Adam Cox: The Architecture of Change. How Stories within Stories Rewrite Your Reality

In this episode of AWAKEN with Ryan DeJonghe, Adam Cox dives deep into the "Architecture of Change," focusing on how he uses high-level hypnotic language to bypass the conscious mind. A signature of Adam’s approach is his use of Nested Loops, a technique he specifically refers to as "The Stack". By layering metaphors within metaphors, he creates a psychological environment where the "critical faculty" of the conscious mind is suspended, allowing for direct communication with the subconscious.

Key Discussion Points
The Stack (Nested Loops): Adam explains how he uses "The Stack" to bury therapeutic suggestions inside multiple layers of storytelling, ensuring they take root without conscious resistance.

Metaphorical Architecture: Discover why Adam treats a client’s psychology like a blueprint, using metaphors to "rebuild" the internal structures that govern wealth and confidence.

Bypassing the Critical Faculty: A look at how nested loops create a "trance-within-a-trance," making the hypnotic experience more profound and the changes more permanent.

The Language of Certainty: How the precision of Adam’s metaphors provides a "sense of knowing" that helps high-performers break through mental plateaus.

Strategic Storytelling: Why Adam uses specific, non-linear narratives to solve complex problems like phobias and "wealth ceilings".

Memorable Quotes
"When you use The Stack, the conscious mind gets lost in the stories, but the subconscious mind finds exactly what it needs."

"Metaphor is the native language of the subconscious; if you want to change the building, you have to change the blueprint."

Special Segment: Hypnotic Gift
At the end of this episode, Adam provides a guided hypnotic journey utilizing these nested loop techniques. This session is designed to help you "unplug" from old patterns and step into a new, more empowered reality.

(Note: Please listen only when you can safely close your eyes and fully engage with the process.)

Episode Timestamps
00:00:12 – Introduction of Adam Cox

00:08:34 – Explaining "The Stack": The power of nested loops

00:18:45 – Architecture of the Mind: Using metaphor as a blueprint

00:32:10 – Why the conscious mind needs to be "sidetracked" for real change

00:48:55 – Breaking wealth ceilings through subconscious storytelling

01:05:20 – Hypnotic Gift: The Nested Loop Success Session

01:21:40 – Final takeaways and Adam’s contact info

Connect with Adam Cox
Official Website: adamcox.co.uk

The Hypnotist Podcast: Over 1,000 sessions available for daily listening.

Connect with Ryan DeJonghe
Official Website: trancewell.help
Email: ryan@trancewell.help

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

People of how we came across. Uh, there's what is it, the world's largest hypnosis conference is Hypnothoughts Live. And I've seen a lot of your posts you'll be presenting there. And so that's where we go. So we just want to start a conversation. Uh so Adam, what got you into this? This whole hypnosis thing?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yeah, I I think I was a very shy teenager. Um, and and only later I realized that I um didn't feel good enough, which is quite a common belief when we're working with clients. And what really got me into hypnosis early, early on was a belief that I wasn't good enough and a desire to change that. So I was this nerdy, you know, kind of 12-year-old going into the library reading books on uh speed reading and mnemonics. And you know, I read an early book from Ormond McGill on stage hypnosis, and you know, I I had a belief that, or at least a feeling that hypnosis could improve myself in some way, so that was my kind of early interest. Right in the UK, there was a a stage hypnotist that got a primetime TV show called Paul McKenna, he's more famous for his kind of personal development books these days. So I would see these stage hypnosis sketches, and it was kind of like found it fascination, fascinating. I know a lot of stage hypnotists now, so I kind of know it's more about compliance and kind of participation selection and other forms of psychology, but I think that's the magic when you don't know what's happening. You think like all of this thing is happening based on hypnosis that kind of put a seed of an idea. What really got me into hypnotherapy is that I was 18, 19, going to college, so we call it university here, and um had severe social anxiety and um had a desire to fix myself. And and the irony is doing a psychology degree, you know, I was it was kind of it was weird, but I felt it. I felt it in my chest, I felt it in my gut, you know, I would struggle to leave my my tiny one-bedroom apartment. But they had a 24-hour library. So late at night when there was no people around, I would kind of go into the library and luckily came across uh early rich uh Bandler and Grinder books, so Frogs and Depinth Printess, Structure of Magic, um, some of the early Tony Robbins stuff, and I think he's in my opinion, he's lost his way. But the early stuff, you know, Unlimited Power, Awaken the Giant Within, a lot of it was based on early NLP kind of models. Right. And um, you know, and then got into more kind of Milton Erickson and and and different kind of approaches. I think some of the Steve and Connie Ray Andreas, you know, kind of techniques based on some of Richard Bandler's work I found really useful. So I became my first client, and my goal was to kind of, I know we shouldn't use the word cure or fix, but fix myself. That was honestly the intention.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

And I was able to go from a suicidal recluse to within a couple of years, um, you know, got a certain level of confidence, um, set my own business up when I was 23 years old. On paper, was a self-made millionaire at the age of 27. And I stressed on paper because I definitely didn't have a million pounds. Um, but my assets takeaway liabilities was over a million. And I put it all down to kind of hypnosis and NLP. I was able to access resource states, I was able to change very disempowering belief systems and open up very empowering belief systems. And and that's you know, I I think, you know, early NLP, they talk a lot about congruency. But for me, I know it works because I lived it. I went, I was a very different person, right? And I changed because of what I was doing to myself.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Right. And your story resonates with so many other hypnotists that I, or at least successful hypnotists that I talked to, ones that changed themselves. They gone from a dark place in their lives where they're suicidal, depressed, maybe an introvert, and then they found something, some kind of motivating spark. For me, you mentioned Tony Robbins. For me, it was that kid. I was like, what is this? This is so different. And you're like, you're right, the early Tony Robbins, a little different than the modern one, but the early one, he's like, you can do this. And he talked these NLP techniques, like you know, change habits and empowering that person within you. And like I was just talking to Bill O'Halen the other day, too. Same, same story. He's like, it's working with someone, and then you said you're you're your first client, which I love that, you know, and that's where we all were at one point, like, and knowing this works and knowing that the answers reside within us. And then so, how do you, as a hypnotherapist, manage to get someone to realize they have the answer within themselves?

