Episode 36: Accessing the Subconscious Mind

Transcript…

In this episode, you will learn:

  • Hypnosis is being in a state of deep relaxation
  • You’re in control during hypnosis sessions, you can come out of the state whenever you want
  • During the hypnosis state/session, you will only do what you are open to and what is available to you in that moment, not anything that you are not open to doing
  • The 4 R’s of hypnosis:
    • Recognizing the roots
    • Releasing the impact
    • Replacing them by projecting ahead
    • Come up with an affirmation that Represents all of that

Episode 36: Accessing the Subconscious Mind

Katie Wrigley  0:06  

Welcome back. This is the Pain Changer Podcast episode 36. Have you ever heard a statistic that blows your mind? Recently I heard one that continues to not just blow my mind but to expand my mind as I ponder the deeper meaning and flex into this idea of what it makes possible for me and for you. That statistic was around the subconscious mind and just how much of it is running the show for you without your awareness. How is that even possible? And what does it make possible when you can learn how to harness the power of your subconscious mind. Today’s guest is joining me to tell you all about the subconscious mind and how hypnosis can help you tap into it. Don’t go away. That’s coming right up. Joining me today is Hugh Sadlier. Hugh worked 22 years in counseling settings, the bulk of which was spent as a secondary guidance counselor and director. He was also a recreation specialist for emotionally disturbed boys and employment interviewer and a vocational rehab counselor. Hugh was then certified in hypnosis in 1991 and became a Board Certified Hypnotherapist in 2008. As a practicing hypnotherapist in Maine since 1991, he has worked with over 4000 people on over 300 separate issues. Wow, that is a really impressive background. Welcome to the pain changer podcast, Hugh. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Hugh Sadlier  1:42  

Thank you, Katie. Glad to be here.

Katie Wrigley  1:45  

Well, you clearly have a passion for helping people. So would you mind sharing what shifted your focus over into hypnosis and becoming a Hypnotherapist?

Hugh Sadlier  1:56  

Sure. It started way back my senior year in college. This was 1964. My roommate’s brother came up from his high school weekend visit. And he could hypnotize anybody! So Frag, my roommate, and I immediately thought of a fellow down the hall, a great guy, he just happened to be blind, blind from birth. And he couldn’t see this person. And we imagine some kind of a pendulum swinging back and forth. And this fella would go into hypnosis, whatever that was. So Doug, the blind fellow, agreed and he came out. And this high school junior just talked to him. And he went into a hypnotic state. The fellow then gave him a couple of posthypnotic suggestions, saying that when he came back to full consciousness after a moment or so, he had a sweater on over a collared shirt, and he would say “it was getting cold in here”. And he walked down the hall to his room, left his sweater there, and came back. And after a few minutes, he’d say, “you know it’s too warm in here”. And he went down and got his sweater again. So when that happened, it just blew us away. We had no idea what had taken place. You know, we thought the pendulum and wouldn’t go into hypnosis. And so we didn’t do a lot of talking about it. He was happy that he was able to do what he did. Doug was kind of having a fun time as being part of it. And did that for about 25 years when I was doing other careers. And then I was at a point where I was looking for a new career, which didn’t involve a lot of physical work, which I had been doing way more recently. And I thought of hypnosis back to that experience. So I started doing some reading, took a couple of classes, and was getting more interested in it then eventually went for my training and certification. And I guess I’ve been doing it ever since, 32 years.

Katie Wrigley  4:05  

Wow, that is so cool. And that’s amazing that that one point in time in that story and that example, which may have seemed like a party trick at the time, stood with you so much that it became another career for you. That’s so awesome to me.

Hugh Sadlier  4:20  

I think somehow I had a sense that hypnosis was going to be good, both for me and for other people. And in fact, it’s turned out that way. I made some changes in myself that needed to be made. And I feel great about that. But the main thing is that it’s really helping other people.

Katie Wrigley  4:38  

That’s amazing. And so what exactly is hypnosis and what was happening in that example? And what happens in your sessions? What is your client experiencing when they’re in a session with you?

Hugh Sadlier  4:51  

Well, maybe let me just add a little introduction to that, Katie, if we think about the mind, just very simply, two parts, consciousness and subconscious. I like to compare it to an iceberg. So the 10% of the iceberg that’s happening above the surface represents the conscious mind, that’s telling us what to do when we’re awake. But the other 90% down below is the subconscious mind. And the subconscious main role is to take in and store our entire life. Not to judge in any way, to take in and store all aspects of our life. And so when we can connect with the subconscious mind, meaning, getting that tip of the iceberg, out of the way, and then usually can happen as a result of good suggestions, repetitive types of suggestions, which get the conscious mind to be bored. Conscious mind usually likes to be involved in everything going on around us. So when we can get that conscious mind through, usually repetition, like going into meditation, they’re the same end result, an altered state of consciousness. Then we get their conscious mind with repetitive suggestions to just get bored, and pick up like it does a number of times each day, when we’re doing something that’s repetitive, or in any way in affecting that conscious mind, ability to just do its thing. So, as simply going into hypnosis. And what that means is that as that conscious mind subsides, the subconscious takes over. But the subconscious cannot initiate a conversation. It is very willing to respond when we ask it questions. That’s really the key to the way I use hypnosis. But it can’t just say, “hey, Katie, if you do this, you’re going to be better off”. It just… can’t do that. So often, and I’m coming back around to your question, what it does often is that it causes a change, some kind of a change in body,or mind. It could be very minor, could be more than minor. And if we think about that, and we know hypnosis, then we can ask our subconscious mind, is there some kind of a meaning there, is it trying to get a message to us. And often, that’s just what’s happening. So now, that’s kind of a way that we’re going to be able to use hypnosis. So when you go into hypnosis, you just get more deeply relaxed. And depending upon how you process information, you can use your visual sense primarily, if you do that in the conscious state, you might use your auditory sense. Or you might use your kinesthetic sensing and feeling though, you just go with the suggestions. And you can imagine, I encourage people to imagine themselves from doing it. Imagine the relaxation… “Oh! Sometimes we go every part in the body from the head all the way down to the feet, sometimes depending on the person in the background. Maybe they’ve done meditation, and it’ll be easier for them to go into hypnosis. And so maybe I let them take the lead a little bit. But the idea is that I think the quote I read that I liked the best is that some people refer to being in that altered state of consciousness as like having a mental massage. You can’t even imagine that probably in the conscious day. But it’s a mental massage. It’s something that is so comfortable. It’s so soothing. It’s just like, you’re just in another place completely. Disconnected from all the conscious thoughts, feelings, responsibility.

