Bruce Langford's Mindfulness Podcast With Hypnotist Erika Flint

Originally posted on mindfulnessmode.com/mind-your-other-mind-with-erika-flint/

I got the amazing opportunity to sit down with Bruce Langford and discuss Mindfulness and Hypnosis! We covered some amazing content that I’m excited for you all to here.

Full Transcript of Interview:

Bruce: You're on mindfulness mode with me, your host and mindfulness life coach, Bruce Langford. Hey, mindful tribe. Have you ever noticed that you have certain blocks, certain things holding you back? And of course we talk about this all the time on the show, but maybe you have some blocks around eating or alcohol or exercise or sleeping or something like that.

Or maybe on the other hand, you absolutely love helping people. And you're so heart-centered and you just want to do everything you can to help people. Well, I'll tell you mindful tribe. I have the guest for you on the show today. She's sitting here smiling at me through zoom, and it's so great to have her with me. She's an award winning hypnotist. She's a three time bestselling author and she's, she speaks all the time on the topic of hypnosis. And she's a cohost of the popular podcast series called Hypnosis Etc. And she's founder of cascade hypnosis center for training and services in Washington. I have Erica Flint with me today. Erica, are you in mindfulness mode today?

 

Erika (2:14): I am absolutely in mindfulness mode birth and it's so, so good to be here with you. We're already having so much fun.

 

Bruce: Yeah, yeah. I love it too. It's so great to meet you and to have you here. And you know, you have just poured yourself into your books and your books are such an incredible, beautiful, easy way to understand what this topic is all about and that it's not all out there so difficult to grasp or something that you'd have to be trained in for years and years and years and years. You just bring it all down to earth. Now, before we talk more about that, let's talk about mindfulness. What does mindfulness mean to you Erika?

 

Erika (3:00): Mindfulness means being in the present moment and there's nothing, you know, nothing more about it than that. Are you present? Are you fully, fully present? And when you're fully present in the moment, it's almost, it's like, God is with you and you are just seeing the world through the eyes of God. And you're noticing all of the beauty. You're noticing the connections between everything you're really listening. It's like you were just fully alive and present

 

Bruce: And you know, it's so true. It's just living in the moment. And you explain about being a hypnotist and how that has a lot to do with being in the moment. Can you dovetail those two together and tell us what is the connection between mindfulness and being a hypnotist?

 

Erika (3:48): Well, one of the main connections is I get to be in hypnosis all day long as I'm working with my clients. So one of the rules of being an excellent hypnotist is the hypnotist always goes into state first, which means they, the hypnotist is always going to enter into a hypnotic state first. And so when the hypnotist is in a hypnotic state and they're using the techniques of hypnosis, a hypnotic induction, hypnotic, convincer anchoring those types of things that's done via language or music or something like that. But it's really when the hypnotist is modeling that behavior for the client. It's all of those things that are unsaid, that the client is able to pick up on and enter into that state with a hypnotist. So first and foremost, I get to be in mindfulness mode all day long because I'm doing hypnosis with my clients all day long. And I'm specifically doing that in order to be a greater service to them.

 

Bruce: Well, speaking of greater service, one of the things you say is if you have a heart, you can be a hypnotist and you've written this new book called, Can You Be A Hypnotist? to how to create a fulfilling and lucrative career, helping people with modern and professional hypnosis. Now it's just so exciting reading this book because you make it clear that yeah, if you have a heart, you can be a hypnotist. So what took you to this place where you wanted to even go to the point of writing a book, to convince people that, you know, you can probably be a hypnotist. If you want to help people, where did, how did you get here?

 

Erika (5:30): I got here through massive suffering and sorrow. Thankfully I'm on the other side of most of it now, but I was a software engineer. I lived in Silicon Valley. I loved my job. I had all of the things that we are supposed to have. That society teaches us that we were supposed to have in order to find happiness, a career, a family, a home, a car you know, the car, the house, all those things. And I reached that point in my life and I still wasn't happy. And what was missing from my life was my own spirituality.

And so I went through a really low point. I was drinking too much and I almost killed myself. I ended up in the hospital and I remember the moment I was sitting. I mean, I'm like 36 years old. Okay.

My parents come to the emergency room. I feel very ashamed and embarrassed in one of those really dumb robes that hardly covers any of your body. And my legs are swinging off the end of the gurney. And my thought was, you're either going to kill yourself or you need to stop and you can any, you can live. And so what's your choice because that's really where you're at right now. It's one or the other.

