Session 0025 Aidan Sloan on Sports Hypnosis and More

A very warm welcome to you to Session number 25 of the Professional Hypnotherapists Podcast. I'm your Host Aidan Noone.

Want to learn the secrets of Sports Hypnosis? What does being in the zone mean?

Discover how you too can learn how to train your mind and how finding your own optimum emotional level is directly linked to you achieving your optimum and best sports performance.

What's the role of muscle memory and how training and performance rehearsal are the key ingredients in you achieving your very best.

From Professional Sports Hypnosis to key advice for aspirant Professional Hypnotherapists, today's podcast is jammed-packed with rich valuable, and useable knowledge.

Listen as Aidan Sloan, imparts his expertise In his practice as a Professional and Ethical Hypnotherapist.

http://www.sportshypnosisdublin.ie
http://www.aidansloan.ie

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The European Association of Professional Hypnotherapists is a group of like-minded hypnotherapists who are accredited professionals in their field. Many of our therapists have many many years of experience behind them which means you are probably in the best possible hands, available to you.

Why not pop on over to eaph.ie and choose the hypnotherapist that suits you. Many provide online hypnotherapy. eaph.ie

We welcome feedback on your listening experience at eaph.ie

Transcript

This is the professional hypnotherapists podcast, a production of the European association of professional hypnotherapists. That's EAPH.ie

Aidan Noone

  00:27 - 01:41

And a very warm welcome to you to session number 25 of the professional hypnotherapist podcast. I'm your host, Aiden Noone want to learn the secrets of sports hypnosis. What does being in the zone mean Discover our you too can learn how to train your mind and heart finding your own optimum emotional level is directly linked to you, achieving your optimum and best sports performance. What's the role of muscle memory and how training and performance rehearsal are the key ingredients in you achieving your very best from sports hypnosis to key advice for us sprint professional hypnotherapists today's podcast is jam packed for, with rich, valuable and useful knowledge. Listen as Aidan Sloan imparts, his expertise and his practice as a professional and ethical hypnotherapist on today's podcast. Aiden Sloan, welcome to the professional hypnotherapist podcast.

Aidan Sloan

  01:42 - 01:44

Good Morning, I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for having me.

Aidan Noone

  01:45 - 01:51

And that's wonderful to have you indeed and Aiden, your based in probably be in the heart of Dublin. Would that be correct

Aidan Sloan

  01:51 - 02:12

That's right. Yes. Yeah, I had, just all Fitzwilliam square. I always, I always had this idea that I want to be in Dublin two or Dublin four. in my previous life, I always worked in that area. it's an area I'm familiar with.

Aidan Noone

  02:13 - 02:15

And what was your previous life My

Aidan Sloan

  02:15 - 02:20

Previous life I was in, I had the creative industry, marketing, advertising design,

Aidan Noone

  02:22 - 02:22

excellent

Aidan Sloan

  02:23 - 03:38

Fell into it by accident. and actually it's that business. That again, purely by accident, but brought me around to be a hypnotherapist. It was never something I planned. but I can actually see parallels, from being a good creative consultant. there's a very similar skill set, I brought into the, therapy environment. I was good in that business I was going out, listening to clients, listening to them, tell me about their service, their product, the message they wanted to get out the audience they wanted to reach. And then I would interpret how best to get that message out and deliver whatever was necessary to them. So it's a very similar, fairly similar qualities that a good therapist needs to be able to, to listen, to interpret and help the client achieve the outcomes they want.

Aidan Noone

  03:39 - 03:46

Excellent. So you've actually pre-empted my next question. I was going to ask you when did , you know, you wanted to be hypnotherapist Well, thank you for that.