SPEAKER_00 5:08

I think how how I tend to do it is I love using metaphors, I love using examples. So, if, for example, there's a a very dominant emotion, and that emotion is impeding their ability to live life on their terms, then I want to, I I kind of set traps for them. It sounds unethical, but it's really ethical if you do it from the right intention. I want to set psychological traps that free them from their own, their own limitations. So I'll I'll say, when you were a child, did you believe in like Santa Claus or tooth fairies? And they're like, Yeah. And I said, Okay, so you're about four or five years old, you believe in Santa. Was that excitement real? And they're like, absolutely. And I said, Okay, and when you were about six or seven, a sibling, a school friend told you Santa wasn't real. But at that time it was real. So let me just get this straight. You're telling me you had absolutely a real emotion linked to a belief that wasn't true, and they're like, ah, where's this going? And I said, Okay, so is it possible now that you've got a real emotion like anxiety? But what if the underlying belief to that isn't true? If we change the belief, maybe we change the emotion. And then I do a callback and say, How difficult was it to get excited about Santa Claus when you knew he wasn't real? And they're like, Oh, almost impossible. And it's kind of like, ah, and did that require lots of therapy, lots of change work? It's just one conversation with someone, and it was enough to change it. And when the belief changed, the emotion changed. And what I'm doing is I'm I'm creating a meta-belief that beliefs influence emotions, and once they change, the connected emotion changes all by itself. Once they buy into that, then I can kind of work with them. But the trap's already set at that point, they're already kind of primed to kind of do that. Or it might be, you know, that they're stuck in a belief it takes a long time to change, you can't just change. And I say, like when you were a teenager, was there something you used to do a lot that you just don't do anymore? And they're like, Yeah. And I said, And how much, how hard was it to stop doing that thing? And they're like, Oh, it just happened by itself. Okay. So I like setting these psychological traps so that some of the because I think a lot of people that have tried to change and can't, the paradox is the justification and the cognitive dissonance actually entraps them in their own story, in their own limitations. So, and it's a misattributed Einstein quote, but it's something along the lines of you can't you can't change something with the same thinking that created it. So you've got to introduce something new. And if you introduce something new at the right time, then the therapeutic part can become quite easy. And you can use like metaphors like plumbing and engineering, like they're not just banging pipes and and and changing stuff, they they've got to find the problem. Once they find the problem, the solution can be quite easy. But if you don't actually figure out what the problem is, well, then you're just banging pipes around hoping it hoping it works. And unfortunately, I do think there's hypnotherapists that don't take enough time to kind of figure out how this thing is created. And that that's what I got from early NLP, is that you look at it like a strategy. So, one of my favorite questions when working with a client is if I'm you for a day, how do I have to experience what do I have to do to experience what you experience? And they're like, what do you mean? Because they've never, one, it gives them a level of disassociation, but secondly, they've got to think about the structure of that. So it's like, wow, I tell myself it's it's gonna be a shitty day. What's the point? And I'm like, oh okay, so in a dialogue, and I say, is that first person or or third person? Like, what do you mean? Do you say I or do you say you? And like, and all of this stuff gets them thinking about oh, there's a recipe, I'm doing this to myself, and if I'm doing it to myself, if I change something, it's gonna be a different outcome.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

I love that the way we talk to ourselves. I love the part that you said about Santa Claus. It's like it made me think of my fiance's kid who's 12, and he's like, Is Santa real? And he's he is a baited question because he knows. Is that excitement real? I love that. And then you mentioned the metaphor about the plumber finding the problem. So, how do you help someone find? So they have these complex feelings and beliefs, these pipes going every which way. How do you help them find where the leaky pipe is?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

