69. Hypnosis for Menopause: A Non-Hormonal Solution for Hot Flashes & Sleep, with Sarah Rubens

Are you a woman over 40 or 50 struggling with hot flashes, battling insomnia, or feeling like you are losing control amidst the massive identity shifts of midlife? You’re NOT alone — and you’re not out of options. In this episode of Mind Your Midlife, clinical hypnotherapist Sarah Rubens joins me to demystify hypnosis and explain why it is one of only two non-hormonal treatments for menopause symptoms recognized by The Menopause Society.

If you are ready to learn how to update your brain's "software" to reduce anxiety and regulate your body temperature — this episode is for you.

What You’ll Learn:

✔ Hollywood vs. Reality: Why hypnosis isn't mind control, but a natural state of focused attention (like "highway hypnosis") 

✔ The "Ice Block" Technique: A powerful visualization to cool your body down instantly during a hot flash 

✔ Sleep reprogramming: How to shift your identity from "bad sleeper" to someone who rests easily 

✔ Navigating Grief: Why midlife transitions are actually "mini losses" and how to process the ambiguous grief of change 

🎯 OMG Moment:

You are not powerless in transition. Midlife can make you feel like your body is revolting against you, but hypnosis reminds you that you still have agency and can retrain your brain. Hypnosis for confidence and self care sounds amazing.

Take Action Today:

• Connect with Sarah Rubens: Visit treestarhypnosis.com for a free consultation or follow her on Instagram @treestarhypnosis.
• Take the Quiz: Are you in "Mega Menopause" or just dealing with midlife madness? Go to cherylpfischer.com/menopausequiz to find out.
• Read: Check out the book Money Magic by Michelle Masters mentioned in the episode.
• Listen: listen to the previous hynoptherapy episode and the hot flashes episode

Why This Episode Matters

Hypnosis offers a science-backed way to take the wheel back, proving that while we can't always control what happens to us, we can absolutely control how our brain and body respond to it. Take a little bit better care of yourself in midlife.

Grab your Vitamin G pixie sticks for detoxification and wellness at cherylpfischer.com/vitaming.

Transcript

Welcome And Hypnosis Teaser

Cheryl Fischer 0:00

Have you ever been hypnotized? Have you ever looked back to something you were just doing and had no idea how you did it? You might have been almost in a hypnotic state. And I wonder if you realize the power of what hypnosis can do. So today, my guest and I are gonna talk all about it, and I think you're gonna love this. Here we go. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start

Show Intro And Episode Setup

Cheryl Fischer 1:00

loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife podcast. Before we recorded today's episode, my guest, Sarah Rubens, and I actually had a hypnotherapy session. She offered that to me so that I could have the personal experience, and I took her up on it because I was fascinated to learn more. And I have been familiar with hypnotherapy in prior experiences. So I wanted to see how would this work? Her business

Meet Sarah And Session Background

Cheryl Fischer 1:37

is virtual. How would that work? The interesting piece is that hypnosis is listed as a valid and valuable non-hormone treatment for symptoms of menopause. Truly. And that's incredible. So let's find out today what can this actually do to make midlife a little bit easier, a little bit healthier, maybe, help us feel a little bit more empowered. This is what we're gonna figure out. And don't worry, we're gonna talk about what hypnosis actually is as well. So Sarah Rubens is joining me today. She is a clinical hypnotherapist and fellow of the International Board of Hypnotherapy. She has a private practice called Tree Star Hypnosis, where she works one-on-one with clients and she helps clients with shifting identity, emotional blocks, even medical challenges using evidence-based hypnosis and nervous system regulation. She also does group workshops. You're going to hear her mention that. And this subject really can be powerful for a lot of the issues: mindset, health, body, life that we're going through in this period of time. I can't wait to talk about it. So welcome, Sarah. Thank you. I am happy to have you here. And I find this topic really fascinating. So I think the listeners are going to as well. I hope so. I'm pretty excited about it. Very good. Okay. So we're just going to dive straight in because I really want you to explain a bit for us because hypnosis is one of those things: hypnosis, hypnotherapy. I feel like everybody's heard of it. And maybe, and you said this to me prior to recording at one point, maybe we've seen a show or something silly. And so maybe we're curious, but we don't really get it. So I would love for you to

What Hypnosis Really Is

Cheryl Fischer 3:46

tell a bit more about how hypnosis works.

