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If you've ever joked that anxiety is basically your entire personality, and you were kidding-not-kidding, you may consider yourself an "anxious girlie." It's become this half funny, half painfully accurate way to describe a very specific experience: overthinking every text before you send it, replaying conversations from years ago, and somehow being both the most prepared person in the room and the most convinced something is about to go wrong.
The label is funny because it's relatable. But underneath the joke, there's something real going on, and I want to actually talk about what that is, instead of just laughing along with the memes.
What "Anxious Girlie" Actually Describes
Being an anxious girlie usually isn't about having a diagnosed anxiety disorder, though it certainly can overlap with one. More often, it's describing a nervous system that's used to running in a heightened state. Some signs you might recognize:
- You over-explain yourself, even in casual conversations, because you're worried about being misunderstood
- You mentally rehearse conversations before they happen, and then replay them again afterward
- You feel a low hum of "something is wrong" even when nothing actually is
- You've gotten really good at appearing calm on the outside while your mind is doing laps on the inside
- Rest feels unproductive, so you keep yourself busy even when you're exhausted
If a few of these hit close to home, you're not imagining it. Your nervous system has learned to treat uncertainty as a threat, and it's been running that program for a while, probably longer than you realize.
Why the "Just Relax" Advice Never Works
Here's the frustrating part. Most advice aimed at anxious people assumes the problem is a thinking problem, so the solution is always some version of "just think differently" or "just relax." If that worked, you would have already done it.
Anxiety like this lives in the nervous system, not just in your thoughts. Your body has learned a pattern of scanning for danger, and that pattern runs automatically, underneath your conscious thinking. That's why you can logically know everything is fine and still feel like it isn't. You're not failing at managing your anxiety. You're dealing with a nervous system that needs to actually be regulated, not just reasoned with.
What Actually Helps Anxiety
The good news is that a nervous system that's learned to be anxious can also learn to feel safe again. It just takes the right kind of support, not more willpower.
A few things that genuinely make a difference:
- Naming the pattern instead of just feeling it. Journaling prompts that help you notice when and why the spiral starts give you actual data instead of just vague dread.
- Working with your body, not just your thoughts. Simple tools like tapping, breathwork, or guided relaxation calm the physical anxiety response, which then makes the mental spiral quieter too.
- Reframing the inner critic, not silencing it. The voice that says everything is about to go wrong is trying to protect you. Learning to gently redirect it works a lot better than trying to shut it up.
- Consistency over intensity. A few minutes of nervous system care every day tends to do more than one big overwhelming effort every few weeks.
This is why I created The Anxious Girlie's Guide to Chill. It's a 39 page workbook that combines journaling prompts, nervous system regulation tools, thought reframing exercises, a mini tapping guide, and trackers to help you actually notice your patterns instead of just riding them out. It's built for the version of you that's tired of "good vibes only" advice and wants something that actually addresses what's happening underneath the anxiety.
You're Not Too Much, Your Nervous System Just Needs Support
If you've been carrying this pattern for a long time, you might have started to believe it's just who you are. It isn't. Your nervous system that adapted to feel unsafe, and with the right support, it can learn something different. Being an anxious girlie doesn't mean something is wrong with you. It means your body has been working overtime trying to protect you, and it's allowed to finally get a break.
You can find my Anxious Girlie's Guide to Chill on Etsy.
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Generalized hypnosis audios can be helpful for a lot of things, and they're often the first stop for people who are curious about hypnosis but not quite ready to book a session. I use them myself once in a while, out of professional interest or for inspiration for my own work. Sometimes I just need them in the moment. I struggle to sleep on an airplane, so the last time I flew overseas, I put on a sleep hypnosis audio and it did the trick when nothing else was working.
I offer a handful of generalized hypnosis downloads for purchase, along with some free hypnosis audios on YouTube, because I think they're a great low-pressure way for people to get curious about hypnosis or get a feel for my voice and how my sessions tend to flow. Funny enough, a lot of my clients tell me those generalized recordings don't even sound like me once they've done a real one-to-one session with me. That contrast is actually a good jumping off point for this post.
