The UnScripted Mind
Join your host Professional Counselor, Jim Cunningham, as he dives into the complex world of mental wellness. From anxiety and depression to resilience and recovery, "The Unscripted Mind" offers candid conversations and expert insights, encouraging listeners to confront their own journeys while gaining tools and perspectives that promote healing and understanding—one unscripted conversation at a time.
The UnScripted Mind
Trance Formations: The Art of Hypnotherapy
We'll debunk common misconceptions about hypnotherapy, explaining how it differs from stage hypnosis and highlighting its therapeutic benefits. By guiding individuals into a theta brainwave state, hypnotherapy facilitates the reprogramming of negative cognitions. We'll compare it to EMDR, meditation, and mindfulness, showing how these methods can help reframe negative self-talk and address deep-seated trauma. Phyllis emphasizes the importance of addressing subconscious beliefs formed by past experiences, revealing how hypnotherapy can transform these beliefs for better emotional well-being.
Additionally, we explore the impact of technology on mental health, the necessity of setting boundaries, and the connection between physical and emotional health. Phyllis offers insights on managing anxiety, the benefits of self-hypnosis, and the importance of personalized therapy. We also touch on the significance of flow states and how practices like meditation, hypnosis, and yoga can help achieve this mental balance. Tune in to learn how to harness these tools for a healthier mind and body, and discover the interconnected benefits of improving one aspect of life to positively impact others.
The goal of The UnScripted Mind Podcast is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, self-awareness and control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors.
I think when most of us think about going and getting mental health assistance for anxiety or depression, we think about how much work it's going to be. But what if there was a different way of approaching this? What if there was a modality where you could go? You could lay back in a recliner, close your eyes, relax and let the therapist do most of the work. That's our topic today on the Unscripted Mind. Welcome to the Unscripted Mind.
Jim Cunningham:My name is Jim Cunningham and I'm a licensed professional counselor, and our goal here is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, increase your awareness and have better control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors. You know, when people think of therapy and psychotherapy, a lot of times the things that come to mind are the common types of therapy you hear most Cognitive behavior therapy, cbt, dialectic behavior therapy, emdr, eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing therapy, solution-focused therapy and others. But today we're going to focus on something different, something that treats clients in a very different way, that requires something very different from the client. What if you could reprogram your mind to achieve your goals, to overcome fears, to break free from limiting beliefs, and do it while you're relaxed, imagine unlocking the power of your subconscious to create lasting change.
Jim Cunningham:Our topic today is hypnotherapy, and our host is a friend of mine, a colleague, phyllis McComb. She's going to guide us through the myths and realities of hypnotherapy. She's a licensed professional counselor with extensive experience in both school and private practice settings. She is a certified trauma-informed care practitioner and holds trainings with EMDR, eft, which stands for emotional freedom technique and hypnotherapy. She's also pursuing her doctoral degree in psychology. So stick around. We're going to delve into how psychotherapy can be a powerful tool for personal transformation and how you can harness this tool to refine your path to success. All on this episode of the unscripted mind all right are you excited?
Phyllis MComb:yeah, good to be here, thank you for taking this a lot of time yeah, to take out you're welcome.
Jim Cunningham:I mostly want to focus on you doing hypnotherapy. Okay, you didn't start there.
Phyllis MComb:No.
Jim Cunningham:How'd you get into that?
Phyllis MComb:Um, kind of a roundabout way, but generally I sought it out for myself and I had really great experience for myself with that and I thought, you know, I should get trained in this. And then the pandemic hit and I needed something to do because we were all stuck at home and I had time to study and really put in the hours. So it was over the pandemic that I learned and went to get the certification for it.
Jim Cunningham:So yeah, I did it because I liked it. Yeah, what was it that it helped you with?
Phyllis MComb:I went for anxiety Originally. I had a lot of my plate, three kids, I was in school, trying to work, and I think I have probably inherited anxiety and so I just wanted to calm some of that down and some of the behaviors that were coming up with that.
Phyllis MComb:And it did help with that and so and it was pretty brief, I want to say I did maybe like 10 sessions and felt relief with that. So in the counseling world that's kind of a big deal If you can, if you can have big results quickly. Um, and I felt the same about EMDR. Emdr was pretty quick. You could see relief and benefit. So I just felt like you know, this would be a good thing to offer in conjunction with EMDR and then like, um, just typical talk therapy.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, yeah. So I think I think that it's when you think of hypnotherapy right, you've gone through it and when people don't use the when, when people there's nobody using like the trigger word that causes you to remove your shoes or something right, no, that's stage hypnosis, and that is what I almost wish it wasn't called hypnosis, to be honest, because I feel like people automatically go there and I've had so many people say well, are you going to make me like bark, like a dog?
Phyllis MComb:Am I going to give you all my money, my inheritance, am I going to sign that to you? I'm like, no, you're not going to do that. So it's. It's really so. What we're looking at. There's different brain waves and brain states that we're in. So gamma and beta waves are the waves that we're in right now. You're getting things done, your executive functioning is high. It's the kind of what we are normally in in our day to day. And then you go to alpha waves and then theta waves, and theta brain waves is where EMDR really can work well if you get there, but also hypnotherapy. So the theta waves is, I tell people it's like a twilight state, so you're not asleep but you're not really awake. It's kind of like if you're laying on the couch dozing off with a TV show and someone says your name and you can come to. So we're just. It's really just a method of relaxing to that theta brainwave.
Jim Cunningham:Okay, yeah, so I guess walk me through. When somebody comes in to do a session, what does that look like? What are the steps? Because I, you know it's. It sounds um for lack of a better word kind of woo, woo to some people.
Phyllis MComb:Well, and it's it's cousins are meditation, mindfulness, which we know are having a big movement right now. A lot of people doing that. Those also will get you to that same um theta brainwave. Parts ofs of yoga will do that too. So it's woo-woo in the sense that it's not traditionally done in therapy but it's been around for centuries and has been practiced. So if someone comes in, it looks like a typical therapy session we're going to go through.
Phyllis MComb:What's the presenting issue? How is it showing up for you? Like your depression, anxiety? Is it interfering with relationships or? Um, you know your work and what we're looking for are it's the same with EMDR. Is those talk targeting, like negative cognitions?
Phyllis MComb:So as people are talking, I'm I'm trying to hear things like um, it's always my fault, or I'm a terrible mother, or or just kind of those statements that are underneath in their vernacular of how they would define themselves. And so when we do hypnotherapy, we get to that really relaxed theta brainwave state and then we just reprogram. Might not be the best word either, but we just install or speak differently to ourself and, over doing that time and time again, we can reprogram or start speaking to ourself in a different way, things like. I'm always trying my best. I am smart Gosh darn it.