One of my favorite questions is was there a point where it wasn't like this? You know, uh, because you want to find the point of inception. And and in most cases, the problem is actually a coping strategy to resolve something that happened that was undesirable. They felt ashamed, they felt stupid, you know, they felt scared. Uh, and at some point the brain's like, this can't happen again. Right. So quite often the problem is the attempt to kind of fix this kind of thing. So, you know, you you don't want to use regression haphazardly. Like, if you're gonna use regression, why not go back to the point of inception, like where this thing happened? Right. And what if you can give it a different meaning or a whole frame knowing what you now know? It turns out that probably wasn't the best strategy. And then you could do disassociated mental rehearsals. So if you did the other thing in that moment, what would that have been like? And then that can kind of lead into timeline stuff. So the question, like, was it was there a time when it wasn't like this? It's quite helpful to find the point of inception. Um, I I think I think getting them to justify the story or explain what's going on. Normally, uh, so I I love playing devil's advocate and say, like, let's just say I wasn't to believe you, like, convince me this is a real problem. Right. All all of the all of the beliefs that structure that particular problem come out at that particular point. Now you don't want you've got to be careful how you do that because you don't there they are quite vulnerable. Right. So you can't just say, I don't believe you. You're talking shit. If you say, but the if is a great frame. Like if if I if I was to doubt you and you had to absolutely convince me that this problem is real, how would you do that? So if and would create a hypothetical frame, feels safe for them to kind of do that, but you you elicit the strategy nonetheless, you kind of get the information kind of from them, right? And that's quite helpful. Um, some people are invested in victimhood, like there's a uh a narrative that um the world is mean and bad things happen to them, right? And actually, they would lose that if they were to change, they would lose that kind of sense of victimhood and and and kind of perhaps secondary gains they get from that, which might be sympathy or support or understanding or connection or or whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Um, so a lot of the time I I don't necessarily and I love doing podcasts like this because most of what I do is very intuitive. So I don't I it's not like and then I start with this and then I start with that. Right. But as I as I kind of explain kind of what I'm doing, these kind of things come up, like elicit the strategy, um, you know, test their kind of resolve, like how committed are they to that? Um and also speaking of another trap that I quite like is this element of sometimes people conflate truth with beliefs. And you know, I I like to say, you know, I don't care if a belief is true, I care if it's useful. And I and and one of my favorite things to do is to say, like, do you know a conspiracy theorist? Like someone that absolutely, with every fiber of their body, believes that thing, right? And the fact that it isn't true isn't important, they they believe that, and they're like, Oh, yeah, I know someone like that. And so, how difficult is it to talk them out of their belief? And they're like, Oh, you can't do it, because even if you do, they entrench. And it's kind of like, okay, is it possible that you have a belief that even if it's true, it's not useful? And that feels like a like a psychological sleight of hand because they're like, Yeah, let me just separate the truth element because a lot of the time, but that's true, but that's true. Like that person did betray me, or that person did, you know, kind of do whatever they did. Um, that links to victimhood, but is it useful to kind of hold that belief? And when they look at the utility of the belief system, then you get to kind of say, Well, okay, what would knowing what we now know, what would be more useful? Now it doesn't guarantee the change, you've got to do the change work, but sometimes it's quite helpful to to get them separated. It could you could stop 100 people in the street and and and say, like, what do you believe? And then is it true? And it's almost like a hundred percent everything they believe, they they think is a hundred percent true. Right. How many religious people do you know? Like, I I know lots of religious people, I'm an atheist, but I think I think there's a lot of utility in religious beliefs, but I don't objectively think it's true. I don't think it's true, and nobody can prove that it's true, but they do, they they believe in the truth. Now, I would say when my when my grandmother was dying of Alzheimer's, her belief in heaven, her belief in forgiveness, okay, was that useful for her? Absolutely, it was, you know. I don't care if it's true. I'm not gonna be the dickhead, you know, that sat there next to my no, all this is nonsense. Like it's a really useful belief system, okay. Of course, she should believe that. And and she did believe that, and I think that gave her a lot of of comfort. So these people that say, ah, but it's not true, it's not people believe stuff that aren't true all the time. So, given that we can believe things that aren't true, just like we did with Santa, right? Why don't we start believing stuff that's really empowering and really useful? Um that sounds like a better place to live. Like, let's be deliberate and intentional about what we believe, particularly if the beliefs open the doors to resource states, and those resource states give us intuitively thoughts and behaviors and and habits that can radically change someone's life. Like that, that feels like a good strategy.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Absolutely. And I want to loop back to, and it's funny. Well, we're just a real quick point. You talk about these religious beliefs, and I started as a preacher, and then eventually I left the church because I felt like okay, some of these things that Jesus says, you know, like these works and greater will you do. And then I'm looking around, I'm like, well, where are these works and greater things? You know, we're not living up to what he said we can do. So I felt like we lived in this box, and the box could be the limiting beliefs, and it just didn't serve me. And then, but that's a side point. The thing I want to loop back to is you mentioned you intuitively do this. So, how does a person get to that point of intuitively doing things that serve them well?

SPEAKER_00 16:39

It depends how you define intuition, and and I I like to define it that you know, a lot of hypnotherapists have got very strong opinions about the conscious and the unconscious. Uh, I I like to strip out all the mysticism and and the woo-woo stuff and just say, right, conscious is what you're aware of in the moment, almost like Miller 1957, the magic number seven, plus or minus two. It's like, what are you aware of right now? Think of it as mindfulness. And unconscious is everything else. So there's skills that you have that you're not implementing right now. There's beliefs that you absolutely believe, but you're not. If you're in a debate, you might recall those beliefs, but if you're not, they're just there, they still exist, but they're they're not in your front of mind awareness. That's your unconscious. And my belief is that intuition is the communication channel or the influence channel of the unconscious. And and again, I like to use examples, and they say, right, well, how do you know the unconscious is real? And I'll say, like, do you drive? And they're like, Yeah. And it's like, and if you're on the passenger seat and the person who's driving brakes later than you do, does your foot twitch? And they're like, like exactly where the brake pedal is, and they're like, Yeah. And it's like, did you do that deliberately, or is that your intuition? It's the unconscious, the unconscious is doing it because it links, I should be braking right now. That's an idiomotor response, right? You know, and and and I believe that the intuition is a way of the unconscious communicating with the with the conscious. So, you know, for me to try and do, you know, thousands of sessions worth of experience and and years worth of education and try and consciously logically do that into a session, right? I'm the idiot at that point because I'm positively overloading myself, and therefore I can't calibrate to the client in front of me. I want my unconscious to be giving me insight, ideas, suggesting metaphors, uh, noticing things that may have gone unnoticed. Like I want that.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