What Generalized Hypnosis Audios Are Good For
Here's the thing about generalized hypnosis audios: they're general by design. They lean on well-established hypnosis techniques and common NLP strategies so they can appeal to as wide an audience as possible. That's not a flaw, it's just how they're built to work.
This makes generalized hypnosis downloads a solid fit for broad, common goals like:
- Sleeping better
- Building self esteem
- Reinforcing healthy habits
If your goal is fairly universal and you don't need anything tailored to your specific situation, a generalized audio can genuinely help, and it's an easy, affordable way to start.
When a Custom Hypnosis Recording Makes More Sense
A custom hypnosis recording takes things a step further. Instead of speaking to a general audience, it's built specifically for you, based on your goals and your current circumstances. Nothing generic about it.
A lot of clients turn to custom recordings when they want extra support but don't have the time or budget for a one-to-one session. I see custom hypnosis recordings used a lot for specific, time-sensitive situations like:
- Preparing for a dentist appointment
- Getting ready for surgery
- Supporting a smoother childbirth experience
They're a great tool when you have a clear goal and a defined window of time to work with. Custom recordings also come in handy for people who have already been through a series of hypnosis sessions and just want a little extra reinforcement afterward. They're convenient, they're effective, and they're a lot more affordable than ongoing one-to-one work, which makes them an easy addition to your toolkit.
Why a Personal Hypnosis Session Is Still the Gold Standard
As helpful as recordings can be, nothing replaces a personal, one-to-one hypnosis session. In an individual session, we actually have time to sit down and talk through your goals, figure out what's working and what isn't, and I can explain how your mind works and why you might be stuck in certain patterns in the first place.
In the method of hypnosis I practice, I also spend time learning how your mind specifically receives and processes information, so the suggestions I deliver are shaped around what's actually going to land for you. That's something no pre-recorded audio, generalized or custom, can fully replicate.
One-to-one sessions also give us the flexibility to adjust in real time. As your hypnotist, I can gauge the level of hypnotic depth you're experiencing in the moment and adapt the session accordingly, something a recording simply can't do once it's finished and packaged up.
So Which Option Should You Choose?
Honestly, all three of these tools have their place, and it really comes down to where you're starting from and what kind of support you need right now:
- Generalized hypnosis audios are a great low-cost entry point for common goals like sleep, self esteem, or building better habits.
- Custom hypnosis recordings are ideal when you have a specific goal and timeframe, or when you want extra reinforcement between sessions.
- Personal hypnosis sessions offer the deepest, most tailored experience, with real-time adjustments and a genuine understanding of how your mind works.
All of these methods are worth exploring on your journey toward self improvement. Wherever you're starting from, there's a hypnosis option that can meet you there.rt customizing
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It's Not Whether You Win or Lose, It's How You Play the Game: The Case for Sports Hypnosis
There's an old saying that makes a lot of athletes bristle the first time they hear it: it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.
I understand the resistance: athletes want to win. That's the point. Nobody laces up their cleats, straps on their skates, or steps onto the mat hoping to lose gracefully. So when I say this phrase to the athletes I work with, I'm not asking them to care less about winning. I'm pointing them toward the thing that actually makes winning more likely: playing well, in the moment, without getting in their own way.
What Athletes Actually Come to Me For
When athletes book a session with me, they rarely say "I want to feel more relaxed." They come in with something specific and often very concrete:
- They want to move faster off the line
- They want to get to the ball first, every time
- They want to shake a slump and rebuild their confidence
- They want to conquer a fear: of falling, of failing, of getting hurt again after an injury
These are performance goals, and hypnosis is a tool for performance. But almost every one of these goals traces back to the same root issue: the athlete has, at some point, started thinking too much.
Having Fun Makes You Unbeatable
Here's the reframe I offer almost every athlete I work with: having fun makes you unbeatable.
I don't mean fun in a casual, doesn't-matter-if-we-win kind of way. I mean the deep, physical joy of loving what you do: the swish of the ball through the net, the burn of a perfect sprint, the thrill of watching a shot find the back of the goal. That feeling isn't a bonus side effect of good performance. It's often the cause of it.
When an athlete is genuinely enjoying the game, their body gets to do what it already knows how to do. This is what people mean when they talk about being "in the zone" or in a flow state, that place where movement stops being effortful and starts being automatic. You're not thinking about your footwork. You're not calculating the angle of the pass. You're just moving, and your muscle memory, built through thousands of hours of practice, takes over.