Katie Wrigley  8:37  

I would say that that’s accurate. You know, I have actually done a session with you. And I’ve done hypnosis in the past as well. And I would agree, there’s this stillness that’s very relaxing. It’s almost like someone’s cracked open your skull and starts massaging your brain, you have this mental like, “Ahhhh”, sensation going on. Which is quite lovely actually It makes for a lot of clear and coherent thought.

Hugh Sadlier  9:04  

And that’s one thing, I think it’s important for people to know that hypnosis can be used in different ways. Certainly the way I use it to help people release and replace, but they don’t want to have any more as a habit. But you can just go there like you were just saying, Katie, you can just go there. And just enjoy being there. You don’t have to do anything but enjoy the peacefulness and the quiet. If you combine that with something, like a setting that is very conducive to that, like, I like to take bubble baths. And it’s just like I’m gonna take a bubble bath and it’s just like the rest of the world just disappears.

Katie Wrigley  9:47  

Yes, yeah, I like to do the same. Actually. I have a bath bomb right now with my name on it and the weather’s nice and cold actually go start to enjoy that in the mind down. So I actually just thought of a question as you were talking that I hadn’t really planned for, but I think you’re going to be able to answer it really easily. A lot of people have misconceptions around hypnosis, right, we may see party tricks kind of similar to what you experienced in the dorm or famous hypnotist, that get people to do all kinds of crazy stuff like speak different languages, or cluck like a chicken on stage things that you wouldn’t typically think that people would be open to doing. So what’s happening in those events? And what are we capable of doing within hypnosis that maybe we aren’t capable of doing with our conscious mind fully engaged?

Hugh Sadlier  10:46  

To answer the last part, I’d almost say virtually nothing. What happens with what you’re talking about, stage hypnosis, Katie, it’s truly hypnosis. I doubt that what the audience knows or even thinks to wonder about is, the hypnotist,, he or she would ask for volunteers. This is big time stuff. If there’s an Elon Musk Vegas, you know, in a big, big Casino. I mean, they want to make sure that nothing goes wrong. So they’ll probably interview people beforehand, and get a sense as to whether they’re going to be good candidates for hypnosis on a big stage. But what happened, let’s just say we’re talking about high school graduations, while the scale but more local happens in Maine, if the tests will come, and say …Oh, they’re going to have a hypnotic stage job as part of the celebration of graduating. So they’ll be up on stage, whatever introduction they give, they’re going to ask for volunteers. So if you think about this, who is going to volunteer to get up on that stage? The people who are the extroverts, the people who are in the conscious state, would get up on that stage, be comfortable, be silly, say something or do something to make the audience laugh. So those are the people who will accept suggestions in hypnosis to do what they would normally do in the conscious state. But if you and I were out of a little coop, and we’re sitting there, and somebody says, “Hey Hugh, why don’t you go up there and try it?” And I say, “Well, yeah, I’m not so sure. I don’t think I want to be embarrassed in front of a group.” You all say “Oh it’s only for fun, go ahead.” So I go up, I walk up from the stage. The hypnotist shakes hands with each person who comes up. The ones who are really extroverted and want to be up on that stage, have a really high end handshake, have a really firm handshake. A few come up. And he’s very unsure. So he has a very lukewarm handshake, which simply tells the hypnotist, “not a good candidate”, and I’m asked to go back to my seat. So then the people are up there. I mean, they’re all in with it. They accept the suggestions. It’s like my friend Doug did and does whatever they’re told to do. Then come back to a fully conscious state. So truly hypnosis, but only with a certain kind of person, which is saying that, in hypnosis, we cannot be made to do anything against our will.

Katie Wrigley  13:16  

Thank you. That was the point that I was hoping that we would get to. And that’s the thing that I hear a lot when people have mentioned hypnosis, like, “Is it going to make me do something I wouldn’t normally do?” Like, no, you can’t actually do that. Like, you could have someone brainwash you over a period of time. But that’s not what we’re talking about. Here. We’re talking about benign, even helpful healing, access to the subconscious mind, we aren’t talking about someone coming in, and suggesting things that aren’t good for you over a period of time to brainwash you and get you to do something different that is completely different than what we’re talking about here.

Hugh Sadlier  13:57  

Yeah, I think, I think the idea of what is it like, can be as simple as often gotten the question well, do I go to sleep? In hypnosis, you know, the idea that was just from the Greek word meaning sleep, you know, if we want to go way back, but often that’s the impression people have, that “Somehow I’m going to be made to go to sleep and given a lot of suggestions, and who knows what’s going to happen?” It’s just the opposite.