Sarah Rubens 3:50

That's a great question. So I think Hollywood's done us a little bit of a disservice and made hypnosis sound a lot more exotic and woo-woo and different than it really is. But what hypnosis is, is it's a natural state of focused attention where your body feels really relaxed and your mind is more, your mind is engaged and it, you're open to suggestion, positive suggestion that helps you shift patterns and beliefs and responses that no longer serve you. Now, the key point here, hypnosis is a natural state of mind. So what that means, it's it's what we often refer to as a trance state. We are going in and out of trance every day. So everybody who's listening to this at one point or another has probably experienced some sort of altered trance state, like getting in your car, driving somewhere and not remembering how you got there. We have a name for that. We call that highway hypnosis, getting in a flow state, reading a really good book and not realizing how much time has passed, right? Getting really engaged with a conversation. These are all altered states of awareness. So when we do it in hypnotherapy, we do it, we use it intentionally as a way to access a deeper part of your mind to help you shift states, stiff shift beliefs and um and support goals that you're trying to achieve.

Cheryl Fischer 5:10

You know, I love the way you say that because when we did our session, I I think the thing that surprised me the most was that it was being really relaxed and maybe I felt kind of normal. And I expected something, I don't know what I expected. I expected something very different and strange or you know, who knows what. But we also talked about how sometimes when I need to fall asleep, I'll like relax parts of my body going from my feet or from my head through my body. And I learned that a long time ago. And you said, and in fact, you use that in hypnosis, right? You said I was hypnotizing myself, which I had no idea.

Sarah Rubens 5:54

Yes, exactly. So I think that's that's pretty common. I hear it from a lot of my clients of either having the expectation that hypnosis is going to be really weird and different and they're gonna feel in a very weird way or completely become unaware, leave their body, if you will. But then they're often very surprised at the end because they're like, oh, that felt like this time I did meditation or yoga nidra, or it just felt like I was more relaxed. And really at the end of the day, that's what we're that's what we're going for in hypnosis,

Relaxation, Trance, And Techniques

Sarah Rubens 6:24

right? We're we're teaching you, it's a way to take control of your body and mind. Hypnotherapist is teaching you how to put your body in a relaxed state. Um, we do, we use different techniques for this. And one of those, like you mentioned, Cheryl, is uh progressive muscle relaxation. So I'm gonna go from the tip of my head to the tips of my toes, and I'm gonna intentionally relax each part of my body. With hypnosis, we do a couple, a couple more things, like we'll do a deepener, you know, counting down from 10, 9, 8, so on and so forth, and maybe some other techniques to help help get into that state of relaxation. But but the real magic happens when we learn how to shift the nervous system from a parasympathetic stress or from a sympathetic stress response into the parasympathetic state, right? So whether you're doing that in hypnosis, a meditation by yourself before you go to bed, it's all, you know, it's all serving a greater purpose because anytime our body is in a parasympathetic state, we're we're in homeostasis, right? Everything, everything can flow easier from that state. And I think as a society, especially as women in a society, right, uh, we're not often there. We are constantly activated, right?

Cheryl Fischer 7:40

Yeah. So tell me more about how this can be so powerful, because I I fully agree. We want to be in the parasympathetic state as often as possible. That's rest and digest. There's other ways that people might call it. Absolutely agree with that. But tell me more about why or how this becomes something where we can almost reprogram what's going on in our heads. Yeah, that's a great question. Okay.