Aidan Sloan

  03:46 - 04:02

Oh, that's how that came about was I, I had one specific client, try and keep this as short as possible. I was forever pulling rabbits out of a hat for her. I was forever saying, if you want

Aidan Noone

  04:02 - 04:03

Your magician

Aidan Sloan

  04:03 - 04:04

Telling you,

Aidan Sloan

  04:06 - 05:10

I can be very persuasive, not a magician. Now what happened was this girl would never sign off on time and I I'd be saying Look, the printer needs two days for this and she wouldn't sign off on the artwork until the day before it was needed. And I was always somehow managing to achieve deadlines for her. But one day we had this job and she said, I said, we need four days. The printer needs four days. Your event is on six o'clock Friday. The printer needs this signed off before lunchtime, Monday, she signed off Wednesday afternoon. We simply didn't have time to deliver. So she had an event on Friday six o'clock. There was no brochures there, no printed literature there. So I got a phone call from this person, screaming down the phone that me using all sorts of obscenities. And I eventually said, stop talking.

Aidan Sloan

  05:10 - 06:10

Don't ever ring me and talk to me like that again. And I hung up on, I remember for the weekend thinking, is this what I want to be doing for the rest of my working life So the printer came in to me on Monday morning to apologize. And I said, Dave, if you have nothing to apologize for you, you made it clear, you needed four days. She gave you two, you did your best. And he said, that's why I'm getting out of the business. And I said, oh, why, what are you going to do And he said, I've trained as a Reiki master. Now I had never heard of Reiki and I hadn't a clue what it was. So when he explained to me, he was looking at him funny and thinking, seriously, you know, that's what you're going to make a living doing. And he, he was very polite about it was when I look back, I think I was very rude, but he explained, he said, it's a bit' like that my family is a bit like that role a bit alternative.

Aidan Sloan

  06:10 - 07:27

My brother's a hypnotherapist. And I always thought hypno hypnosis was some sort of voodoo gift, but people were somebody who was born with, you know, and he, he said to me, no, no, no, you can train. There's a training school in cork. And they train in Dublin as well. So I looked into this and it just made so much sense to me because when I left school, first, I bumped wanted to study psychology and I did, I started in UCD, but got very disillusioned with it. but the interest was still there all these years later. So when I looked at it, I looked at the hypnosis and you can learn to hypnotize people. And then I looked into all, well, it's, it's more about than the hypnosis. And I looked at all of the counseling and therapy that was involved with the training course and suddenly a light switch turned on and I decided, okay, this is what I'm going to do. And this is my exit strategy for the creative business. And two years later, I started to do my hypnotherapy business.

Aidan Noone

  07:28 - 07:45

Hmm. And what do you think Aiden, that, you know, the field of hypnotherapy, has, above the other available therapies, what is the so special about hypnosis and the therapy done in hypnosis

Aidan Sloan

  07:45 - 08:51

I don't want to be controversial here because I want to show as much respect to anybody who's working in the mental health profession. if I'm sum it up, I suppose, and I'm open to correction here, hypnotherapy is the only therapy that is negotiating directly with the emotional state. So the shift happens at an emotional level, Rather than a conscious level. And I used to have a, the office I'm in, it used to be four, four offices, not on the top floor of the building. And one of them was a psychotherapist straight across the hall from me. and he used to say to me, if I refer, if he got stuck with a client of his, he'd referred them across to me and he'd say to me, Aiden, once I send them to you, I never, I know I'm never going to see them again.

Aidan Noone

  08:51 - 08:52

Not interesting.

Aidan Sloan

  08:52 - 09:25

Yeah, actually, you know, I know we're going to move on to my specialist area of sport. I have the story I can tell you that a client gave me or said to me. and this was his explanation of his experience, but I actually now use to explain to people the difference between sports psychology on sports hypnosis. And now, again, if I'm jumping ahead,

Aidan Noone

  09:26 - 09:31

No, no, that's fine. Well, you can go ahead and explain that now, if you wish. Yeah.

Aidan Sloan

  09:31 - 10:54

This guy came to me a professional sports pod and he said to me, not, this was, he said this to me after a few sessions, he said, Aiden, my management company brought in a sports psychologist and I go meeting this man and everything he'd say to me, you will spot off and I'd leave these meetings on it, walk away, say I've got this. And then I go back into competition and all of the old habits would come flooding back. But he said, when I started working with you on sports hypnosis, it's the difference between knowing right from wrong and feeling right from wrong. And that I believe sums up, not just sports hypnosis, but hypnotherapy in general, because any hypnotherapist knows what it's like to see the profound, emotional change that therapy will bring about in a client very, very rapidly. And you're, you're giving people genuine hope very, very quickly. And that's the beauty

Aidan Noone

  10:54 - 11:04

Yeah. What I'm getting from you is that there's almost the seat of the motivational factor within, as lays within the emotions, is that correct

Aidan Sloan

  11:04 - 11:09

Absolutely. Yes. You're creating shift at an emotional level.