Phyllis MComb:People like me, you know we get those sort of things, but our subconscious mind is really what runs us, and so what we see and how we talk to people. If there's an iceberg, what's above the water? What we can see isn't really what is running our behavior and our motions, it's these thought processes, and so it goes to that and you listen to it. It's really easy, it's comforting. I record it and so when people go home they listen to it over and over and over, and it's repetitive in nature, so that it stays with us.
Jim Cunningham:Okay, so the way you're saying this, right. Well, the way you describe it, it sounds like the movie inception.
Phyllis MComb:And I've seen that, but it's in and out. Remind me, how is it like Well?
Jim Cunningham:the idea is that they go plant ideas in people's subconscious when they're sleeping through their dreams.
Phyllis MComb:Okay, yeah, it's like, and so they.
Jim Cunningham:You know the idea is the power of, of implanting an idea Okay, you know, and how that just kind of it's like a seed and it just takes root.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, yeah, I would well. And what can change that for us? What can change that kind of self-talk? Really two ways. So we can have a big traumatic event.
Phyllis MComb:Let's say somebody has been driving their whole life and they have a terrible car accident, in that split second all of a sudden their body to probably to protect themselves so they don't drive again. Because the body doesn't know that driving we need to do, it just thinks don't ever do that again. So they might in that split second have things like oh my gosh, I'm really not safe, I'm not a good driver, I can't drive at night anymore. I'm not only not safe for me, but my kids were at risk, you know. And in that split second then they've just kind of reprogrammed how they think about driving.
Phyllis MComb:Or it can be messages that we get over and over and over for longterm. So if you think of bullying in schools, how pervasive that can be in really harming someone to hear you're ugly, you're stupid, whatever they're told over and over and over their whole life, particularly if it comes from someone in their family, a parent or a guardian, that's very damaging and then it just has programmed that for them. Oh, I can't do school, I can't go to college. I'm dumb. I didn't make good grades.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, very similar to the negative cognitions in EMDR.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, yep.
Phyllis MComb:And so yeah, and it's very, they're very similar and I work with I actually sometimes we'll do both kind of Franken session, we'll do EMDR and then the positive installation part of EMDR we might move into kind of hypnotic suggestion and so so yeah, the word hypnosis, I don't know, I think it's triggering to people. It does sound really woo woo. People are afraid that they're not going to be in control of themselves. But you are in control. No one can make you do something that you don't want to do, and really all we're asking you to do is to see things differently. So I don't have people walk or even really talk there.
Phyllis MComb:There can be a little bit of that in hypnosis, but for the most part I'm gathering what those negative cognitions are, and then I'll ask someone what would you like to believe instead, what would you like to feel instead? And then put together scripts and things that we do for hypnosis. Scripts are really interesting. So I'm not outright. Sometimes I'm outright saying things like and because you love yourself, you can trust yourself to make this decision. It'll be that straightforward. But there's a lot of use of metaphor. There are things to like confuse the mind so that it'll relax further. Um, so there's techniques in it too. So if you, if you hear a hypnotic script, they might start talking about airplanes or a farmer planting crops. You know when you think what does this have to do with anxiety? But it does. It's like when we watch a movie, even though the movie isn't about us and it could be about track, stars or space, you know any of those things.
Phyllis MComb:There's an element of us that relates to that and applies it to our life, and so these hypnosis scripts will do that.
Jim Cunningham:So yeah, it's really cool.
Phyllis MComb:I love it, it's really cool.
Jim Cunningham:So when somebody comes in, I mean to just say even to do EMDR, it usually takes a couple of sessions to build some trust so that they can allow themselves to be kind of at least vulnerable with themselves. Yeah, yeah. So I'm assuming, when somebody comes for hypnotherapy you can't just Go right in?
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, we have at least one session where we're just going to talk. But I have people who and it really depends on the person, probably where are they at? You know, I don't typically jump right into those techniques. If someone's in active crisis, there's an element of we have to settle someone down. I see therapy and interventions, like you know, someone coming in in crisis, we're just stabilizing someone. And then there's that middle part of therapy where we're going to really deeply process what happens, and that's EMDR and hypnotherapy. The third part of therapy for me is like okay, what did I learn? What did I learn about myself? How did it affect me and how am I going to apply things differently? How will this experience change me? And that's kind of like that third phase. So if someone comes in and they're actively maybe in suicidal ideation or actively in a crisis situation at home, I don't typically just jump right into that.
Jim Cunningham:Sure.
Phyllis MComb:But I don't know, how do you do that?
Jim Cunningham:Well, I think it just takes some time, you know for? Them to be able to feel comfortable in the room and be willing to tell you things you know, and people who come in, who tend to be very anxious, for example, it it takes. It can take months, you know, particularly if they're, if they're younger or um, but that's true of adults too.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's an element too of like vulnerability when you're talking to somebody but to lay, so I have a chair you lay back, you know. So to be laying back eyes closed and really be super relaxed, it does take um an element of trust, and trauma can come into that. So if someone has high sexual trauma or maybe physical abuse, that's too vulnerable. So I very much make sure I'm like sitting in an okay place. Some people don't like me to be like right in front of them. They don't want me to watch them sleeping or whatever, so I'll sit behind them.
Phyllis MComb:So I try to move where people are most comfortable, because it is pretty vulnerable and people are like, oh my gosh, I'm to move where people are most comfortable because it is pretty vulnerable and people are like, oh my gosh, I'm going to snore, I snore, I know I'm going to snore. I'm like you wouldn't be the first, it's okay, you're all right, snore away. Um, that actually is a good sign because I know they're super comfortable. So, um, so I try to pay really close attention to what the presenting issue is, and is my physical presence going to trigger any part of someone being uncomfortable? Um, so we just talk a lot about that.
Phyllis MComb:That's kind of the first session and I'll have them sit in the chair and I'm this far away, can you hear me? And I'll get closer. Um, but I am, I do want to be close enough. There are signs and things that somebody really is in a hypnotic state, like their jaw is like it's hard to explain it Like their cheeks kind of. It's like the jaw really relaxes and the teeth aren't touching and so the jaw kind of and the cheeks kind of thin out a little bit. I don't know, and you can tell by breathing by breathing and eyes Like.
Phyllis MComb:I feel like the muscles around the eyes really relax when somebody is in that state, but so I like to have eyes on people. Sometimes they don't like that.
Jim Cunningham:Do you ever do this via video?