Sarah Rubens 8:05

So, first, the first thing I'm gonna say, hypnosis

From Stress To Parasympathetic

Sarah Rubens 8:09

question I get often can am I gonna be able to be hypnotized? Hypnosis is a skill that you can develop. So it's it every person, if they have a desire to be hypnotized, can be hypnotized, right? For some people, it happens really easily and quickly. And then for other people, it just takes time again to teach the body how to shift into a relaxed state. So, with my clients, um, as you know, I always share a self-hypnosis recording after our first session to practice hypnosis every day because the more we practice it, the stronger the skill becomes. So, one, everybody can be hypnotized. Two, how it works. Okay. So, our mind, we have something called the triune model of the mind that's taught through my school, the Hypnotherapy Academy of America. And that's basically our mind in three parts. So we have the conscious mind, that's the part of our mind responsible for a choice, analysis, logic, will and intention, inductive, deductive reasoning. Listeners, this is a part of your mind that got you to open this podcast episode. So thank you, conscious mind. Very happy you're here. Um yes, thank you. Yes, beneath the conscious, we have our subconscious. Now, the subconscious is what we call our great doing intelligence. It stores our imagination. The language of the subconscious mind is imagination, right? It influences our body and autonomic nervous system. It stores our memories, beliefs, and emotions, and it creates associations, right? Now, beneath the subconscious mind, kind of like in the middle of it, rather, is what we call the superconscious. This is the part of our mind that's our connection to our most resourceful parts, our inner problem-solving intelligence, right? You can say it's your connection to higher self, to your future self, divine intelligence,

Can Anyone Be Hypnotized

Sarah Rubens 9:59

whatever it might be. But this is the part of us that always has the answers, that always is resourceful, right? Now, in hypnosis, what we're doing, right, between the conscious and the subconscious mind, we have something called the critical factor. This is a part of our mind that develops between the ages of seven to eleven and it acts like a gatekeeper. So it's it's almost like a filter of what's going to be let in and what's not. Now, there's ways to soften that critical factor so we can more easily access what's going on in the subconscious beneath our level of awareness. Those are things that we call programming, right? Through authority figures, peer groups, periods of high emotion. This is in these next three years happen a lot of in hypnosis, repetition, being in hypnosis, and anytime we say yes to something. So anytime these six things are happening, our critical factor is softening and we're more easily accessing the subconscious mind for better or worse, right? It can be to help program positive beliefs, emotions, associations, or ones, negative ones that aren't that don't serve us, right? Now, bringing this all together, how does it relate to the nervous system and how does it actually create results? What we do in or I'll start with

Conscious, Subconscious, Superconscious

Sarah Rubens 11:17

the nervous system. So with the nervous system, we have perception, the way that's linked to our subconscious. So the way that you perceive the world is influenced by your subconscious beliefs. Yes. And your subconscious beliefs influences the way you perceive the world, right? Yes. And depending on your perception of things, it's either going to shift your body, your nervous system into a stress response, a sympathetic state, or a rest and digest into our parasympathetic state. So in hypnosis, what we're trying to do is shift things in the subconscious to help alter the way you perceive things, right? So that could be very broad, as you can imagine, the applications are wide, right? But for this audience, right, things like menopause, trouble sleeping, hot flashes. One of the ways hypnosis helps with those symptoms is that it starts to help shift the way your nervous system and mind and body respond to what's going on, right? It helps give some autonomy and control over that, which I'm sure we'll we'll talk a little bit more about in a minute here. But that's what we're doing as we're working in the subconscious. Um, so when you're able to shift these perceptions and create new beliefs, it leads to more positive beliefs. Positive beliefs lead to positive emotions, positive emotions lead to positive behavior, positive behavior leads to positive results. When you put all this together, it's a really interesting uh way of kind of reprogramming the body and the mind to do what you need it to do and to work for you with you rather than against you.

Cheryl Fischer 12:54

Yeah. It's really fascinating. And let me see if I can sort of summarize what you said. You see if I've got it. So after the age of six, and and that's important because I think a lot of us have heard that when we're young, like as in below six, we sort of absorb everything and we don't have a filter. And so I appreciate that you said that. So after that age, we we sort of have this gatekeeper in our brain that is telling us whether to believe something, not believe it, not letting the information in or letting it in or changing it a bit or whatever. And so in hypnosis,

Softening The Critical Factor

Cheryl Fischer 13:36

what we're doing is changing our state so that whatever's going on during the hypnosis can be absorbed by the subconscious brain, can potentially become one of those core beliefs about ourselves or whatever it is we're talking about. Is that fair to say? Yeah, that's a really good, I think enabled it.

Sarah Rubens 13:59

Yeah. Um, another way, I think another good metaphor for explaining it is actually using the metaphor of a computer, right? So your your comp you have your hardware, which is the physical computer. That's your body, right? Your body is the hardware. The subconscious is the software. It's the apps that are on your computer, right? So when you use hypnosis, you can actually, let's say, open the open the app for hot flashes. Oh, you know, the way I'm responding to these hot flashes, I'm getting really stressed out. It's activating my sympathetic response. This isn't serving me anymore. Let's rewrite a couple layers of this code to to respond a little differently. Um, and then when you do that, it updates the app to version 2.1, right? And then your body responds differently because the hardware responds to the way the software is programmed.

