Ep.60: Undoing the “Not Enough” Story: Hypnosis and the Subconscious Mind with Christina Woods

Hey friends! In this episode, we're thrilled to welcome the incredible Christina Woods—a Clinical Hypnotherapist, Rapid Transformational Therapist, Empowerment Coach, and Reiki Master. Christina brings a wealth of knowledge and a deeply personal story of transformation after decades in corporate leadership. Together, we explore how childhood beliefs, people-pleasing patterns, and midlife awakenings can shape—and reshape—our lives.

Christina gets real about her journey from high-achieving executive to empowered healer, sharing how modalities like hypnotherapy, EMDR, and energy work helped her (and now help others) move from burnout to balance. We dig into subconscious beliefs, emotional healing, intuition, and how to rewire the mind for worthiness and self-compassion. You’ll hear both the science and the soul of healing, with laughs, deep truths, and maybe a few thigh stories along the way.

Episode Highlights:

[0:01] - Laura introduces Christina Woods and her background in therapy and corporate leadership.
[1:19] - Christina shares her unraveling: career burnout, divorce, and rediscovering herself.
[5:53] - The “garden moment” that sparked Christina’s personal transformation.
[7:35] - How hypnotherapy and EMDR opened the door to healing deep trauma.
 [10:48] - Laura and Christina discuss the power of embodied therapeutic modalities.
[14:34] - Colette joins and dives into the hypnotherapy process and how it really works.
[20:19] - Can anyone be hypnotized? Busting myths and sharing real client experiences.
[24:27] - Custom hypnotherapy audios: why language, music, and intention matter.
[27:55] - Common client themes: high achievers, perfectionism, and “not enoughness”.
[29:16] - Healing principles from the documentary “HEAL” and why intuition matters.
[32:40] - Fear, intuition, and learning to trust your internal compass.
[35:58] - Hypnotherapy reveals unconscious beliefs—sometimes from early childhood.
[37:39] - Laura and Colette share personal “aha” moments and therapy curiosities.
[40:54] - Matching your energy with your mindset to truly hold what you believe you deserve.
 [41:37] - Where to find Christina online and how to work with her.

Resources:

• Christina Woods’ website: www.christinalwoods.com
• Christina on Instagram: @christina.lwoods

If today's discussion resonated with you or sparked curiosity, please rate, follow, and share "Insights from the Couch" with others. Your support helps us reach more people and continue providing valuable insights. Here’s to finding our purposes and living a life full of meaning and joy. Stay tuned for more!

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Christina L. Woods, Laura Bowman, Colette Fehr

Laura Bowman  00:01

Hi guys. We have a great episode for you today. A little bit of technical difficulties on this one. Collette is joining late on this episode, so I'm gonna start us out, but in the middle of the episode, Colette will join us. But today we have a great guest. This is Christina Woods, who is an internationally recognized Clinical Hypnotherapist, rapid transformational therapist, empowerment coach and Reiki master, who leads women to realize their worth, shed old programs and align with their authentic selves. Combining her three decades in corporate leadership, Christina has turned her personal triumph over adversity into a beacon of hope for hundreds of women worldwide. We get into it all her own personal stuff, and how it applies to so many of us ditching the good girl, people pleasing, imposter syndrome, all of that stuff. So without further ado, it is CHRISTINA WOODS, so welcome to the podcast. So nice to have you

Christina L. Woods  01:07

here. Well, thanks for having me, Laura. I'm happy to be here. So just

Laura Bowman  01:11

tell me, like, tell me about your work and how you got started. You had mentioned that you got started in the corporate world, so I want to just hear about your journey. Sure,

Christina L. Woods  01:19

yeah, I had a whole life before this life, and it was about 30 years in the corporate world. I don't think that's unlike many women in midlife, where we decide, wait a second, that's not what I want to do anymore. So for many, many years, was this high functioning corporate VP running around the world being supermom, and that all started, you know, in in college, and even before then, I felt like, boy, if I have this checklist of all these things I should do, you know, go to college, have the corporate life, and I have a great family and a beautiful home, and I'm doing all the things that I'm supposed to do, and had a great bank account and leading all these teams. And at some point I hit a wall, and my body hit a wall, my mind hit a wall, my marriage dismantled, and things weren't, weren't flowing very well in my life. And at that point, I just decided, you know, this isn't, this isn't what I want to do anymore, but I really had to look inside and decide, you know, what do I? Who am I? What do I want to do if I'm not all these things? That was absolutely my identity. And that's when I really started to go inside and do a lot of therapy, a lot of looking inside. And that's how I discovered hypnotherapy. And boy, did I realize some things about myself that weren't even true, that had been leading to this perfectionist and supermom and all the things that had exhausted me? And I thought, Wow, that's incredible. I want to do that. And I left an identity and a great career that I did enjoy in many ways, but also wanted to do something else. So here I am in this whole new business and life that's