And I, I hopped off that gurney and I chose to live. And once I chose to live, I needed to find another way to be. And through my own self seeking and mindfulness paying really good attention to what I truly wanted, not what society was saying. I found hypnosis.

Through my work in hypnosis, what I realized, is it really was my heart that's helping people. There's a lot of hypnotic technique that anybody can learn. If your heart is in the right place, you can help people. Because the work we do is really hard. We're helping people with suffering. And so as soon as I figured out how easy it is to do that with the right technique and your heart in the right place, I had to tell everybody, because we need so many more people out there helping people with the deep work that needs to be done right now.

Bruce (07:33): Well, especially now with COVID, there are so many people that have been experiencing anxiety and stress, and they've turned to either alcohol or food or drugs or something. Isn't that true, Erica?

 

Erika: Absolutely. We're seeing so many people reverting back to some of their old bad behaviors because they're feeling trapped. They're feeling trapped. They're scared. They're scared for their families. They have limited access to normal things in their life. So they revert back to some of their old bad habits. So we need to have good habits, good coping skills and good coping habits at all times,

 

Bruce (08:10): Take us from that time you were on the gurney. Now you're a hypnotist, how much time passed in between those two periods? And what was that journey like getting from Silicon Valley into this place of being a hypnotist?

 

Erika (08:25): Yeah, it was, it was, it seemed really fast when I think about it now, because really, and I think this is a really important point. There was a decision and I think decide this whole concept of deciding is really powerful. The word decide the root of the word decide comes from cutting off. So to cut off. And so in your mind, if you really can cut off that as even a potential. So in my mind, when I decided not to drink anymore, I cut that off as even a reality for me, like a, it's just not an option anymore. Once I did that, there was massive relief.

As you can imagine, that's probably what people would call hitting rock bottom. Well, when you hit rock bottom, everything is up. So, so there was a lot of relief that came from just that decision. After that, then that's when I realized I have lost my spirituality.

I hadn't been doing my walking. I hadn't been listening to music. I hadn't been dancing. I hadn't been creating music. I hadn't been doing all of the things that helped me feel connected.

So I started doing those things.

And so now I'm feeling a little bit better and that's what I started seeking. So I took classes around the community on breath, work, energy healing. But once I found hypnosis, it clicked because of my background in software engineering, I realized what hypnosis is really doing is it gives us the operator, right? You yourself control over your own inner operating system.

And so like, we have an iOS on our phone, you have an iOS in your brain and your heart and your mind. And if we can learn how it works and how it functions and how to control it, we just lead so much better lives.

So there was about a year when I was doing software engineering and starting my hypnosis practice. That was a, it was an exciting year, but man, I was working 60 hours a week. But after that year, I transitioned to full time hypnotist. So my experience super exciting, lots of fun dynamic, you know, just extremely fulfilling is what the work is.

 

Bruce (10:31): I know that a lot of your work is with people who are feeling that they need to lose weight or they're having issues with food. And of course you wrote the book, which is absolutely amazing. The book is called Lighter: Eliminate Emotional Eating, and then there's more of a subtitle, "Create lasting and healthy habits to lose weight and keep it off for life without the struggle." And you know, at the beginning of the book, you use certain words so many times and I'm like, Oh, I feel like I'm being hypnotized right now. Easy and lighter and all these kinds of words and how I can actually lose weight in an easy way without any kind of, you know, challenges. But it's just easy now. I'm assuming that's all in intentional, right Erika?

 

Erika (11:29): What do we want everything to be? We want it to be simple, easy, and fast and free, but with free, you know, you get what you pay for it too. But yeah, the brain wants it to be simple and easy and fast. And that's the problem.

People know how to lose weight. That's not the problem. Everybody knows how to lose weight. It's keeping it off. That's the problem. So, you know, if somebody has a wedding or, or whatever it is, they're really compelled. They can figure out how to lose 20 pounds in a couple of months. Like we all, there are diets out there and people can hang in there in a deprivation mode for a little bit, if they really want to lose the weight, but we all know it comes back.

 

Bruce: Yeah, it doesn't. Yeah. And you start in the book and you talk about how, you know, you talk about going to the bathroom and how you compare that to eating. And I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. Share that with our listeners.