Cheryl Fischer 14:50

I love it. Yeah, that's a great visual. I like that a lot. And I promise, if you're listening, we are gonna get to the hot flashes. We are. The way you talk about hypnosis, I think is really empowering because I also think that sometimes it feels very daunting because we feel like we would need hypnosis if we wanted to dig back into some trauma that happened to us and try to move past that or heal from that, which is great. But maybe we don't think that it would help us otherwise. And your focus is much more about these basic beliefs about ourselves and about life

Perception, Nervous System, Results

Cheryl Fischer 15:33

and like a positive forward thinking kind of focus. So tell me a little bit more about the differences there and and why we think that, I guess.

Sarah Rubens 15:42

Yeah. So I always the way that I work, right? Every hypnotherapist is different. Um, but the way that I was trained is it's it's a multi-session process, right? So I'm not just I'm rarely ever doing just one, one off sessions with with people. And the reason being is that I look at this very much as um as something that you build upon each other, right? In our first session, we're not gonna be diving into the depths of your subconscious to like rewreck rewire all of the deep and dark traumas of your past. In the first couple of sessions, it's it's very, I'm not gonna say basic, but it's really important fundamental work. Like we are looking at some of the limiting beliefs you might have. We're looking at some uh things that aren't serving you, behaviors, patterns. Um, and then I'm teaching you how to do hypnosis, how to relax the body, and we're programming, doing the suggestions that we write together and creating some imagery to ground us to what it is, the outcome that you want. And those first couple sessions, it's it's also partly to have good resourcing, right? We want to make sure that you know how to relax your body, that we have an anchor, like a point that we're we're moving towards. Because, you know, if we're just going in and we're diving into all these deep dark pasts, right, for what? Why? If we're anchoring it to an outcome, if there's a reason we're doing this, right? It helps to get all the parts in alignment to know that we're we're moving towards something. So the first couple sessions, it's foundational self-esteem work. Then after a couple sessions, that's when we might start doing what we call regression therapy, right? This is where we're going, we're going back, not always, but we might go back to different moments in your life to shift perception of how that moment impacted you, right? Or maybe we're bringing more resources to a younger part of yourself to help you feel more resourceful when in a time when you weren't. What we're doing there again is really trying to shift the perception using your adult self with your adult resources so that the younger self, the younger part of you, can kind of escape the exiled

Computer Metaphor For Reprogramming

Sarah Rubens 17:58

place that it's in, right? Um, one of I will say one of the nice things about hypnosis is we can do trauma work and rewire trauma without having to directly revisit the actual trauma. There's different protocols that I again learned through my school, the Hypnotherapy Academy of America, that allow us to reduce some of the emotional responses to traumatic events without revisiting the event. So that's something that I personally really like about hypnosis because not everybody wants to revisit, right? Not everybody wants to go back. So that's one nice thing. So again, we're building the resources and then we're going back to do some of that deeper work, some of that rewiring. And then and then towards the end of a hypnosis package or program, that's when we're we're working on integrating, right? We're working on making sure that you have everything you need to continue the behaviors that are going to support you in achieving your goal, to continue moving forward in a way that's going to positively serve you. And if I'm doing my job right, you're eventually not going to need me anymore. So it creates an interesting business model for me, but um, but um the that's the point of hypnosis, right? We we work in a container. We work and and we usually are very focused in that container of what is the goal we're working on. And then, you know, sometimes we move on to other goals, but we're gonna spend a series of sessions on one goal to get you there, right?

Cheryl Fischer 19:22

Yeah. Yeah. And for me, for

Beyond Trauma: Building Resources

Cheryl Fischer 19:25

example, for those of you who are listening, I was interested in getting past what I think are some money blocks and worries about success and that kind of thing. And um, that's why I do a lot of episodes about money mindset too, because it's I know it's something that I can always get better at. And quite frankly, we can all always get better at accepting and believing in our success and money as well. So why not? But it could be lots of different goals, to your point. So that's interesting.

Sarah Rubens 19:56

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I'm also I love money, mindset. Work hypnosis is great for it. Um, yeah, and because so much of money is beliefs and things that we learn in childhood. So true, so true.