And one of the things that I like about having a podcast is that I can listen to podcasts that that I've done like months or years ago, listen to them back, and and be kind of confused that where did that actually come from? Because I said the words, no doubt, but where those words came from, that's right. It's got to be my unconscious because I couldn't have prepared the sequence of words in that order before I started talking. It's got to come from my unconscious. Right. But isn't that a good thing? Like my unconscious working with their unconscious to create a change. Like that, that seems like what hypnotherapy should be.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yes. And it reminds me too of you're talking about if you do a session trying to think it, and it reminds me when I was a preacher, if I wrote out what I wanted to say, almost verbatim, and I delivered it like that, it would be rubbish. No one would respond. The energy level of the room would be low. And if I just went up there with maybe a verse or a rough outline or something scribbled on a napkin, and I get goosebumps just thinking about it, things start moving.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Absolutely. Yeah. And my thoughts would be good to hear your take on this, but my thoughts are a lot, a lot of religious things, like a preacher, I think, is a group hypnotherapist, you know, that is using communication to influence and to kind of change or build on belief systems. What is a prayer if it's not self-hypnosis? Exactly. Honestly, what is it? Like, are we really communicating with some omnipotent being, or actually are we communicating with our own subconscious mind through a channel that there's a meta-belief system that says, right, this is going to be helpful in some way. For me, it's self-hypnosis.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

It absolutely is. And there's something about connecting with another person. So it's it's almost, and I know Jung kind of talked about this collective unconscious, where like even now you and I have this psychodynamic loop going on where our unconscious is talking and teaching with one another. I don't I don't know like if there's a way to tap into that or train it. And I guess that goes back to the question I asked: how do you build this intuition? Like you mentioned you do thousands of sessions, and then one part is you could do thousands of sessions and not get better. So, how do you train your unconscious to get better?

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Yeah, I I think it's sensory acuity. Um, and and I've I've got a funny story that highlights repetition without sensory acuity does not lead to competency. I one one of my first property investments that I did, I rented a house and then subrent rented all the rooms. And there was this Chinese guy um that was called Edward, could we lived on Edward Street? He he he wanted like an English name. And he would wake up every morning at 6 a.m. And for a solid hour and a half, he would read words from the dictionary out loud to himself with horrible pronunciation. So the repetition, if anything, Was building neural pathways of saying now maybe that helped in some way because at least he's kind of familiarizing himself with words. But actually, um, if you're a hypnotist and you do a thousand sessions to yourself in a room and you're just role-playing with other hypnotists that are kind of playing along, do you really get the feedback loop? Do you really get the sensory acuity? Like when you've got a client, like in the same way that you learn a language, your first language that you learn is not in a textbook, it's not in a classroom. Like it's it's in this kind of unconscious classroom of you're listening a lot and then you're saying things, and then you're you might say things wrong and you get like a weird facial expression from them, and you're like, Oh, I pronounced that wrong. Like, how should I do that? And right, and that's that's where you learn. And I think in the same way that you learn language unconsciously, hypnosis, you need a bit, you need a little bit of structure of kind of technique and and and kind of approaches, but fundamentally you learn it by working with clients, and and that's why when people ask me, like, how do you how do you become a good hypnotist? Like the metaphor that always comes to mind is that you can't swim by reading a book, you have to jump in the pool. Right. And to be a great hypnotist or a good hypnotist, you've got to you've got to work with real clients with real issues, and you've got to say the words, you've got to get it wrong, and then you've got to kind of reflect on that, try different approaches, and then through repetition and refinement, then it gets good in the same way that it's that Malcolm Gladwell thing, like the 10,000 hours, like you do it in.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

I was gonna say that same thing, and you can have 10,000 hours, but then where's it?

SPEAKER_00 23:44

It could be 10,000 useful hours, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Right, right, right. And it's interesting how you mentioned a client, like you lifted your eyebrow, you know, and you could see that you can calibrate that almost again subconsciously. And then and one thing that keeps standing out in my head is we use this word hypnotist. And yet how many of your clients do you do of the induction where people like close their eyes and listen? Because you don't like you do it a little differently, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah, I w when I started, I had the long I would do like the the book and balloon and the convincers and all this kind of stuff, and and tests for idiomotor responses, and then long progressive relaxation and and all of this kind of stuff. And and what I found is that um mainly I was doing that because that was what I needed as the hypnotherapist to feel like it was a prerequisite to doing good work with the client.

unknown 24:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Um, my favorite induction is the eye closure induction. Take a deep breath in on the outward breath, close your eyes. That's the induction. The deepener, I I tend to use nested loops and levels of disassociation, what I call the inception induction. Um, but it's just it's getting them from their reality to a place where they're receptive to some change happening. So if I didn't do that, and look, it's it's probably not necessary. But if the client believes that they've got to experience something in order for a change to take place, I'm gonna work with that. So give them an experience, give them multiple levels of disassociation, use the kind of Ericksonian metaphors and kind of weave a story, and then you get them into that place where you see the loot, the loose jaw and the kind of relaxation and certain kind of clues that they're they're not in that normal, you know, kind of logical waking state. And then for me, I love metaphor, but I'll I'll use parts therapy. I use um sometimes inner child work or direct suggestion, but I use a lot of metaphor. Um, so my before before my first suggestion, it might be like a minute, a minute and a half. Like there is no long, yeah, long kind of, and if I use deepener, it tends to be from one level of disassociation to the next. So it's kind of it's a deepener within another framework. Or if I'm doing progressive relaxation, it's it's normally on the the second level of disassociation. So I'll I'll do a countdown progressive relaxation, but it's not like a five-minute thing.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