Katie Wrigley  14:26  

You know, and in my own experience doing this, and I’m curious how this is with other clients that you’ve seen, because you’ve worked with so many people at this point. I tend to remember most of what happens in a session. It’s not like I wake up and someone has to tell me everything I just did, like I’m still there. I’m in a deeply relaxed state. I’m accessing parts of my mind. I’m seeing things that I’m not normally seeing on a day to day basis. But I mean, that’s anytime I access the subconscious mind doing any modality that allows you to do that. And I forget about as much as I would, when I’m in a fully conscious state. Like there’s things that I’m not going to recall, just like there’s things you’re not going to recall. So is that normal as well that people can really recall everything that happened? 

Hugh Sadlier  15:16  

Yes. So I mean, ideally, you should be able to remember everything that happens in a hypnotic session. Unless you know, there may be a particular reason that your subconscious mind would withhold it a little bit. And I’m not suggesting it does that regularly. But it’s possible for that to happen, certainly. If it doesn’t think it’s in your best interest at that moment, it might just hold on to it rather than volunteering it when we asked. But yes, we should remember pretty much everything that goes on in a session. That’s a little different from when we slip into motions during the day. Driving may be the best example. When we’re on a road we travel regularly, or maybe on a highway, especially, that conscious mind, which is being forced to do this, and not involved in everything else that’s going on. “Let’s go” and the subconscious mind takes over. So that’s guiding us. And then maybe for a long time, if we’re on a highway, because it’s pretty straightforward driving, pretty boring. So when we come back to a fully conscious state, we’re probably aware of just a tiny connection that we let go of. And we take a look at ours, we may realize that we’ve come a long way and I don’t remember, you know, going through those towns, even signs that were saying the speed limit. So we were driving safely, because the subconscious was telling us what to do and how to do it. But we don’t remember virtually anything that’s going on, simply because we don’t need to I mean, that’s just the subconscious mind telling us what to do for maybe up to an hour or even could be a long period of time.

Katie Wrigley  16:58  

Nice. So that explains why if we change our routine, like the routine we do every single day, so let’s say the routine is you know, you get up, you take your kids to school, you go to work, but then one day you decide you need to go run an errand. Pretty likely to forget that Aaron, because you’re already hardwired to do that routine, right?

Hugh Sadlier  17:18  

Creatures of habit, right? 

Katie Wrigley  17:21  

Yeah. So what does that make available to us, Hugh? Actually, before we go into that, you had mentioned something that you have. There’s four R’s of hypnosis. So before we go into what’s available, what are those four R’s of hypnosis?

Hugh Sadlier  17:38  

Well, They’re my four R’s that I’ve created, and maybe, so I don’t give the secret away, let me just mention that most hypnotists today are trained the way I was trained 33 years ago. And that is to give less direct suggestions. The idea being that with this overload of your direct suggestions to help a person resolve whatever issue they’re interested in resolving, that’s supposed to override the subconscious mind and just tell it that’s what it needs to do. So it’s the repetition going in hypnosis over and over that is, it is attempting to reprogram the subconscious mind. And that can work certainly just like stages of hypnosis can work for some people, but it’s not going to work for everyone. And I realized this very early in my practice, when it just wasn’t working with a person. And I started thinking, Well, if this, if this gives me lots of suggestions is a one size fits all approach. It stands to reason it’s not going to work for everybody, because each person is an individual. They have their own habits, we have experiences and images and messages that have influenced them becoming who they are. So if they are going to be able to be successful, everyone has the opportunity. That’s why I started thinking well, well, maybe rather than telling the subconscious mind, maybe we need to get a specific aspect that contributed to this person’s issue from the subconscious mind so I started asking questions, and was having great success. But for 11 years, as I continued doing that, and went to conventions to get recertified, long weekends of seminars and workshops. I just wasn’t sure. Everything was the same old, same old, direct suggestions. And I was doing the opposite. But I kept doing it. Then finally, I read an article in the organizationI belong to, The National Guild of Hypnotist. And it was about Hypno analysis and I started reading and I said, I didn’t know what that was, and I read it. And I was reading it. I thought, “Whoa, this is exactly what I do. And someone else not only does it but has written about it, so I guess it’s okay”. So I can, I’ve kept doing it for the rest of all those years. So what I devised was a way of involving the person. And so you’re talking about empowering at one point, helping the people do what they have to do to reach the change that they want to make. And so we talk initially, and then I asked the subconscious mind questions, based on what the person I have gotten to as far as let’s start doing the actual process. So, that’s where my four R’s come in. So rather than lots of suggestions, the first one is to Recognize the root of the problem. And do that simply by asking the subconscious mind different ways, but that is asking the subconscious mind for a number that would represent the reasons that are responsible for the habit taking hold and it’s usually very willing to respond. So we may get one or two, we might get 10 or 20. One time I asked a client to do that, and she brought forward the number 1000. So, the flexibility of the subconscious mind, I asked if her subconscious mind could reduce the number to a more workable number. And she got the number 25 come into mind, well, still a big number to work on. And I said well, could it reduce it one more time and still get the full benefit of all that. She got 12. And I said, “Okay, we can work with that”. The subconscious mind is very willing to work when we ask it. But it’s like that, if hypnotist is up on the stage, if he doesn’t shake hands with everyone to get a sense of who they are and where they are, will they be a good subject. If we don’t ask these questions, the subconscious mind cannot volunteer that kind of information, like I mentioned earlier. And so we can be going in a direction that may not work, that may work partially. But the key is the four R’s. So you have to Recognize the roots of the problem, then with my guidance, and the person does the work, they Release the impact of each of those roots. And they find their own way to do that, like they’re just pulling it out of their subconscious mind so completely that the impact of it has gone good on them. Having done that they’ve created a void in the subconscious mind that needs to be filled. The subconscious will fill that automatically on its own. But if the person projects ahead in their mind, and imagines how they’re going to be able to be, as a result of what they just released and disconnected the impact of. The subconscious mind, in effect says, “That’s all taken care of, I don’t have to do anything about it”. And the person is starting to put the new program in place in the subconscious mind. So once they’ve, they’ve got to that point, it’s Recognizing the roots, it’s really Releasing the impact, Replacing them by projecting ahead, and then the person comes up with an affirmation that Represents all of that. I just suggest they come up with an appropriate word of words which represents reinforcing that everything that is gone, i’s gone permanently, everything that’s replacing that with is getting stronger every time they connect with the affirmation. And then there’s a several ways of using that affirmation, especially while in self hypnosis, which I teach everyone how to do, that becomes the most powerful way of reinforcing the new program especially