Cheryl Fischer 20:10

Yes, and my listeners know that because we've talked about it a bunch of times. So true. We create just this meaning that comes from things that maybe weren't even real events, or we perceived them in a funny way, or who knows? Totally.

Sarah Rubens 20:25

There's um there's a really great um book, it it's tangential hypnosis, it's NLP, neurolinguistic programming, which is kind of like the language part of hypnosis called Money Magic by Michelle Masters. And it's like a short little book. It's like, you know, maybe like eight chapters worth of activities, and I've done it a couple times and it really works. So just a little side side piece. It's great.

Cheryl Fischer 20:48

Okay, I'm gonna make sure that that is on the website. If you're listening, Cherylpfisher.com/slash read. I'll put that book there so anybody can grab it. Thank you. I'm gonna get that one. Okay, so since we've we've now uh what am I gonna say? We've now realized that hypnotherapy can be used for so many different things. Now let's focus on some of the things that you said about midlife that I know were catching people's attention because the interesting thing is that hypnosis is one of only two non-hormonal treatments for menopause that is recognized by the menopause society. And I almost feel like I need to say that again. Hypnotherapy, hypnosis is recognized as a real treatment for menopause issues that is recognized by the menopause society. So that's kind of amazing. And let's dive into what hypnosis can actually do for women in menopause.

Sarah Rubens 21:56

Yeah. I'm super excited about this because as everybody on the show knows, we are far underfunded and underresearched for menopause, and like we need more interventions, right? So some of let's start kind of probably at the big, the big one, right? Hot flashes. So what hypnosis can do is it helps to regulate the brain's temperature control system. Um, so hot flashes are often triggered, and again, I'm not a neuroscientist.

Regression And Gentle Trauma Work

Sarah Rubens 22:26

This is just me doing my own research. So, you know, feel free to fact check me here. But from my understanding, hot flashes are triggered by dysregulation in the hypothalamus. So the brain's temperature control center. Um, and part of that is because when as estrogen declines, it's it makes small temperature changers changes, trigger swell um sweating and flushing, right? So the estrogen declining is creating some of that temperature dysregulation. So what hypnosis does is it actually retrains the brain's interpretation of the internal temperature signals, right? When your brain thinks that, oh, this is the estrogen's declining, we need to trigger, we need to trigger this response. What we're actually working on in the brain is is changing the way the brain interprets that and how it should respond. Something also very interesting, and um maybe tangentially, this is also similar to how hypnosis works for IBS, right? When you have irritable bowel syndrome, as anybody with IBS knows, you your bowels are they have lots of um nerve endings. It's like a whole second brain, right? And often with irritable bowel syndrome, it's overactive. So your body's responding like tenfold to what it needs to respond to. So we're working to kind of calm that response down, to change that response to what's happening in the bowels. So similar things happen with um regulating temperature. Something really interesting too. I've done this both ways. So I've done it for people who um are like have very cold or like migraines. A lot of migraines is because um you don't have enough circulation. So we may do some imagery of you sitting next to a fire and holding your hands and feet up to the fire. And literally just imagining if you closed your eyes right now and took a deep breath and imagine yourself, you know, let's do ice because you know, menopause, right? Imagine yourself sitting in the middle of a cold, really cold, cold day. You have like a big ice block in front of you, and you put your hands on that ice block and you put your feet on that ice block, and you kind of feel the water melting under your hands. You might begin to notice your hands, your fingers and toes get a little colder. Did that happen for you?

Cheryl Fischer 24:41

It did happen for me. My thumbs for some reason. Yes.

Sarah Rubens 24:45

Yeah. Yeah. So that's something, it's very simple, but it's a really interesting way that our our subconscious mind, our body, can't really differentiate between what's real and what's what we're what's happening in our mind. So when we can recreate states by vividly imagining them using the subconscious, right? So that's kind of by the way, just use that. Anybody having hot flashes, just imagine yourself in an ice box.

Cheryl Fischer 25:09

There we go. Well, uh, let me just bring in, I'll put in the show notes another episode. If only I knew the episode number right now, I don't, but I will put it in the show notes so that you can see it. Uh, I did an episode about hot flashes in particular. And the woman I was interviewing said, hot flashes are not benign. This overheating of the body is not healthy for us. And so we need to find ways to minimize them because it's not something that is healthy for your body to continue having over and over again. And so what you're saying is kind of amazing to put that together because if we can almost teach our brains

Goals, Packages, And Integration

Cheryl Fischer 25:53

not to react in that way, that's incredible.