 

Erika (12:20): Now this one, like a lot of people look at me strange when I say it, but when they understand it.

So we're trained when we're little to learn, to understand the sensation of it's time to go to the bathroom. That's what potty training is all about. And we have to teach our humans how to do that. Right. When we're little.

So it's the same thing with hunger. The, you know, the sensation for needing to go to the bathroom, whether it's number one or number two, really, that is just a signal of an output. Right? So oh, time for an output. So, but there's a signal for an input too. We just don't ever listen to it.

And so how do you know when it's time to go to the bathroom is what I ask my clients. Right. And usually they're looking at me like, well, duh, Erica, I feel it.

And that's when the light bulb goes on because they say, I want you to eat when you feel it too. And there's usually about a week and some clients are really resistant. They're like, it makes them really angry. Optionally. They're like, I can't do it. Like, I don't know when I'm hungry. And like, there's all this chaos and it's scary for them. And I just tell them, look just don't eat until you were hungry just today. Just today. No, I'm not saying for the rest of your life just today, just don't eat. Don't eat. You're like, if I'm talking with them nine to 11, don't eat your lunch until you actually, until your body tells you it's time to eat lunch, not the clock, not your friends, not your phone, not your meeting, schedule your body.

And when that sinks in really sinks in people get it. They're like, Oh. And so you get to feel good about nourishing your body because your body actually asked you for it. Right. So now when people are eating, they're like, I feel validated and good because I waited for my body to say, I'm ready for food. And then I ate something. So I know that it's the right time to eat.

 

Bruce (14:06): There's so many fewer opportunities to be social if I'm actually listening to my body because do I really need that coffee or want it, do I really need to go out for lunch or want to go for lunch? No. And I realized, Hey, this was just a social thing half the time. You know, even, even at home with my wife. Oh yeah. It's lunchtime. Let's have lunch. Oh, maybe I'm not actually hungry. So what do we do instead of eating? Well, do we have to think of something else to do to replace that?

 

Erika (14:35): Yes. I think we do, because what happens when we're eating and you might notice this and you can follow that even further back switch really, really interesting because there's part of your brain that actually isn't hungry at all. It really wants a break. It just wants a break from what you're doing. Right. And so, yeah.

I think it's really important to have walking dates, hiking dates. I would say with your wife, instead of sitting down and having lunch, you could sit down and read a quote together, or maybe you should, maybe you pick a book and you're going to read a chapter to each other. You do something else that is also giving you a break, but is really you know, doesn't have any negative side effects or what I call the guilty residue. Right?

When we do something that makes us feel guilty later, it's not a good thing because we have the guilty residue and then we feel bad and then we might do something to cover that bad stuff up. So we always want to be doing things in our life where there is no guilty residue.

 

Bruce (15:28): Right. And you know, it's, it's our subconscious mind that can really help us through all this. You talk about your conscious mind and your subconscious mind in the book. So talk a little bit about that, Erica. How can we move forward by realizing that our subconscious mind can help us?

 

Erika (15:47): Right. Yeah. So our subconscious mind I would consider our conscious mind is, is really the prefrontal cortex. It's our point of focus. So in a flashlight, if you're walking into a dark room, completely dark room and the dark room represents your consciousness, who you really are when you walk in that room with a flashlight, that's your conscious mind. And it's very powerful. You can point it specifically at what it is that you want to notice or what you want to be thinking about. And it will give you some information, but the subconscious mind is the seat of who you really are. So it stores all of your emotions, all of your memories, everything that has ever happened to you. So in the same analogy, if you walk in the same room with the subconscious mind, you turn on the light, the overhead light. Now you get to see everything.

And the reality is back there in the corner, that issue that you had with your dad, that you thought you fixed 30 years ago or whatever, there's still a little dust over there. It's still bothering you and you didn't realize it, but that's why you yelled at your husband last week. Okay. So yeah, you gotta go into your subconscious and clear that stuff out because it's going to present, it's going to rear its ugly head when you are pressured. Right?

So when you're not feeling well, when your nervous system is triggered and you're going into fight or flight freeze, fight, or flight, those negative things creeping around in your subconscious are going to rear their ugly heads because they're fear based. And then you might not make the best decision in a time of crisis.

 

Bruce (17:09): Yeah. And wow. I think the thing is we just get so overwhelmed with so many aspects of life and we just, we just feel like we're just trying to keep our heads above water. Isn't that right?

