Exploring Hypnotherapy: A Path Beyond Health Anxiety with Steve Woods

In this episode, I introduce a conversation for anyone struggling with health anxiety as I sit down with hypnotherapist Steve Woods to explore how hypnosis can support anxiety recovery.

Steve shares how he got into hypnosis and explains it as a natural state of high focus that we all experience. He reassures us that most people can be hypnotised, and that stray thoughts or distractions don’t stop the process from working.

We dive into the role of the subconscious mind, particularly how its core function is protection, which can sometimes misfire and trigger unnecessary fight-or-flight responses. This is especially relevant in health anxiety, where focusing on symptoms or turning to “Dr Google” can amplify fear.

Steve explains how hypnotherapy works by bypassing conscious doubt and creating new, emotionally grounded patterns, often focusing on the future rather than revisiting the past. We also touch on how hypnosis can support pain reduction when used appropriately.

One of the key takeaways is that you don’t have to fully “believe” in hypnosis for it to work, but you do need to want change. Steve shares that many clients see measurable progress within 3–4 sessions and learn anchoring techniques to maintain that progress.

You can find Steve by searching “Steve Woods hypnotist” or on Instagram @SteveHypnosis.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Welcome to Healing Beyond Health Anxiety, the podcast for anyone who feels stuck in fear, disconnected from their body, or exhausted from constantly monitoring symptoms and sensations. My name is Amy. I'm an ex-health anxiety sufferer and health anxiety coach. After my own health diagnosis, I'm years of living with health anxiety. I know what it's like to feel betrayed by your body, to live on high alert, and to struggle to trust yourself again. Each week we'll have honest conversations about health anxiety, fear, symptoms, and recovery with practical tools and gentle shifts that will help you move forward without pressure. So take a breath, you're in the right place. Let's go. Hello and welcome back to my podcast. Thank you so much for being here. So in this episode, I will be talking to Steve Woods, who is a hypnotherapist. This is a recording that I made a little while ago now, but I wanted to share it with you within my podcast because I think it's so super important. Many people clutch at stores before tackling health anxiety at its core. And I myself tried hypnotherapy back in the day when I was really stuck. And it certainly can help you. It's certainly a really good tool to try. So in this episode, hopefully you'll be able to understand the benefits of hypnotherapy and how this can help you and your anxiety journey. Hi, Steve. Thank you so much for being here. I have been hypnotised a couple of times. It was a great experience. So tell us more.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Certainly, well, thanks for thanks for inviting me along. I think it's a pleasure to be here. So yeah, I mean, I'm I'm Steve Woods, and I am a hypnotist. I suppose the biggest the main question I get asked is how on earth do you get into hypnosis? And and I usually joke and say, well, it's something I wanted to do when I was at school, but that's not really true. So um I think as most people who get into doing some sort of therapy, it's because there's been a connection, an impact in that, that, that, that world of therapeutic side of things. And for me, it was seeing a stage hypnotist probably about 35 years ago now. A group of us were in retail, and uh we saw a stage hypnotist and we bought some uh some self-hypnosis tapes off of off of a guy. And I've never been able to find out who he was because it was one of the things you sort of did at the time and then went off, and it's it's a long before there was many digital records, but um, yeah, it was in Doncaster in the mid-80s, it would have been in actual fact. So um so saw the stage hypnotists got some got some tapes which would be called resilience now, really. It was sort of get up and go or something like that, and it made a difference. And um, I'd got some books, I studied a few different sides of things, didn't do any more than other than playing around with it until nearly 20 years ago now, and then made the decision one Friday to um to do it properly and by the Sunday. Yeah, one Friday afternoon. I think I was it wasn't particularly in a good place in the day job at that point, and thought, I know I should do this, do this hypnosis thing a bit more seriously. And uh yeah, spent a few thousand pounds enrolled on a course by the Sunday. I I was ready to go and uh and went down to to Devon for uh for a couple of weeks residential down there a few months later, uh, and started that journey from there. I only took it full-time seven years ago now. Um, and my journey has been very much therapeutic, more recently, more about helping people perform better, which still includes therapy, really, but it's it's a little bit more future-paced, uh, a lot of sports work and business work and things like that that than I do now.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Okay, amazing. That sounds like such a like a that that moment you decide on on a Friday that enough's enough, this is your calling in life, and you you need to go down that path. That sounds like a great Friday to make that decision and to change your life around. So, with hypnotherapy, then because I say I have had it a couple of times, and for me, I went very deep within myself and uncovered things that I hadn't thought about in a long time. So, are there different levels of hypnotherapy or how how does it work? How do you get to that point?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting. So I suppose it's it's worth saying, first of all, that that I believe everybody can be hypnotized. Some people take longer than others, but I believe everyone can get into that state. Um, some trainings though do promote the fact that some people are are are not hypnotizable. The claim is there's about 5% of the population are senambolists, they're sleepwalkers, and they'll go into hypnosis really quickly, really easily, even if they've never done it before. So I believe everybody can, but I think it's one of those things you need to learn. And some people, yeah, go really deep into it. But actually, hypnosis to me is uh is a focus, it's a really high focus of of whatever it is that you're working on. And that might be that really your spiritual experience, it might be just able to quieten the mind and go in into your mind, into yourself, and actually uh look at things that maybe you're looking to change or to release, or it could be visualizing what success looks like and feels like and getting all of those sensors firing, which is where I suppose come into it more on the performance side, taking somebody from where they are now and going, right, where do you want to be? What does it look like? What does it feel like, taste like, smell like? But it is, yeah, it is the level of focus. People definitely get better at being hypnotized the more they do it as well. Okay. But but some people do absolutely go whoosh in in my old mentors' words, they go like a sack of spuds, whatever that means.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