Katie Wrigley  23:43  

Nice. And there’s a lot of power in that repetition. As I’m continuing to learn more about how our minds work. Repetition is one main thing that comes up over and over again. With the modality that I use, I have a different way of accessing the subconscious mind. But there’s still a lot of similarities in what you’re talking about. Like one of the things you know, one of the differences is the way I’m accessing it, it’s a focus on the physical body, combined with eye movements. And when your focus 95 to 99% of your attention on the physical body, your conscious mind gets bored again, goes away so you’re fully in your subconscious, fully in your body. And that gives you the access and the thing that surprises me over and over again, is that weeds you find in there. Like there’s just stuff you find and you had no idea about these artifacts from…. You never know where it’s coming out because your subconscious, like you said, initially is recording everything that’s ever happened to you including what’s happened to you in the womb, including what’s happened from the point of conception. So it is sitting there recording everything so there is no way we can in our conscious mind, pull that out. Not if the conscious mind is only running 10% of the show and the subconscious is running 90%. It makes sense that that stillness, getting into that subconscious mind like you do in hypnosis is going to help people start to get into that root of what is bothering them. Now, you had mentioned that sometimes the subconscious isn’t ready to release something. So what do you mean by that? Because there’s, I like to talk about what’s possible and what’s available. And I think everything is possible all the time. It may not be available to us right now, for one reason. So what do you see with that?

Hugh Sadlier  25:35  

Well, I think the subconscious mind, one of its purposes, perhaps, is to protect us. And even though that isn’t always doesn’t seem to always be the case. That is one of the things that it does. And I think that oftentimes, if there’s something that perhaps thinks that we’re not, we’re not going to be comfortable without initially, if there’s something that we’ve had for a long time, and that’s all we know, in that particular direction. Maybe it doesn’t want us to just kind of jettison it all at once, maybe it’s gonna take a little more looking at what’s going on and do a piecemeal. So an example might be one of the things that I am interested in, when I’m talking with a person initially, and I usually ask is, I ask them to imagine what their conscious mind is like on an intensity scale from a low of one to a high of 10. They pretty much know, right? And if it’s in those upper levels, somewhere around eight, nine or 10, then that means they have, a lot of people call it a monkey mind, which doesn’t like to shut off all the time. Yeah. And I believe and I really found this must be true, that people who have the monkey minds, very busy, conscious minds, they can worry, they wonder, they ruminate, it just doesn’t want to turn off. And it’s a protective mechanism that can go way back, could have started anywhere. But often when we access, and there may be something going on in our environment that is particularly uncomfortable. More than one thing. And I think that that’s one of the ways that the subconscious mind helps us develop a coping skill to deal with what might be going on in our lives. Because there’s a conscious mind gets overly busy, it distracts us. Distracts us from continually having to worry about what might be happening next. And so then we have to talk with the subconscious mind and get it to give suggestions to the conscious because this thing of the subconscious says that it’s the top of the heap. And it’s in control the whole mind-body connection. So that’s one of those cases where I ask the subconscious mind to step in, and do whatever needs to be done to give that continuous repetition of suggestion that whenever the person is going into hypnosis, the conscious mind disconnects completely. And that can usually be done with a little extra effort. The other aspect of that is that people also, if they are of loads of that busy conscious mind, they have the potential, working with the subconscious mind to reduce that intensity level down on that scale to whatever they believe it’s going to be comfortable for them. So once again, it’s involving the person with different techniques all the way through.

Katie Wrigley  28:40  

And what I’m hearing is that there’s no danger of something coming up that you are not ready for your subconscious is protecting you from that, that the information is going to be available to you. When you are ready for when it is the time.

Hugh Sadlier  28:58  

I would say exactly so, with a little asterisk. I think sometimes it’s possible for the subconscious mind to make a judgment call on what’s going to be helpful and what’s going to be traumatic, versus going back to an experience from something earlier. This includes past lives that may be a little even scarier to some people if they do find themselves being able to return to a past life. That is just an unknown at that moment. So I always tell people, when they’re going back to church for support something, remind them that they’re in control at all times, which they are. And if they find there’s anything that starts to get a bit uncomfortable to them that they don’t want to be a part of. They can, in their mind, step aside. Observe and as a neutral person. They could open their eyes and come right back to a fully conscious state so they’re always in control. If I sensed that there’s something happening that I’m concerned about, I would just help them back to a fully conscious state, and then we can talk about what was happening. So there’s the protective aspect of it. But I think sometimes that protective aspect might be just over the line a little bit. And we need to be prepared for that just in case.

Katie Wrigley  30:21  

Yeah. And that’s, that’s a great point that you make there. And what I’m hearing is, even if there’s something to face that may be unpleasant in the moment to face it, you still have safety mechanisms built into your brain and working with a licensed hypnotherapist like you to help make sure the person stays safe and goes into the conscious state when it is time to do so if there’s something that they’re tapping into that may be disruptive.