Phyllis MComb:I have done that. I don't like it as much because I feel like I feel about telehealth in general, about like just, I think it always works better in person for me. There's an element of just closeness in a session. I can do that and I have done that.
Jim Cunningham:Um yeah, but going back to your point too about just kind of being able to see them how they're breathing, how their face is relaxing, uh, making sure they stay in their window of tolerance, which I assume is another similarity with the MDR. Yeah, yeah.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, we do that, and so, um, a window of tolerances is a place of emotion. Ability, I guess, is not a word that somebody can work in. So I never want someone to be a nine, 10 or so heightened, that they're like I'm coming out of my skin. I can't even talk about this. And we don't really want you to be at a zero one, maybe even a two, because you're feeling pretty good about it. There's nothing to process, so it's that same. We want to be in a working window.
Phyllis MComb:Um, and it it looks very similar to EMDR. If somebody gets, I and it happens more with EMDR that people shoot up and really get triggered, um, with hypnosis it doesn't, because they're already in such a relaxed, calm state and I'm not actively talking about something they're going through. We're talking, like I said, about airplanes and noticing your body and relaxing your lungs, all this kind of stuff. So, but if somebody gets really triggered, it looks very much the same as EMDR. Do you like to breathe? You know, maybe some visualization turn on spa music and it really I've been doing, I do some work with um hypnotherapy and guided visualization through ketamine infusions and that is really powerful because the mind is, you know, you're seeing colors and everything's open and you're looking at things in such a visual, um and like somatic experience of it.
Phyllis MComb:And so I try to have the room, you know, like what are they seeing, hearing, feeling, touching? We have oils going, scents, and the guided imagery, or the hypnosis, is really vivid and the feedback I get is, like, you know, imagine a gold, color times, 10. So we can, you know, really use that to our advantage of, I guess, just really getting in there doing some good work.
Phyllis MComb:So that's been really fascinating to do yeah.
Jim Cunningham:So let me ask you, just kind of backing up a little bit, what types of symptoms and problems does it seem to work best for?
Phyllis MComb:I have. Really. I think it works for everything and I've I've used it for, of course, anxiety and depression, binge eating, um, how to communicate better, um, just general self-esteem, how you feel about yourself as a parent. It really, if you're having any negative thoughts about yourself or the world you're in hypnosis, can can work on that.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, about yourself or the world you're in hypnosis. Can can work on that? Yeah, and you would say that's probably 90, 99% of the problems. It's not the things that happen to people, it's the meaning they make from it.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, the story we tell ourself about what that means If we have had these hard things happen in our life health problems or family problems or you know any, anything that can come up.
Jim Cunningham:Hard thing for some people to hear is that really? The problem is just kind of the way you think about it, it's you. It's all right here, problem's just you.
Phyllis MComb:It's the good news, and it's me too. I do it too.
Jim Cunningham:So it's the good news and bad news.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, it's all within you. It's your fault, but you're a therapist. You should have it figured out. That's not how that works either anything that I'm trying to work with people um on or or use that as a technique. I've tried out myself, so I know what it feels like to lay back and and I've gone to actually two therapists, um, that do hypnotherapy I like to kind of see the different techniques and I've learned a lot from both of that.
Jim Cunningham:Yep, For sure. Yeah, Um so the how long is the session last?
Phyllis MComb:It's the same. Well, we can do like intensives where you go hour and a half to two hours, um, but typically it's just a regular 50 minute session.
Jim Cunningham:Okay, do you kind of feel like you kind of have to jump right into it to get through it, or is it? What portion of the session is actual hypnosis?
Phyllis MComb:Well, so I try to um, if someone comes in, let's say, let's say anxiety, because it's easy, right, anxiety is kind of I tell people it's like the genes of the mental health world, because it just goes with everything. Like, you know, you're getting divorced, there's anxiety. Your kids are teenagers, you have anxiety, you know. So anxiety we do a lot on. So if somebody comes in and let's say they're having anxiety over finances, had to change a job and aren't making as much money, I might say, you know, let's, let's try this four to six times and see how we can do so. There's different parts. We're going to break that down.
Phyllis MComb:This first session it might just be the anxiety over losing my job, feeling bad about myself. The next one might be anxiety about being able to fill, fulfill the needs that I have in my home feeding my family, paying my bills, you know. And so we're going to break that down every session. It's not going to just be general anxiety. We're going to look at like, what specifically are you worried about for this session and then we'll move on to others. So because of that, um, some sessions are like a 15 minute recording and some are 30. It just depends. No-transcript. Different um varieties to use.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, okay, um, so what percentage of the time? I know EMDR works great for a lot of people, but not everybody.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah.
Jim Cunningham:What percentage of people come in there and they just can't quite.
Phyllis MComb:I don't know if I have um a percentage. Most people do well with it, but I have some people who it makes them feel dizzy, especially with ketamine. If we try to put those together, something about the visualization and something I'm asking them to do, or they're just like I don't know if it's working, or it's hard for me to really relax because you do have to be in that theta brainwave for that to really kind of take hold. So if someone's laying there, you know stiff, stiff, stiff and they can't relax, they might get a good recording out of it. But I don't know how useful that session, but most people especially.
Phyllis MComb:The more I tell people it's like exercise and practice. The more you do it, the better you'll get at it. And so it's important to, no matter who you're using maybe someone's same voice and I use the same background music. I try to have everything leading up to hypnosis be very the same. It's like before bed I brush my teeth, I wash my face, I put on my jammies and my body's like night night, you know. So with this it's my voice, it's this chair, it's this sound, it's this smell, and then when I hear that, I can just more gently go into hypnosis. So it's practice. If somebody doesn't do it right the first time, we can keep trying.
Jim Cunningham:Sure, yeah. This isn't a process, though, that they're going to come see you for two years for.
Phyllis MComb:No, I actually don't want that, well, okay. So there's a caveat. I think it depends on how you're looking at therapy in general and what you want it to do for you. So for me, there is an acute phase where people come in. They hopefully find relief and get better, feel better, and then they go.
Phyllis MComb:I go to therapy once a month. I don't do it because I'm actively in crisis. You know, sometimes things happen, but for me I I look at mental health practice like exercise. If I'm exercising and someone drops a 50 pound boulder on me, I might not like it, I can shuffle to the car, get it there, but it doesn't break my back and I don't crumble under it. So for me, I look at all of these things for myself.