So some people just are naturally easier to do, other people just take a bit more time. Because I guess it's that part of your mind where you you sort of struggle to switch off in a way, or you know, you're thinking about what you're having for dinner, or you know, there's these thoughts that keep popping in. So it so are some people, I guess, more natural not to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Well, actually, it's okay for people to do that. And I think that's something I've learned over the years that it's not fragile, it's not a fragile process. And I get quite a lot of people coming to me because I specialise a lot with golf, people have often tried to do hypnosis for their for that sport, for golf or something else, and they've not had very good results for whatever reason. So I get quite a lot. I probably get, I don't know, I probably get a third of the clients that come to me have have tried to do it elsewhere. And I I describe it to them and say, well, actually, it's okay to have those thoughts. It's okay. I mean, they've just finished, they're resurfacing the road outside. So if I was doing some hypnosis today, I was doing some this morning, and I said, Yeah, you may well be aware of those sounds. That's okay. It's okay to have those stray thoughts, it's okay to fidget and move around. And as long as you know that, actually, you're not sitting there questioning it. Because otherwise, you are sitting there going, Why am I thinking about what I'm having for my tea? Why am I thinking about it? That's it.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

It's so hard not to do it, isn't it? That's that's one thing I did find.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah, but it's okay to do that. Okay, but but yeah, if you sit there thinking, oh, I can't be hypnotized because I'm thinking about those things, then actually you won't get any results because you're, as far as you're concerned, you're not hypnotized, even though you might be. You might be in that wonderful state, you might be in that high-focus, subconscious part of your mind. Um, but if you believe you're not, why would you get any results? So, so yeah, the it's it's it's complex, but I think it can also be viewed very simply and say, that's okay. You can hypnotize standing up, but most people are probably feeling a bit cheated. If I said, Okay, we're gonna do all this stuff, now stand up, I'm gonna hypnotize you. Yeah, even though I know that can be. We don't expect that. We expect that nice, relaxed feeling.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Yeah, but I have seen it where you know they can literally just do a couple of things and that's it. You're you're under whatever it is, click your fingers.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Yes, it's usually pre-prepared, it's not quite that easy to walk up to somebody and do that.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

But yeah, once you're worrying about it, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Okay. So so it is, I guess, down to the power of your mind, isn't it? When you you know you have to fully invest in this stuff and you have to believe in it. Otherwise, you're not really gonna go very far. And I guess that's where I see the correlation with health anxiety. You know, if you don't believe in your body's capabilities in a good way, um, then it's very difficult to move any further along. You know, if you're constantly thinking about that negative, then and that where are you going to end up? You're gonna go back to that negative point. Um, so so our minds are so so massively powerful. Um, and it and it's learning how to how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

And we're not we're not taught anything, are we? We're never taught that actually we can change our mind. We just you know, we we I think in a way we're just taught, you know, this is the way we think, this is the way we feel, and that's our lot in life.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Yeah, absolutely. But to stop and question it and go, actually, is there more? Is that you know that there's so much more capability within us that we don't use that we're we're not even aware of?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Absolutely. People use hypnosis. Um, I've I've not done that with myself with anybody, but people use hypnosis to to have surgery now. If they're maybe allergic to an anesthetic, people are actually completely anaesthetized or local anesthetic. Friend of mine does his own um dental hypnosis when he goes out of dental work, much to the amusement of his dentist, I think the first time. But um, yeah, there's um glove anesthesia, so you can you can have a hypnotic suggestion uh put in in hypnosis where when I do this thing, when I activate my glove anesthesia, I can rub my finger around my gum and it will numb my gum and I can have the dental work. So I mean it's pretty impressive stuff when you start to get into things like that.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Wow, that just makes you wince just thinking about it, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 10:24