 

Erika (17:23): You need a handle. We have got to have a handle where we feel somewhat solid and that's why meditation or some mindfulness practice is so important. That's why we call it a practice. It's something you have to do every day. It's like mental floss. I mean, you wouldn't want to go a week without brushing her teeth. Why would you want to go a week without a mental floss?

 

Bruce: Okay. So tell us about your meditation practice, Erica.

 

Erika (17:47):  I am so lucky because I have people in my life like, and I have other people in my life that all we like to do all day long is talk about mindfulness and God and heaven, and like all of the good things and how to share your heart and how to write, raise your consciousness. And so all day long, I get to talk to people. So number one, surround yourself with awesome people, you know, is, is a good way to do it because I, you know, my meditation practice,  used to be very specific. I would sit down and I would do it at a very specific time every day. As a matter of fact, it used to be in bed before I even got out of bed. But it is so powerful now. And I'm getting so much out of it.

Now I am meditating nearly all day long. I'm attempting at least to stay in that mindfulness. And I can tell you exactly how I do it.

So this is called an alpha sequence and it is designed to take clients into an alpha brainwave state. All right. So your alpha brainwave state is kind of like the daydreamy state it's flow and it feels really good. And so we want to enter into that state on purpose because when you're in that state, you're very creative and have lots of good ideas. And this is where we do some of our best work. So I like to enter into the alpha state on purpose. And I can tell you a couple of the ways to do it right now.

So the first thing that you do is you close your eyes. Okay? So by closing your eyes, what you're doing is you are getting rid of all of the external sensory information that really isn't necessary for your brain right now. So you're kind of turning down the lives and this naturally will take a lot of people into an alpha brainwave state.

So after you close your eyes, the next thing that I want you to do is I want you to relax the back of your tongue. And I know it sounds crazy, but as you relax the back of your tongue, it decouples it from the part of the, in your mind that is preparing to speak so relaxing. The back of your tongue allows your mind, the space and freedom to have other thoughts.

And now I'd like you to relax your jaw, just allow your jaw to just hang there. Good. And this gives the signal to your Vegas nerve. Now is the time to relax. And as you're relaxing your jaw, and as you're relaxing, your tongue incrementally, slow down your breathing, slow inspiration, Drawing out the exhale and then continuing to incrementally, slow down your breathing until you reached this still point. And when you were feeling better, open your eyes. Good.

 

Bruce (20:49): Wow. That felt good. That really did.

 

Erika: So the reason I like this technique so much is because it uses physiological components. It's not like you have to think big thoughts or remember to do anything that is too technical or overwhelming. It's really just those three things. Close your eye for things. Close your eyes, relax your tongue, relax your jaw, slow down your breathing until you find this still point. Okay.

 

Bruce (21:19): Excellent. That's just excellent. Well, I'm fascinated with your book about a well it's called, can you be a hypnotist? And I just find it so interesting because so are you saying in your book and I haven't read the whole thing yet, I'm excited to do that, but you're saying that anybody with a heart can be a hypnotist. You don't have to go for formal training somewhere or spend years learning and experiencing this and all that. Is that true?

 

Erika (21:49): No, I think you should still get formal training. You should, but anybody with a heart can do it. You don't need to have experience as a psychologist or a psychiatrist. You don't need to have years of counseling. You don't need to have been a social worker. You don't need any educational or a collegiate training in order to do this because the work and the primary difference.

And the reason why I love hypnosis so much, as opposed to some other forms of maybe talk therapy or counseling or those types of things. And the primary difference is as hypnotists, we believe all the answers are in our client. And so the hypnotist really isn't trying to get the client to do anything other than discover themselves and find that kernel of truth in them, the light in them. Whereas with something like counseling or psychiatry, yeah. They have a manual that they're following. They are you know, diagnosing people and helping them with more mental, you know, some bigger issues I should say. And so with hypnosis, because we're helping to guide our client back to their own true selves. We don't need to have that really heavy education. What we need is our heart in the right place. And we need to understand how hypnosis works and how the mind works so that we can help our clients navigate their internals landscape.

 

Bruce (23:07): Erica, can you tell us a story about someone that you've worked with that you've just really helped them immensely come from one point to another and their life now seems fulfilled and content and happy?