Phyllis MComb:Once I've I've gotten through acute phases and the need that I went for, then I'm using it for like exercise, so that when life hands me a difficult situation, as it has before and I know that it will again I don't crumble under it. I know how to get through it. I know what my resources are. So I think it just depends on how the person I'm with views therapy as well. Some people just want to come. You know I want to come for three months and feel better, and some people are like, no, I need to work through this, but then I am looking for um something that I can do regularly or long-term I don't know what are your thoughts on that, what are you?
Jim Cunningham:Well, I think you said everybody's a little bit different. Ideally, I think. Um, once people have tools um, I think they have there's a period of time where they have to learn to trust the tools and so they're not quite ready to let go of the therapeutic will be.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, it's my safe place. I don't want to. I don't want to get rid of that.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, yeah, no, that's good and um, so it takes a little bit of time to start trusting the tools and and, as you know, it's like weekly, bi-weekly, monthly. Maybe I see every once in a while when something flares up, but yeah, well, and certainly we taper down.
Phyllis MComb:So if someone's coming every week for something that does not last forever, hopefully we're getting people to like monthly. Or even I have people who do quarterly like check-ins and kind of see how they're doing. Or I have people who come and then a year and a half later they'll reach back out and say, hey, this, this thing happened, I need to come in for that. So it's ongoing in the sense that they know it's there and they use it, but they're maybe not coming in regularly. I just tried it with what we do. We hear so many hard things and I um have a lot going on in my life as well, so I just I like a weekly or I mean a monthly like. Oh yeah, I know I'm going to go and work that out and I'll save that for later.
Jim Cunningham:Sure, yeah, yeah, okay. Um, the tools that they can take with them, I think of, like self-hypnosis. Is this training people to use that on their own?
Phyllis MComb:Um, there is. I I don't do that, um, but there is. I mean I know there's a ton of resources online and for people who are limited by funds and time which a lot of us time and money that's difficult there are free videos on YouTube. You can. You can find some. I mean, there's a ton on YouTube. In fact, if people want to know, if they like it, I'll just say you know, just Google hypnosis for relationships and see what comes up. The thing you need to know is they're general. When you come to a therapist, we're looking at what specifically is bothering you about losing your job. You're not going to get that on a very general. This is on YouTube. It's going to be very general.
Phyllis MComb:Um, they some of the videos are like 12 hours long. I zero stars, don't recommend that and there might be people, other therapists, that disagree with that. Um, the thought is you just sleep to it and then it's just putting things in. But what they found is really in that theta brainwave state is where, um, so maybe going in and out of sleep it helps. What I've found except tried to listen to that and other people to just kind of wakes you up all night long, um, and I think, if that were the case, we we could all like oh you know, I'm gonna learn French, I'm just going to sleep to this 12 hour video for like three months, and then I'm going to be you know like good at French, so I don't know, and I and I know there are people who disagree with that, but I typically like a 15 to about an hour hypnosis video.
Phyllis MComb:I would recommend they also. When they're finished, a new one will start and you'll get like a Geico ad and that kind of brings you out of a jolt. Yeah, so there are some caveats, but if they no-transcript.
Jim Cunningham:Can you lower your voice two octaves, or is it one of those voice modulators? I don't know if I meant maybe notes, I don't know.
Phyllis MComb:I'm not a music person. I lower it and slow we go, low and slow, not in the beginning. So there are it's. If you ever listened to binaural beats or anything, have you ever listened to that and how they kind of start out like and then they lower. What that is is through the beats. It's manually putting you into those different brain waves.
Jim Cunningham:I don't know if you knew that.
Phyllis MComb:So you kind of mimic that with your voice a little bit. You want it to go low and slow.
Jim Cunningham:So this is really about timing in a lot of ways, and there's there's a period of time, it sounds like, where, by the time I lay down before I go to sleep, there's a window of opportunity and that's what you want to capitalize on. Yeah, that's a window of opportunity.
Phyllis MComb:I'm going to start saying that.
Jim Cunningham:Yes.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, that's really, that's really it and it's the same. Like all of these practices in our in our culture, we have there's different parts of our brain that need like rest and need exercise. So in American culture we're really good at like we get up and we're going to get early bird, going to get that warm and we're going to work out and we're going to go meet our goals and do all the things. Okay, run, run, run. And then there's sleep, and sleep is super, super important and there's all the phases of sleep and what is restorative to us in mind and body in that. And then there's this middle part, I believe, between that it's kind of like being bored, or like when you're driving somewhere you're like, oh, how did I get here?
Jim Cunningham:Almost dissociative.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, yeah, like Almost dissociative. Yes, yeah, like a flow state If you're running or doing a hobby that you love. We have gotten rid of that with phones and with all the things that occupy that the minute they wake up till they go to bed. I think they see the biggest difference with meditation, hypnosis, yoga, because we're forcing them to, to access that part of their brain and you think of like kids, like kids who are developing brains. They just never get into that. I mean, how often were you bored as a kid, jim? Like every car trip you're counting cows.
Jim Cunningham:That's right. It was really good for you. Stripes on the road, just whatever yeah.
Phyllis MComb:And we don't do that anymore. We don't, um, not generally everybody, but um, so it's on purpose taking time to have your brain in that um kind of state.
Jim Cunningham:It's good. What percentage of symptoms or diagnoses problems? However you want to say it, what do you tend to see?
Phyllis MComb:Well, I think most of my caseload is women, so I think I see mostly women for women's issues. I certainly see men. I have private practice and then I also have paired up with the psychiatrist's office that does the ketamine, that population. I see a lot of veterans and so a lot of people coming in with military trauma. So I would say, kind of like women's issues, military trauma a lot of just a lot of anxiety and a lot of anxiety of the unsurety of the world and what's going to happen with our political climate and you know, housing has doubled and groceries doubled, and so a lot of people worrying just about life and how to get through it and how to help their kids get through it.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, what did you use for anxiety before you got into hypnotherapy? What works that you've noticed in terms of how you couch it, phrase it, discuss it.
Phyllis MComb:Well it so. I have people, especially with anxiety and depression, get a full physical workup because there are. You know, we, our bodies are machines and there could be something just physiologically off, especially for the women. I see, if I specialize in women and kind of the 30 and up crowd um, we're going through things like menopause or um, having babies and our hormones are all over the place, and so let's just get a good picture of what are your hormones doing. Is your thyroid Okay? Do you have vitamin D? You know all of those things.
Jim Cunningham:Eliminate the basics eliminate the basics.
Phyllis MComb:I don't go right to mental health medication and really that's not my scope. You know what we don't prescribe, and that is with someone in their doctor, although I do support that and I think the research shows that medication and therapy is the gold standard. Right Of care.