I've never done that. I've no I've I've done um I have done pain relief work for people where we've taken away unnecessary pain. You've got to be a bit careful with pain because there if there's a reason for it to be there, you don't want to switch it off. And my first experience was somebody had got some damage at the top of their spine and their neck. And if we'd have completely numbed all of that, they could have moved around freely and probably done some more damage. So it was giving them a control to go, let's turn it down, turn turn down the unnecessary, because we focus on it. You know, if somebody said to me, Oh, you know, Steve, you've got a bad knee, you know, and I can't, you're not gonna be able to do this, and you're not gonna be able to do that, then that draws all my attention to it. And it's it's difficult to measure. I read somewhere where they talked about we make it 80% worse. I think 80-20 comes into so many things in life, but that was a belief that by thinking about something and focusing on it, we make it 80% worse than it actually really is. So we can get rid of that 80% in in hypnosis.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Yeah, that's very powerful, isn't it? Just by just by thinking about it, that's that's pretty incredible thinking, isn't it, really? Um I think that's something to be to be mindful of with with health anxiety is we know that what we have to get the all clear before we do anything else. We have to double check that you know we don't have anything underlying. So that's where we go and get the reassurance from the medical profession. And once we know that, then we're able to say, well, it is anxiety. And at that point, things like hypnotherapy, once we know um whatever this thing is that we're worried about is is caused by our minds, something like hypnotherapy is really good for us. So it's so any pain that we have, we know is it's you know it's up here. So that's that that's that line. I think as a health anxiety sufferer, you always worry, like, what is if I'm ignoring something that is is actually something that needs addressing. But once you've done that and once you've had that reassurance, then somebody like you can come in and really take away, you know, that pain, that thing that's been holding you back, which is which is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, it is. I mean, so I mean, you know, thinking about health anxiety, and it's worth it's worth saying, and I know we've got maybe got some questions answered a bit later, but it it's worth saying, and this probably covers one of those, but that our mind's main job is to protect us. It's got two jobs. The the subconscious mind, that inner part of the mind is the bit that I'm interested in as a hypnotist. That's the automator bit, the creative bit, but its main job is to protect us. It's that part of your mind when you, if you walk along the road and you walk along the path and you you're you're on your phone, walk along the sidewalk from the states with the with a phone in our hands. We go to step out on the road and we hear a car horn. We don't generally look around, we don't sort of stay on the edge on the edge of the road and look around for oh, is that is that car making a sound at me? Do I need to move? It's an instantaneous stepping back, and then worry about it. And that's and that's the subconscious mind's job. But the belief is the belief from psychology is that it protects us in um a way as if something's going to eat us. So even humiliation, embarrassment, even those thoughts, even the threat of that, you know, the possibility might be we see a video of somebody doing something, embarrassing situation, and then a few days later, or even months later, we find ourselves in a similar situation. Our subconscious mind running these protection scenarios all the time goes, Oh, no, don't want to be here. This is dangerous, this is going to eat us, even though it isn't, and creates the fight or flight response, creates that that anxiety. Yeah, the the adrenaline starts pumping, the digestive system stops because it wants to run away. And it might be a situation that you want to go through, it might be something actually that you want to enjoy. In the case of a sports person, it might be that competition, um, but it could be anything in life. And we don't know why we suddenly get that feeling because we don't remember that video, we don't remember that scenario or seeing something happen to somebody else. So it creates that anxiety, creates that feeling. We usually battle through it and come out the other side and we're fine, but then it happens again and again because we go back into those situations. And there was um an example I I read about where somebody got severe anxiety, and I know it's not health related, but it but it shows the power of this uh going to the supermarket. They couldn't go to the supermarket, they couldn't even drive in the car park eventually. And I'm not big on therapies having to go back and look at initial sensitizing events because if something's put that there, we can put something else in there to deal with it, to replace it with the other side of the mind, which is the pleasure side. But this particular therapist went back and looked at it, and this particular person uh the original event was they were in the queue at the supermarket waiting to pay, and their inner mind heard a phrase or a uh a tone of voice or even a sound, you know, a voice that took them back to an embarrassing situation at school, a humiliating situation at school. But they didn't know that, they didn't register, it was just a little thing in the background that then gave them that horrible feeling at the till, oh my goodness, what you know, paid, walked out, fine. Next time, of course, now we're approaching the till, we're approaching the queue. That feeling comes back because the subconscious mind is going last time we were here, there was that threat to that threat to life. Uh, and then it gets to the point, well, if you're still going to try and go there, let's bring that even earlier. So now we're at the doors, and that feeling starts. Now we're at the entrance to the car park, and that feeling starts over time. So we don't know what caused it in the first place. But it can then be the same with the health side of it that that something has happened, we've read something, and we do, don't we? Unfortunately, we if Dr. Google comes involved because we've got something wrong with us, and we read all these things, so then we're looking for them. And and if the mind is powerful enough to completely anaesthetize somebody or to numb a whole area of a body while I'm having some surgery or some dental work, then how destructive can it be? How much can it focus on that negative side as well? And that's that's where you've got to look at it. But the good news is we can change it, we can change it and give the mind better things to do. And I'm biased because I'm a hypnotist, and there are you know there are lots of other ways of doing this, but it the hardest part is having to do this in a conscious level. So it takes the belief is anything between 28 and 45 days to get some get a new habit embedded. So it's actually force yourself to think differently and to make that new thought a hit uh a um habit can take an awful long time to do and a lot of effort. So as a hypnotist, you get to the subconscious, now it becomes much easier because we're free from that doubting part of the mind. If I said just close your eyes and imagine yourself not having that health anxiety, understandably, the conscious part of the mind will go, What a load of rubbish! How could that ever work? And it will never let it get past its own filter.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