It's right, right.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah, it's like I'm gonna count down from 10 to 1, and and you'll notice different parts of your body really relaxing and it's it's quick.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Yeah, and that's that's where I started with hypnosis and stage and street work, and so you gotta be quick with that. And then what really fascinated me was like James Tripp, where he's like, You can do this without the induction. People getting their fingers stuck, and then and then I'll leave him with if your mind can get your fingers stuck, what can your mind get unstuck in your life right now? It's like, and then they're just and they always like, oh, is that like aha moment, you know? And I'm wondering, and then in a moment, we'll go to you giving people listening, watching a little hypnotic gift that you're talking about, whatever you want to lead it so they can experience. And I'm wondering now that word hypnotist or hypnotherapist, it almost has like a stigma to it. So I'm wondering when you are telling it's not like you want to convince people, but you're saying, hey, look, I know what I'm doing, I know this works. So is there another word that you offer them when they're thinking about it? That's not like you mentioned the woo-woo or the you know, it's not this isn't a tarot card reading. This is actual like legit stuff that is quick, meaningful change. So, how do you present that to a person that's like looking at your YouTube videos or whatever? So, how do you how do you lure them in without making them think this is going to be like a sham, you know, let me read your future and tea leaves thing?

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Yeah, so again, I as a hypnotist, I use lots of metaphors. If if I I love the metaphor of illusionists or magicians, so like if you see a magician, what you what you see looks magical, like the thing disappeared, or they are floating, or mentalists, they they read the mind of the individual, like it looks magic. Actually, if you knew if you actually knew the details of there's a mirror, you know, it was it it was a prestige, like there's the thing is already in the new place, they just have two of the same thing, like it's it's kind of it's it's kind of mundane, like a lot of the the mechanics, but it can look magical. That's the whole point of it. So I use that and I say, look, if I if I explain about neuroplasticity, you know, how neural pathways are built, how belief systems self-perpetuate certain behaviors and thoughts, kind of takes the magic away from it, you know, and you're not here to be educated about all this kind of stuff, you're here to create a change, right? And in the same way that only a magician, you know, is is going to a magic show to kind of oh, okay, like I can see the tiny tiny wires there. That's right. Like, you know, and and and I think hypno hypnotherapists do that naturally with mentalism. It's kind of like they're they're looking for, oh, okay, like there it might be priming or it might be based on probability, or it might be based on you know the the tiny pencil in the in the thumb and all this kind of stuff. But but actually it kind of spoils it a bit in the same way that I'm sure like if you're a special effects artist, like watching an action movie isn't quite the same as if you do that. So you know, having that element of um almost kind of like separating like what's actually happening from the result, that's okay to kind of lure them in. Um, and and and if they say like what's actually happening here, because sometimes people grow up with you know, in a lot of African, you know, kind of upbringings, there is this connotation that hypnosis kind of like the devil's work, right? You know, and that kind of stuff. So sometimes you need to kind of reassure certain kind of inaccurate belief systems um about what's actually happening. And and what I tell them is that it's enhanced neuroplasticity when you're working with someone that knows the terrain. Like one of my favorite metaphors, if there's a fear of losing control or manipulation, is I'll say, like, imagine if you're lost in a in a big forest and you're all by yourself and you meet someone that knows the forest very well, and they offer to lead you out of the forest. Are you under the control of the person that knows the forest, or is it just in your interest to follow someone that really knows that terrain well?

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

And, you know, and that that as a metaphor does apply to what we do. You know, if we've worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients, we're going to be more familiar with the terrain of thoughts and beliefs and kind of habits and and blocks and the cognitive dissonance or the secondary gains that keep them trapped. We know that terrain. So we are in a better position to help them than if they were to do it them themselves. Now they can, you know, they they some sometimes I'll I'll give them an empowering suggestion on a consultation call. I said, look, you could probably figure this out yourself, but what if it takes two or three years for you to finally figure out and test everything that works? You know, I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients, I've seen many of them with a very similar exactly your problem, and they don't have that problem anymore. You decide, like you can figure it out yourself, but it might just be quicker and more efficient. That's right. If you work with someone that's already already done this before. And that I think is pacing their experience more because I I wouldn't like this kind of guru-led kind of thing. It's kind of like only I can help you, only I can fix you. It's it's it's streams of kind of ego and bullshit.