This is the real meaning behind "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." It's not a consolation prize for losing. It's a description of the mental state that makes winning possible in the first place.
What Happens When Athletes Get in Their Own Way
The opposite of flow is easy to spot, and every athlete has felt it.
It happens when an athlete starts fixating on what's going wrong. It happens when they're replaying a coach's or trainer's critique in their head mid-play, trying to consciously correct something that used to be automatic. Suddenly they're not playing anymore. They're thinking about playing.
And thinking, in this context, is the enemy. The conscious mind is slow, effortful, and analytical. It's great for reviewing game film afterward. It's terrible for split-second decisions in real time. When an athlete shifts from flow into overthinking, a few things tend to happen:
- They start working harder, physically, without actually going faster
- They second-guess movements that used to be instinctive
- They make more mistakes, which feeds more overthinking
- They lose the joy of the game entirely, which only deepens the problem
At that point, the biggest opponent isn't the other team. It's the athlete's own mind.
How Hypnosis Helps Athletes
This is exactly where sports hypnosis does its work. Hypnosis is a focused, relaxed state of attention, and in that state, we can work directly with the subconscious patterns that support flow.
Rebuilding automatic confidence. Instead of consciously "trying" to feel confident (which rarely works under pressure), hypnosis helps install confidence at a deeper level, so it shows up automatically when the athlete steps onto the field.
Interrupting the inner critic. Many athletes carry a running commentary of self-criticism, or an internalized coach's voice pointing out every flaw. Hypnosis helps quiet that voice so the athlete can trust their training instead of second-guessing it in real time.
Reconnecting with the fun. Because flow and enjoyment are so tightly linked, part of the work is often simply helping an athlete remember why they fell in love with their sport in the first place and rebuilding that emotional connection so it's available to them under pressure, not just in practice.
Rewiring fear responses. Whether it's fear of re-injury, fear of a specific move, or fear of failing in a big moment, hypnosis can help separate the physical action from the emotional alarm bell that's been attached to it, so the body can move freely again.
Anchoring the flow state. Athletes can be taught to access a flow-like menta
l state on command.
The Real Goal
I'm not trying to talk athletes out of wanting to win. I want them to win too. But the fastest, most reliable path to winning isn't gritting your teeth and trying harder, it's getting out of your own way.
So yes: it's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game. And how you play the game is, more often than not, the difference between winning and losing.
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People come to IEMT carrying many different concerns: anxiety, grief, fear, difficult memories, troubled relationships. Beneath the specifics, though, there is often a quieter and more disorienting question. Not just what is wrong, but who am I ?
And more precisely, who would I be without this?
It is a question worth sitting with. Because for many clients, the emotional patterns they want to resolve are not experienced as problems that happen to them. They are experienced as part of who they are. The anxiety is not something they feel; it is something they are. Self-criticism is not a habit they have fallen into; it is the voice of their own truth speaking back to them.
From athletes sidelined by injury to parents navigating an empty nest, it is surprisingly easy to confuse a change in circumstances with a loss of self.
Identity Is Not Fixed
The most important thing to understand is this: identity is not something handed to a person at birth, fixed in place by personality or genetics. It’s constructed; built up over time through the accumulation of emotional experience.
When clients are asked when they first began to think of themselves in a particular way, they can almost always trace it. There is a memory, or a cluster of memories, or a period of life that anchors the self-perception. Or there is the familiar belief: I've always been this way. But upon exploration, that is rarely true. The identity did not emerge from nowhere. It was learned.
How Identity Forms
In IEMT, we understand identity formation as moving through several interconnected stages.
It begins with emotional experience. Something happens: a loss, a humiliation, a moment of acute fear, a prolonged stretch of stress, and the person responds. That response is registered by the nervous system and stored in memory.
When similar experiences occur, similar responses follow. Over time, these repeated states begin to take on a life of their own. They stop being reactions to specific events and become generalized ways of relating to the world. A person does not merely feel anxious at school; they become someone who feels anxious. They do not merely carry shame about one mistake; they become someone shame lives inside.