But once we relax that out of the way, then the subconscious will generally accept whatever gets to it within reason. Tell the subconscious then to go, actually, let's start to think differently about this. Let's look at you know the reason why you're doing what you're doing and give you something better to do. And the changes start to happen quite quickly. And and meditation, lots of talking therapies will do it as well. The key, though, certainly from my point of view, is to create a good emotion because it's the emotions that start to get access to the subconscious. Often our earliest memories are times when we're emotional, unfortunately, usually a negative emotion, you know, it's that that embeds it. But by getting a positive emotion going, getting some some emotions going in in a positive way, we'll give a pathway to the subconscious. So there are other ways of doing it, but you've got to get past that bit that's going, you're going to do what? I'm just I'm just going to pretend that I don't I don't feel as bad and I'll be fine. That's the hardest bit.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

That's the battle, isn't it, between you know what you what you want to believe and what you're you're you're feeling that you're forced to believe because it's it's the way you've always done it. Um and it's that constant battle. You know, we all know, we all know the the reality, and actually, you know, when we worry about these things, that actually it's probably nothing, it's probably this, that, or the other. But but then we have this little niggle on our shoulder that says, what if, what if it's this, and it's so easy to listen to that voice as opposed to the other voice, you know, it's so easy to listen. That's that almost shouts louder, doesn't it? It's there shouting, whereas the other voice is sort of whispering, and it's like, Where which which do you go to? You're gonna go to one that shouts. Um, but if you make the whisper, if you tune into the whispers and like gradually listen, listen, listen, they do get louder. Um, but you've really got to watch out for them, you know, the otherwise you're just gonna get lost and you know, you're not gonna pay attention.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Again, it's that it's that mind doing its job. And I think that's the you know, at a conscious level, the most probably the but the best lesson to learn is that actually it's doing what it should be doing. Because when you realize that, you can let it go to some degree, and you can then think about the other side of things, and you can realise that actually I can make things worse, but if I can make things worse by thinking about them, then actually I can make things better by thinking about them as well, and you're not you're not stuck in feeling that way. I I yeah, years ago, I don't know whether I should say this, but years ago when uh totally between you and I, isn't it? So um, so years and years ago, before I got into hypnosis, um, I wasn't in a particularly good job. I've probably not been very good employee anywhere, so I'm probably in the best place now to work for myself. But um, somebody said to me, they said, Oh, you know, you need to get have a week or two off, you know, go to the doctors, tell them you're stressed, get upset, and the doctor will sign you off. And I did that, and by the end of the first week, I actually felt stressed because I was living this story that I was telling people, you know. If I got any phone calls from work, I was describing how I felt and all this business. Um, and I you know it dawned on me that actually I was building that negative image because I was believing it, I was, I was living it. I was starting, we are the story that we tell ourselves is the thing we often hear. Um, so yeah, again, it's that it was that power of the mind to bring that about. And I thought, hang on, I've got to stop this because you know, I had suddenly dawned on me that that that it was it was happening to me. I was getting those stresses. Very easily done.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

So I mean, I remember you know being around a house full of of co people with COVID, and my family had COVID back in the day, and and actually thinking, oh, have I got a sore throat or have I got a cop? You know, so it's that because you're around it, you're you're looking out for it, you're you're waiting for it to crop up on you, you know, to bounce out. So the more you do that, the more you're going to find it, you know. Amazing. So these days, so your work involves helping all sorts of people achieve all sorts of things, using the power of their mind by by taking them back, tagging on some sort of positivity, some nice thought or emotion that they can then go right back and attribute that to. Is that how it works?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