Laura Bowman  03:06

incredible. I mean, it's, it's something I see all the time with, like, because I see young women and older women, and I have, like, the 30 somethings that are, like, doing exactly that. They've got the checklist that's on to the next they just, it's, you can't slow them down because they're, yeah, building this like super identity. But of course, there's always like a point where you hit a wall. There's like this inflection point for you. Was it your marriage? Or was that it like, just sort of a symptom of, like a larger unraveling? Oh,

Christina L. Woods  03:38

it was absolutely a larger unraveling. It was, you know, you know, not to start when I was born, but I was absolutely it was. I was raised by a single mom. I was the oldest of four, and I was absolutely raised with this feeling that it was my job to take care of everyone and not be a problem and just make life easy. And so, you know, yes, it was a bigger unraveling and really a belief, you know, I'm on my own, nothing I really had identified until I was almost 50, and at that point, you know, things I didn't even know about myself, some trauma that I literally had buried until I was 50 in therapy. I mean, things I didn't even realize, and I was married 26 years that now in hindsight, I can look back and say, Okay, that's why I wouldn't allow any support in I wouldn't allow anyone to help me. I wouldn't, you know, I would say yes to everything in corporate because I thought that made me the person they could go to at midnight and say, Hey, do that report? Okay, yeah, I'll do that, and I'll still make the orange slices for the soccer team. And, you know, do all those things and and the people pleasing and the over giving, and, you know, the autoimmune diseases and all the things just. Said no more. And the, you know, the marriage had just completely dissipated, and resentment and all the things that happen, but a lot of good things that I've discovered about myself now that I've turned into a beautiful enlightenment and also healed so many things inside. And now I get to do this. I

Laura Bowman  05:21

love it. I mean, there was that, like, menopause wall. I mean, that's no joke, right? Like, we talk about how the caregiving hormones kind of leave the body and, like, space and the mind clears, and really, yeah, you your body suffers under all this weight, all this people pleasing, all this over giving, and then it's like, you just can't take it. And it's sort of, it sort of feels like this is, like, this huge crisis, but also opportunity for you to, like, step into your own power. Oh

Christina L. Woods  05:53

yeah. I mean, you, you, you know, it's one of those moments I call my garden moment, because I was gardening and pulling weeds. This wasn't a glamorous moment, but I was gardening and pulling weeds, and I literally remember this moment where it was like, when are you going to stop making everybody else happy and make yourself happy? Do something for yourself? And I I literally knew in that moment I would end my marriage, leave corporate, go to therapy, all the things I had been avoiding, you know, and I was scared of going to therapy, like a lot of people, you know, I had read all the self help books, I'd gone to the yoga retreats, I'd done all those things, but that wasn't deep enough. It wasn't what I needed to do. I knew I needed to go deep inside. I knew that I needed to do the deep inner work. I knew that. Why was I always thinking I was bad? I know now that's connected to shame. I didn't know then, you know, I thought it was because I put too much on the credit card, or I yelled at my kids, or I nagged. I thought that I was just bad. But now I know what it's connected to, and when you know that, then you start to have compassion. And and when you have compassion, oh, wow, your whole world can change. And that is incredible. Yeah,

Laura Bowman  07:09

no, you're absolutely right. There's something totally different about like, doing the deep inner work, where you go inside and you really take a look, as opposed to, like, the frenetic self help that's like up here, and feels very surface and feels like another thing to do. So it sounds like you when, like, tell me about the types of therapy you did, and obviously the hypnotherapy left a big impression on you.