Phyllis MComb:So I support that. But let's just kind of see, see what's going on, and then a lot of things that just calm the body. Anxiety is funny because you can get the racing thoughts and they can just loop and play all day long. So it is a very active brain state and talking. Have a lot of luck or help by just doing things that calm the body and their strategies. You know, of course, deep breathing, taking a nap, holding ice cubes. If someone's in a panic state and all of their blood rushes to their organs that are, that's protecting, then we need to get do things that get the blood throughout the whole body again. So just weighted blankets.
Phyllis MComb:I mean all of those things really do help and do as many as you need.
Jim Cunningham:Breathe under a blanket. That's good, yeah, which is interesting because, you know, a lot of times people run their hands under cold water just just almost as a distraction. But there's some physiological benefits to creating some cold.
Phyllis MComb:Yes. Or if people are like numbing out and dissociating and you know and that and that state, I think, um, people don't really know what that is. We think of movies like split, you know, but really that's if anyone's ever had a time where it's like, oh, it feels like I'm in a dream. I mean, I'm here, but it's like a dream state, that's a dissociative state, and so, um, I'll have people, even if you just have hand lotion, just put lotion on and just start squeezing your body, let's just, let's put it on. Do you feel your arm? Tell me what temperature it is, what you know. Now, press really hard, press off, and we're just trying to get their, their body to orient again to the present.
Jim Cunningham:Sure, how often do? Or how do you recognize if somebody's going through the hypnotherapy, that they're not present anymore?
Phyllis MComb:Well, um, kind of the nature of it, they're. They're not a little bit you know. Um it looks different because it's maybe opposite of something else, because they're not going into that relaxed state, they're too anxious.
Jim Cunningham:They're stiff, they're coughing.
Phyllis MComb:They might look at me. You know we're still doing this, um, but so I it's. It looks a bit different, if that makes sense. So, like um, once they're relaxed, we're, we're good. So it's getting someone to feel comfortable enough and and and there's. So there's um phases of hypnotherapy. The first one is we're just going to relax, you start relaxing. The second phase is what we call a deepener, and that's where we start changing vocal tone and everything to kind of get to that data stage. Then we're in like what's the meat? What are what are we working on? We're going to do that Um, all of those cognitive, cognitive changes and then bringing someone out of it. And so those first two stages are kind of the most important in a way, because everybody, um, the timing is dependent on everybody.
Jim Cunningham:Right.
Phyllis MComb:So I'm. That's why I'm kind of looking for, like are they relaxing, are they in that place? You know, someone might need a deepener. That's like 30 seconds, and some we I might be like okay, four minutes you know we're doing it so um it's one of the benefits, I think, of just really doing it in person. Online it's harder to tell if that's happening for someone.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, the trick I assume it sounds similar to EMDR is that you kind of have to be watching the clock and you know how much time we've got left. So then we've got time to get stable, come out of all of that and get ready to send you out the door.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, and I think you know, like with therapy, one of the most therapeutic things is to sit with someone who doesn't really know my life, who has positive regard for me, that can hear this thing that I'm going through from my perspective and not judge it and help me look at it and gain perspective from my point of view. Okay, with hypnotherapy, especially if someone's really anxious or it's just running on cortisol, even if we don't really get to a lot of the meat, even if it really is, just it took 20 minutes for someone to really really like calm down. That was beneficial. I have a lot of people who just like I haven't been that relaxed years, you know, and it it just like I haven't been that relaxed years, you know, and it it. That's hard here, cause we're just so, um, we push ourselves, and then we throw monster drinks on top of it, and then we, you know, and then we've got to run a marathon, and then, um, and so just our nervous systems are so wired, I think a lot of cortisol a lot of cortisol.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, yeah, the the, the idea that all the people have all this cortisol. And then is there anything they can do on a daily basis just for themselves to help reduce that? In your experience, uh, whether that's through self-hypnosis or self-care, kind of things.
Phyllis MComb:I for me personally, and just what I've seen social media media is a huge thing or just being on your phone in general, um, if, and and I don't know whether phones are addictive or not People argue about that, but I definitely know that people use that as like, oh, I'm bored, I'm on it, I'm upset, I'm on it, um, I'm ignoring someone, I'm on it. Um, so we're using it as like this coping strategy, but then you get into this world where you're seeing the perfect parts of people all the time, and so it's not reality and it's little snippets of information that are also rewiring our brain for these quick things. So I don't know that you have to get rid of all together, but certainly monitor it and do less. I got rid of all social media. I'm not on it anymore. I feel a lot better.
Phyllis MComb:I have no idea what's happening to Carol, who's on her boat in South of France. I have no, I have no idea. And then, because I don't have that, then I've had to return to some of the things that I was doing in my time. Anyway, it was very easy for me to get on my phone in an hour and a half later. Be like whoa.
Phyllis MComb:I need to get dinner going. So now there are other things that I'm doing with my time that feel more beneficial. Not everybody wants to give that up or be mad that I said that, but and maybe that's not for them, I think taking time to exercise. Exercise, we know, like studies have shown, it can be as beneficial as mental health medication. We know, like studies have shown, it can be as beneficial as mental health medication. So exercise and try your best to do it outside at least 30 minutes a day. Get sun early morning, sun in your eyeballs, get that.
Jim Cunningham:Cause you're. You're fighting this dopamine kind of response and again. You know dopamine. You know that Dorito is going to give you a little dopamine, but dopamine isn't satisfied with a Dorito.
Phyllis MComb:Right, it wants the whole bag. Yeah, yeah.
Jim Cunningham:Um so like, and in a lot of ways it's there. This is an addictive kind of problem.
Phyllis MComb:And and I.
Jim Cunningham:I do think that you know, um, we were talking about Jonathan height, um, and a lot of his research and how a lot of people now you know, with studies and stuff they found that most people would be willing to get paid to get rid of tech talk if they could but they can't, because then they've called themselves from the herd and they're left out.
Phyllis MComb:Really interesting how that's happened. Right, we like we've created these pockets of um belonging and group groupages I'm making up all kinds of words today but groups that if we pull out, we're we're worried about and then you throw in like families, like a lot of people are in touch with distant cousins and things, which I think is wonderful.
Phyllis MComb:But then you have to look okay, is there? There's like a tipping point where now I'm on this all the time, I'm on this all the time, and and I I think a good marker is, if you're, if you're doing it too much, it's like what are your emotions when you're doing it? Are you getting like going through political scroll and like getting really upset? That's not smart, you know? Um, yeah, so I, you know we've got to be stewards of that, as, as technology comes out and continues, we need to look at the impact it's having on us and our bodies and minds.