unknown 32:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

It's kind of like, no, like clients can can well capable of fixing themselves. Like they could they could read a few books, they could they could kind of um test out different kinds of things, you know, but there's certain things that are helpful. What are the meta beliefs? What are the beliefs about beliefs? What are the beliefs about change? And and sometimes like you just have to change a couple of the preceding beliefs, right? Make the next belief that you change kind of possible, and then what was immovable becomes movable, right? Um for regression, one of the one of the lines I quite like is um if I know I'm gonna use regression in a session, I'll say, What's the biggest tree that you know? And normally that kind of gets them into a place where they kind of they eyes up to the left, they kind of imagine like a huge tree in a park in a garden. And I say, How difficult would it be to remove that tree by its roots now? Bearing in mind it's the biggest tree they know. Right. They're picturing cranes, they're picturing like all the chaos. And I say, Right, how old do you think that tree is? And they're like, Oh, 100 years, 200 years. And I said, if you could go back in time when that tree was just a tiny little sapling, how easy would it be to take it out by the roots then? And they're literally in their mind. I mean, this is this is the James Strip, like there's no induction there, but this is this is hypnosis in that moment, right? They're literally imagining plucking that tree out with their hand, and they're like, Oh, it's easy. Okay, so what if we go back to when that this problem was created? It has the connotation, the presupposition that change is easy if you go back to the point of insight.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Oh shit, I'm totally going to steal that one. That's usually that's that's a beautiful metaphor. I love that, and it goes it even loops back to what you're saying before about the plumber, you know, like okay, you find the tree or you find the pipe, and you go back to when change is easy. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

And and and it's it's not necessarily true because that there's a there's a lot of people that believe like you can never really know the root cause because there's too many variables. That's not what's important. The important thing is that if they subscribe to the idea that the change is now easy because we've identified the right tree at the right time, that itself becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like a lot of a lot of mentalism is the is the pre-cell, is the priming, as is hypnotherapy. Like you've got to get them invested in the in the approach before you do the approach. So you kind of know it's gonna increase the probability of success.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

That's right. I love that. And speaking of loops, you do a lot of loops, or you call it uh embedded loops, and that's one of my favorite things. And it's amazing to me how a lot of people learning it just are confused. But for the for the lay person listening or watching, what is what you do? Do you call it embedded loops or do you call it something else?

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yeah, so I uh like the the conventional term for it in hypnotherapy would be nested loops, which is the idea of there's a story within a story within a story. And I think I think it's one of the coolest things. And when you see people exceptionally good at that, like Richard Bandler or Mike Mandel, that he's great with these kind of stories within stories. And my issue with that is it felt like you've gotta you've got to memorize tons of stories, pick the right ones, know how to open the loops. And it felt clunky to me. And where it changed is the early days of my podcast, I I started getting inspiration for hypnotherapy sessions from movies. And I tried to turn the movie Inception into a hypnotherapy session, and it just struck me that how I learned about nested loops seemed to map over with the storyline of inception, this idea of dreams within dreams within dreams. Right. And then I thought, well, how difficult would it be to follow the storyline of inception if every level of the dream was in a similar kind of location? What makes it possible to follow is that they're on the plane and then they're in the van, and then they're in the hotel, and then they're in the snow fortress, and then they're in this kind of limbo apocalyptic city. Like you know where you are based on the environmental context. And I thought, rather than thinking of nested loops as stories within stories, what if I thought about it as levels of disassociation? So you take them from one place to a different place to a different place. Um, not in a linear way that you go there and you go into this place and you go back and then you go to the other, but within that place, it's then the another place, it's then the other place. Um, and you open loops at each of those levels, and then you use mnemonics to make sure you can find your way back. Then you've got infinite creativity to do it in real time and not need to kind of memorize millions of stories. Like you it's it's kind of like nobody can, and unless you're really good at lucid dreaming, you can't plan the context of the dream. Dreams are generative, like they they happen while you're dreaming. And it's kind of like, why can't a hypnotherapy session, if you know the outcome that you want to create for the client, yeah, and you know the kind of rough techniques or kind of protocols that you're going to use, why not create a storyline that's generative in real time so you don't need to you don't need to remember it? You've got the mnemonics to kind of find your way back so you don't get lost in your own loops. And and I like it because it makes it more creative and intellectually stimulating for me, but it also gives the client like a really unique experience. And and and particularly like because I do it in real time and I don't I don't plan the structure of them beforehand, and all these things that we were talking about before the session, the client then gets this kind of 20-25-minute hypnosis hypnotic experience where all the things we were talking about in the induction then end up in this story crafted in real time.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

They get this kind of like the chills down the back, they're like, How did you do that? Like, and and it's for for me, I like that kind of reaction because I want to give them an experience, not just you're reading a script at them or you do the same protocol modality every time. That's right. And and and and I I mean, there's certain hypnotherapies that they're they're totally invested in their model or their protocol. But but I think the danger of that is that there is the risk that you're forcing the client to kind of fit the structure of your model or your system um rather than actually doing what works. So I I look at all these different techniques as kind of tools in the toolbox, and nested loops means that you've got the the freedom to use all of these. You can use idiomotor responses, you can use parts therapy, you can use ego state therapy, you can use regression and timeline within the structure of nested loops. So it makes you more creative, but it doesn't limit me or being tribal about or I have to use this and I can't use this. We should use them all, like whatever's helpful. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

I love the idea, it's a creative act, like you're creating something with your client. It's a it's a unique experience, and I love that. And you mentioned mnemonic like benchmarks or little placeholders. What do you mean by that? Like, what do you what do you leave to get yourself back out of those loops?

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Yeah, so if you if you remember the Hansel and Gretel story where they kind of I was just thinking about the breadcrumbs or the little trail, yeah. Yeah, and and the reason that they they end up in the candy house and get eaten by the witch is because their breadcrumbs get eaten by the forest animals and they get lost in the woods. Right. I think a lot of hypnotherapists don't use nested loops because there's a fear that um they're not going to be able to find their way back in reverse order through their nested loops. So mnemonics is helpful. And I'll I'll ask you this question. Um, when was the last time you either read or saw the movie, you know, the the first of the the Narnia chronicles, like the Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe?