Christina L. Woods  07:35

It did. It did. And when I had got sick, I had vertigo, and it wouldn't go away. And I went to about almost 20 doctors, and I listened to a hypnotherapy audio and just online, like online Valley, and it made me feel better. And I remember the doctor laughed at me, and I thought, well, it's making me feel better. Why are you laughing at me? It's making me feel better. And then I just, you know, went on my merry way. Someone recommended that I go to hypnotherapy. And I did, went to a couple sessions, and it uncovered very, very quickly, some childhood trauma. And she recommended, you know, I think you need EMDR, what is that right now? Of course, seven years later, definitely know what EMDR is, but it very, very quickly identified some things that I needed to address. And so from there, it sent me on an entire journey that's changed my life. But I realized that there were things and beliefs I had about myself that, of course, were never true. And even in that simple meditation, where I was able to listen to powerful words, powerful images and also identify something so quickly, and of course, as I learned more about hypnotherapy, and if someone needs EMDR or therapy, and I do all those things. Those are available. But hypnotherapy also is a very unique method to get to the root also, and a method to help identify and it absolutely can help in so many other ways. So that's how I first discovered it.

Laura Bowman  09:15

Yeah, and you just had a profound like healing reaction, like, made some space for you.

Christina L. Woods  09:20

It did, it did and, and it was, it was wonderful that it helped me, but she also knew I needed something different, and, and so it was a lane that helped me, and it served its purpose, and it opened a door for me. But you know it, there are many modalities. There are many things that help us right and and I still use hypnotherapy. Of course, it's what I do. I still use EMDR. I use energy healing. I use talk therapy. I, you know, these are, these are ways that we can help heal ourselves. I don't think we need to put ourselves in a box.

Laura Bowman  09:56

I agree. And I I'm like, very much of like, whatever. Works, like whatever I find that works. And I think that what you're getting at too, and for our listeners, is like these deeper modalities, like EMDR, like hypnotherapy, I'm thinking of like somatic experience, like anything, ifs internal family systems, anything that gets into the body and like into a felt sense, is 10 times more powerful than your traditional talk therapies. And I think people need to know that when they're and not that talk therapy doesn't have its place. I do it every day, in one capacity or another, and people need it. They need to, like, sort of get their stuff out there. But there's a point where you have to go, like, a level deeper for some of this, like second order change to take place, that's right, and I think you kind of got onto that pretty quickly. You

Christina L. Woods  10:48

know, I knew when I wanted to leave corporate, I wanted to do something to help women. I before college, when I started college, I wanted to be a psychologist, and then I started doing science classes, and they put me in front of some rats, and I thought, This is not me. So I went into the sales and marketing route and and so full circle, right? So, so sometimes in life, we just, you know, we go the long route, and that's what I did. But I knew that when I found out there were beliefs about myself that had ruled my life that weren't even true. That's when I knew that I wanted to help people see the truth about themselves, and that there were ways, whether again, it's EMDR or hypnotherapy, that they could quickly identify things that aren't true and change beliefs by listening. In this case, with hypnotherapy, we get to the root in two or three sessions. We don't have to go for years. You can go and you can do this. I can create this amazing audio recording for you and rewire your subconscious mind, and you actually can feel and love yourself and feel you're enough and change a belief. Because I literally believed I was bad, and I sabotaged the shit out of my life in many, many ways that you actually can walk around and change these beliefs and start loving yourself. I was like, there's so many women walking around believing these things that aren't even true. They think they're a bad mother, bad wife, bad person, or they just eat cookies at night, and they're just bad, and that's not even the real case. So when I thought that, I thought, You know what, I can I can learn this. I can do this. I mean, I was in higher education in sales and marketing. I was a VP of sales, and now I thought, I can learn this. I can do this. And I added energy healing, because I feel, my personal belief is that energy gets stuck and blocked and it's just going to move it through us faster. So that's my personal belief. I don't do it with everyone. It's not everyone's thing, but for those that it is, it's, to me, an added thing that really makes a big difference. And I've since learned, you know, Theta Healing a different energy. Did it for different hypnotherapy modalities and whatever, which, whatever one someone you know, navigates and latches on to. So I can switch it up. And some people are more in their head than others, and you know, you got to use different modalities with them. But that's really, was the core was, you know, stop it. Let's really just get to the core and really become who you are meant to be. Because we're not born believing these things about ourselves. You know, we have utmost belief and confidence, and we don't care if we have chubby thighs when we're a kid and put on our face, you know, on

Laura Bowman  13:36

one of my papers, my I used I had like, like, chubby little thighs when I was a kid. And my mom used to, like, tell me that the foxes and wolves were going to come and eat my thighs. That's so fucked I was, like, it was crazy. And so, like, I don't know if I came with, like, this, a belief that I had these, like, I cannot go to, like a water park to this day, and have, like, my thighs. So I need some, I need some hypnotherapy around that.