 

Erika (23:20): Yeah. So I had a client many years ago and she came to me. She came to me to lose weight, but she was really the real issue was that she wasn't happy in her marriage. And she just really wasn't getting the love and attention from her husband that she was accustomed to because he had a different job. And on top of that, they actually worked together. So she felt like he wasn't really even appreciating her.

And so through the work that we did and it was some pretty significant work basically getting rid of the feeling like I'm not good enough. I don't belong. I'm not lovable. All of those kinds of really core identity and ego kind of based things like in the world, just like not feeling like a good enough human, right. Working with her after six weeks, she ended up losing over 60 pounds, but that's not the best part.

She rediscovered her love for her husband. They fell back in love again. It was like a, I mean, it was crazy. She was giddy. She was giggling. It was just so fun to see her so much enjoy.

But after that, she sent me probably twice. I don't know what she was doing. She was making an announcement somewhere. All of these people started to come to work with me.

And this is really where, you know, you know, you're doing good work. When you have a client who gets such great results that they're telling everybody about you. But the reason I wanted to tell you this story, because she lost all the weight. She told everybody the one thing that stands out to me for this particular client that I still remember, it was so enlightening as a hypnotist when I got it. But after the very first session, she said to me, Erica, I forgot what it felt like to feel good.

Wow. She hadn't had that sensation or that feeling in her body like, Oh, this is good. I'm happy. I'm like she hadn't had that in her life for years. Maybe even a decade.

And so since then, so many of my clients have said the same thing. They forgot what it feels like to feel good. They've been in chaos, trauma BS for so long. They forgot what good feels like.

So in hypnosis, I asked her to go back to a time in her life that was representative of how she wanted to feel. The mind is so powerful. The moment I asked her to go back there, all of those feelings, all of those emotions, everything that she wanted, it was like bringing her back to life and now she can access all of that. And she just completely changed her life.

Just say that probably one session was probably what did the whole thing. I continued working with her for six sessions, which would make it go faster, but really reigniting her with how she really wanted to be based on a previous experience, super easy and fast with hypnosis. And it changed her life.

 

Bruce (26:06): Amazing. That's just amazing. It really is. Wow. I want to ask you a question about bullying because I always ask a question about this on the show. Were you ever bullied or do you have a bullying story that you can share with us where mindfulness would have made a difference?

 

Erika (26:22): I do. Bullying shows up in my practice all the time. What surprises me is that a lot of times the bullies that are showing up in my client's practices are not other kids. It's the adults. And so in my experience, unfortunately, hopefully this is changing. A lot of teachers are doing the bullying, at least for my grownup clients. So bullies are showing up in different ways.

But the story that I wanted to share with you today was about grownup bullying. And so I had a client who was really distressed because she wanted to lose weight, but she was being bullied at work. And she told me she was being bullied at work. And I believed her, but guess what? Nobody else at work believed her. And so that's the number one problem. And so there were two people, two women at work who were just gossiping and saying mean things.

Let's just say that. Okay. the management in this situation. So here's the problem where mindfulness would have, would have helped. It was clear that these women were bullying her, but the manager in place was not mindful at all. He was having his own problem with his daughter. And so, because he had his own problem with his daughter, he couldn't see to fix the situation. And so if your leader, if who's kind of running the show, isn't mindful, it, it like reeks chaos in the whole place.

So yeah, if the, if the manager would have had some mindfulness training and would have been able to notice and say, Hey, this isn't appropriate, but it didn't stop there. She ended up leaving her job. She had to go to HR, it turned into a whole thing. And then it's the feelings aren't good enough to stay there. So she ended up leaving her job. And so, you know, as leaders, it's our job. We have to be in mindfulness mode because if we're not representative of what we want for people around us, they're going to follow our example. They're not going to just do what we say. Right.

 

Bruce (28:12): Well, thank you for sharing that story with us. Erica, I want to move forward and ask you five quick answer questions. Just 30 second answers are perfect. Here's the first one who is one person who has been a powerful influence to you in the area of mindfulness?

 

Erika: Wayne Dyer. So much. He's my number one hero. And he, and all his books and all of his recordings. I just love everything about him. So Wayne Dyer is definitely him way reading Wayne Dyer while I was becoming a hypnotist, definitely. There's something there.

 

Bruce (28:49): How has mindfulness affected your emotions?