And as these patterns repeat, they begin to shape the narrative. This is how I am. This is who I am. This is just me. The emotional pattern is no longer experienced as external to the self. It’s been incorporated into identity. It becomes part of how the person explains their choices, how they make sense of their experience, how they introduce themselves to the world.
Imprints
In IEMT, these foundational emotional experiences are called imprints.
Imprints are not conscious decisions. Nobody chooses to become someone who flinches at criticism, who assumes rejection before it comes, who cannot rest. These patterns form beneath the level of deliberate self-construction, laid down before a person had either the resources or the vocabulary to process what was happening to them.
What is significant about imprints is how thoroughly they organize experience. A person carrying an imprint of unworthiness does not encounter the world neutrally. Ambiguous feedback reads as confirmation. Positive responses are discounted; negative ones are amplified. The world consistently seems to reflect the imprint back, because the imprint is shaping what is perceived in the first place.
This is why approaches that work only at the level of conscious thought so often feel incomplete. The thinking may change, anxiety may be managed better, and the self-critical voice may quieten. But the underlying imprint remains, and with it, the emotional pattern it supports.
What Changes in IEMT
IEMT works directly with the emotional memories that anchor imprints. By targeting the specific experiences in which a particular way of seeing the self was first established and reducing the emotional charge held in those memories, IEMT creates the conditions in which the identity can shift.
This is not cognitive reframing. It’s not about thinking differently about oneself. The work is at the level of stored emotional experience: the raw material from which the imprint was originally built. When that material changes in its emotional intensity, the imprint built upon it tends to become less stable.
What clients frequently report is not dramatic revelation. The identity statement — I am someone who struggles with this — begins to feel less like a fact and more like a story. And one that is no longer as accurate as it once seemed.
Who Will I Be After This?
As IEMT work progresses, clients sometimes raise a question that is easy to underestimate. If this changes, who will I be?
This is not an abstract concern. For people who have organised their lives around a particular self-perception (even a painful one) the prospect of change can feel genuinely disorientating. The familiar version of themselves, however limiting, is known.
This deserves to be taken seriously. Identity change, even when it is welcomed, involves a reorganization of the self. The person is not simply having a problem removed. They are becoming differently oriented: relating to themselves and the world from a different position. That transition sometimes calls for additional support: coaching, skill-building, or ongoing therapeutic work of another kind.
But in many cases, what clients find is not something entirely new. They meet a version of themselves they had glimpsed before the difficult experiences accumulated, a version they had always suspected was possible, but had not been able to reach. The work does not create a new self from nothing. It uncovers something that was already there, beneath the layers of what was learned.
Identity, as it turns out, is not a destination. It is a process. IEMT offers a different relationship with that process, one in which a person is no longer entirely at the mercy of what was learned in the past.
When clients understand that their self-perception has been shaped by emotional experience rather than representing some essential, unchangeable truth about them, something shifts in how they hold it. The “identity” becomes something that happened to them, rather than who they are.
And from that position, change becomes conceivable. Not as self-reinvention, but as a gradual movement toward a self that is no longer defined by what was most painful.
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It might be anxiety that shows up in specific situations: A loss of confidence, a reaction that feels out of character, or just something that's getting in the way of your life right now.
That feeling of this needs to change is real, and it matters. It's also what led me to seek out IEMT myself.
You probably recognize when it happens, and you might even know what sets it off. What's harder to explain is why, despite everything you've tried, it keeps coming back.
The reaction is real. But the source isn't always where it appears.
Here's something that surprises many people: the situation that triggers you isn't always what's actually driving the response.
Emotional reactions are shaped by experience over time. When something significant or overwhelming happens (especially if it wasn't fully processed at the time) it leaves an imprint. And that imprint doesn't stay neatly attached to the original event. It generalizes, so a situation in your life right now might feel familiar in a way that's hard to explain. Not because it's logically similar to something from your past, but because it feels the same. Your nervous system recognizes a pattern and responds to the pattern, not the actual event.These responses can feels completely justified or completely out of proportion.
Why managing it only goes so far:
If you've been working hard to manage your reactions: developing coping strategies, challenging your thinking, trying to push through, you're not doing anything wrong. These things can help. But if the relief doesn't last, it's usually because the response isn't actually being generated by the present situation alone.