Jim Cunningham:So, yeah, yeah, the more research doesn't seem to indicate Good things. Good things, no, no, no.
Phyllis MComb:And maybe a little bit. You know, like technology has been amazing and all of the advances we've had. But then I don't know. It's probably like everything, it's both good and bad. But then I don't know. It's probably like everything, it's both good and bad. It's like a rubber band. The more information we get, the more we can also harm ourself with it.
Jim Cunningham:But yeah, what is the um if somebody were just to call you out of the blue and say, you know, a 15 minute consult or something to see if this is something for them? What, what kinds of things do you tell them, or some? What are some of the most important things they need to know about trying hypnotherapy?
Phyllis MComb:Oh, that's a good question. Um, I think it would be very general to like maybe a first session or I don't know. I probably would just have them come in for a free console and sit more than 15 minutes, and just what is it you're wanting to use this for? What are you hoping to get out of it? Just that someone, there's an, there is an element of willingness in hypnotherapy, so just that someone's coming in and asking about it and curious, they're probably a good candidate because the the really um, the only thing you have to be do to do is be a willing participant and just allow the process to happen. So, um, but I think it would just be general things, maybe like what we've talked about no-transcript. 90% of the time the client should be talking or whatever we learn in school, it's not like that.
Phyllis MComb:With hypnotherapy. I'm doing most of the talking, so there's a little bit of a shift. If someone is used to therapy, it looks very different.
Jim Cunningham:If someone was looking for a hypnotherapist, what would be? A couple of red flags that they should keep looking.
Phyllis MComb:I mean there are some very good hypnotherapists that I don't know have master's degrees in counseling and all of that. So I don't want to discount that because you know experience does help with that. You're looking for their qualifications. Was it an accredited program school? But generally I there was a lot of learning becoming just a licensed professional counselor of how learning how people think and work and what happens if they get triggered and all of those kinds of things. So for me, safely, I would say master's level or higher. Um, you know there are some doctors of psychology that do it. I feel like kind of, maybe the more letters the better.
Phyllis MComb:Um, but you, you don't want someone who's like, yeah, I went to Florida for a couple of weekends, Now I'm hypnotherapist. You don't want that. Yeah, yeah, got it, yeah, um.
Jim Cunningham:so, without divulging any confidentiality or confidential information, what are some of the great success stories you've seen?
Phyllis MComb:A lot of just peace in an anxious moment and feeling like secure in that I know what to say Like, say, someone I'm trying to think of an example that I could give that wouldn't bring breach things. Recently, working with someone who has a very traumatic and stressful family experience and they love their family and there's a movement now in the counseling world world. I don't know if you've seen it, but just to like cut people off, we're just going to dissociate from our family, oh, that's they're. They're not behaving in a way that you like well, just don't talk to them, which I think is damaging in another way and is not using communication skills and is very isolating for someone who then has to be separated from your people.
Phyllis MComb:Nothing is more painful than the group that I came from no longer wants me and I no longer want them. So I don't really generally support that unless it's truly there is. I mean, clearly there are cases where there is abuse and um situations where that is not okay to be in contact, but most of the time it's things we can work through. And maybe we can like say there's a family that argues all the time about politics Democrat, republican, whatever then we're just going to put a boundary around this thing, and this thing isn't good for us to talk about, and we haven't learned a way to do that in which we can hear each other without flipping tables and keying cars, right?
Jim Cunningham:We're not.
Phyllis MComb:We're not good at that but we're good at these other things. So in working with this person and I never determined that that will always be up to the client I would never say you know, you should probably never talk to your dad again. I would just never do that. But if they're feeling like that's what I need to do, great, we're going to work through that. Or we might look at what are the parts that you need to protect, what are what's happening in this system that's hard for you. What part of excuse me the system do you lose yourself in? What excuse me the system do you lose yourself in? What part of the system do, all of a sudden, you flip and with your parents, you become the parent and now they're the child. That that's the dysfunctional part.
Phyllis MComb:And so just recently had luck with someone. We did seven or eight scripts on boundaries and how to hold boundaries, and there was a lot of fear If, if I set boundaries, I mean, and people won't, won't like me anymore. And so we did. We did a whole script about, um, uh, a farmer who had sheep, and the sheep were free roaming sheep, but the town was creeping in and it was becoming unsafe for these sheep, and so he had. He thought about what are the ways I could keep them safe. And you know we won't go through all the ways. But eventually he put up a fence and at first he was worried that the sheep would be mad at him because they couldn't roam or that the townspeople would think well, that's really rude, that you're trying to, you know, wall off this view of yours.
Phyllis MComb:But in having this fence he realized, well, it actually keeps them safe and separate and my sheep are happy and healthy and the townspeople come and enjoy the countryside and actually these boundaries that I thought were a problem actually have saved us and so, like that's an example of, like a metaphor, so that's been very helpful for her, hearing her come back every week and say you know, I got that call and I didn't do what I always what I always did. And because they're seeing change, the anxiety goes down. I trust myself. I can be in this family who I love, who can be really dysfunctional sometimes, but the dysfunctional parts I don't have to participate in anymore.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah. Um things like that a lot of feeling of control.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, control, okay. I um work a lot with disordered eating, binge eating. I there's a lot of scripts on um. Women uh, just such a high percentage of us struggle with that and self image, and so I work a lot with women on um self image and I don't I don't um necessarily do like weight control, like hypnosis to lose weight. There are people out there that do that. That's never really my focus because I feel like weight depends on so many things determines a healthy weight, and I just believe health is the the game I'm going for. So my scripts are more focused on a healthy, healthy eating, not feeling, not going into the depths of despair of eating a piece of cake which a lot of people do and just kind of working around how to how to be healthy and healthy body, establishing healthy routines.
Phyllis MComb:A lot of people do and just kind of working around how to how to be healthy and healthy body, establishing healthy routines. A lot of especially women and men who have sexual trauma in their past. They can get really disconnected from their body's signals. So not only do I not know when I'm hungry or full, I also don't know when I'm mad, upset, when I need to say something. So some of the script work might be reconnected. We're just going to this time. We're just going to learn what our body's saying to us and how to listen and how to respond. We might do that a little bit and then we'll apply it to eating and how we move through that.
Jim Cunningham:So it really just depends Um because most of the symptoms are really tip of the iceberg. That's really not the problem, yeah.