Aidan Noone

  11:10 - 11:24

Excellent. No. Okay. We'll get back to their sports and just momentarily, but, for your, as we may say for your sins, you're also the chairperson of the CHPA. Tell us about who the CHPA

Aidan Sloan

  11:25 - 11:27

Was. The chair of the CHPA.

Aidan Noone

  11:27 - 11:28

Oh, I beg your pardon. Okay.

Aidan Sloan

  11:28 - 12:27

I'm no longer chair. And the CHPA is like your own organization, a professional body that looks to promote the profession of hypnotherapy and holds our members to the highest standards of ethics and professionalism, which is a mirror of what your own body does. we were set up specifically so that we're not aligned with any one training school. And it was to be an independent body that, we're we're we don't want to be seen to be linked to any one school. And that's why in its early days, the C H P H was set up because the association had been specifically linked, in a previous life to one specific training school. We leave it there.

Aidan Noone

  12:29 - 13:27

Absolutely. Thank you for that. And, the, in the, the EAPH is quite similar in terms of, of the professional aspect of, of a promoting hypnosis and it's the professional body and the ethics and all of that is really, really important. And again, the independence on indeed, indeed. That's very, very true. Now they, sports hypnosis in. Yeah. no I've been looking, I've been looking at part of my research on your website is very, very, very, full website. Lots of information there. And you, you get various headings with regard to, you have to focus on sports, hypnosis their optimum performance level. Or maybe you just start tell us a little bit about, sports hypnosis and specifically say, for example, if we take somebody who is a golfer and they come along to you and they say, look, I want to improve my golfing. What do you do with them

Aidan Sloan

  13:28 - 14:41

Okay, well, there's with it's, it's a, it's a very similar approach to any sport. And there are certain areas that we look at and the beauty of, of, of sports hypnosis is there's no structure, there's no, order that you have to look at the different areas. The main areas that I would cover is the mind body connection. As you just mentioned, optimum emotional level, looking at limiting beliefs, mental rehearsal. And then the thing that I started to see, the thing that I didn't expect when I started specializing in sports, most this is the everyday baggage that people don't realize they're bringing into competition. And you know what I started out, I'd say 70% of what I was doing, wasn't relating specifically to sport. It was the everyday baggage, but like, I'll go through each of those headings. And,

Aidan Sloan

  14:43 - 16:04

You know, just to give you an idea of the areas that I look at and I help people to examine within themselves. Now let me say, first of all, sports hypnosis, it's not just for the elite. anybody who is competing, basically what I'm helping people to do is to train the mind for the competitive environment. And it doesn't matter what level you compete at. Anybody can benefit. Now, it's not going to turn an 18 handicap golfer into tiger woods. It will help that 18 handicap golfer be the best that they can be by examining the mind, body connection, the optimum emotional level, limiting beliefs, and mentally rehearse. I would say to people, how often do you train, how many hours a week between practice on the driving range pack, practice on the putting green and playing a round of golf. But some people might play two rounds of golf a week being the driving range, potent green for a few hours. So they're saying maybe 12 to 15 hours. And I say, well, how many hours do you spend training your mind They say,

Aidan Noone

  16:04 - 16:05

I don't.

Aidan Sloan

  16:06 - 16:17

And I could narrowly. I could nearly say that to every athlete, every sports person who comes into me and then they don't spend time training their mind.

Aidan Noone

  16:19 - 16:32

So one thing he had never made intercept, no interject as to say, I read is that from your website, what you trained for is what you take into competition. That was a very striking statement.