You're addressing the problem where it shows up. IEMT works somewhere different.
In our sessions, we shift attention away from the surface-level problem and toward the emotional pattern underneath it. We look at how the feeling is experienced, when it repeats, and when you first remember feeling that way.
This isn't about analyzing your entire history or reconstructing your past. It's a much more direct process than that.
When a current feeling connects to the earliest memory of that same feeling, something shifts. The emotional memory begins to update. The response that once felt necessary starts to lose its intensity, not because you've reframed it or talked yourself out of it, but because something in the system has genuinely changed.
When that happens, the original problem often changes too, without ever being addressed directly.
"But what if I don't know when it started?"
This is one of the most common things people ask me, and it's a good question.
The answer is: we don't actually ask when the problem started. We ask something different: when is the first time you can remember feeling this way?
Even when the answer isn't immediately obvious, the process of exploring the feeling tends to lead somewhere meaningful; often in ways that feel unexpected at first.
That's usually where the shift begins: Not in the story that explains the problem. But in the experience that's been constantly repeating underneath it.
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I don’t practice Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
What I do is Integral Eye Movement Technique, and while both approaches involve eye movements, that’s pretty much where the similarity ends.
Let’s clear this up in a way that actually helps you understand what you’re getting into.
So what’s the difference?
EMDR is a structured psychotherapy approach often used for trauma. It typically involves revisiting specific distressing memories while engaging in bilateral stimulation (like guided eye movements), with the goal of reducing the emotional charge attached to those memories.
IEMT, on the other hand, takes a different route.
Rather than requiring you to relive or retell your story in detail, IEMT focuses on how emotional experiences are stored and repeated internally. It works with patterns, not just events. The goal isn’t to process a story over and over. It’s to change how that story is held in your nervous system.
In other words, less talking, more shifting.
Who is IEMT for?
A lot of the people I work with have already tried other things. That includes EMDR, talk therapy, coaching, or a mix of everything. And they’re not necessarily “failing” at those approaches, they just aren’t getting the level of change they were hoping for.
That’s usually when they find their way here.
IEMT can be especially helpful if you feel like:
- You’ve talked about something a hundred times and still react the same way
- You understand your patterns logically, but your emotions haven’t caught up
- Certain memories still feel way more intense than they “should”
- You keep experiencing the same emotional cycles (hello frustration, guilt, or sadness on repeat)
What does IEMT actually work on?
1. Specific negative memories.
Not everything that affects us is big, dramatic trauma.
Sometimes it’s:
- Missing your kid’s soccer game
- A breakup that still stings more than you’d like
- A comment someone made years ago that somehow stuck
- An injury or moment that changed how you see yourself
2. Repetitive emotional states.
Then there are the feelings that keep showing up uninvited.
You know the ones:
- Frustration that flares up faster than you’d like
- Anger that lingers
- Guilt that doesn’t match the situation anymore
- Regret, remorse, sadness… the whole “why am I still feeling this?” package
Instead of just coping with those emotions, IEMT works to change the internal pattern that keeps recreating them.
3. Emotional imprints across your life
Here’s where it gets really interesting. When something is overwhelming, it doesn’t always get fully processed in the moment. Parts of that experience can stick around and continue influencing how you see yourself, how you react, and what you expect from the world.
That’s why something small in the present can feel weirdly big. It’s not just about now.
IEMT helps untangle that.
What does this mean for you?
It means you don’t have to keep managing the same emotional patterns forever.
It means you don’t have to explain your entire life story for something to shift.
And it means change can happen in a way that feels lighter, faster, and more direct than you might expect.
If you’ve tried other approaches and felt like you were doing everything “right” but still not getting the results you wanted, it might not be you.
It might just be that you haven’t found the right approach yet.
And sometimes, that’s all it takes.
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When most people think about chronic pain, they picture the physical sensation: the ache, the burning, the relentless discomfort. But for the millions of people living with it every day, the pain is only one part of a much larger story.
Over time, the pain becomes familiar. It weaves itself so deeply into daily life that many sufferers can no longer remember what it felt like to be pain-free. And around that pain grows an entire ecosystem of secondary challenges: disrupted sleep, difficulty concentrating, reduced mobility, strained relationships, and poor performance at work.