Phyllis MComb:Well and remember, we're attacking the thought. We're just attacking the thought that you know I look terrible today or I can't eat a piece of cake, or for every piece of food over this very restricted amount I have to go run a mile every bite. You know I've heard some really restrictive things, so we're changing all of that so that they lose that. There's no reason to punish yourself for eating the chocolate you know, eat the chocolate move on.
Jim Cunningham:You know, maybe maybe find this to be true also, but I guess I'm always surprised how many people just don't like themselves.
Phyllis MComb:Yes.
Jim Cunningham:Self-deprecating. They're horrible people, they're lazy, they're no good. They're terrible parents, all of that. Do you find that you have to address each of those separately? Is it kind of like a whack-a-mole process?
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, we can. Okay, now you're a good parent, but um yeah.
Jim Cunningham:And I guess, as you address one, there's probably second and third order benefits that bleed over into other, absolutely yeah.
Phyllis MComb:I think, like an EMDR, that that will come up to that. You've got this targeting negative cognition and then it just fractures and I'm writing down well, we can go here, we can go, here, we can go. So yeah, it can be that. Or, you know, I'm a rockstar at business and I turned $10 into a million in a year. You know, I, I've got that nailed down, but I can't connect with my kid at all. You know my, my upbringing or whatever. You know just, uh, so a lot of it's interesting, Um, just the process of self-discovery for people that they don't even know that those thoughts exist in them Like, if someone says something, I'll say maybe say something like okay, slow that down.
Phyllis MComb:What did you say? You know they'll repeat it, and what did you hear? What does that mean for you? And they're like oh my gosh, I've been telling myself this. You know they don't realize. We don't realize because it's, I mean, I don't even know how much of a second, but it doesn't take long for us to just go into that programming, you're not?
Jim Cunningham:safe. Yeah, that programming You're not safe. Yeah, it's the um, yeah, it's the script. When the gets triggered, the old script runs and you know. Somebody once said you know you practice something for 20 years. You get really good at it.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, yes. And you're undoing you're trying to undo a lot of self conditioning you know, muscle memory except with the brain with the brain, and so this is why meditation, mindfulness, hypnosis, all of those is so important, because it is a brain exercise, it's getting us out of. We're exercising our brain, whether we know it or not, but are we using good form?
Jim Cunningham:Or are we being intentional? Or are we just letting the monkeys run the zoo Right?
Phyllis MComb:I love monkeys. They're the funny ones. Everybody goes to the zoo for the monkeys. We don't want them running things.
Jim Cunningham:We don't want them running things.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, I've had a lot of success to like to use it like maybe with not couples, like I'm not doing this in couples therapy, but if somebody comes in, my husband's never helping me around the house. I'm doing everything alone. Anything big with the kids, it's on me. He just gets to go to work and come home. All of those in a lot of women are pretty embedded, but they're not true. They're not true. And so, um, having success in easing parts of relationships that are difficult. So now we're going to ease and we're going to kind of work on that rigid thought you have about your spouse and then we're going to create ways in which we can communicate with them and, more able, get what we need. That's actual reality of what they're doing.
Jim Cunningham:So some CBT thrown in there too, Some cognitive distortions and challenging those irrational thoughts.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, black and white thinking a lot. Yep, absolutely Sure.
Jim Cunningham:So a lot of it is, and I guess another way of saying that is just helping them become more mentally flexible.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, that's a great way to say that, jim. Thank you yeah.
Jim Cunningham:Well, now I tried it once Did you Okay. I'm like, okay, I had a friend and they're like hey, if you want to come try it. So I, you know it was the big recliner and you lay back. It's very comfortable and it's not what you think. It is Right, yeah, right. It's not this weird state, it's just you just feel relaxed, yeah, and you know it takes a few minutes not to feel weird.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah.
Jim Cunningham:But yeah, it's again. I guess that's the. My big takeaway is that it's not what I thought it was Okay. Now I haven't seen it actually work, but um, I, I, it makes a little more sense when you go into a room and you can demystify it a little bit.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, and I I mean a couple of things in that too. I think, um, like someone who. We live in a therapeutic world, you and I, so we're talking to people. What did that mean for you? We're analyzing, we do it for ourself, we're very open to emotions and all their expressions, but you get an accountant in front of you who hasn't looked at an emotion for 30 years. I mean, like this can just be mind blowing for them.
Jim Cunningham:So some of it is going to find that on Excel. I'm going to find that on Excel.
Phyllis MComb:And I know that there are some very emotionally open accountants. I know this but, um, I forget sometimes that this world that I live in of like feelings, and what does that mean?
Jim Cunningham:And what are the you?
Phyllis MComb:know all of that's going on. Your average person doesn't walk that road, so they might be feeling that a little bit differently. And then to look at it again like exercise you're not going to run for 10 minutes for two days and go do that marathon and live through it, or maybe you can't, but it's every day. So you know, when you're exercising regularly, after three, four or five months you're like I feel pretty good. It's the same with these kind of mindfulness and your, your, these practices. I'm going to call it a practice because we should do it.
Phyllis MComb:So how it looks for me and and what I'll tell people is you know, let's hit this pretty hard for like one to two months and I want you to listen to the script every day. You're coming in weekly. We're making these recordings for you. I want you to listen to them every day and then, depending on how you feel, you might go into kind of a maintenance phase. So I listen. I do this probably twice a week before bed. I'll listen to something, or I love to do it, um, when I'm taking naps, because I don't want to sleep in like a 20 minute power nap while I'm getting like you're the best, like yeah, it's great.
Phyllis MComb:Um, yeah. So you can't just do it once, jim, you've got to do over and over.
Jim Cunningham:Well, do you find, though, that it's same with the MDR? A lot of the results are very subtle.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, they are. They're very subtle and people will say how do I know when I feel better? Well, um, probably when you're, you notice the reaction you've always had, if maybe it's a little bit different.
Phyllis MComb:I had someone who was very upset at their spouse. Their spouse did something really big and really hurt them and there was a lot of anxiety and I can't trust this person. And so if they say they're going to be home at five, and it's five 30 and five 45, and my mind is making up all kinds of stuff of where they are and what's going on and they come through the door Maybe they were just in traffic and I'm chopping onions, I'm, I'm, we're already in a fight and he hasn't even been through the front door. So I had someone where that was kind of what was going on, and they came in one day and they're like it's working, you know, and this has been like months, and I was like, okay, you don't tell me. Well, I was making dinner and I thought I was expecting them at five, five, 15, five, 30, five, 40 rolls around, he walks in and I'm like oh, hey, like nothing, and I wasn't triggered in like the fear of what was going on.