Aidan Sloan

  16:33 - 17:44

Yes. I, I, that's the mental rehearsal. You mentally rehearse what you want to experience in competition. And I, I say to people, look, you don't do. When you're under pressure, you sit at home on your sofa or your arm chair and you relax. And then you mentally rehearse what you want to happen in competition. And I hadn't experienced that myself, this stage I would say many years ago and leave it at that. when I was 14 and I wish I knew back then what I was doing when I was 14, I had a personal best long jump, five meters, 42, I, that summer I won all, but one of the competitions I entered and I would regularly go out and put in six jumps off between five meters30 and five meters 40. I was like a metronome. I was that consistent 14 strides jump and a first competition.

Aidan Sloan

  17:44 - 19:02

The following season, the first competition I went out to, it was a schools competition. Now the schools did their age grading according to school year, which was different to clubs that use calendar year. So in this competition, it was guys who, from a club point of view, they would have been graded as a year older than me. So I didn't know what to expect. So after the first round, one of the judges with a clipboard, he announced, okay, we have a leader after round one, Aiden Sloan with the jump of five meters 32. And in my head, I was thinking normal service resumed until the end of round two. Okay. We have a new leader with a jump, a five meter 72. Now I couldn't tell you that person's name in that moment. My head exploded 5 72. That's 30 centimeters, a foot longer than my personal best at 40 centimeters, longer than my best jump on the day I started panicking 5 72, 5 72, 5 72, and then suddenly this competitive character in me came out and I'm like, okay, 5 72.

Aidan Sloan

  19:03 - 20:14

What do I have to do to jump 5 72 And I walked away. I don't know if anyone listening knows for the old athletics track was in UCD. I walked down to the far end of the long jump runway and I close my eyes and I started to imagine, I didn't know what I was doing. And I'm on 5 72 and 5 72. What do I have to do to jump 5 72 Now you can't see the physic action that I was, I was doing, but I have to be lower on the board. I have to be stronger in the air and I have to hold my extension longer, lower in the board, stronger in the air, hold my extension longer. And I repeated that over and over and over. And the next time they called my name, I didn't hear my name being called. Somebody had to come tap me on the shoulder to get my attention I was in trance's, you've made a very good point there because any sports person, when they get in the zone, they're in trance, they're in a state of hypnosis,

Aidan Sloan

  20:16 - 21:27

But I did just finish that story. My name was called. I went down to my mark, run up, took a jump. It was measured 5 72, the next round 5 72. Now I came second in that competition to a jump 5 76. And it's all these years later, I looked back and I said, why didn't I say 5 80 You know, I have so many instances of this mind, body connection. I remembered I've worked with a lady, a swimmer, and I can't remember what event she she did, but her personal best was a 1.10. And at the start of the season, the coach said, okay, but the end of this season, I want you to bring your, your personal best down to 106. And she came to me, she did her sessions and we focused on that 1 6 during the sessions, we created the mental rehearsal of finishing her race, looking up at the clock and seeing 1 06.

Aidan Sloan

  21:28 - 22:19

She went out the first swim meet of the season, looked up at the clock 1 09.9, choose drugs tested straight away for her PB having been dropped so much. I could tell you so many stories of people coming for sports. hypnosis setting themselves a target and the body actually listening to what they're actually putting into the subconscious mind and paying attention to what they mentally rehearse for. And I say to people it's not about rehearsing when you're in that moment, surrounded by stress intention. It's about rehearsing when you're not under pressure, so that you have given your mind some you information to take into competition.

Aidan Noone

  22:21 - 22:56

And you, that, that what you say they're in is so valuable to people who listening to this podcast. and another point I was going to make earlier is that, you know, we, we're constantly constantly going in and out of trance and let's hope that the trances that we're going in and out of is a good trance that it's in and motivating and enriching our lives. And, but oftentimes, you know, we all are. We sometimes go into that say a less helpful trance, put it that way. Isn't that correct