Perhaps most painfully of all, chronic pain is deeply isolating. It can be hard for those who haven't experienced it to truly understand what it means to live inside a body that hurts constantly.
There is a story that plays out far too often for chronic pain sufferers. It begins with hope: a doctor's appointment, a scan, a referral, and ends in frustration. Years of tests, inconclusive results, and false starts leave people feeling unheard, dismissed, and utterly without direction.
This is not just emotionally difficult. It's physically compounding. Without answers, there is no clear path to treatment. Without treatment, the pain continues to affect every corner of life: from the quality of sleep to the ability to show up fully in relationships and careers.
The chronic pain community is full of some of the most resilient, resourceful people you'll ever meet. They have learned to push through. They adapt, they cope, they manage ; often quietly, and often alone.
But resilience should not mean simply enduring. There are options, and one of the most underrated is hypnosis.
How Does Hypnosis Actually Work for Pain?
Hypnosis does not work by simply switching off the pain or pretending it isn't there. Instead, it works by changing the way the mind perceives and processes pain signals.
Pain is not just a physical event. It is an interpretation made by the brain. Two people can have identical injuries and experience wildly different levels of pain, depending on their emotional state, stress levels, past experiences, and what the brain has learned to expect. Chronic pain, in particular, often involves sensitised pain pathways; the nervous system has, in a sense, learned to amplify the pain signal.
Hypnosis works at the level of the mind-body connection. In a calm, focused hypnotic state, the subconscious mind becomes more receptive to suggestion. A skilled hypnotherapist can use this state to:
- Reframe the perception of pain — changing how the brain interprets and responds to pain signals
- Reduce the anxiety and fear surrounding pain, which are known to intensify the experience
- Improve sleep, allowing the body and mind to recover more effectively
- Restore a sense of agency and control, which chronic pain sufferers often feel they have lost
- Break the cycle of pain → tension → more pain that keeps many people stuck
Here's something that might surprise you: the very traits that make life with chronic pain so difficult are the same traits that make hypnosis particularly effective.
Chronic pain sufferers tend to be highly focused, internally motivated, and skilled at directing their attention, even under difficult circumstances. These are not small things. These are the exact qualities that allow a person to engage deeply with the hypnotic process and get real results.
The frustration, the sense of being unheard, the longing for relief, all of this becomes fuel. When someone is ready to try a different approach and willing to engage with the process, hypnotherapy has a remarkable track record of making a meaningful difference.
Studies have shown measurable reductions in pain intensity, improved sleep quality, decreased reliance on pain medication, and better overall quality of life among people who have undergone clinical hypnotherapy for chronic pain. It has been used effectively for conditions including fibromyalgia, chronic back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, arthritis, and more.
Is Hypnosis Right for You?
If you have been living with chronic pain and feel like you have exhausted the conventional options, or if you simply want to explore something that addresses not just the physical, but the psychological and emotional dimensions of pain, hypnosis may be worth considering.
A qualified clinical hypnotherapist will work with you to understand your specific experience of pain, your history, and your goals. Sessions are calm, collaborative, and entirely safe. You remain in control throughout.
You don't have to keep just powering through.
Ready to Find Out More?
If you're tired of managing pain rather than addressing it, and you're curious whether hypnotherapy could help, I'd love to talk. Get in touch today to book a free initial consultation and find out whether this approach is right for you.
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We can thank movies, stage performances, and comedy sketches for many of these misconceptions.
In reality, hypnosis is far more practical, grounded, and empowering than it’s often portrayed.
Can Anyone Be Hypnotized?
A common question is: “Can everyone be hypnotized?”
The answer is simpler than you might expect: if you’re willing and open to the process, you can experience hypnosis.
Most people who seek hypnosis already have a goal in mind, whether it’s reducing stress, breaking a habit, or improving confidence. It’s rare for someone to schedule a consultation or session without at least some level of willingness to engage in the process. That willingness is the key ingredient.
What Does Hypnosis Feel Like?
Contrary to popular belief, hypnosis does not mean losing consciousness or being “put under.”
While each person’s experience is unique, most people report feeling:
- Physically relaxed
- Emotionally calm and comfortable
- Mentally alert and aware
Hypnosis is often described as a relaxed state, but a more accurate definition could be a state of focused attention.