Hugh Sadlier  30:47  

Very true. Yep. I think when people are first coming to the session, and we’re talking, I always say that they are completely in control. They can’t be made to do anything against their will. And if there is anything that they are uncomfortable with, they can just, like, go back to a fully conscious state. That’s reassuring, too, because there are often so many questions about hypnosis. And, you know, I’m not going to be able to do it as well as you know, what is it like? And am I going to be made to bark like a dog or cluck like a chicken? Right? All kinds of questions that are going around in most people’s minds. And I think that, hopefully settles them down a little bit. Let them know that simply, they’re in control, whatever’s going to happen. They’re always in control. They have the final say.

Katie Wrigley  31:40  

Yeah, and the barking like a dog, clucking like a chicken, like that’s why I wanted to make that differentiation between stage hypnosis for entertainment versus hypnotherapy. In a safe setting. In a safe space where you have access to your subconscious mind, you aren’t on stage as an extrovert, being your extroverted self, you are able to show up however you want to show up, however, you need to show up in that moment, because you aren’t on stage, you’re there to get some healing to get something available to you from the subconscious state.

Hugh Sadlier  32:13  

Well said, yes.

Katie Wrigley  32:17  

So what are the, you had sent me a list, but I would love for you to just speak to this directly here. But what are some of the conditions that you tend to see more frequently than others that you can help people with through hypnosis?

Hugh Sadlier  32:33  

Because people, at one time, I think about three years ago, I kept statistics for all those years up until three years ago, when I finally just thought, “Okay, I think that served its purpose”. Each person that I’ve worked with, I just put them into a category, a category was what they suggested their issue was. I can’t tell someone, you know, what their disability is, I can’t diagnose I’m not allowed to do that. So I worked with symptoms. And the symptoms are what are going to allow us to get to the root of the problem. So I go with whatever the person says. So there were over 300 different issues. At that time, in 2019, and I finally just went through, and I had to have a cut off line somewhere. So I said, “Alright, I’m gonna go to each, each issue”. And each issue was broken down with female and male as far as the numbers. And I said, I’ll just go with a minimum of 20 Like, 20 people over the years, worked on that particular issue with female and male. And so if you were to see that, you know, it just looks like that. 

Katie Wrigley  34:09

Yep, quite a bit on there. 

Hugh Sadlier  34:11

And so there happened to be 23 different issues, and these are just 23 of the most popular ones. But could have been some with 19 or 18. I had to have a cut off somewhere. So the first one is abuse, and that can follow all kinds of abuse. And it’s really just a question of, of finding the root of the problem, you know, what contributed to the abuse and the effect it had on a particular person. And then they can have the potential to be able to disconnect the impact of all of that, and then replace it with an imaginary way that they can see or feel or think for themselves becoming. So abuse, alcoholism. Anger. Pretty big one. Oh, yeah. Anxiety, even bigger though, a lot of people I’ve worked with. Anxiety was 138 females and 96 males. Wow. Anger was 12 females and 21 Male. So it’s not that this is just me, the people that I’ve worked with other practitioners. Cancer 17 females and eight males. Some of those people I was able to help release the cancer completely. So that’s the kind of thing that is potentially possible. Confidence is another big one. People with low self confidence, 62 women and 50 males. Eating disorders, fears, fears, all kinds of fears. 71 women, 43 men. Multiple issues. And this gets interesting because even though I asked the subconscious mind when it goes and goes into hypnosis the first time is, does it agree that what the person thinks they want to work on is the most important place to start. And the subconscious mind 90% or more of the time will agree. Once in a while because it knows all about the person, it knows that there’s another place that would be better to start with. And if we don’t ask a question like that, and we just forge ahead on what the person thinks they want to work on. It may work, but 10% of the time, that may not work. That’s why I asked the subconscious if it agrees. And if it doesn’t, then that’s what it suggests. And often there may be a connection. So all kinds of fears, insomnia, but that’s a multiple issues. I guess I just you have to kind of narrow down what the subconscious mind thinks. This is where you’re, most of the time a person has a good sense of that, but not always. Negativity, pain, all kinds of pain. Chronic Pain included. Past Life Regression, something many people just aren’t aware of never thought of. But that made the 20. Procrastination, relationship issues, repressed memories. Oftentimes we repress memories, either because they are too uncomfortable for us or maybe the subconscious mind has another reason. Yeah, I think it’s also lost items. You think, Well, why did someone lose their wedding ring? You know, when we kind of explore what was happening before they lost it. Uh huh. Finding out just how they can find it. Sexual dysfunction was relatively larger. Smoking, of course, was the big one because that’s what people think of hypnosis being helpful with smoking and weight control. Sports performance, something I had an athlete, I really liked 13 women and 43. Males saw me afterwards. Stress, another big one. Test anxiety, I work with people at all levels, from maybe high school to too long test becoming a lawyer. I mean, any kind of a professional that has a huge exam that they had failed once or twice before. And they were able to pass. Wait, another big one, that’s the second largest. 290 women and 69 men in my experience, so that’s an idea of range. And you can expand that out to 300 different types of issues.

Katie Wrigley  38:32  

That’s just amazing that you’ve had the opportunity to work with such a wide variety. And so you said a few things in there that are really important. The first one was that you’re working with symptoms you aren’t diagnosing. That’s the same for me as well, it’s symptoms. And what I also found interesting is insomnia, anxiety, depression, if those are symptoms, that oftentimes were diagnosed with that, but when we really start to go deep. Why are we anxious? Why are we depressed? And then it becomes why can’t we sleep? Why can’t we do these things that should be innate to us? Okay, there’s a reason. And so those are symptoms. And I think that’s an important distinction to make is that sometimes we’re diagnosed with something. And that diagnosis is actually a symptom. You mentioned chronic pain in there. So you have worked with people with chronic conditions, Hugh?