Colette Fehr  14:08

Did you already talk about the process of hypnotherapy? No. Can we talk about that a little bit? Because it's one thing that I am not trained in and that I have not ever experienced. So I have some colleagues and friends who do it, but I would love to hear more about how it works, what you do, what it's really like and not like, that sort of thing. Sure,

Christina L. Woods  14:34

sure. So it's, it's a natural state, and most people don't realize when you're in hypnotherapy, you talk the entire time. I think we all watch Netflix and think it's kind of weird and funky, but it's it's not so it's a natural state, meaning that we go into those brain waves that you go into when you're in hypnotherapy. We sort of go into them throughout the day. So if you've ever. Like, straight,

Colette Fehr  15:00

like a, like, a fugue state, when you drive home and you'd get off the highway and you're not, yeah, yeah, like an associate of fugue,

Christina L. Woods  15:09

exactly. So you're driving home, you don't remember if you stopped at the light, and you're in your driveway, and you're like, oh, did I follow the rules? Did I even stop at that light? I don't remember, you know, and you know you're cooking dinner in your head, and you're like, I think, did I run the red light? I don't know. So yes, that state exactly. Okay. So when we go into hypnotherapy, you're not in a stuck state, because people think, why would I sign up to lose control and have you control my mind? And these are doctors and lawyers and executives that I see, and this is the first question they ask. So I always start with that, because I don't think anyone would pay me to lose control. I certainly wouldn't, but there's Alpha Theta brain waves. We go into a theta brain wave, which is just a place where your mind is a lot more suggestible, and in when you're more suggestible, we can give it great suggestions. So there is your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. Your conscious mind is about five 10% of how we think and see the world. It's our thinking mind, our subconscious mind is 95% of how we think and see the world, our lens. But it's our feeling mind, our emotion mind, and we as fancy pants people, we think that you know everything we think is are very logical, and I'm very you know I know better. I know better. I know I'm good, I know I'm smart. I don't know why I choke when I talk in front of people I should know better. I shouldn't eat that. I shouldn't do that. I shouldn't date losers. I don't know what my problem is. All men suck, whatever it might be, but really it's those beliefs in our subconscious. There are 1 million times more powerful than your conscious mind. So right there we can just stop beating ourselves up about some of our behavior and feelings, because it's just deep down, on in there, in our subconscious. So we access that in hypnosis, in that brainwave state, you cannot access it in this alpha, thinking, talking state we're in now shut. It's shut like a vault, can't access it. So we go in those brainwaves and we can access it in hypnosis and say, Hey, what's the root cause of this behavior, this belief, this thought? And we find the root cause, we go back to scenes and moments in your life, and it's like little pictures you might, you might say to me, I'm eating cereal. It's, you know, I'm five years old, I'm eating cereal, and I'm feeling this way. I'm in school, and I'm in front of my teacher, and she said this to me. And these might be very, you know, benign situations in your mind, but we're putting together stories and feelings. And they do tell a story about when, what meaning Did you attach to these situations and scenarios, and boy, oh boy, do we start to get some incredible beliefs that were formed, and they're primarily, when did you feel different or rejected or not enough? You know, these are the most common ones. And from there we can, we can begin to change. And from there, I create a custom audio recording. Because, why? Why one person believes something is going to be completely different, the meaning they attach to is going to be completely different than someone else. So rather than create a bunch of generic hypnosis audios, I want to know specifically why someone feels a certain way and what their beliefs were based on, and then they listen to that recording for at least a month every single day to rewire, because obviously we have that great neuroplasticity.

Colette Fehr  18:41

Yeah. So okay, I'm curious. It sounds really interesting and similar to EMDR in some ways, which I'm an EMDR therapist. So one thing I'm curious about, too, just from my EMDR work, is that sometimes there are people like, let's just say not good enough, right? That it's so pervasive there aren't necessarily specific incidents that they that led to that belief it's it's so diffuse and pervasive across their life. So is this something that can work even when there weren't specific inciting incidents or like core Touchstone memories, like, where you're just able to get in there, into that different brain wave, and like, help somebody recondition those beliefs without it having to correlate to certain events.