Some people do feel deeply relaxed, even sleepy. Others feel surprisingly alert, sometimes more awake than usual. It’s not uncommon for clients to say:
“I was awake the whole time!”
And that’s exactly the point.
This misconception often leads people to believe hypnosis didn’t work for them, when in fact, they were experiencing it correctly all along. A well-guided session doesn’t take away your awareness; it sharpens it.
How Hypnosis Works: The Conscious vs. Subconscious Mind
To understand hypnosis, it helps to understand how the mind operates.
- The conscious mind is analytical, logical, and deliberate.
- The subconscious mind is fast, automatic, and deeply conditioned.
The Power of the Subconscious Mind
Your subconscious mind plays a major role in shaping your behaviors and reactions. It develops primarily during early childhood; roughly from birth to age eight.
During these formative years, you absorb information from your environment and begin forming beliefs about:
- What is safe or unsafe
- What is positive or negative
- How the world works
Here’s the key insight:
Familiar does not always mean beneficial. It simply means known.
Even experiences that are objectively negative can feel “safe” to the subconscious because they are familiar. This can lead to repeating patterns or habits that your conscious mind no longer wants.
Reprogramming the Mind Through Hypnosis
At first, this realization can feel discouraging, especially when reflecting on difficult childhood experiences. But there’s also good news:
The subconscious mind can be retrained.
Hypnosis provides a way to reprogram limiting beliefs and behaviors, aligning them with your current goals and values.
Think of it like learning any new skill:
- Riding a bike
- Driving a car
- Playing an instrument
At first, it takes conscious effort. But with repetition, it becomes automatic.
The same principle applies to mental habits. With consistent practice, new patterns can replace old ones, allowing you to respond to life in more intentional, empowering ways.
Hypnosis Is a Tool for Change
Hypnosis isn’t about control. It’s about collaboration. You remain aware, engaged, and in control throughout the process.
Rather than something mysterious or intimidating, hypnosis is simply a natural mental state that allows for focused learning and meaningful change.
When approached with openness and the right guidance, it can be a powerful tool for:
- Breaking unwanted habits
- Reducing anxiety and stress
- Improving confidence and performance
- Creating lasting behavioral change
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Many people also experience a deep sense of isolation. Even with access to online forums and support groups, the constant focus on symptoms and negative experiences can unintentionally reinforce feelings of hopelessness rather than relief.
A common and frustrating reality for many sufferers is the absence of clear answers. Years of medical appointments, scans, and treatments can lead to dead ends and false hope. This uncertainty often leaves individuals feeling stuck, unheard, and unsure of where to turn next.
Living with chronic pain also places strain on emotional and social well-being. Persistent discomfort can interfere with sleep quality, reduce productivity at work, and create tension in relationships. Over time, this combination of physical and emotional stress can become overwhelming.
One of the most difficult aspects of chronic pain is the feeling of not being fully understood. Because pain is invisible, it is often hard to communicate its severity to others, including healthcare providers. This can lead to frustration and a sense of being dismissed or overlooked.
Despite these challenges, many individuals with chronic pain develop remarkable resilience. They learn to cope, adapt, and push through difficult days. This determination, while admirable, can also mask how much support they truly need.
Interestingly, this same resilience makes chronic pain sufferers especially strong candidates for hypnosis. Their ability to focus, endure discomfort, and remain mentally engaged can enhance the effectiveness of hypnotic techniques.
Hypnosis is not a new or experimental approach. In fact, pain relief is one of its most researched and historically documented uses. Records dating back to ancient Egypt, around 1500 BC, describe practices in so-called sleep temples, where individuals sought healing through guided suggestion and focused attention. Patients would enter a trance-like state while priest-physicians offered positive suggestions to influence their experience of illness.
Modern hypnosis uses similar principles, though with refined and evidence-based techniques. For example, eye fixation methods are often used to help individuals enter a relaxed and focused state of awareness.
It is important to understand that hypnosis does not simply remove pain. Instead, it works by changing how the brain interprets pain signals. Pain is not just a physical sensation; it is also shaped by perception, attention, and emotional response.