It's I mean, most of it is future paced. So most of it is I'm not I was gonna say I'm not interested. That sounds a bit unfair, but in a way, I'm not interested in the initial event in in most cases, because there's no benefit to go back and relive it. There's no benefit to look at it. It's interesting, I get why people do it, but it takes a whole session. Somebody I spoke to somebody years ago and they said, Oh, you know, a friend, a friend of mine had it knows us to stop smoking. That was this conversation, and and you know by the tone of the voice what the next answer is going to be. And so, how did they get on? Oh, it didn't work, it didn't work, a load of rubbish. And and they talked about how this friend of theirs was taking. Back to the initial event that started them smoking. And it could be anything, it doesn't have to be smoking, it could have been anything, but this was for smoking. And they found themselves 11 years old in a lift in an elevator where their dad was kissing their auntie. And that was the traumatic event, which I think, okay, okay, that's going to be traumatic, but it was a traumatic event that started them smoking at that age. But then the whole session's gone, and it's like, okay, we'll see you next week. And they come out with that most, and they've probably forgotten that at a conscious level because the mind's tried to get blocked it, got rid of it. So I'm not big on that. You hear lots of horror stories of people having to go back to initial sensitization.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

There's a lot of things you can dig up when you go, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

And you can't change it, it's happened, but we accept that it's there, and let's give the mind something better to do. So, in the case of smoking, if we stick to that, it could be going back to visit the younger self and go, something's going to encourage you to smoke. Look at what happens now for the next 40 years after that, and let's do something different instead. You know, if it's if it's rebellion, let's go and dye your hair instead, or something else, because if you start this thing, and it sounds a bit weird, but then you only spend a few minutes there advising that younger self to do something different, and now we can move forward. But in the case of things like health anxiety, it's more about that learning how the subconscious works, learning about its protection, and then looking forward. Because, like I said, if I said to you, Oh, you imagine yourself without that health anxiety, imagine yourself where your mind is going to tell you if something needs to, if you need to know something, it will tell you because it will, it's very powerful, very effective. That you know, part of the mind. If I said that, it's gonna you're gonna go, that's a load of rubbish. But once you get into that subconscious part of the mind, it suddenly becomes really easy because you're free from that doubting self-critical bit to actually visualize and practice. And you see almost a light bulb, you see a smile come on somebody's face because they go, actually, I can I can think how it would be to not have that thing. I can think how how it would be to visualize success and visualize the achievement in things. So it's it all it all fits in with that performance thing, because even with some health things, yeah, say there's timeline therapies, there are parts therapies, there are all sorts of things within the the hypnosis world, within the therapeutic world that we can use. But most of it is actually what's it gonna look like to not have that thing? Yeah, what's it gonna look like to be able to get up in the morning and have a positive thought as that first thing of the day, to trust your mind and trust your body to let you know if there's something wrong and to not be scrolling on Dr Google every day and to how's it gonna feel to do those things or to not do that one, but how's it gonna feel to do that that success? And let's say consciously really hard to do, but in the subconscious, really easy to do.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

It's where the power is amazing. Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing, you have to, you know, I'm a fond believer in manifestation because we can make them happen, things like that. So visualization, all those things, like you know, actually picturing it like almost like it's there in front of you, um, has so many benefits, so much power involved. And and and people are still in the mindset of, you know, oh, this is a bit very fairy, or you know, whatever, you know, it's because it's not the way we we've been, you know, brought up or led to believe that you know we live a very sort of black and white life, don't we? We're told a certain thing, learn lemonade this in school. It's not something they teach us, but actually massively powerful if if we can master it, if you can have that within your life. You know, they should. I really wish they would start to teach our children more of this stuff because this is where you know, if if we're suffering from stress and anxiety, stuff like this is really helpful. Things like this can massively help you, but unfortunately, we're we're not there. I don't know if we ever will get there. Um, but yeah, it's it's a really interesting train of thought.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