Sarah Rubens 25:57

It is. It's the power of our mind, it continues to blow my mind every day. And this is my profession. When my clients come back and say, Oh, this happened, I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. Yeah. Um, yeah. So some of the other ways hypnosis helps with with menopause in midlife, right? Um, it this and this is a blanket statement for everything and everybody, it helps to calm the nervous system down, which we've talked about a lot, right? But when we're able to more actively shift into parasympathetic, um rest and digest, we were able to better regulate our stress hormones, you know, our heart rate and blood pressure. And any time that we can relax and bring the body down, it helps to reduce what we call the um pain, fear, tension cycle. So this is really common with medical, any sort of medical hypnosis. So often what will happen is you when you have chronic pain or you're dealing with a chronic condition or even just menopause, right? The fear, for example, the fear of having a hot flash is going to create tension in the body. Anytime there's tension in the body, it creates pain. Pain is going to create more fear, right? So we're with that kind of looping triangle. If we're able to intervene and either and start reducing some of that tension, then the rest of it also reduces, right? Um, some other, another way, sleep insomnia, right? Oh, yes. As you know, as we age, sleep becomes more and more elusive sometimes. It can. And uh hypnosis can really help to again retrain. There's different interventions and protocols to help retrain the either to like help you relax to get to sleep, or when you are having trouble staying asleep. We have ways of helping to retrain the mind and create more positive beliefs that you're able to fall back asleep and you're able to stay asleep, right? Um,

Money Mindset And Belief Shifts

Sarah Rubens 27:52

so that one's that one's awesome. That that's in and of itself an entire package.

Cheryl Fischer 27:58

So you're saying you might still wake up in the middle of the night, maybe yes, maybe no, but it's easier to get back to sleep because you've learned these new beliefs about how easy it is or new habits, that kind of thing.

Sarah Rubens 28:12

Yeah, it's like you're re you're reprogramming your beliefs around sleep. Like most people who I've supported with with insomnia, like they come to me with some pretty strong evidence-based because that's what their experience has been beliefs around I can't sleep, I can't stay asleep, I don't know how to sleep, I'm a bad sleeper. Think about how many times you say those things to yourself. Well, after you, again, one of the ways, two of the ways programming occurs is through repetition and saying yes to something. So if you say to yourself, to the world a million times, I'm a bad sleeper, you're probably gonna be a bad sleeper, right? So we're going to intervene to on the identity level of actually you sleep really well and and you get a full night's rest and you easily stay asleep. So as we start to shift the identity stuff and then maybe work with some of the other things going on asleep, you'll you'll start to see much better, much more rested, staying asleep, or even just like not being so upset when you wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall back asleep. Sometimes even just closing your eyes and being able to rest can be huge.

Cheryl Fischer 29:16

Oh, yeah.

Sarah Rubens 29:18

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then I think the last piece that's important to talk about, especially with midlife, is it's a huge time of identity transition and shifting. You're in midlife, right? You're you are experiencing so many changes. Your body's changing, your kids are moving out, your parents maybe aren't doing as well. Your job might be right now, we don't your job might be question mark, right? Right. Who knows? There's a lot, a lot of things that are happening, and these these things create grief because they are mini losses. And anytime that we experience beat grief, especially

Hypnosis For Menopause Basics

Sarah Rubens 30:00

ambiguous grief, a lot of people aren't even aware what they're experiencing as grief. It's going to, it's going to create some reactions in the body. It's going to create some reactions, beliefs about yourself, right? So in general, I think if one thing people are taking away from this, hypnosis can help to to rewire those those beliefs that come up and make that transition uh smoother because you're learning to see, you know, see things differently, right? Maybe instead of um my body is like, my body's revolting against me, it's like, wow, my body is supporting me and it's it's evolving in the way that it's knows how to do without me even trying. How amazing is that? How amazing is the body, right? So it's again shifting some of our relationships to those things.

Cheryl Fischer 30:48

Really, really interesting. And this is something I talk to and coach people on all the time and deal with myself. There's, as you said, so many changes happening right now. And a lot of it does feel like loss. Some of it is true loss, but some of it simply feels like loss because it's change. So that's fascinating. I don't think I would have thought to go to hypnosis for finding a way to move through some of that.