Aidan Sloan

  22:56 - 24:42

Absolutely. And that's one of the key thing. One of the key factors that I work into my sports hypnosis, it's, it's identifying sports. Psychologists talk about, the optimum performance level. I have turned that into the optimum emotional level. Now, first of all, in joining the therapy, I have some exercises which I do that I help the individual in identify the optimum emotional level for competing for them. The thing that, but the thing that hit home to me when I was learning about this was I remember being in a rugby changeing room before match and the coach giving the team talk and he wanted to rile everybody up to, to work them into a frenzy. So at that point they would run out onto the pitch. They were prepared to run through a wall. Now I knew from my athletics days, that that was not my optimum performance level are my optimum emotional level. I had to be very camp in the zone and know that I could rely on muscle memory. When I got on the pitch. Now I did have teammates who would want to put their fist through a door before running out onto the pitch, but that was never my optimum emotional level. So what I do now is with everybody I'm work with, I help them find their own optimum emotional level.

Aidan Noone

  24:43 - 24:43

Yeah.

Aidan Sloan

  24:44 - 26:33

And teach them to trigger it and when to trigger it, because that's hugely important. imagine a rugby player starting to work themselves into a frenzy, maybe the night before a match, how much emotional energy are they burning and using up, but they could rely if they can save energy, what will the last 15 minutes of a match be like if they have conserve more energy than the proponents. So I, I will teach people, what is the optimum emotional level we have discovered between the two of us. I teach them a trance. And when to go into that trance, I teach themselves hypnosis as we all do, but I teach them the right moment for them, whether it's when they go into the changing room or whether they're leaving the changing room. And I always ask people like with a golfer, it's that moment when you put your hand on the club in the bag for team sports, whether it's football, GAA Hurley, rugby, basketball, whatever. It is. Just take a moment before you step over that white line to remind your subconscious, okay, I'm in the zone and whatever sport and whatever is the right time for the individual. I don't dictate to them. I facilitate them finding what is right for me and using that. And then again, when you're not under pressure, don't wait to the competition mentally rehearse when you're at home on the sofa, so that you have something to take into competition.

Aidan Noone

  26:35 - 26:49

So what I'm getting from Aidan, there's all of this mental rehearsal. It is, it's done almost on a, in a contemplative, a quiet, focused trance state.

Aidan Sloan

  26:49 - 27:26

Yes. So you, you practice what you want to do when you go into competition. It's just like I related to you go to you, go to your local running track and you practice doing what you do on the track. So you spent hours training on the tracks of the, when you go into competition, you've developed the muscle memory. So do the same with your brain so that the neural pathways are established. When you get into competition

Aidan Noone

  27:27 - 27:46

From watching your material or watching, reading your, your, your material, you, you, you give an example there of where somebody was, was training. And they had a coach and the coach was doing their coaching. And there were, there were only doing per say training for say, I was necessary to do a seven hour marathon or something.

Aidan Sloan

  27:46 - 28:19

No, I know, I know what you're talking about there. I know the incident that you're talking about, and that was, that's that's it's okay. It was me explaining my professionalism. this, this individual was training for a triathlon that was going to take 12 hours. He wants to break. It was the full Ironman distance, and he wants to do it in 11 and a half hours.

Aidan Sloan

  28:21 - 29:59

And his coach only ever let him train for seven hours. So whether that would be a two hour run in the five-hour cycle, our one hour swim and a six hour cycle, he only ever trained for seven hours, not I knew, you in my heart and soul that unless his body had actually trained for 10, 11, 12 hours, he had conditioned his body to only expect to have to perform for seven hours, but he was paying a professional coach and I was not going to interfere with that relationship, even though in my heart and soul, I knew if you'd only trained himself to be in the zone for seven hours, his brain was going to be conditioned to, to switch off. And that's what happened. And he was doing well up to seven hours, got off the bike, started to run the marathon on his body, just shut down because it was conditioned to shut down after seven hours. And somebody who was, who was expecting to run a marathon in three and a half hours actually took five hours. And he said it was eventually lamppost to lamppost, just struggling to get home. But the point of that story was really, the physical training he was doing was only for seven hours at a time.

Aidan Noone

  29:59 - 30:08

Yeah. And he needed to do that extra hours for, for it to be stuck or to be embedded as it were in muscle memory.