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Oh man, it's been I would say at least 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

At least 10 years. Yeah, how do they get from their home to Narnia?

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Through the through the cupboard. They open the closet and walk through.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Through the wardrobe. Now it's been 10 years, and you can still record that. That's a mnemonic. That gets them from reality to this imaginative world, right? And the wardrobe is the bridge, it's the portal that does that. That's a mnemonic. If you can remember that after 10 years, the same structure of that, so a mnemonic just means memory tool, means that you can remember it within a 40-minute hypnosis session. Got it, got it structurally, it's the absurdity and the fact that it's bizarre. And in Alice in Wonderland, it was a rabbit hole. Right. You know, and oh man, that's a great book, too. That's such a it's it is, and and and all of these things, and and in fact, there's levels of disassociation within Alice in Wonderland because it's not just what it's not just through the rabbit hole. Quite often she then shrinks and grows, and there's there's different things that get her to different kind of parts of the story. That's you know, if I didn't do a hypnosis session on Inception, I could have done it on Alice in Wonderland, and that still would have revealed the structure of nested loops in a in a levels of disassociation, you know, kind of way. Um, so so that that that's how I do it. And and I'll be I'll be doing a one-hour class of that in uh Vegas uh on kind of the structure of it, but then I'll be doing a one-day mastery class where people are actually learning the techniques so that they leave knowing knowing how to do it, they've got the competency, not just the theoretical knowledge of it. So, yeah, if there's any hypnotherapists that want to kind of get good at that, um and you don't have to take my word that I know what I'm talking about. I've got a podcast with 2,000 episodes, and more than 50% of them use nested loops in my way, so you can just verify it by listening to to some recordings.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Yeah, and we'll we'll put the links in the descriptions for people to go to that either the Hitner Thoughts Live in Vegas or the one day offering that you have, of course. And of course, we'll be linking to your podcast as well, and they can play, they can go and have fun with these. And do you two two quick questions on these? Do you tail the first question is one, do you tailor each of those looped stories to the client? And then two, at the bottom, at the very bottom of all these stories, do you do the direct suggestion?

SPEAKER_00 43:14

So I do the direct, I'm gonna answer this in reverse order. So I do the direct suggestions and metaphors throughout the whole thing. It's not like we've got to get to level three or level four of disassociation and then the hypnosis starts. Like I'll I'll be giving them positive suggestions, like right from take a deep breath in, you're breathing and relaxation, you're exhaling tension. That's a suggestion, and that's in the first 10 seconds of the of the hypnosis. We don't have to wait until they're all these levels down. Is it personalized? Yes. Because if I'm gonna create something brand new, why wouldn't I make it incredibly relevant to the client that I'm working with? Because they're the client, they're paying for it, it's their experience. So if I'm using regression, one of the levels of disassociation makes Sense to be their past. And if I'm doing future pacing, one of the levels of disassociation makes sense to be their future. And depending on what the issue is, I normally make the first level of disassociation a reasonably recent memory that has positive emotional anchors or associations. Most people in the Western world are too stressed and or too anxious. So if I I'll ask you this, Ryan, like in the last five years, where is the single place in the world where you felt the most relaxed?

SPEAKER_01 44:38

And it's it's fascinating because that question elicits in me like, okay, so I look at the timeline first, five years, and then I start searching in the final count. Okay, five years. And yet my brain wanted to go beyond five years and be like, okay, is when I went to Hawaii on the beach and was just relaxed, you know. And then the mind goes to, okay, it wasn't even five years ago, it was this morning when I did my meditation. That was incredibly relaxing. So then it's it's funny how the mind works. I don't know if that helps your your answer.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

So let's just say that um, because it might be when you meditate, you take yourself, you know, to a place that you can recall being relaxed as as well. But let's just say Hawaii for you is kind of like a place of relaxation. Now, that could be on the side of a volcano, it could be you know on a lounge or by a pool, or it could be on a beach. Like when you were in Hawaii feeling relaxed, like where was that for you?

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Uh on the beach, feeling the breeze, even though it was warm from the sun, but feeling the breeze, hearing the noise of the seagulls, and hearing the noise of the ocean waves.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Amazing. So give I'm gonna do an example for you anyway. So if if I was working with you, I would make the first level Hawaii on the beach, feeling that breeze. And yeah, and then let's say, just so we can kind of have some fun here, um think of a historical landmark that exists somewhere in the world.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Any historical landmark?

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Yeah, so like a place in place in history.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

Yeah, so I'll just the first thing that popped my mind was the Eiffel Tower.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

Eiffel Tower, okay. So normally if I'm doing this with a client, I'd be making like rough notes. So Hawaii, my pen's not working, uh Eiffel Tower. Okay, so we've got that, and now think of a um an imaginary place. So it doesn't actually exist, yeah. But you can you can kind of you've heard so it could don't use this, but like at l Atlantis, for example, or right, right.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Um well we can go back to the Christian, you know, heaven. Okay, yeah, you know, there's a lot of stories of what heaven means like to people.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

I like that. And then let's think of a fictional place within a book. A book or a movie. It definitely doesn't it doesn't exist, but you can think of that place.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Right. I'm thinking the first thing that came in mind is Star Wars and the where Luke Skywalker grew up. There's that place Obi-Wan took him to, the cantina. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Yeah, what's that? Because it was a planet and it gets destroyed by the Death Star, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 47:43

