in this video i'm talking to katie crooks about hypnotherapy what it is
and what it is not and how it feels to be under hypnosis and if you are curious what hypnosis
has to do with voice and vocal problems then stay tuned because we will be talking about that too
hi i am katarina speech language pathologist and here on this channel i share practical
tips about using your voice in a healthy way so if this is a topic that interests you consider
subscribing to this channel and hitting that bell notification icon so that you don't miss
any of my future videos and today i'm so excited to talk to katie crooks my dear friend
and colleague katie is a hypnotherapist voice teacher and vocalist she helps people recover
from stress and anxiety around voice issues performance anxiety stage fright and self-sabotage
she taught singing and voice for 20 years and she also worked professionally as a performer
but at some point in her career she recognized that many people's voice issues came from a mental
or emotional block for example stress was causing vocal tension or a belief that they got from
childhood was making themselves sabotage or hate the sound of their voice and therefore
katie decided to train to become a hypnotherapist
and now she helps people all over the world with voice performance and confidence
i will post links to katie's resources in the comments below so make sure to check them out
after you watch this video so now let's meet katie hi katie it's so great to have you here
and it's i'm so excited that we are actually going to talk about hypnotherapy and hypnosis
and let our viewers know what it really is because i believe there are a lot of misconceptions
about what it is what to expect how it is helpful so welcome thank you very much i'm so excited to
be here so let's just dive right into it okay when i told my husband that i'm going to talk to you
about hypnotherapy and hypnosis he immediately brought up his experience from a long time ago
when he went to las vegas and he experienced this weird show where people got hypnotized on
the stage and they were doing uh weird things so tell us please what is hypnosis and what it is not
you know what before i say that i have to start by saying do you know how many people in the world
would use hypnosis to heal their problems if they didn't have that image of hypnosis it's crazy so
what is hypnosis hypnosis is in a nutshell is a beautifully empowering process where you're
in control and i guide you into relaxation and in that lovely state your subconscious mind is
more open to the change that you want so if you have a self-sabotaging belief like i'm not good
enough or i always fail or whatever that's not truth it's just a belief and so when we work with
the subconscious mind we can heal the that that inner belief that's been standing in your way
and the subconscious mind houses our our beliefs our emotions our memories our our muscle responses
our fight flight response our stress levels and all of those things that we try and control with
willpower but they all live in the subconscious mind so with hypnosis the beautiful thing about it
is that we can go straight into that part of the mind and we heal it there and i use the word heal
because it's not about control or manipulation like the stage hypnosis people
get you to think it's actually very very empowering because you're completely in
control and you've experienced hypnosis now so you understand that yes and i like that you say you
said it maybe three times now that you are in full control so it's not something that suddenly you
become someone else you don't want to be last time we spoke you gave me an example of a skateboarder
and i could relate to that so much that you cannot make someone a great skateboarder after a
hypnosis session right unless they want to be one but yeah exactly and if if somebody's not if
somebody's not prepared to change then they won't change if i tried to hypnotize you to rob a bank
you just you would open your eyes and look at me and go um no it's just not going to happen
unless you wanted to rob a bank and that's a different story but we won't go there
yeah it's not it's not physically possible for you to be
hypnotized to do anything because you're you're not in a blackout people think it's
this blackout where you're completely you know your eyes are closed and you're all
if a fire alarm went off during a session you'd open your eyes you'd probably take a couple of
deep breaths and then you'd get up and you'd walk out because your conscious mind is always there
being in charge yeah and i love the word safe it's safe it's absolutely safe and i know how it feels
but can you tell us what should people expect when they are going for a hypnotherapy what what
what does it feel like i know what it feels in my body and i am a very very visual person so i see a
lot of pictures and images but what what do people how do they experience it's such a good question
yeah such a good question so different people experience hypnosis in different ways
so some people will feel light and and sort of tingly other people will feel like they're heavy
and they're sinking into a relaxation some people feel like they just go so deep other people feel
as if their mind is constantly super alert and they're listening to every single word i say and
it's all everyone still experiences hypnosis everyone in the world can experience hypnosis
we go into the state all the time and the beauty of it is that the language of your subconscious is
um color texture metaphor sounds tastes smells all the things that don't make sense logically
your memories your habits your beliefs all of those things are held in the subconscious the
the 90 of the iceberg that freud talks about you know
and that's why the language of the subconscious mind is metaphor and analogy and so
if i talk to you about a beautiful color pouring in through the top of your head and relaxing you
and pouring through you and washing you clean of unhelpful beliefs then the conscious mind might go
that's just an image but the subconscious mind totally gets that because that's how it works
and that's why a lot of hypnosis sessions often involve imagery and storytelling some storytelling
