- You can shut down the critical part of your mind
that goes, "I could never speak in public."
"Oh, I could never live without donuts."
That bit shuts down.
And while it shuts down you can excite the imagination
and tell people stuff they simply don't think they could do.
(upbeat music)
Because I had this psychology mind
and this psychology background,
I was fascinated about why do people do that to themselves,
obsess about what they look like, and every calorie.
And so I found this amazing hypnotist called Gil Boyne,
really by chance,
although I don't think there's any such thing as chance.
And he taught me hypnosis and I went back to Jane's studio
and started to work with all the people
that had anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia.
And that was just going to be my life.
I'm going to teach because I love it,
the aerobics, and see all these clients.
But as it happened, the universe had other ideas.
Because I got asked to go on a lot of shows like "Big
Brother" and "I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!",
analyzing people, which I've always done.
And eventually, I couldn't work for her anymore
because I was just so busy,
and it's been like that ever since.
I've always been fascinated by human behavior
but always wanted a shortcut.
Why do you do that? And let's fix it.
So give you an example.
I was recently having a medical procedure
and the nurse said, "Oh my God, we all know you."
"And we have this kid
and he can't go in the scanner, he's terrified."
And I said, "Well, I'll show you what to do."
And in five minutes, he was loving being in that scanner
because I taught him, "Listen, it's how you talk to
yourself." If you go, "I feel like I'm in a coffin here,
and I'm ill, and now I'm in the scanner
and it's reminding me that I could die."
And why would you talk to yourself like that?
So people don't understand
that what makes hypnosis powerful is powerful words,
but they got to be super powerful,
really dynamic, incredibly relevant,
and absolutely up-to-date.
And if you combine that powerful language
with shutting down the critical part
that goes, "You could never do that."
"Who's going to want you? You've got four kids and
cellulite." If you shut that bit down and then add in
excitement, you can have anything you want.
But most people either don't understand
about shutting the bit down,
or they don't understand the language.
So without diminishing other therapists,
I see a lot of people who say things like,
"No, you might just want to think about being calm."
It's like, what? WTF? That's not exciting.
Or they say things like,
"Today you're going to find it easier not to eat cake."
And I'm like, come on, we can do way better than that.
Excite the imagination.
Tell people you love saying no to cake.
It thrills you to pick an apple.
It elates you to see the scales going down
and your six-pack emerging,
because you are motivated and committed
and compelled to say no to sugar.
And if you understand the mind,
it does what you tell it; that's its job.
And if you tell it better stuff, you have an amazing life.
And if you tell it mediocre stuff, you have a mediocre life.
So you have to talk to the mind and say,
"This is completely outdated, it's behind you."
So people have a story, you know,
"I can't find a love because my dad left when I was one."
"I can't find a love because my mom preferred my brother."
"I can't be a success because I never went to university."
"I can't speak in public because I blush."
And without understanding when you describe why you can't,
you keep it going.
If you keep talking about the symptom
your mind keeps it alive,
because whatever you focus on, you get more of.
And so a lot of people have language
that's completely irrelevant.
Like, yes, I know your dad left when you were one.
I know your mother put you up into foster care
and didn't love you.
But that's then. This is now.
And so they have outdated stories, outdated language.
The "I can't do that because..."
The classic one I hear all the time,
"Oh my God, my boyfriend just ripped out my heart,
stamped all over it, killed me."
"And if I find love again, it will kill me."
I'm like, "Darling, he got bored,
and you would've got bored too if you'd stuck around."
"And that was your starter relationship."
"Go and find a better one with someone amazing."
"Everything he loved in you,
he didn't take it home with him, it's still there."
So don't use that irrelevant,
"I found love and it killed me when it ended."
Say, "I found love, the wrong person,
but I'm going to find it again with the right person."
"It's going to be amazing and compelling."
"He's going to fall in love with my soul,"
and you'll be together forever.
Because you got to turn your mind on,
and it loves exciting words, dramatic words.
Really loves words that make a picture.
So if I said to you,
"You can be the most phenomenal, powerful,
awesome, incredible speaker."
"When you speak on stage, everyone stops to listen."
"You could hear a pin drop."
"They look at you, they hear what you're saying."
"They like you."
The mind goes, "Oh, I like this, I know where I'm going."
But when you go, "I'm not bad at speaking,
sometimes I'm quite good."
"Occasionally I really get it right."
The mind goes, "What are you talking about?
That's not dramatic enough for me."
- Yeah, I'm a huge believer in the power of self-talk,
and that the way that you talk to yourself
is going to have a profound impact on how you move forward.
And like you said, getting excited and using big language.
I'm way on board with that.
Do you differentiate at all
between simple repetition and hypnosis?