Christina L. Woods  19:33

Absolutely, yes, absolutely. And I was going to mention that so the specific situation or scenario or memory or moment, is not the most important at all, or even depth of trance, or, you know, because there are people with anxiety, or you know, they're not able to relax, they're not able to go deep. And most many, many of my clients. Is including myself, because, you know, I know what's happening when they're putting me in hypnosis and I'm thinking, Okay, I know what she's going to say, I know what she's going to do, but none of that has an impact on the depth of how this works. So it's always just this general sense. So it makes no difference to me. Some people don't see anything when

Colette Fehr  20:19

I go some people can't visualize.

Christina L. Woods  20:21

Yeah, they can't visualize. So they might say, I see a big red, orange feeling. I feel a tingliness in my toes. And other people have great big visuals. So there's zero pressure to see or feel anything. But it's always a profound experience in some way, and that's my job to help them guide through that, and it's incredibly different for each person.

Colette Fehr  20:44

Yeah, so you're the process though, you're talking them into a hypnotic state. And do you find that almost anyone can access that to some degree? Because I do have, as you're talking first of all, it sounds so cool. Now I really want to go try it, but I have this belief that I'm like, There's no way someone could hypnotize me, like, like, my mind will, like, fight you or something. But like, one

Christina L. Woods  21:08

of my clients right now is a psychologist. She's, I think, done it for 3040, years, and she's like, yes, you're not gonna be able to do that with me. Not gonna happen. So, but it works. It works. It works absolutely but

Laura Bowman  21:21

it sounds like it's not this cartoon character. Idea of what we think of as hypnotherapy is like, somebody's going to turn you into a duck and you're going to quack around the stage, you know, like in in the old school hypnotherapy, it's just really settling your brain into, like a different brain wave,

Christina L. Woods  21:37

it is. And I'll say this, if you don't want it to work, it's probably not going to work. So our brain is pretty powerful. We're, we are powerful. So, you know, if, if I have to convince you that it'll work, you know, we probably should talk about why, why you want to be convinced. But you know, it's, it's in terms of being relaxed, or the process working, absolutely, you know, don't worry about that. I'll get you relaxed, and that's my job, and I look for signs and signals, and might take five more minutes to get you into that state. And I do have you listen to things before the session to get used to my voice, you know. I might give you a little extra something if anxiety or sleep is an issue. Yeah, there's a little bit of a process,

Colette Fehr  22:22

you know, but I imagine you do really need to have trust, because you're seeding, you are allowing yourself to be in that zone with somebody. Yeah,

Christina L. Woods  22:33

exactly. And your words, the client's words, are the most important in the audio. So, you know, if feeling free and relaxed, and I want to walk into a room feeling confident, well, you don't want my definition of that. What does that feel like to you? You know, for some people, for every person, it's different. What do you want to what do you feel like when you walk in a room, you know? And some people are actually quite confident already, and they want to go to the next level. Some people can barely walk in the room. So what are the words and the feeling? And I use their words, and we really spend a lot of time on that, because the mind will respond to that so much more and and that's really, really important. I spend a lot of time, hours and hours on these audios, probably three or four hours customizing the audio and choosing the music, because in the body the music, I use, theta music, and it's really important. Some can make the body nervous. Some can make it calm. So big, it's a big deal. What's theta music? It's a certain brainwave state that allows the for your brain to go into a deeper trance, a deeper state, so you're just in that deep subconscious state for the words and the images to even go deeper and to rewire that subconscious mind.

Laura Bowman  23:58

Yeah, it sounds like, you know, this is what we do, even with we whether it's counseling or coaching, is like that envisioning process of, like, what is it that you really want, and going down to, like, the granular level and the and the language, and then you're like, basically customizing it into these audibles where it's being mirrored back to them, and It gets into the into their system, wired into their system, in a way that really changes how they show up in the world. I'm guessing

Christina L. Woods  24:27

Exactly, exactly. So, you know, in with this hypnotherapy, we're finding, you know, the the root of the, for example, I'm not enough the audio is, you know, our our brain learns by repetition and visual images, and responds to those pictures. So every day, it's about 1520 minutes, at least 21 days to rewire a new belief, at least 68 days, if there's a lot of trauma. So you know, they might be listening to it much, much longer, but I'm meeting with them while they're listening. Because, boy, oh boy, is there a lot of resistance if you have been kept safe by having anxiety or staying away from the room and not feeling enough or pushing love away. And I've given you an audio that says, accept love. You are lovable. You're not going to say all of a sudden, oh yes, I let love in you know, you're going to have, you're going to have cranky days, you're going to push people away. Your your whole being, your body, viscerally, is going to say, you know, is going to reject. It's going to really, sometimes it stirs the pot before it accepts it. So I'm working with them to integrate these new beliefs as we go, because sometimes we feel like we're taking two steps back right before we go forward. And you find that all the time, I did EMDR for seven, eight years, and every day I drove there for, I think the first three years, I thought, I don't want to go, I don't want to go, I don't want to go. And I know it's helping. And then, you know, you you're like, Okay, I starting to see the crack in the in the sky, it's helping.