Aidan Sloan

  30:08 - 30:21

Exactly. Yeah. Has body needed to be used to doing that amount of work is the biggest unfair advantage in Ruby is a hacker.

Aidan Noone

  30:21 - 30:21

Yeah.

Aidan Sloan

  30:22 - 31:01

So the New Zealand team are given permission to perform their hacker and with all of the emotion, what it represents in tradition and to their country, the pride in the black Jersey, everything they have, and the opposition is told you have to stand there and do nothing. So the all blacks are the other Maire countries are given the up the opportunity to absolutely trigger their optimum emotional level while the opponents have to stand there

Aidan Noone

  31:02 - 31:03

And just watch ad

Aidan Sloan

  31:03 - 32:06

It's figure or a trigger fear. Now that to me is the most unfair way to start or whipping much. Oh, absolutely. They do. Absolutely. And it's, I, I think it is an unfair advantage. I know it's tradition, but limiting beliefs are so important for sports performance and, you know, even little things like I can't, I couldn't do that. I always give the example and it's not too long ago that medicine and science believed and sent out the message that a human body is not capable of running a mile under four minutes. And so many people tried and tried and tried, and they were never able to break that four minute barrier

Aidan Sloan

  32:07 - 33:24

Until Roger Biostar came along. And he broke that four minute barrier. A few weeks later on Australian called John Landy came along, broke that barrier. And then within a year it was a standard for top class, middle distance runners. So once one person changed that belief, it became standard for everybody else. And I would, that's one of the things that I work really hard at for individuals who come to me for a sports hypnosis, if there is any limiting belief, part of the therapy, these two actually break that down to actually say, well, what does that belief that's holding me back. And can I change that now, every hypnotherapist is doing the same thing with whatever a client presents you with. It's changing that limiting belief on allowing people the freedom to actually choose a better outcome.

Aidan Noone

  33:25 - 33:38

And you also, with regards to setting goals, you also mentioned that re-enlist to, in other words, to set realistic short term goals, speak to that. If you can please.

Aidan Sloan

  33:39 - 34:31

Yeah. Again, that's a standard thing. It's, it's, it's NLP chunking down. There's no point in, there's no point in somebody let's say I go back to the golf analogy, you know, an 18 handicapper saying I will be happy to learn playing off single fingers, I would say, well, okay, set yourself a target at 16, achieve that. Then let's see if we can get to 14. I'm worked down set realistic goals rather than setting goals. But, you know, in the short-term you're going to fail and be disheartened. So set yourself a goal that you can achieve, and this will continue to encourage you to keep trying.

Aidan Noone

  34:32 - 34:36

Hm. So basically breaking it up into small component.

Aidan Sloan

  34:36 - 34:39

Yeah. It's chunk chunking down it's called in NLP

Aidan Noone

  34:39 - 34:51

Yeah. Now you have a very interesting, explanation for a big word. And the big word is neuroplasticity. Tell us about that.

Aidan Sloan

  34:52 - 36:16

Yeah. Euro plasticity were our neural pathways in the brain are never fixed. Neural pathways are constantly evolving. And when we're born, we have very few neural pathways established, with the ones for, to keep us alive, to keep your heart beef going, breathing digestion. but then as we grow and relearn motor skills, the free floating nerve cells in the brain connect to create a new neural pathway to connect whatever part of the brain manages, this motor skill that we're learning to the central nervous system. And the more we, the more we repeat this action, the stronger than you are on pathway comes, but we can change those neural pathways. And again, I go back to mentally rehearse it. Yeah. Your brain won't change, What. It is doing until you give it some new information. So I say to people, even though you don't believe you can achieve an outcome, allow yourself to imagine it.

Aidan Sloan

  36:17 - 37:49

And at least let the brain know the direction you want to go. And the more you mentally rehearse that's back to the mentally rehearsal. The more likely the brain is to form a new neural pathway so that when you get into competition, the pathway is established and we can allow the old ones to break down. And very often these, these neural pathways that I'm talking about, they're not necessarily specifically related to muscle memory. It may be nerves that may be anxiety. It may be not able to sleep the night before a competition. So we cover all the bases and we identify where we need to break down a neural pathway that has been established, but isn't helping and to look to build a new one. And the way to start building new ones is by imagining. And it may sound very simple, but if you, if you look at some of the research that's going on now with virtual reality and what has been, what is happening in some studies in America where a nerve cells in the body i thought were dead you know, paraplegics actually starting to regain control of bowel movements and things like that just by wearing a virtual reality mask for an hour a day and triggering the imagination.