Sarah Rubens 31:13

Right. One of my favorite grief teachers, her name is Megan Riordan Drivis. She's actually based in the DMV area. Um, she she's been a trauma and grief therapist for like 20 years or more. And she she has a really nice definition of loss that I think is so important for people to know. Loss is literally anything that is less than it was before. So a job, losing a job,

Hot Flashes And Temperature Control

Sarah Rubens 31:41

right? Changing identity shift, it's it's anything that changes from one thing to another. And grief is the body's response to that loss. So it's really, and when you start thinking about it that way, you're like, oh my gosh, look at all these things that are creating grief responses in my body.

Cheryl Fischer 31:57

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And we know the usual cycle of grief where you have anger, you have sadness, I'm not gonna get it right, you know, to not in the right order, I mean, but then you have denial, all those things. We know that, but we don't know what to do about it, to your point.

Sarah Rubens 32:16

Right. Yeah. I'm I'm gonna do one little debunking here because that's one of my soapboxes. The the five stages of grief are actually widely misinterpreted. Um, it was research done by uh David Kessler and um Elizabeth Kubel-Ross about the five stages of grief when you're dying. So, like when you found out you have a terminal illness, which makes sense. You go through that's not grief. Grief is like a whole range of experiences and emotions and bodily sensations and things happening in your brain and responses to what's going on. So thanks for letting me be out my little soapbox. Just knowing that grief is a full body and mind experience that that is far surpasses the five stages.

Cheryl Fischer 33:00

That is an extra tidbit for us for sure. That yeah. Maybe that's even a whole nother conversation. Wow. First or something. Okay. So tell me if somebody's kind of thinking about hypnosis, hypnotherapy, they're wondering what are what's kind of one or two of the common questions you might get from people when they're considering doing this or the common like worries or concerns.

Sarah Rubens 33:25

Yeah. I think I get a lot of how do I know it's working, or what what if it doesn't work? And by it, most people mean can I be hypnotized, right? So I think the thing I always bring it back to is the education piece, right? Hip and we've talked about today. Hypnosis is a skill. Any skill can be developed. If you have a desire to be hypnotized, you can be. And the more you practice it, the better you'll get at it. And then I often will share, I think I we even did this all the different kinds of hypnosis. So I'll give you just a brief list. So if you're considering hypnosis, you kind of know what to expect. You might have your you might have an eyelid flutter, um,

Guided Cooling Imagery Demo

Sarah Rubens 34:10

increased lacrymation, so watering in your eyes. Um, you might feel muscle relaxation in your body, uh, a desire to not move, time distortion, things feel a lot longer, shorter than they are. Um, any sort of salivation, this is an interesting one. If your mouth, if you're salivating, it means that you're in rest and digest because your digestive system's working, right? It means you're in a relaxed state. Um, and then yeah, any sort of um time dis or dreamlike imagery, right? Like getting images, being in that space and increased internal focus, right? So there's more signs, but those are some of the more common ones.

Cheryl Fischer 34:53

Yeah.

Sarah Rubens 34:53

Um, and it's good to know that because then when it happens, you're like, oh, I'm hypnotized.

Cheryl Fischer 34:59

Well, and I will say from personal experience that when you told me that list, I I realized, yes, one of my eyelids was fluttering. And I thought maybe that meant I wasn't hypnotized. And yes, I kept wanting to swallow. And I thought maybe that meant I wasn't hypnotized. But as it turns out, those are signs that I probably was. So very interesting.

Sarah Rubens 35:21

Yes, I love that. And then a second one is I'm gonna be under control of the hypnotherapist. You're gonna control my mind. Again, thanks, Hollywood. Uh so what I'll what I always say with that is you're never going to do anything you don't want to do in hypnosis. Um, you are, as you experience, right, your body's relaxed, and maybe your conscious mind's taking a step back, but you're still, there's still a level of awareness that you have. And when and if your conscious mind feels threatened, uncomfortable, it's going to step back in and it's going to say, Nope, I'm not going to talk about that. We're not going to do that, right? Uh, so we even learned in in school about an interesting study they did in one, I'm sure like the CIA or some government agency back, I'm sure before the ethics of studies were allowed. Um, they were doing studies on, I believe it was like terrorists they had trying to use hypnosis to get them to admit their secrets. Nobody did because they they were feeling threatened, right? So the way that I explain it is that hypnosis isn't about losing control to somebody else. It's about learning how to better control your own mind and body.