Erika: Oh my gosh. I get to enjoy the good emotions. I get to understand what, some of what we would call feeling emotions are telling me so that then I get, it's a feedback loop. So now I get to understand what is anger telling me what anger is telling me. Something is unfair. What is fear telling me? If you're telling me I'm afraid something bad might happen. If I understand those things and label them, first of all, a negative feelings go down, but we get to experience the richness of emotion. It's just like music, right? Do you want to hear all the notes? Yeah. Feel it in your body. Right? So, so now, because of mindfulness, I get to feel love at such a rich and deep level. It just makes me cry like every single time. So my life is so rich now. It's like, I'm living my life in like, what's the way I was going to HD, but HD isn't even the best anymore. It's 4k. Oh, well I'm living my life. And a hundred K is what it feels like when I'm paying attention to my emotions.

 

 

Bruce (29:50): That's so amazing. Tell us how breathing is a part of your mindfulness practice.

 

Erika: Breathing is everything. Breathing is connected to life. I mean, when you breathe in and this is why I love the word inspiration, the word inspiration means to breathe into. So if there was only one thing I could ever teach, it would always be breath work because our breath is connected to our nervous system, which is connected to how we function. So you can control. I believe you can control everything with your breath. So it all comes down to your breath.

 

Bruce (30:23): Can you recommend a book that can help people with mindfulness in your books? There are three of them that I know of that are all fantastic. The first one I never even mentioned, which is terrific as well. And that, that book is reprogram your weight. Stop thinking about food all the time. You know, that's, that's a great book. And then you did the book lighter, which we talked about, and then can you be a hypnotist? So are there any other books that you would recommend Erica?

 

Erika: Oh, there's so many books. I get something out of every book. The one that really comes to mind is just the power of now, and like that one really stands out to me. All of Wayne Dyer's books were really there for me. As far as mindfulness goes as far as the practice of mindfulness have kind of gone down the hypnosis route. So that's really where you know, my experience has been there, but yeah, the power of now is really good.

 

Bruce (31:21): Can you share an app which can help people with mindfulness?

 

Erika: Let's see, I have used an app called calm my timer. I have some recordings on insight timer, Bruce, if your listeners want to look them up. So I do like insight timer. There's probably a bunch of great apps out there. And they probably all have a lot of great qualities, but yeah, insight, timer and calm are two of my favorites.

 

Bruce (31:51): Okay. We'll put that in our show notes@mindfulnessmode.com. So check that out, mindful tribe. And you know, it's just so exciting to talk to you Erica, about this topic, because I have not had very many people on that. Talk about the topic. And sometimes people who are hypnotists talk about it as if it's only something they can do, or it's only something certain people can do. And it's very, maybe very specific or you have to have some kind of special innate ability. What would you say to me if I said no, no, I could never do that because I just wasn't born into it?

 

Erika (32:31): Well, I would say of course you can do that. Bruce. Let me ask you something. Have you ever had a time when time is just passing by?

Bruce: Yes, definitely.

Erika: That's state of hypnosis right there. Have you ever said something to another person that lights them up and makes them feel excited or happy? For sure that's hypnosis right there. You're already a hypnotist.

And to address the other people that is an old world style of protecting information, making it esoteric so that they only control it. It's a very, we need to get rid of that line of thinking period. So everybody can be a hypnotist. We can all use mindfulness techniques. We can all use hypnotic techniques. We can all learn self hypnosis. We can all use the alpha sequence in order to get ourselves into that still point in that place where we make all of our best decisions.

 

Bruce (33:19): Good. So can you give us a little bit of an insight into how we can use self hypnosis?

 

Erika: Yes, I, so this is, you asked me earlier, what's my practice. Like my answer was I do it all day long. I do that. I do the office sequence all day long. So all I, and it's super fast. I mean, I kind of walked you through it and maybe it took us a minute, but when I do it, I just close my eyes, draw tongue and I'm there. So I do that all day long. I bring myself back into that place, but there's one other thing that I do because that's stillness.

The other thing that I do is dance because we need joy and energy too. So those are the two mindfulness practices that I do. I do kind of a stillness centering, focusing hypnotic. Right. And then I do dance, joy energy.

 

Bruce (34:10): And when you dance, do you put music on or do you just dance freely without music?

 

Erika: I prefer music. I love music. Music is in my blood. I make my own music. So I, I do like having music, but I'll dance without it too. I'll dance with the trees, the trees out here, dance all the time. It's lovely. So I'll dance with the trees and yeah. And dance with nature.