is incredibly powerful metaphor analogy those things are a big part of it and you're a very
visual thinker so you that's why in our sessions i'll use a lot of visuals with you so i'll say
imagine a a beautiful beach and the water is a bright blue and you can see the sunlight
sparkling in the water but if i work with someone else who will say to me things like
it just doesn't feel right or yeah it feels like it's a really icky feeling then i'll recognize
that they work on feelings rather than visuals and so i'll often do things like imagine the feeling
of your shoulders relaxing or you know it's all about feeling i didn't know that you can work with
all of these sensations i thought it's mostly visual or maybe auditory uh but uh it's it's
a whole whole holistic experience right yeah yeah and the great thing is about it is that
when we first connect i'll be listening out for whether you are a visual person or an auditory or
or any of these things but the lovely thing is that when you do hypnosis a lot
you're training yourself to get good at all of them and so i'll often guide you into feeling
things or smelling the beautiful fragrances of the flowers in your safe place or whatever it is that
we're doing at the time and you can actually train yourself to become more of the other
modalities you know or my viewers know that i help people who experience vocal tension strain or even
pain so now let's bring these two worlds together people who experience vocal tension strain or even
pain and hypnotherapy how do they come together well this is where i'd love to introduce a
bit more of my story i started out as a voice teacher so i've taught singing for 20 years and
spoken voice for about eight years eight or nine years maybe and in that time i started to realize
that people's mental and emotional blocks were inhibiting their voice more than the technique
and i would you know work with them to get their breath flow working beautifully or their posture
and then they go away and they come back the next week and they'd be like this again
and i'd be thinking well we've worked on that why why are they not and the reason was because they
had been told as a child whatever it was they'd been told that had made them hide and shrink
and feel like i'm not good enough and that caused the shrinking and i realized that if we could heal
the emotional and mental blocks then the posture the physical work is going to be so much quicker
because they're not because we can re they're not going to revert back to those old habits hypnosis
is incredibly powerful for a number of things one of them is creating new habits because you're
literally wiring new neurological pathways in the brain it's also incredible for pain reduction
i know that to reduce pain whether it's vocal pain or any pain in your body you need to rewire your
brain and how it perceives those sensations from your body so i can imagine how beautiful
hypnotherapy is for reducing vocal pain it's amazing and it's so beautiful there are so
many beautiful devices that you can use for that one of my favorites is the dial the pain dial
you can rehearse in your mind with guidance how to register what level of pain you you're
feeling and then to turn the dial down and because the subconscious mind works on metaphor
and analogy and imagery and so on that dial is incredibly powerful because as you turn it down
you can feel that that releasing that letting go so i've used that for things like jaw tension like
tna gripping because in the past i've had habits that i've had to work on on releasing that and in
my experience the jaw tension the pain would come from personally from anger if i was feeling angry
about something i would grip and then i realized and i would have to let go of that gripping
and the dial helped me reduce that that holding that gripping and turn it down and down and down
um and so both pain and tension can be beautifully reduced when you're when you become a master of
the art of the the dial that's just one technique there it's a beautiful example so thank you for
sharing that uh katie can you tell us what you are up to right now what are you working on i am so
excited thank you so much for asking so although i'm continuing to teach singing and teach voice
and all of that i'm creating a program it's a 12-week specialist program for people
with anxiety around performing or sharing their stuff with the world so i'm making it
specifically for singers speakers dancers musicians gymnasts performers although what
the work is is relevant to anyone who wants to share their skills their talents with the world
and it's a 12-week program where we do a deep dive into healing the mental and emotional blocks that
have been really sabotaging your success you know so we work with healing the part
of you that is making you hide from the world or perhaps the you know the inner judge that's been
criticizing and and blaming and stopping you from sharing your stuff with the world so we heal some
really deep rooted stuff that sounds amazing that sounds absolutely amazing we'll have some
links below this video right so go and go and check them thank you so much katie for coming here
and we are going to make another video where you are going to guide us through a short hypnotherapy
session right so look forward to that but for now let's say thank you very much was a privilege to
have you here and hopefully we'll talk soon talk soon thank you bye now bye what do you think
let me know in the comments below what you think about hypnotherapy and voice
problems if you want to experience a short hypnosis check out part two video in which kd
will guide us through a short hypnotherapy session if you are experiencing vocal strain tension or
even pain when speaking and you are ready to work with me towards a free strong and confident voice
check out my links in the description below this video to see how i can help if you found this
video helpful click the like button and share it with your friends and come back for part 2 of this
video in which katie will guide us through a short hypnotherapy session i hope to see you soon bye
you