Cheryl Fischer 36:34

Oh, I like that. Yeah. I like that a lot. Okay. Well, if you're listening, hopefully that means that some of your concerns are assuaged. It could work. It could work for you. Okay, Sarah, tell our listeners how they might find you and connect with you.

Sarah Rubens 36:55

Yeah. So you can find me on my website, tree

Calming The Pain Fear Tension Cycle

Sarah Rubens 36:58

starhypnosis.com, tree like a tree, star like a star in the sky, hypnosis. You can also find me on Instagram at tree star hypnosis. Um, and always feel free to you can reach out to me through my website. I offer free one-on-one consultations with anybody who's interested in hypnosis. And I also, this this next year, I'm going to be doing a lot more workshops, hypnosis workshops, and group experiences, both virtually and in person. So if you pop over to my website, there's going to be a little space for upcoming events or slash join my email list to you to see what's coming.

Cheryl Fischer 37:38

Yeah, I love it. And you do these uh hypnosis sessions virtually. So that means people can be located anywhere, right? Yeah. I've had clients literally from all over the world. Italy, California. Love it. Everywhere. Yes. Okay, perfect. All right. So then the last question I always ask because I I do this and I know everybody does this. People are listening, they're, you know, doing the laundry or they're doing the dishes, and they're not going to remember everything that we talked about. Maybe. What's the one thing that you really want someone to leave with today and really remember at a minimum from this episode?

Sarah Rubens 38:20

Yeah, that's a great question. I think the the number one thing is you are not powerless in transition, any transition. Yeah, midlife, especially

Insomnia And Sleep Identity

Sarah Rubens 38:31

again, it can make you feel like you're out of control, like things are changing, you're not ready. But one thing that hypnosis does is remind you that you still have influence, right? You still have autonomy and agency. One, about the way that you perceive what you're going through, and two, even about the state that your body's in. And it doesn't have to be complicated. It can really just be if you're having a hard day, just slowing down and taking three deep breaths. And just in doing that, you're having agency over your body by shifting your nervous system into a more relaxed state.

Cheryl Fischer 39:10

Yeah. And then we can think better and we can digest better and we can have less inflammation and all the things. I love it. And your body's your friend.

Sarah Rubens 39:20

You can work with it. You don't have to work against it.

Cheryl Fischer 39:22

Love it. Love it. Love it. So appropriate for this time of life as well. Yes. Okay. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for joining me. I know people are going to find this to be really interesting. You're very welcome. Thanks for having me. Okay, if that was an empowering, I don't know what is, you have agency during this period of massive change. And you know, I always say we need to take just a little bit better care of ourselves. And it makes such a difference. And so I'm going to add that on to Sarah's one thing as well. Now the episodes that I'm going to link in the show notes, in episode Episode 36, I was talking hot flashes with Dee Davidson. You'll want to listen to that one. And then way back when, when this podcast was called OMG Teach Me, season one is how it's labeled in the app, in episode 47, I talked to another hypnotherapist. And so if you're getting very curious and interested, have a listen to that one as well. I had a great experience with Sara. It was easy. Apparently, I was hypnotized because when she explained to me some of the signs that we might experience while hypnotized, yep, had those signs. And yet, as she says, I still knew what was going on. It wasn't something scary. It wasn't something that I was going to forget. It wasn't something where I was going to be led down a path I didn't want to go. So I would encourage you to check out the book she mentioned, check out Sarah's website, Tree Star Hypnosis, and find out more. See if

Midlife Identity And Grief

Cheryl Fischer 41:01

it's a fit for you. And since we're talking menopause on this episode, I have a fun little quiz for you because laughter is also a powerful thing. Go to CherylPFisher.com slash menopause quiz and take my little quiz. It won't take you very long. It will make you chuckle and find out are you in the throes of mega menopause or is it just a little bit of midlife stuff going on that you're dealing with at this point? And maybe that'll help give you some direction as to what comes next as well. And keep remembering midlife is your time to take just a little bit better care of yourself on the inside and on the outside. Just a little bit better care makes a huge difference.