I mean, it'd be it'd be amazing if we got there, we would absolutely think it's getting better. The word hypnosis scares some people off. I get that, and sometimes we have to try and think about things in a different way, but yeah, it's it's visualizing, it's practicing, it's it's like learning anything. If you want to learn a language or something, you've got to practice it. If you want to learn to play golf, you've got to practice, practice, practice. So it's only it's only the same, it's just teaching your mind to do something in a different way, and your body will respond. Because at the moment, particularly if it's an anxiety, you're in fight or flight. And if you're spending all your time in fight or flight, you're not sleeping very well, your digestive system's not working. So already we've got issues, things like IBS and things can come about as a result of that. So we need to shift that, we need to turn that around quite quickly because you'll start to feel better. Just getting a good sleep, you'll start to feel better from it as well. Um, because we can just change the way that you think. But but I think as well, it's so it's important to accept in thinking of sleep, sometimes you'll get a bad sleep. It's it's okay for that to happen every so often. Uh, because of course we start to try and measure it, don't we? And we've got these these things on our wrists that go.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Which are horrific, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah, see, I thought, oh dear, you had a terrible sleep last night. Well, suddenly my day falls apart because I actually thought I slept all right and I felt up woke up feeling okay, but actually, my external device is telling me that I didn't. And and you know, I get they've got their uses absolutely, and I do look at my sleep as well, but it can have, if you let it, that negative effect on it. And then you start worrying about it because now I'm going, oh you know, I'm going to bed, I've got my watch set up, and I've charged it up, and I've done all these things. So, yeah, it's it's if it was a magic wand, it would be great. There isn't, there is a bit of work to do. You mentioned before about believing, and I was there's something I was going to say about that, just come back to me. You don't necessarily have to believe in hypnosis to get the results. You've got to want the change. A hypnotist, any any hypnotist, no matter what they tell you, they can't make you do something against your will. It looks like that on stage, a stage hypnotist is looks as though it's controlling people, but actually, those people up there are doing the things they want to do. They want to be, you know, exhibitionists, they want to be showy, they want to do those things. So somebody's going to want to make the change. But some of my one particular client always comes to my mind, uh, an anger management client I worked with, who literally said, Don't believe in this, but I've got to do something. I'm going to end up getting arrested. And he's he'd been in the street fighting with his brother. There've been all sorts of things going off. His wife was about to leave him. It was a really, really bad situation. Um, but he was like, he literally said, Don't believe in it, but I've got to do something. So do you want do you want to feel different? Yes, I do. That's all I need. And he did amazingly well from first session onwards, did really, really well. Um, so yeah, you don't have to believe in it, but you've got to want to change and you've got to be able to follow the instructions. And I think that's probably the hardest thing around anxieties of any sort, because it you get so used to being a certain way that actually it's quite scary to think what's it going to be like when I'm not like that. And that's the hardest thing, and probably one of my frustrations. I've been having a conversation with somebody over the last few weeks, and I know I can help them, but they're scared of the change because they've got so used to this thing being a certain way.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

It's a comfort, it becomes a comfort blanket, definitely. And often we find if anxiety isn't there, well that where is it? We're like looking for it.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Like, I'm not gonna write today, what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Um, so yeah, it becomes that what we know, it makes us feel happy, or not happy, but safe.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Yeah, and and it's that fear of it coming back, is this too good to be true as well? And I get that, I understand that as well, which is why when I work with somebody, I normally work over the course of a few sessions because we're really embedding that in and putting in some anchors to make sure that actually it doesn't wear off. And and when it's delivered properly, hypnosis hypnotherapy, when it's delivered properly, and we've put some good anchors in there, and those anchors can be something really simple. It can be every time I take a drink of tea, I'm gonna get that euphoria back, I'm gonna get that great feeling of freedom back. Oh, yeah, pick up the teacup and it will come back. Yeah, but but yeah, it's just a little something that you're always going to do every time I clean my teeth. Great, clean your teeth twice a day, hopefully you do. Then we use that as the anchor because that then means it doesn't wear off, it stays with you then.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