Laura Bowman  26:02

So, yeah, for sure. So tell us about, like the typical client that shows up for you. I mean, I know it's, I is it mostly women that you see? Or do you see both men and women?

Christina L. Woods  26:13

I do see both men and women, but it is mostly women, and it's mostly high, high functioning women, in terms of, you know, they maybe run their own business, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, business owners, some, you know, stay at home moms, who now are saying, you know, who am I? What about my identity? I want to, you know, I need to find myself. I can't. I have no voice anymore. And I'm feeling, you know, resentment build up. So, you know, a little bit of everything, but mostly women now who are feeling that their voice I'm not enough, and a lot of that perfectionism, a lot of what we talked about in the beginning. You know, the one thing I'm also finding is that women almost always will call me and say, I shouldn't be calling you. I have everything in my life. I'm grateful for what I have. You know, they're high achieving again, they've checked a lot of boxes, but they also feel unfulfilled. Why do I feel unfulfilled? I have all these things, but there's something missing. There shouldn't be something missing. Why do I feel that way? And so it's, it's almost this belief, like I have most of the pie, but I there's something missing, and I should just shut up. I shouldn't, I shouldn't complain about it. So it's, it's this inner knowing that they are not listening to something inside and really need to attune back into their intuition and knowing they're enough to have compassion for themselves. It's a big one. We see

Laura Bowman  27:55

it all the time, right? That's a big one. Yeah, yeah. It's a huge one, and I love it

Christina L. Woods  28:02

when they tap into it.

Laura Bowman  28:03

Yeah, you know, I have to read this because it's like, just been picking at my brain as we've been talking. I took a Have you guys heard of the documentary heel? I think one of our guests talked to us about it. You've never heard of it. I haven't you've heard of it. Okay? So basically, and I love this that there's like, certain guiding principles, principles for healing, and I just want to read them so that, because I feel like a lot of them are about emotion and moving emotion through the body and energy, right? But here are the principles, if you want to heal, radically changing your diet. Okay? We know that taking control of your health, that's very broad, following your intuition, using herbs and supplements, releasing suppressed emotions, huge right, increasing positive emotions, embracing social support, deepening your spiritual connection, and having a strong reason for living. And I just love those principles, because I think those are just like, at the core of anything, if you really want to, if you're at one of these inflection points where you're disconnected from your body, like you were talking about and and you're like, it's gotta, it's all gotta change

Christina L. Woods  29:16

some of those we know, you know, take your supplements, be healthy. But the intuition, really, I find we ignore, especially if we're high achieving and we're practical, and, you know, we get into action and, and I'm all about action. I mean, we, I run a business, and we want to take action. We do things, you know, we're, I'm writing a book as well. You've done, you know, we've all done things, but do we pause and listen to the intuition? And do we realize what clouds our intuition? What clouds our intuition? You know, the the fear versus intuition versus Can you just tell me what to do? Can you just tell me? Can you just tell me? You know. So I know I've asked so many people, it's like, yeah, but could you just, what are three steps? You know,

Laura Bowman  30:05

give me a tool, give me a skill.

Colette Fehr  30:10

So true. It's so true. I think it's interesting how, for some people, they would accept feedback from a virtual stranger, if it seemed like, if someone could say, this is the answer, let's say someone had achieved something, or at least outwardly seemed to have achieved something. You know, you'd be more likely for some people to rely on that person saying, here's what you need to do than your own self. And I think that's the greatest gift you can get in life is to be able to develop your own internal compass. Yeah, because life's complicated and it's not easy, and every situation has nuances, and you really have to be able to guide yourself from the gut,

Christina L. Woods  30:54

yeah, and, and that's you know, really, what I love about what I'm able to do now with hypnotherapy is when we see the beliefs that aren't true and we're able to change them so so we can reveal, you know, the things that were clouding our intuition we are or are clouding how we were making our decisions. We can get to our authenticity, and we can get to that space where, okay, wait a second. That was that was making me rush, because intuition is calm. Intuition is sound. It's grounded. Intuition doesn't say you have to hurry up and make that decision or that people person is going to leave you. You know, I had a client recently that just said, you know, I'm just going to trust God and just marry him, and if it doesn't work out, I'll do doesn't work out, I'll just leave it anyway. It's fine. It's like, Wait a second. I don't know if that's actually trusting God that, you know that feels very rushed and panicky. Let's hold on a second. And you know, your intuition, and I just need, you know, let's take some space. Why do I need space? Let's just do this. Let's just do this. So and now, now that she's taken space, she's like, I think I understand why you suggested space and and she's seen the wisdom in the space. But intuition is calm. Intuition is grounded.