 

Bruce (34:31): When you work with clients, is it usually one-on-one or is it usually in groups? Is it usually online? What does it look like?

 

Erika: It's normally one-on-one. And right now, because of COVID, it's definitely online, we've been doing online though for, at our center in Bellingham for you know, four or five years. So doing it online, isn't anything new and it's really effective.

So as much as I love to see people and give them a hug and that type of a thing in person hypnosis over zoom or over the internet is highly effective. And so normally the process, I will have a free consultation with a client and we just talk about what's going on with them. And then on average, I work with clients for five sessions. So it's about a five week process. Clients start feeling better right away, but then we keep working with them to integrate those changes into their life.

 

Bruce (35:23): Well, you know, it's exciting. I went to your website, cascade hypnosis center.com. And right at the top of the page, it says a phone number and it says, call this phone number for a free consultation. I'm like, wow, you don't see that every place where, you know, like, that's pretty amazing. Do you have a lot of people calling you to get free consultations?

 

Erika: We do. We have people who call us and they can self schedule the consultation too, because you know, the  thing about hypnosis is that most people don't really know what it is. They think that it's stage hypnosis. They think that hypnotist is going to take control over you. Part of what I have to do as a hypnotist is reeducate people to know that hypnosis is a normal and natural state of mind. You go into States of hypnosis all the time. We're just going to teach you how to do it on purpose so that you can get the results that you want. So part of it really is educating people.

 

Bruce (36:17): And so this could be to help me with any issue, like I mentioned, at the top of the show, like maybe I'm not sleeping or maybe I've got issues with some kind of substance abuse or whatever it is. It really doesn't matter. Does it Erica?

 

Erika: No, because it's all about what's going on in your mind. And we've been helping a lot of people lose weight and stop smoking. So kind of those behavioral things have been kind of coming up quite a bit because of COVID, but then also stress, right? And a lot of people are stressed about kids going back to school.

There's just a lot of things going on right now. So the primary things we help people with are stress and anxiety, and then getting rid of what we call too much behaviors, too much drinking, too much, smoking, too much, eating too much nail-biting, hair pulling, that type of a thing. So those are, you know, stress and anxiety.

And then the too much behaviors sleeping, better, having more energy. We also help people with motivation. So I help a lot of entrepreneurs with their businesses because as an entrepreneur, some people say that being an entrepreneur is the best self-help development program out there because you're going to have to push yourself.

So I work with a lot of entrepreneurs when they get to that place where they're like, I need a new program. I need to launch my business and they're scared, or they're scared about money and their own limiting beliefs are coming up. So that's a really good place entrepreneurs, if you  know, if you have something going on in your life and you can't resolve it, hypnosis works. Even when everything else has failed because it taps into deeper information. So even if you've tried everything else, so what I love about hypnosis, it can still work. So don't give up hope.

 

Bruce (37:57): Right. So exciting. So exciting. I'm sure it is for so many of you mindful tribe. Now, you mentioned about how you felt earlier in your life like that you were missing spirituality and then later you found it. Now, are you a Christian? Is that the kind of spirituality you've found? Or can you share with us what you found?

 

Erika: I let's see. I was raised Christian and I love Jesus Christ and I love everything that Jesus stands for. I wouldn't say that I am like just Christian right now. I'm much more open spiritually. I believe that each of us actually is a version of God. God wanting to experience life. So there's a part of God in us. And you know, even in the Bible where it talks about bringing Jesus into your heart, when I was five years old, I remember the moment I asked Jesus to come in my heart. I remember it. And so I think we have God in us and I behave and act like that. I want to do things that make God happy. And so I'm going to be joyful and happy and I want to see God and other people. That's my job. If I can do say, be something that brings out the divinity in you, that lights you up and ignites you. That's my job. My work is complete because there's nothing else to do. If I can remind you that you're a part of God, then everything you do is going to be with that in mind.

 

Bruce (39:19): That's beautiful. Well, Erika has sure been a pleasure to have you on the show and to get to know you. And I thank you so much for not only being here, but for writing these books and for doing all that you do to help so many people in this world. What are your final words of advice to our listeners Erika?

 

Erika: The world needs you to be exactly who you are. So follow your heart and stay mindful. Stay present.