And how often do you recommend people
just to do the simple repetition?
And are there certain outlier cases
that you're like, "No, no, no,
you're going to need to go for full hypnosis"?
- Well, there's certain rules of your mind
that I like to operate from,
and one is the mind learns by repetition.
So nobody would go to the gym and go,
"I've done 500 sit ups, I should have a six pack now."
You know you got to go back,
and do them again and do them again.
Once you get that six-pack,
you can keep it with a little less repetition.
And so it is with how we dialogue with ourselves.
So repetition is very important, but it's not quite enough.
You know, if you were a chronic alcoholic
and said, "Right, I'm going to say every day, 'I don't
drink. I don't drink. I don't drink.'"
That probably won't work.
First of all, the mind doesn't know what "don't" is.
When you say, "I don't drink,"
it's like saying, "I'm not thinking about chocolate."
You have to think about the word
that's most descriptive in the sentence.
It's like saying, "Don't think of an orange snowman."
Now you got to think of an orange snowman
even if you've never seen one in your life.
So the combination of repetition, powerful words,
can be more than enough.
I mean, somebody wrote to me and said,
"My kid was lying on the floor, hysterical about her exams.
And I played one of your audios
and she got up, and she said, 'I'm going to ace this.'
And she went to school, and she did ace it,
and I could tell even by the set of her chin
that she knew."
But for many people, they need more.
They need you to go back and unpick their story.
Why do you do what you do?
What happened to you?
Why are you an alcoholic?
In understanding why
for most people, that's their "aha" moment.
They go, "Oh my God, I never knew."
"That's why I do that. Oh!"
And then you add in, "And now you know,
you never have to do it again."
- Yeah, that, the notion of story,
and going back and getting to that point
where somebody can identify the moment that the story began,
that then triggers the repetition
that then, you know, locks them in this story.
How do you begin to tease out that story?
- People come in and they describe, you know,
"I really want to be successful, but...",
"I'd love to be healthier, but...",
"I want to find love, but...",
"I can't get pregnant because...".
And the first thing we do is investigate
like a good detective.
A detective will lay out pictures and go,
"What's going on here?"
And they make sense of it.
And very much the same, so people come to me and go,
"I've got unexplained infertility. What is that?"
I went, "Well, there's a clue in the description.
It is unexplained; nobody knows.
Your husband's got crack sperm
that swims straight, and plenty of it.
You've got great eggs, great fallopian tubes.
Perfect womb, but you can't get pregnant,
because the the unexplained is here."
And many people when they're younger will say to themselves,
"If I got pregnant, my dad would kill me."
"Oh my God, if I got pregnant
it would be the end of the world."
And I remember when I was 17 thinking I was pregnant,
thinking, "Oh my God, no! Disaster."
"Oh my God, my dad will be so upset, devastated."
When I wasn't, I went, "Oh, thank you, God. Oh yes, joy."
But you see, the mind listens to everything you say.
The mind is always switched on,
and it records everything and it never forgets.
So in a moment of absolute terror
or fear or pain or anxiety,
there's something called an imprint, it goes in.
So a child whose mother says,
"That cat will scratch you and give you blood poisoning."
Or, "That dog's going to bite you."
Or, "That's a dangerous person."
Or, you know, I worked with a little kid
who had a terrible fear of monsters under the bed.
Turned out his dad used to always say,
"You'll get run over if you do that."
"You'll kill yourself if you do that."
"You'll drown if you do that."
Turned out his dad was the monster.
Why do you think your dad telling all these stories
would now leave you to have this monster under your bed?
Why do you think at 15, being terrified of being pregnant
could possibly mean that today
you've got unexplained infertility?
And they work it out. They go, "Yeah, now you say that.
If I look at those scenes and look at this scene,
it all makes sense."
And then you interrupt the belief massively
and then you install a brand new belief.
You know, you're getting pregnant
like a high school kid on their first date.
You're super fertile. You've got crack, Grade A eggs.
Your husband's got the SAS of sperm, and going to collide.
So you bring in the very powerful language,
and you are going to make a Grade A baby.
Because, of course, we all say, "I want to be pregnant."
I'm like, "No, you don't,
you want to make a baby that you carry to full term."
I have clients who've been pregnant eight times.
You want a perfect, bouncing, healthy baby.
So it's another example
of not telling your mind what you want.
You know, I worked with someone who had had eight IVFs,
and each time, lost the baby.
And I said, "Don't have any more IVF,
just get a perfect baby."
She had some congenital illness,
so she had a 50% chance of having a deformity
and 50% chance of not.
As you know, if you are really clever
you can tell your mind to pick a perfect egg.
The mind's job is to do what you tell it.
And people don't understand that you have that much power.