Laura Bowman  32:14

I've, like, made a few decisions based on fear. It's like, just never goes well, right? Like

Colette Fehr  32:19

fear at the same time is also a signal from the body that something warrants attention. So sure, this is where it gets complicated, right? We we fear does have to factor into like your intuition is common, grounded, but it may also be telling you to pay attention to your fear. Sometimes it's there for a very good reason. This

Christina L. Woods  32:40

is true. This is true, absolutely, intuition, absolutely. Can be fear and should be fear when you're innocent, when it's warranted.

Colette Fehr  32:48

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. But that's why we have to really dialog with ourselves. And I love what you're describing about the hypnosis process is another way of getting behind, you know, getting out of the thinking brain, because even as therapists, Laura and I have talked about this a long time, like we both started in this field as kind of talk therapists, right? Or that was the initial pathway. And not that there's never a value to talk things through. Obviously, Insight is important, but it's not enough. It's necessary, but not sufficient. And over the course of our careers, and Laura, of course, correct me if I'm speaking for you in a way that doesn't fit, but we've both gotten into more experiential modalities, because it's you have to really get into the body, get into the subconscious, access other states of being, whether it's through hypnosis or EMDR or some other modality. Ifs you know, there's so many ways to get there, but you have to be able to get outside of that place in order to really enact change. You could talk about the same thing over and over for 20 years and never, and have all the insight in the world, right? I mean, most of my clients do have insight. That's not the problem, right, but they are still stuck,

Christina L. Woods  34:10

right, right? Yeah, most of my clients have done a lot of therapy, right? A lot of different work. And by the time they get to me, they you know, and you know, they say, I don't want to work on that. I want to talk about that. I already been already been done. I've already been doing that. And, and that's another thing about hypnotherapy is, you know, we just ask the question, let's say they want to work on, what is my money block? And why can't I create more of this in my life or a relationship? The mind will go exactly where it's meant to go to find the root cause. And so whatever comes up comes up, I'm not I'm just asking these questions. The mind will pop up and they will be utterly shocked. And I love it, because whatever comes up comes up, and they'll say, I didn't see that coming. I didn't I didn't see that. So it's great because they'll say I didn't realize that. Situation with my father was still an issue, or that thing that teacher said, or my old boss, or whatever it might be, I didn't realize it made that big of an impact. Or was a piece, you know, sort of the one thing, but was a peace still, or that I heard that in my mother's womb, I could hear the doctor saying that are my parents fighting? Because that's a big thing in hypnosis, is we hear things even in the womb. Surprisingly, it comes up a lot, and I could still I could hear my mother crying a lot, or I could hear them fighting when I was a baby, or door slamming, and how that impacted their body and and their nervous system, and so I didn't realize that. And and it's not me saying anything or guiding them, it's them in the end, it's that epiphany moment of, oh wow, that paradigm shift they get to come to on their own terms. So it's pretty great. So

Laura Bowman  35:58

yeah, so just quickly, how do you use the Reiki combined with the hypnosis? Do is those separate things that you do? Or do you bring them together? Somehow,

Christina L. Woods  36:08

I do both. There are moments in the hypnosis session where, especially depending on their nervous system, or there are a few methods in the hypnotherapy where we'll talk to a piece in their body. It's called role, function, purpose, or what is the role and function of this in your body, where they'll turn their eyes inward and speak to the part in their body. You know, what is the the role of anxiety in your body? What's its purpose, intention? So then we might have it become a color or a shape, and then I'll use Reiki to dissolve it. Or if they're really, really anxious or it's a very traumatic moment, I'll have them calm down and I'll use Reiki. But other than that, it's it's a separate and that's just a really beautiful, calming energy modality. For those that aren't familiar. It's like acupuncture without needles, clearing the energy meridians. And, you know, people that have never had any energy healing really, really feel it very calming and and a way to move energy through our body. I started doing it when I first started doing hypnotherapy, I started getting really nauseous and sick because I could feel everyone's energy. And I thought, Oh, great. I left corporate, and now I'm sick all the time. And so I started, I learned it for that my own reason to protect my own energy, and it worked. Instantly stopped getting sick. And so then I started using it in as a practice. It's fascinating.