Hugh Sadlier  39:29  

Yes, I have. With pain, with chronic Lyme. And I’m really intrigued by long COVID. You know, as disastrous as that can be on some people. My but my little belief at this point is, is COVID is so similar to Lyme with symptoms. Oh, I’m thinking well, you know, if Lyme can be treated by releasing the whole trauma on the Lyme’s disease. There’s a doctor, Dr. Klinghardt. He’s in Germany half the time in Washington State half the time, and he has become a guru on Lyme. And he says that until we establish a dialogue with the subconscious mind, we will not be able to treat chronic Lyme in traditional ways. He says the triarchies gets so deeply embedded in the tissues. And it’s the he says that trauma from early childhood, I think it could be trauma from any time but trauma from early childhood that holds the triarchies at such a deep cellular level, that nothing can reach them and release them. But by releasing the trauma, the impact of trauma, then you can release the hold on the line. And I found that to be true in a handful of cases. So if you can do that with Lyme. And I just sense in some way that it might be possible to do the same thing with chronic viruses. I haven’t had a chance to do an experiment with anyone on that yet. But we’ll see. I’m optimistic that there might be a connection.

Katie Wrigley  41:37  

Well, if I find someone with chronic Lyme, I will send them your way or not chronic Lyme, chronic COVID rather or long term COVID. I will send them your way. So you can get some data on that I actually

Hugh Sadlier  41:50  

Thank you. I’m very interested in that. So I’m sure it will happen at some point.

Katie Wrigley  41:55  

Yeah. Well, there’s quite a few people who are still struggling with it. So I think that’s quite possible.

Hugh Sadlier  42:00  

And I think the idea that, if nothing else is working, well, why not try something new?

Katie Wrigley  42:06  

Right, exactly. At some point, if there is a logical step to say, okay, everything I’ve tried hasn’t worked. So we have a choice at that point, right? We can say, Oh, nothing works. I’m stuck with this, or what else is available that I haven’t thought of yet? And that question can be incredibly important. If I hadn’t asked myself that question I would have had neurosurgery two years ago, I never had neurosurgery because I said, Okay. Maybe this will work. And it did. But it’s giving that extra shot. So if you are listening, and you have a chronic condition, and you feel like you have tried everything, but you have not done hypnosis, reach out to Hugh. We’re going to make sure that you have his information to reach out to him as we hang up. And before we start to get into that, Hugh, what would you recommend for someone who’s suffering a chronic condition? Where would a good place be to start with hypnosis?

Hugh Sadlier  43:15  

I think it’s still basically the same, Katie, I think it’s initially talking. And I asked them questions, that person just having catharsis, maybe getting off the just something that they’ve needed to, but it just kind of getting going and getting a sense of what seems to be the direction. But it’s going to be similar. I mean, the process is similar with variations, because each person is different that way. So we would do that. And I think of, you were saying a few minutes ago, how important the question “Why?” can be. And that’s probably my favorite question. Well, “why is that? Why might that have happened on and on and on and on?” But I think that the chain of words, who, what, where, when and why? I think they all could be used. Because they’re just seeking information. So the process is the same. And I think as forthright as a person can be in the conscious mind, and that’s going to help give me a sense of, “alright, what seems to be the best place to start?” and then we’ll double check with the subconscious mind. Whether it’s chronic or whether it’s just a recent thing that’s happened and they just don’t like it. Maybe insomnia had started. You know, we always go back to well, what was going on before it started? Why might it have started? So same with Lyme, and anything that’s just been chronic pain that’s been hanging around for a long time. And it’s amazing how sometimes it can seem so simple. I had a woman, a 50 year old woman, stand up paddle boarder, she was a professional. And she’d had pain in her left shoulder for three years. And you can imagine, she’s a  stand up paddleboarder with some pain in that left shoulder, tried all kinds of things, nothing worked. We were working on something else. And she happened to, out of the loo, ask about pain in her shoulder that she’s had for three years. So we shifted gears and worked on the pain. And by the end of the session, the pain was gone. And she wrote a testimonial a couple of years later, indicating that it never came back. So, it’s amazing. You know, sometimes you have to be ready for the spontaneous. But usually, it’s kind of the process that helps everybody get comfortably where they want to go through.

Katie Wrigley  45:55  

And so what I think I’m hearing you say in there, correct me if I’m wrong, letting go of the how is important. Just being open to something can change. And you’re ready for it to change, letting go of the how. Like how did we get her shoulder to stop hurting whatever you focused on in that session was connected to that shoulder pain? Right? There’s no real way we have an idea of how or why until we start that conversation, like you said, with the subconscious mind. And if you think about it, how could you possibly if the conscious mind is only run in 10% of the show, and I’ve heard a lot of stats around that. And that’s accurate, you know, it’s a huge chunk is not run by the conscious mind. And the first thing that comes up when people hear that is like, “oh, there’s no way”. Okay, but you aren’t telling your lungs to breathe, are you? You aren’t telling your heart to beat, you aren’t telling your feet to move.” Maybe if you’re scared, you’re like, Okay, feet move. But most of the time, you weren’t sitting there going, “Okay, I’m going to push back in my chair, I’m going to turn to the right. And these muscles are the ones that are going to work to do that” like that would be your conscious mind driving your body. That’s not how we move, it would take us forever to get out of bed in the morning, let alone to get out of that house, if we had to tell ourselves, every single muscle, okay, this muscle that I don’t even know the name of here “move”. It’s not the way we work. So when you really start to think about just your body in general, let alone memories, or anything else, of course, it’s run by the subconscious. And we’re much more efficient beings. By having this running the show for us. Don’t let that make you think that you know everything because you’re only aware of a certain part of it. There’s so much more you have available when you start to have that conversation with your subconscious mind.

