with me that you’ve gotta hear. It’s really cool. The other thing I’d point out is to head over to work smart hypnosis.com.

In addition to all of the show notes associated with this podcast session, you’re gonna find dozens and dozens of previous podcast sessions as well, uh, interviews, techniques, tips and tricks, all sorts of information over there, including my very special 10 day hypnosis business challenge. It’s 10 days of videos, 10 days of specific action steps.

All geared at helping you to grow your hypnosis business. Check that out today. Here’s the story all about stage hypnosis with Elena Guest. Thanks for listening. And I wanna tell you this cuz I, I love this story and I know you, you do have done a do stage hypnosis. Yeah. It’s what got me into it originally, , and you can probably imagine this in a way that with my position at the hospital, I felt so strongly that I didn’t wanna do anything that would possibly shoot me in the.

Mm-hmm. , right. And that I thought, oh gosh, you know, it’s hard enough making doctors, you know, trust me and as a professional and believe that what I do is not some kind of parlor game or voodoo. So the last thing I would do is certainly stage hypnosis or have anything to do with it. Okay. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah, does. Okay. All right. So, although I’ve learned, Let me jump that for a second. I’ve learned though, when someone asked the question, is this, like that stuff I’ve seen on stage, I’ve learned to ask a follow up question rather than assume Uhhuh one of the doctors in the office this past week ask that, and I go, Well, why do you ask?

What have you seen? And his response was, Well, I saw this guy at the local comedy club. That was the most incredible thing in my life I’ve ever seen. To which I’m thinking, I’m glad I got the qualifying detail first. . Yes. Rather than the stock response of, Oh no, this is different for this reason, . But to ask the qualifi of why do you ask?

Oh, it’s wonderful. I love that stuff. Well, it’s very similar, . So I remember, you know, after a day of the conference having drinks with Marks Howell, you probably know Marks Yes. And having a sparkling conversation. I mean, you could say it was really a debate about the values and he was so, you know, just bra Ra about, about stage hypnosis.

And I was opposing him for the reasons I just said. Well, okay, so fast forward a couple of years and I’m at Hypno Thoughts Live. This is two years ago. and Sean Michael Andrews was, you know, the hypnotist and I accompanied my roommate because she wanted to go and actually I really wanted to see Scott do stand up
Mm-hmm. . So that was the main reason I went, was to see Scott do stand up and he was great. And then I decided that I wanted to really bowl my roommate over and I did. It floored her that I volunteered to go up on stage with Sean, Michael Andrew. And so I wasn’t the stage hypnotist, but I was one of his, uh, , one of the people he kept on stage.

And I remember something that you said during your interview with Scott that you said that you noticed that some of the actors that you knew were even better under him. Oh, yeah. Were the audience. The audience to recap it, the, it was the stage hypnosis show at my college and there were people in the audience going, Wow, but those are all actors he has on stage.

So it’s fake. And I’m in the audience going, But that guy’s not that good of an actor. This is real. Exactly. So the same piece of information taken two different voice. Yeah, exactly. And what I would say is, I don’t know that I was better than ever, but what I do know is that I was more. Contemporaneous than ever.

I was willing to do improv. I was willing to just be spontaneous, which beforehand I never was willing to do. Boy, I had to have my script and I had to have my ducks in a row and somebody to, you know, a director to tell me where to move and what costume to wear and what my props were, et cetera. And boy, I was.

Just immediately on and fine and, and not the least bit nervous and didn’t care what I said and told jokes, which is believe me, not my style at all. . And, but here’s the really cool thing. It has remained with me. Nice. That’s the value that I love to tell people because, Usually, and maybe I’m wrong about this, but I didn’t like, prepare, you know, to do this podcast with you.

I just trusted myself and know that, my goodness. Certainly the degree to which I love what I do and my feeling this, you know, grateful for having it in my life certainly comes across, I’m sure. And in any event, That’s my hypnosis story about stage hypnosis. . No, I, I had a similar experience that was years ago that I volunteered for a show and I had been working as a hypnotist for quite some time, and it was a fun moment where the hypnotist calls up as volunteers, very small audience.

And there’s a beautiful moment where he turns around and sees me sitting right in the middle, smiling at him, and luckily off mic. At a high school. It was the expletive of what the filled the gaps, but it was the experience of being up there. And my discovery was that I tend to be a very auditory person, perhaps by the nature of the fact that we’re doing a recording here, this audio only, and no video, uh, but the, the nature of it that I was doing the things and then I was hearing.

And while for years we’ve had drilled into us the Almanian definition that hypnosis is the bypassing of the critical factors of the conscious mind. And there, up there in that moment was the thought. Oh, that’s what that was referring to . But of all things, there’s a previous session a few weeks back with Joanna Cameron and a stage heist, and I love the moment where she referred to, If you’re up there for the stage heist, if you’re up there and you’re going up to this next volunteer, and you’re thinking to yourself, Do I stand them up?

Do I do a hand drop? Do I do this technique? From her words in her mindset, she goes, You’re out of the process. You’re not in. Oh, mm, You’re you’re thinking about it rather than actually experiencing it. Yeah. And that’s just a great way of summing it up of, you know, the more we can be inside of that process, the more we can actually be there.

In the experience, such a wonderful skill to take with you and hold onto as well. So while most stage hypnotists would say from this point forward, all suggestions released, uh, good thing to hear. You kept that one with you. Yeah, and you know, and he told me, and you know about this, I mean, he. You do it all the time.

But he said, You know, when you get off stage, everyone who puts out their hand, you’re gonna shake their hand and say, Welcome to Walmart, which I did not do because it was not exactly outside of my value system, but just doesn’t fit who I am at all . So I didn’t do that, but it’s really something, you know, I’ve had people come up to me a couple years after that and say, Weren’t you that gal that we saw in that stage notice show a couple years ago?

So,