Phyllis MComb:And so did it work. And I'm like, yeah, that's all you know. We can't, we have, we don't have a magic wand. I think people um, expect therapists to fix things. It's not my job. You an hour one? You know an hour once a week, or every other week? Hour one, you know an hour once a week or every other week? How many hours in the day? Or some living. So it's kind of pulling the shade back on what's going on and how do I fix it. But that's really for the person to go out there and do, and so especially I don't know if you've seen this, but like parents will bring kids in and be like fix them. It'll be three times and they'll say my kid's still talking back to me, why haven't you fixed them?
Jim Cunningham:So it's just not, it doesn't work that way I wish we could make a lot of money.
Phyllis MComb:If we could solve, we could have that one just make everybody's life perfect, and so there's still an element of the. You know someone who has a long-term illness. I can't, I can't help that. You know. I can't take cancer away and I can't take hearing loss away or whatever people are struggling with. However, we can change maybe how you think and feel about that and the meaning you're giving yourself that.
Jim Cunningham:How does that tend to translate, and maybe in your experience, what you've seen in other people in reducing somatic symptoms?
Phyllis MComb:Say that in another way, say that for me.
Jim Cunningham:So a lot of people with EMDR they have. You know I knew a lady who had an issue with her mom and that was what was processed during EMDR effectively and she had chronic neck pain. Okay, and she said as soon as I resolved that 90% of the neck pain went away.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, literally a% of the neck pain went away. Yeah, literally a pain in the neck. This person was a pain in the neck. Yeah, I, well and I, it gets stored there, but I think I mean there's all kinds of ways, and that's probably someone who works more like somatic, like a body worker, can tell you more. I know for myself, if I'm stressed, I'm like this all the time. I'm sitting in the chair, you know, and so I just think holding our bodies, in certain ways, yoga is great because it releases parts of the fashion muscles that you are holding tight, and so you literally, after a while, start standing differently and sitting differently.
Jim Cunningham:So causes other problems.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, or I think you know, there's like muscle memory and things, and so someone who's had a car accident, who really hurt their arm and shoulder whenever something might be, um you know, threatening, in that way those muscles are, like you know, like just kind of protects it.
Phyllis MComb:Again, it's so interesting how that, how that happens, and we're so like intertwined. Our minds are spiritual side not necessarily religious side, but the spiritual part of us and our bodies, and so our bodies can physically get sick and cause dysfunction in those other areas, Our thought processes can be off and cause issues in our bodies. And as therapists or like for myself, I I feel like I can intervene at any one of those. You know, if, if I'm hearing someone really in negative thoughts and I'm seeing this over exaggeration, all that kind of stuff, then we're going to start kind of with how you're feeling and thinking. But if someone's like man I go into these panic attacks and I don't, I don't even know what I'm thinking All of a sudden I'm in my car, I'm sweating, you know, then we're going to maybe let's look at some somatic stuff, we're going to intervene at that level so it works. Can I tell a quick story?
Jim Cunningham:I remember.
Phyllis MComb:Okay, so what kind of got me interested in it?
Phyllis MComb:Although it was several years before I did it, I toured the Olympic Center down here in Colorado Springs and we're looking at all these amenities right that these athletes have. They have podiatrists and nutritionists and they have someone that washes their dog for them and they have all these things. But if someone gets injured or they were in this injury room where they have these treadmills, where there's water up to here for them to quickly recover. But then they said also they work with their sports psychologist sports psychologist and what we have seen is like even hooking their bodies up to things that measure, like just visualizing that you know you're in the race and I want you to imagine yourself Now you're bent over, you hear the crowd, the starting gun and your muscles twitch and off you go and their body isn't really doing that. But having that visualization with their psychologist over and over, and I can't remember the stats, go tour it, they'll tell you. But, um, the recovery was amazing and they didn't really lose like the muscle memory of not having actually done it.
Jim Cunningham:Certainly.
Phyllis MComb:Yeah, and I'm not even doing it justice to how the person who described this you know on the tour and I thought that is fascinating you know, that you can do like hypnosis in an injury and heal yourself faster and be right back at an Olympic level without missing a beat.
Phyllis MComb:So I kind of thought, oh, that'd be really cool, and kind of hearing about it with therapy, and then the pandemic happened. I was like you know, it's time for me to do that and try it for myself. That's when I went and try it for myself.
Jim Cunningham:So you've noticed great results.
Phyllis MComb:Yes, yeah, there's when I went and and tried for myself. So you've noticed great results. Yes, yeah, there's different things. There's a book I love and um, it's by James Doty, I believe is his name, but it's called into the magic shop. I also read that kind of about the same time and um, the premises is he had a kid with a lot of upheaval and trauma and this lady came into his life and basically taught him how to relax and meditate and visualize what he wanted out of his life. But he didn't know that that's what it was, so she was teaching them kind of him the same steps of like um, you know, relaxing your body and then what's called opening the heart and pouring out love into the universe and then visualizing what you want for your life. So he would visualize himself in Porsches and being a surgeon and you know, and he did all that.
Phyllis MComb:Okay, and he did all that. So I think, um, what we can see we're walking towards. If we don't have anything you know for us, like that, how do we move forward? So, if we really don't feel that we're ever going to get out of this rut in this job and we're ever going to be happy, we're never going to have a fulfilling relationship, then guess what? You probably won't, yeah, you're probably not.
Jim Cunningham:Whether you believe you can or you can't, you're probably right.
Phyllis MComb:You're probably right, yeah, and so hypnosis and all of those things, meditation and mindfulness are a bit different. Um and and how they focus, and things like that. Sometimes I'll, I'll tell people. You know, hypnosis is really just meditation with a goal that we're not, we're, we're, we're gonna. The end goal is that you no longer feel this way or think this way about yourself.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, yeah, but for sure, even when you're going through the hypno, hypnotherapy, we have a goal in mind. We know what we're trying to get.
Phyllis MComb:Okay, Yep, and you know we've got a medical model as therapists, and so goals and objectives, did we meet that? Are you listening to your recordings? Um, you know what's measurable? Did you wake up in a panic this morning? Oh good, you didn't you know. So, um, yeah, Well, again thanks.
Jim Cunningham:Thanks for the time.
Phyllis MComb:This is great.
Jim Cunningham:Hopefully, a lot of people will maybe get some good benefit from it and demystify this a little bit. Thanks for checking us out today on the Unscripted Mind. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with somebody who might need it Also. Please subscribe, follow us and leave us a review, and if you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover, please include those also. Until next time, remember life doesn't come with a script. So embrace the unexpected, cherish the unplanned, always stay curious and have an amazing day. We'll see you next time on the Unscripted Mind.