Through hypnosis, individuals can learn to:
- Reduce the intensity of pain sensations
- Shift attention away from discomfort
- Reframe how pain is experienced mentally
- Increase relaxation and improve sleep quality
A Different Approach to Pain Relief
For those who feel stuck in a cycle of chronic pain with no clear answers, hypnosis offers a different perspective. Rather than focusing solely on eliminating pain, it empowers individuals to change their relationship with it.
This approach can help reduce suffering, restore a sense of control, and open the door to a more balanced and fulfilling life, even in the presence of ongoing symptoms.
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As a kid, Legos were more my brother's thing, though back then we mostly had generic colored blocks rather than themed sets. We'd build elaborate towns together, invent stories for the characters, and after our first trip to Disney, we even constructed our own Lego Disneyland. None of my kids really caught the Lego bug, but last year my son gave me a flower bouquet set for Mother's Day, and working on it together reminded me how genuinely satisfying it feels to build something with your hands.
This year I got a couple more sets for my birthday. Something fun. Something analog.
I've been craving that more and more lately: time away from screens. So much of my life is spent on the computer that my free time has increasingly become about finding ways to truly unplug: reading, coloring, crafting. For a while, though, I didn't realize that what I thought was "downtime" wasn't actually restoring me at all. I was scrolling. Watching reels. Consuming without creating. My brain was busy but not resting; stimulated, but not nourished.
Sound familiar?
When "Easy" Isn't the Point
Here's what surprised me when I picked up those Lego sets: it wasn't easy. Lego instructions are entirely visual: no words, just photos of each step. And I am very much a multi-modal learner. I want the lecture, the book, and the notes all at once. Give me all the information. So a wordless picture book for assembling a complex structure? A little disorienting.
More than once, I assembled a section incorrectly and had to take it apart and start over.
In the past, that might have derailed me. The frustration could have spiraled: why can't I get this right, this is supposed to be fun, I'm making a mess of a children's toy. (You might be familiar with the inner voice I mean).
But instead, something different happened. I felt a quiet, steady determination. A calm certainty that I could figure it out, and that starting over wasn't a failure. It was just part of the process.
I've been thinking about why that felt different. And I think it comes back to the work I've been doing, both personally and professionally.
Growing at the Edge of Your Comfort Zone
I've been training in a modality called Metaphors of Movement, and working with it has required me to stretch in ways that don't always feel comfortable. Learning new approaches means sitting with confusion, experimenting, getting things slightly wrong, and staying curious anyway.
The same has been true of IEMT (Integral Eye Movement Therapy), another approach I use with clients. Both were developed by Andrew Austin, and he describes the distinction between them in a way I find beautifully clear:
"When life has messed up the person (i.e. stuff happened to them) then IEMT is the model of choice. When it is the person who is messing up life (i.e. they are doing stuff to life) then MoM is a better choice."
IEMT helps process what happened to you. Metaphors of Movement helps shift the patterns you're creating, the subtle, often invisible ways we get in our own way, limit our own lives, or repeat cycles we can't quite see from the inside.
That distinction matters. Because many people arrive at therapy having done significant healing work. They've processed old wounds, made sense of their past, found their footing. And yet something still feels stuck. Life still isn't quite unfolding the way they'd hoped.
That's often where Metaphors of Movement becomes remarkable.
What This Means for You
If you've ever felt like you've done the work: journaled, reflected, maybe even been in therapy before, and still find yourself running into the same walls, it may not be that you haven't healed enough. It may be that the next layer of change isn't about what happened to you. It's about discovering how you've been unconsciously shaping your experience since then.
That's subtle, important work. And it doesn't require you to have it all figured out before it starts helping.
Here's what struck me most in those Lego moments: the set got built. Even while I was confused, even while I backtracked, even while I checked the photos three times trying to figure out which piece went where, the thing came together. Piece by piece, step by step.
Metaphors of Movement works the same way with clients. Even as I'm still deepening my own fluency with it, even when I pause to check my notes mid-session, the process does something. Change happens, often in ways that feel surprisingly gentle and surprisingly lasting.
You don't have to wait until everything is perfectly understood to begin. You just have to be willing to sit with the process, and trust that starting over, or slowing down, or asking for help isn't failure.
It's just part of building something worth keeping.