Aidan Sloan

  37:49 - 37:59

But as hypnotherapists, we know that that's what hypnotherapy on visualization has been doing for hundreds of years.

Aidan Noone

  38:01 - 38:09

So the imagination, the mind doesn't know the difference between reality and what's, what's in the imagination of what can be imagined.

Aidan Sloan

  38:10 - 39:43

Absolutely. Here's the, here's the, the, the, the way I explained it to clients on how powerful this process can be, you've had a nightmare and you wake up on the first call, has all Boy, just a dream. And then you start saying to yourself, oh, I don't want to go back to sleep again. I don't want to have that dream again right now, every rational part of your brain is screaming at you. It wasn't real, it didn't happen, but you're still afraid of it because it has left an emotional imprint in your mind. So in hypnosis, we have access to the very same brain functionality. Now it would be very arrogant of me to decide that I know what's right for the client walking in my door, but I can facilitate them leaving the emotional imprint of their choice so that their brain knows what is the emotional experience I want to take into competition. Well, to simplify, to simplify neuroplasticity, what you mentally rehearse, what you physically rehearsing in training, what's your mind becomes conditioned to. And the neural pathways you establish is what the mind repeats in competition.

Aidan Noone

  39:46 - 39:53

And that, that is really the, the, you know, the essence of, of, of what, what we're doing and what you're doing there in sports hypnosis.

Aidan Sloan

  39:54 - 40:08

Absolutely. It's conditioning the mind to repeat what I've done in training in the very same way that I expect the muscles to repeat what I do in training.

Aidan Noone

  40:08 - 40:26

Yeah. In, in summation, Aidan of what we've been talking about here, if there was three or four points that you could just give us bullet points that would help, you know, a sports aspirant or somebody who is big into sport,

Aidan Sloan

  40:26 - 40:46

imagination, belief, be open to new beliefs and, finding the optimum emotional level for the individual for competition. That's huge,

Aidan Noone

  40:47 - 40:59

Great, great stuff. And just shifting gears slightly, if there was one thing that you could change about the hypnotherapy world, what would that be

Aidan Sloan

  40:60 - 42:08

Even though we, we all mean incredibly well, and we, we know what is capable of what we're capable of helping clients with, as a profession we haven't actually managed to, to properly show other mental health professionals, what hypnotherapy done properly can do and how it, the emotional change that can be achieved very quickly by, I always tell people it's not about hypnosis. It's the quality of therapy that happens after hypnosis takes place. And, you know, we are all very well trained therapists, but we still haven't got the message out that it's about therapy, not about hypnosis, hypnosis just gives us access to that emotional state. And that's when the real change happens.

Aidan Noone

  42:09 - 42:13

Yeah. And it's, it's rapid access to that emotional brain, isn't it

Aidan Sloan

  42:13 - 42:44

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. as we, as we all know, hypnosis is something that has to be learned on the more somebody practices hypnosis, the deeper they go, and the more impact the therapy can have on that emotional state. And I just, I just wish as a profession somehow, we could get that message out.

Aidan Noone

  42:47 - 43:04

And I think by being professional and, you know, by, using what would we call, research that's available to us and implementing that and to back up our practice is the professional way of moving forward. I believe.

Aidan Sloan

  43:04 - 43:06

Absolutely. Yes,

Aidan Noone

  43:06 - 43:15

No. If there was any advice, Aidan that you could give that you would give to somebody who is starting out in the hypnotherapy profession, what would that be

Aidan Sloan

  43:15 - 43:38

Advice What I give and believe in your training, believe in what you're capable of be patient. It does take time to build up a practice. don't get disheartened. I do believe in yourself, but give yourself time.