Colette Fehr  37:39

I've already thought of like, three things. I want to go try hypnosis, same. Have you? Oh, my God. Laura, yeah, we

Laura Bowman  37:47

No, okay, my thighs, like, let me be able to go to, like, a water park.

Colette Fehr  37:52

I finally accept my cellulite thighs. That's a good one. That's very concrete.

Laura Bowman  37:57

Yeah, that's really concrete. We could measure that like

Colette Fehr  38:01

mine would be sort of I'm curious why I'm still unconsciously drawn to emotionally unavailable men like I know all the things I'm a couples therapist. There's nothing I don't know about attachment styles and dynamics and patterns in my family, but there's something unconscious there that I would love to see what would come up in in a different modality that I haven't explored. Wait, do you do it online? Oh

Christina L. Woods  38:34

yeah, everything's virtual. Wow, oh, all over the world. I have clients in like, six continents.

Colette Fehr  38:43

Wow. Okay, I do want to do it. I'm gonna do it so it is. There are, there are some things that just in the gut feel like, Oh, that would be too scary, or that would be too much responsibility. But when those things are sort of insidiously and outside of conscious awareness, getting in the way of what we could be capable of. That's where I think it's so valuable to try to rewire on a different level, 100%

Christina L. Woods  39:12

and it's also, you know, you have to have the energy capacity to hold that energy. You have to. So you have the beliefs, you switch the beliefs, you rewire the beliefs. But if your body and your energy can't hold that type of energy, you know you have to both,

Laura Bowman  39:32

right? How do you increase capacity in the body to hold energy? Yeah,

Christina L. Woods  39:36

so your your energy has to match your mindset. So, so sometimes we have the belief but, but we're we're energy, we're energy, we're physical, we're spiritual, we're all these things. So sometimes we have a belief that we're worthy, but our energy body is in a match. It's the fact that you were uncomfortable if we say a billion, right? It's like, Right, no, right. I'm my body. Just, we can feel it. You feel it in your body, right? Like, our gut gets tight.

Colette Fehr  40:07

My gut just said, That's too much. That's crazy.

Christina L. Woods  40:11

So you can start to feel if you say, like, what are your fees? We feel? Yeah, I'm comfortable charging that. I'm comfortable charging this. Well, that, no, no, definitely not. That would mean people think I'm, you know, it's so

Laura Bowman  40:23

interesting that you're bringing this up, because, like, I've just in the process of raising my fee, and it has been such, like, string and drum for the, like, the last two years, really, where, like, I've like, I know I should do this, I know I should do this, but something inside me just couldn't do it. Like, I just couldn't do it. And then all of a sudden, I got to this place where it was like, No, it feels completely right. Feels absolutely, completely right. And I could do it. I finally did it.

Christina L. Woods  40:54

Not only the belief that you're worthy, but your energy also can hold it right. But it took years. So you can believe it all you want, but if your energy can't hold it, you'll lose it. You'll hold it for a month or two a year, and you'll lose it. You'll you'll lose clients. You won't believe it. You'll say, I shouldn't have I shouldn't have raised it, see, I shouldn't have raised it, right? You'll sabotage like that. You'll sabotage. Yeah, you gotta hold

Colette Fehr  41:19

it. Okay. Well, we're definitely going to be making appointments with you. And then before, yeah, yeah, I think this is great. I'm so excited. So before we wrap up, give our audience some information on how they can get in touch with you, and if they want to work with you, where can people find you?

Christina L. Woods  41:37

Sure? Christina l woods.com is my website. And on there, there are free downloads, 10 day workbook, audios, things like that. Instagram is Christina dot elwoods, great.

Laura Bowman  41:49

This has been great. Yeah. So excited. Yeah. Thanks guys, yes,

Colette Fehr  41:55

and we will be in touch. And for all of our listeners, reach out to Christina, if you think this is as fascinating and helpful as we do, and let us know what you thought of this episode. Email us at info, at insights from the couch.org check out our website, insights from the couch.org for helpful downloads that will accompany this episode and more. And thanks again for being here with us for this great discussion you.