Hugh Sadlier  47:46  

Right. I think of a client one time, Katie, who first session, the end of the session, she came back to a conscious state and she just kind of looked at me and she said “I never knew how much my subconscious mind knew that I never knew”. I had to stop and think about that afterwards. And I thought, well, that says it all. I mean, you don’t know what’s there. And when we find out it can be in a positive way, overwhelmingly, right? And then we realized that “Whoa, there’s something going on here that we just never had a clue about.”

Katie Wrigley  48:26  

Yeah, it’s so true. And you actually mentioned that you have a favorite quote, and I don’t think you shared it just yet. You did share another quote that was really impactful. But what is your favorite quote about hypnosis, because I love this quote too, Hugh.

Hugh Sadlier  48:41  

This, this one comes from a fellow named Michael Gabriel. Back in 1992, he was a grad student at Cornell, working on his doctorate, and he’d been a hypnotist and a licensed professional counselor. And he hadn’t had success, the success he thought he should by going back to birth and coming forward. So he started experimenting, dabbling with having people go back to when they’re still in the mother’s womb. When you know, because the developing fetus, babies and the mother all one system, whatever the mother’s experience,that baby, it’s going to experience also. It’s possible if a mother is experiencing something uncomfortable, as well as something positive and joyful. That baby can be born with habits already in place, as a result of what the mother had been experiencing. Wow, similar type habits. And so I was fascinated with the book and he had all kinds of case studies and it was really fascinating. And so I started using that as part of how I work with people. And it just is another, you know, another piece of the pie. A place where you might not even think you could go to. But in hypnosis, that you were saying earlier, you know, it has a record of everything that happened then, even though it’s not cognitive memories to watch, the body sensation and cellular memories, and the subconscious mind can transfer those into recognizable memories today. And so it was simply fascinating. And so Michael had a quote, and I’m gonna read it, because just long enough that I haven’t memorized the whole thing, but sure, over the years, but he’s talking about now, “the periods of infancy, birth and nine months in the womb, frequently reveal intense core experiences, experiences that fuel our emotional responses to life.” And that’s really the key for a lot of what I do. Bruce Lipton, and it’s epigenetic says the same thing. That it’s the emotional experiences that influence who we are, and how we become. “Hypnotic regression offers a deep, clear and definitely felt reliving of early experiences, leading to a deep level of emotional release”. And here’s the way to remember it. And we go back and release these emotional experiences. And I say, release them. And I’m getting confused. Do we go back and release these emotional experiences? We may continue to live our lives like puppets controlled by the strings of a forgotten past? Subconscious minds back there. It’s got the strings. It’s running the show. We don’t know anything about it consciously. It’s rolling out. And the way we can resolve all that is to go into the subconscious and get its help and turn things around.

Katie Wrigley  51:39  

Yep, exactly. And what that also means is, that may not be a logical or rational way that your subconscious has chosen to protect you. It’s not bringing rational logical thought into account, it is bringing your safety, your survivability into account. That’s it, which means that whatever pattern it came up with, worked at the time may not work again later may not make sense. But you’ll still do it because your subconscious is telling you to do it, because it worked once when you needed it the most to survive whatever was happening.

Hugh Sadlier  52:17  

Yes. Yeah. Well said.

Katie Wrigley  52:21  

Yeah, there’s so much available to us when we start these conversations. So, Hugh, you had mentioned that there’s, I believe a freebie that you have on your site. And this also leads to where can people find you to book a session with you?

Hugh Sadlier  52:39  

Okay, I guess the primary place would be my website, which is www.hypno-health.net. That’s got a lot of information. It’s got some videos. And the whole idea is to hopefully just educate people as to what it’s almost like indicating to do what’s inside the subconscious mind. Overall exposure to the different aspects of hypnosis, what it can do, what it can’t do. And on each page on the website, the first item talks about my 30 minute recording that I made several years ago. It’s called serenity and self hypnosis. And it’s unique to my knowledge, because it does two things. One, it helps a person, it’s 31 minutes long, so plenty of time to help a person go into a very comfortably relaxed hypnotic state. The other thing it does is it teaches them how to return to that state anytime they want. And that’s what I haven’t seen anywhere else. So I just have them, do some techniques. And then they practice them. And they’re able to return to hypnosis to use it however they want, maybe just for the comfort of being there, but maybe to start doing a little exploring on their own.

Katie Wrigley  54:13  

Nice, very cool. So that is a free 30 minute guide, and it’s on Hypno-health.net and people can learn how to do self hypnosis, not only just one time but to go back into it repeatedly. How cool, what an awesome freebie. 

Hugh Sadlier  54:31  

Yeah, it’s the way I work. And so you know, like traditional hypnotists often might have a way of having a person go back into hypnosis when they return from another session. And they will do things like someone might put a hand on his shoulder and say, each time I put my hand on my shoulder when you’re in the setting, you’re going to return to your comfortably relaxed hypnotic state and the subconscious mind would accept that as long as there’s no problem with it as though they would do that. So as part of the hypnotist being in control, giving lots of direct suggestions to giving the movement that’s going to cause the person to notice. And when I started changing my process to asking questions, you know, then it became clear that well, wait a minute, why don’t we do the same thing with hypnosis. So by teaching the person how to go into hypnosis with that anchoring movement, well, maybe I didn’t talk about it earlier. But the anchoring movement is the final part of the whole introductory aspect, that then solidifies what they’ve done, they’ve gone into a deeply relaxed state, they’ve gone back to a conscious state and see how easy it is. They’ve gone back and just self hypnosis on their own. And then this anchoring movement connects with all of that, so that when they want to go into hypnosis, in effect, they just have to do that accurately. And they’re back in their relaxed state. 