With you for life. That's it. Once you've learnt that habit, that pattern, that's it. You're assuming every time you do that, it's with you. So, how many sessions typically, you know, for somebody with health anxiety? Obviously, there's different spectrums and and levels. Um, but generally, how many sessions would you sort of recommend, you know, if someone was new to this, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Yeah, no, it's a good question. Um, three or four normally, depending on what we're working on. Um, either a package of three, package of four sessions for therapeutic work, um, sometimes a bit more when it's when it's um, yeah, if we're linking other things in there, because of course there's often other things. We might need to do some work on sleep, we might need to then do some work on the health anxiety, and it's just finding those quick wins, but generally three to four sessions with results from session one, because I want people to come back and go, that's working, that isn't. Okay, let's go after what isn't, let's get that sorted out. Um, rather than it be trying to do a white when I first started out, I was you know, got an ego and all these other things. It's like, oh yeah, one session wonder, you only need to come to me for one session. But I knew that people weren't quite getting everything. They were getting stuck, yeah, they're getting things happening, which was great, and they were getting some results. But often when you could bring one priority down, there are other things, underlying things that we need to address as well, and bring those down. So it's then getting that full package of success.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Fast. And and you know, and this is so ingrained in us, it's happened over such a long period of time. It's gonna take time to sort all of those little pieces of the gypsal cuts around, I guess, you know, to pitch it all together. Um, it's gonna take a little while. Amazing. So I think we have a couple of questions from the community. So the first one is um I have been told that what you think is what you create, um, which is not a great thing to say to a health anxiety sufferer. And they're constantly telling themselves that they have cancer because that is what they are thinking. So, how can they switch their mindset um to stop themselves from coming back to that sort of worst case scenario?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Um, of course, I'm going to say they need some hypnosis because then we can get to that subconscious part of the mind and change that way of thinking. But at a conscious level, it comes back to what we were saying before, it accepting the subconscious is doing its job will start to alleviate a lot of that. To rather than it be, actually, I'm drawing on my attention to that thing, they're not to go, I know that you're doing your job. I know that, you know, because when when if we're surrounded by those sorts of things, if we if some people work in that the environment where they're caring for people who are terminally ill and or in any way, of course your mind's going to think about it, it's going to be thinking about it all the time and watching out for those things. But by realizing it, by noticing it, then that will start to alleviate things. And and don't think of it as a big mountain to climb. Just think of little things, just think of those little positive things. In the case of health anxiety, it would be picking up on where the good health is, and and using that to get a good feeling will start again to replace the bad feeling. But I think, yeah, the realization that it's actually okay for that to happen. Yes, we want something else to happen, but but thank you very much for protecting me. Almost having that conversation, yeah. Thank you very much for protecting me. There's yeah, there are uh I mentioned about parts therapy. Parts therapy is where as a hypnotist and and and other therapies use parts as well, but we we talk about ourselves in parts, you know. Wish I could go and do that thing, but part of me is frightened, part of me is anxious, part of me, you know, wish I could lose some weight, but part of me loves cream cakes. It's so we often think of ourselves in parts. So it's being able to look at that part and go, thank you very much. I know you're doing your job, but you're probably doing it a bit too well at the moment because actually these things are very unlikely to happen to me. Let me know if there's something important to notice, but now let's give you something better to do. Let's think about actually the good things, all the good health that's going on around me.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

And obviously, yeah, and nutrition and all these other things, of course, come into it. Because again, that can create a good feeling. Okay, let's put some good stuff in there, some good food in there. Um, because and and let's let's go to that part of your mind and go, actually, here's some nice things, here's some things that will help you do your job in a better way. You can you can you know work on areas that you that you need to protect me on, and with less focus on that. So it's yeah, it's and that's the sort of thing we do in hypnosis, but you can do it even at a conscious level. But it's it's looking for emotions.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Yes, um, thanking your brain, thank you, thank you for you know protecting me to give me that that mindset, you know, to let me look at that outlook. Um, actually, it's really not very helpful um in the long term, but yeah, thank you for trying to protect me. And now here's the reality the reality is this. So it's like we it's like reframing it, giving it a different label.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

But but being reassured that your mind will tell you if you do need to know something.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Because again, otherwise you then like you said near the beginning, you know, you are you then worrying that your mind's that you don't know if there's something wrong. Because there may be. And so, okay, let's be realistic, let's look at this in a reassuring way. Um, yeah, I did have I I I worked to some day, I I'd do a thing, I used to do a little group sessions a few years ago now, where I'd use like a healing light. So there'd be a group of people, and I'd like to get them all to visualize a healing light moving around them. And at one of the sessions, I said, You can either focus on an area and it's got a bad shoulder, let that healing light might work on there, feel the warmth, feel the energy, feel the energizing, repairing and replacing cells, all those sorts of words. And I think at one point I said something about you might notice if your mind needs it to, it will hover over a certain area. And somebody came up to the end and said, I kept finding the light was going back to a certain point in my my body, and I said, Well, it's worth getting it looked at. And and they did, and there was something wrong, and and they got it fixed. It wasn't a massive thing, but their mind knew they didn't know, they'd have no symptoms. So, you know, it's you can trust your mind to tell you if it needs to, once you've got rid of that that anxious feeling, of course, because then you've got that clarity, you've got that relaxed mind.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Absolutely, yeah. And that's the hard part, isn't it? Knowing, knowing the difference, knowing how to spot the difference between those two. That's often what causes the problem. But amazing, yeah. Thank you for that. I really, I really do like that, the answer to that, because it just gives us that, you know, takes the control back a bit and just says to us, you know, thank you, thank you for doing that. Not helpful, but let's let's look at this other other aspect. And there was another question as well, just while we are here. So, how do you know if hypnotherapy is working for you?