Aidan Noone

  43:39 - 43:47

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's like any profession, it becomes you have, it's become, it's a skill and an art, isn't it developmental.

Aidan Sloan

  43:47 - 44:02

Absolutely. You know, in my early days, I know I made mistakes, but you are the professional. They are coming to you. if I have a couple of minutes, can I tell a quick story about when I started

Aidan Noone

  44:02 - 44:02

Out

Aidan Sloan

  44:03 - 45:21

I had, I was about three months into the profession and I got a phone call from a lady and I won't go into too much detail. But, I said to her, when I'm working with a client, I will always take 20 minutes to half an hour to give them a chance to get to meet me, but I'll explain about hypnosis, hypnotherapy my approach and answer any questions they have. So I said to this lady, do you want to book an intro chat Or do you want to go ahead and put your first session And she said, no, book me in for the first session. I know all about hypnosis. And I said, oh, where did you train And she says, I'm a psychiatrist was part of my basic training. And she told me where she worked on. I kind of figured out I hung up the phone and I figured out that she must have to be in the position she's in, along with her 14 years, study that she probably had about 20 years experience as a practicing psychiatrist. And I started to panic, here's me starting out in my career. And I thought, if I make any little mistake, this lady will see right through me.

Aidan Sloan

  45:23 - 45:26

And that's it career

Aidan Sloan

  45:30 - 47:03

I rang a friend who had been in the profession a long time, and I said, you're not going to believe it. I'm in panic here. I'm after getting them a point from psychiatrist. And he said, so when I was taken back and he said, well, why is she coming to you And I explained, I know it was far, it was a bit of a phobia. Yeah. And he said, well, put with what you know about self-hypnosis self-analysis would you be able to resolve that for yourself And I said, yeah, I would, of course it was nothing major. And it was something she was future projecting that may or may not happen. So he said, well, there you go. That's how it is you that you know, more about hypnosis than she does. She's coming to you because she can't do that for herself. You just heard the word psychiatrist and you put her on a pedestal. So I, he said, I want you to do some analysis on yourself for the next few days and be ready to take that appointment. So, anyway, I did, and I came to an outcome for myself that was quite positive. And at the end of her second session, when we finished up, I ended up with trance and she started to laugh and she said, boy, I thought I knew about hypnosis.

Aidan Sloan

  47:04 - 47:18

There was the answer. Anybody starts, I, anybody starting out believe in what hypnotherapy done properly is capable of achieving

Aidan Noone

  47:20 - 47:29

With a wonderful, wonderful juncture and a wonderful time to, you know, to end this podcast, tell Aidan, how can we contact you

Aidan Sloan

  47:30 - 47:40

At, through my website In fact, I have two websites, Aidan Sloan.ie , our sportshypnosisdublin.ie. And you'll get all my contact details there.

Aidan Noone

  47:41 - 47:44

and your surname is spelled Sloan

Aidan Sloan

  47:44 - 47:45

That's righteous,

Aidan Noone

  47:46 - 47:46

Aiden and Sloan.

Aidan Sloan

  47:46 - 47:51

Yeah.Aidan just like yourself, Aidan, Aidan, Sloan dot

Aidan Noone

  47:54 - 47:55

sportshypnosisdublin

Aidan Sloan

  47:55 - 48:11

Hypnosis. Dublin is on Facebook. I do have a Twitter account. I have an Instagram account, but I have to be honest, I'm really not active. And in, in fact, during COVID, when I should have been more active, I've been less active

Aidan Noone

  48:14 - 48:37

That's right. Well, that was that. That was wonderful. And I want to just say thank you so much for an inspirational and very informative and practical, podcast. So that was Aidan Sloan, from Dublin. And he's just given you his contact details. So Aidan's round tack you so much for being with me today on the professional hypnotherapists podcast. An

Aidan Sloan

  48:37 - 48:39

Absolute pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

Aidan Noone

  48:39 - 49:05

You have been listening to the professional hypnotherapist podcast, which is a production of the European association of professional hypnotherapists. That's EAPH.ie Why not pop over to EAPH.ie and discover many valuable resources waiting for your right there right now. Thank you for listening and bye bye for now.