Katie Wrigley  55:58 

Oh, wow. That’s so powerful. 

Hugh Sadlier: 56:01

It is it is. So it’s just another way of just empowering people then that took off when I started realizing, for me, it wasn’t working with that direct approach of losses reductions, and it opened up all kinds of things, which I think many hypnotists don’t even know about, let alone the average person.

Katie Wrigley  56:16  

Yeah, so actually, I want to spend a little bit more time on that before we wrap up. So is that how you empower people by teaching them to do it on their own? And what kind of impact does this have as far as changing their lives? How are you able to affect that for people, Hugh?

Hugh Sadlier  56:33  

Well, I think it’s, it’s that fine tune things, much, much more than to predict the way I was taught. And the way I was taught, with the direct suggestions, there’s an assumption there, that this is going to work, but you don’t have I mean, you can ask little techniques, but you don’t have a good feeling as to what’s working and what is, right, you’re just suggesting over and over and over. I think the advantage of the empowering approach is that we’re going to be able to come up with a lot of information that wouldn’t have been available in that other way. Much of it wouldn’t have been available in that direction, at least to us and to the person. So the person ideally, has the feeling that they are a part of the process, and was not doing it too. They are in control. And they’re doing their researching, with the right guidance, but they’re researching what they need. They’re making the decisions on what’s going to stay and what’s going to leave. And so they’re intricately involved in the whole process. And I think that just makes it more powerful.

Katie Wrigley  57:41  

Absolutely. That’s you can’t get any more empowering than teaching someone how to hold the reins on their own deeper work. That’s such an amazing gift. I love that you give that to people as they work with you. Thank you for that, Hugh. And thank you for the work that you’re doing in the world to help people have conversations with the subconscious mind to make these changes that they want to make in their lives. It’s just beautiful.

Hugh Sadlier  58:05  

Love doing it Katie, I think that’s a big factor.

Katie Wrigley  58:09  

Absolutely. And that’s clear in the way that you’re talking. I’m sure it’s clear to anybody who’s listening to this today to you clearly, very clearly, I can’t even say that enough, obviously, have a passion for really helping people from your former career helping as a counselor, and now helping people be able to tap into their own power, teach them and empower them to do that on their own repeatedly to have these deeper answers available to them so they can release it and move forward in life.

Hugh Sadlier  58:40  

Yeah. Well said. I’ve said that several times. 

Katie Wrigley  58:44  

Yeah. And I love that. Thank you so much for the work that you’re doing. Is there one last note? Where… Oh, actually, before we get into that, can people book with you outside of the state of Maine, or do they have to be in Maine?

Hugh Sadlier  58:58  

No. All across the country. I mean, I could list all the states. I’ve worked with people. One person in China, a couple of twins in Edinburgh, Scotland. There was another one but anyway, a few internationally but certainly across the country. And in Maine.

Katie Wrigley  59:17  

Okay, great. So anyone anywhere in the world that’s hearing this can book with you and have an enlightening hypnosis session. Doesn’t matter where they are. That’s awesome. And you work virtually then I would assume I don’t think you’re going to China for a one off appointment.

Hugh Sadlier  59:35  

Haven’t been there. But yes, it’s all virtual. I prefer zoom because we can see each other and it’s more personal, but it can be done on a call also.

Katie Wrigley  59:44  

Awesome, beautiful. And so again, you could find you at Hypno-health.net. He has his freebie out there. 31 minutes helps you learn how to get into that hypnotic state and access it at any point in time. Thank you so much for this today, Hugh. Is there anything that you want to end on before we wrap this up with one final note of advice or encouragement that you want to give to anyone who’s listening, especially if they are suffering from a chronic condition right now?

Hugh Sadlier  1:00:13  

I think just overall, Katie, and it’s been said, certainly, but as a way of perhaps demystifying hypnosis. I would just encourage anyone who is listening to remember that in hypnosis, they’re always in control. Yes. And hopefully that might make the difference. Take away some of the fears, the unknowns, misconceptions, the myths of the voodoo, you know, even in today’s terminology, kind of “woowoo”. Well, you know, “woowoo” can be great. You’re always in control, I would say it is important that people know about hypnosis, because the other stuff you might have heard this otherwise, person is in charge.

Katie Wrigley  1:00:57  

Absolutely. So you are in charge. So if you are someone who struggles with control, and you need to be in control, hypnosis is for you, you are not relinquishing control at all, you are going to be driving the ship the entire time, so you can release any worry around that. Thank you again, for joining me today, Hugh. I love hearing your talk. I love hearing the way you work. And I learned something every time. I hear you. Thank you.

Hugh Sadlier  1:01:21  

Thank you for having me Katie and I enjoyed it, as you can tell. And I think you do a great job on the other end.

Katie Wrigley  1:01:28  

Thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you my listener as always, for being here with us today. Next week, I have another guest with mind blowing stats for you. What if I told you that someone can help you streamline your tech usage so you can save eight hours a week of work for yourself? Would you be interested to hear how you can do that? What if I told you that in one particular case, my guest actually saved someone 40 hours of work per week? Yes, an entire 40 hours were given back to one of his clients who worked with my guest next week. I hope you’re gonna join me to hear all about it. Until then, please remember, chronic doesn’t have to mean permanent.

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