SPEAKER_01 37:11

That's a good question. I yeah, and I put that one and I thought, how can you how couldn't you do that? But I suppose I'm always looking for measurables when I'm working with people as much as possible. And sometimes you can't, sometimes there isn't a measurable. But if you dig deep enough, there could be. It could be have you been out of the house today compared to yesterday? It could be, you know, um, have you been able to eat certain things maybe? So so I'm looking for things that that are measurables so that way you know that something's happening, you know that something's changing. But one thing to keep in mind with hypnosis hypnotherapy is, and I I can't remember where I read this, so I can't give them credit for it, but somebody described it as the most, let me get this right way around, the most underwhelming therapy with overwhelming resource. Because it feels normal to do things differently. Yeah, so that's that can make it quite hard to measure sometimes. It can be the smoker that feels as though they've never been a smoker. They know they have, but it feels as though I've never smoked. I've got no urge to pick up a cigarette, I've got no urge. It can be you know the person who's not been able to go to the shops for that fear of their body reacting in a certain way, you know, needing the toilet or something like that, and they've just felt inspired to go to the shop and they've been to the shop and come back and they haven't thought any more often.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Yeah, they've always done it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Yeah, so it can be quite hard to measure. I I I worked with uh uh somebody years ago uh when I was doing home visits, I mean before COVID and before all these things came along, and it was on a phobia. She got a phobia of dogs and cats, and she was going to get married. She's had this phobia for I think it was it was about 15 years, something like that, just couldn't be near dogs or cats. And she was getting married, going to a country where lots of dogs and cats will roam around. Uh, so she was quite fearful of it, she couldn't go to the park and all these things. Um we did the first session. I went to the second session, and the first question is, how are you getting on? Oh, the weather's not been very good, so I've not really been out. Uh, nobody's been in with a guide dog or anything at work, so you've not had a chance to check it, really. And I said, Okay, so for nothing at all. And then she sort of thought you could see she was thinking, and she said, Oh, actually, I walked past somebody with a dog the other day in the subway under the road. And I said, Okay, I said, Would you have done that before? Oh no, no, I'd have turned around, I'd have run back, I'd have gone hidden in the shop where I could see them coming out. Once I knew they'd come out, I'd go again and it might happen again, and sometimes it might be three or four times. Okay, I said, Um, okay, great. I perfect. I said, but anything else? And she said, Oh, actually, I stroked a cat the other day, and I was like, Whoa, hang on a minute.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

Wow, yeah, huge pretty tell me more about that, you know, what happens.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

I said, Well, I went to friends' house and I was telling them what what I'd have done, the hypnosis, what we were doing, and their children just picked the one of the children's picked the cat up and put it on my knee, and I just sat there and stroked it. And I said, Well, would you have done that before? I said, Well, no, I've never been to the house before because they've got a cat.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

So it's but it, you know, and again, it's not relevant to the conversation, but it it's that example of it felt really normal for her to just be around dogs and cats. So it's it can be a difficult one to measure. I'm keen to always try and find a measurable one, and even to the point of, and some people some people sort of think this is probably not the right approach to have, but asking the question at the start of a session, how will you know this session's worked? What's going to be different between now and when we see each other in two weeks' time, so that you could say to me, that worked, that went really well. So I want to try and find the measurables. Some people argue that's sort of almost leading into doubt, but it isn't because it's going, what will work? What do you want to change? What do we need to focus on? Because as soon as we get those small wins, then the big wins come because the mind goes, Well, look what we did just from that first session.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Now let's now let's really get into it. Yeah, let's really get into it, let's really make some changes.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

Yeah, sometimes it's hard to see the progress, you know, because it is like you say, small steps, small step, small step. And actually, it's not to you take a step back and go, hang on a minute, I've got frustrated the cat, whatever it was. Like I've actually done that, but at the time, you know, it's it's the little things that don't look like a big, a big step.

unknown 41:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

And you know, we often find that with how things are doing. We're moving forward, like the smaller steps of progress are actually to me like massive things when I say, you know, why you've achieved that, but to somebody that's going through it, it just seems like the norm, you know. So it's all of these things can add in and become that bigger picture. And the more you do it, the more parts of that phobia feeling you tackle, the easier it is to move forward, move beyond it.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, incremental changes.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

Amazing. So if people would like to work with you, um, how can they get in touch with you? Um, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Okay, so I mean, if you Google Steve Woods Hypnotist, um, or I'm at Steve Hypnosis on most social media.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Okay, thank you very much, Steve. And um, yeah, I love chatting. Thank you. It's been really interesting. And uh, you know, I'm I'm open to being hypnotised at any other point. I've never said never again. I really enjoyed my time, and you know, it's it's it's amazing what what is available to us and the power, like we say, the power of our mind, what we can do and how we can utilize it to to bring us to those better places to you know give us that that that better outcome and look looking at things in a different way.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, thank you, thank you for uh having me on and uh yeah, it's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Thank you, Steve. Thank you.