What Tatooine.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Tatooine, okay. So you can tell I'm not that into Star Wars, but I know that's so Tatooine. Um okay, and let's um let's give it one more what kind of thing. Let's give it a theme of the whole thing. So it could be insight, it could be change, it could be like and let's make it broad so that any of the audience would benefit. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

So I don't know if this is powerful enough, but patience. Patience.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

I like it.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

And almost like with the patience, belief. And then I use a metaphor there of the farmer that goes to plant the seeds, and he has to have patience for them to grow. Because for me, like sometimes I like I plant the seed, and then the next day I open and I was like, Where are all my carrots? I planted the carrots, why aren't they here yet? So patience and belief, and knowing that the carrots will show up.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Amazing. So are you okay if I do like a little demo? And and this will just be like 10-15 minutes or so.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

But yeah, and this is perfect for whoever is um is listening, and we could close it out with this. This is this is perfect, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Amazing. So, what I'll do is I'll I'll record it. Obviously, it's being recorded here, but I'm gonna record an extra version here as well. Take a deep breath in, and as you breathe in, breathe in that resourceful feeling of calm and relaxation, and as you exhale, that's in. Just relax those eyelids feeling heavier and relaxed, breathing in relaxation and exhaling tension. Almost like each breath takes you deeper and deeper relaxed. I want you to think of a color that represents pure peace. Imagine breathing in that color of peace. And as you exhale, give permission to release anything that might impede peace, any frustration, anger, stress, or anxiety. Imagine it leaving your body just like shadows leaving your body in your outward breath. And as you breathe in, breathe in deeper than you normally would. And as you exhale, just allow that outward breath to continue for longer than it normally would. The deeper you breathe, the more relaxed you feel, and the more relaxed you feel, the deeper you breathe. And as your body relaxes, your imagination awakens. I want you to imagine scrolling on your phone looking at photos, and sometimes people do this based on location. So imagine clicking into that section where you can see different parts of the world and just hone in to an island there in the middle of the Pacific, and as you get closer, you see tens, perhaps hundreds of photos there in one of the islands. Zoom in closer and notice there's a cluster of pictures on a beach. I want you to imagine selecting one of those photos. Perhaps perhaps of the sea with the horizon. And just as Mary Poppins was able to jump into a picture next to a park, imagine stepping into that photo on your phone and arriving there on a beach in Hawaii. Imagine you're wearing whatever clothing is appropriate. To be on that sandy beach under blue skies, feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin. But I want you to connect with that feeling of a gentle breeze, feeling the breeze there on your skin. And there in that place, just imagine, even if there was people, here in your imagination, it's private. You have the whole beach to yourself. And I want you to imagine somewhere on the beach, it looks like a treasure chest. And the treasure chest has a combination lock, and you don't know the number yet. Imagine walking down that beach feeling deeper and deeper relaxed. And I want you to see a door that is not connected to a building, just a door floating there on the beach on the sand. And I want you to imagine that as I count down from five to one, you will imagine opening that door, walking through the door, and imagine arriving at the very top platform on the Eiffel Tower in Paris. But for now, you're on a beach in Hawaii. Five, putting your hand on the handle, four, turning the handle, three, opening the door, two, walking through the door, and one closing the door behind you. And notice notice you're now on the top platform, looking out at the skyline of Paris. And I want you to connect with a feeling here of perspective, because you're so high up, and you can see for miles around. I want you to connect to the perspective in your own life that if in doubt, zoom out, and instead of seeing the towns, the districts of Paris, I want you to imagine seeing your own life as if from up above. Different districts, different regions, different parts of your life, health, finances, family, work, and from all the way up here, you may get an insight of subtle changes that need to take place. Not because they have to, but because you are the architect of your life. I want you to get a sense that here is also where you connect with something from your past that was once influential. There on that top platform of the Eiffel Tower, I want you to see a glowing colour. And this glowing colour represents a resource from your past that you don't use much anymore. But your life would benefit hugely if you did. But I want you to keep that glowing color there. Don't absorb it yet. As for a bizarre reason, there is a wardrobe there on the top platform of the Eiffel Tower. I want you to imagine opening the door of the wardrobe and walking in, seeing coats and jackets and shirts. But this wardrobe doesn't seem to end. It looked like a small wardrobe from the outside. But as you go further and further, it has no end until you see a glowing light at the end of that wardrobe. Pure, bright, glowing light. And as you finally get to the end of the wardrobe, it dawns on you. You are no longer in an earthly realm. You are in heaven. And your imagination has an idea of what heaven is like. And I want you to imagine you're getting a glimpse of what it would be like if you were no longer alive. And I want you to imagine you're there with God or an angel reviewing your life. Those things you're proud of, those regrets, with one key thought. Seeing your life as if it's over. If you could go back and make just one change, what change would you make? But don't answer that question yet. Just ask yourself the question, allowing your unconscious to give it consideration. Connect with joy, love, and peace there in heaven. And then notice. Notice a child slide there in heaven. A long slide. I want you to connect to that inner child within you and imagine climbing up the steps of that child slide. And as you slide all the way down that slide, I want you to feel that you're going further and further down. And when you finally get to the end, you're no longer in heaven. You are in a planet called Tatooine. I want you to imagine it's sandy. Dunes and deserts. And I don't know if you go to a village or a bar with strange creatures. But there is wisdom on this planet. A level of wisdom that can enhance your life when you finally return. And maybe the wisdom is contained in someone old wearing a robe. Someone that possesses a force, a wisdom, an intelligence. And just imagine that old wise man telling you something that becomes a seed that will later awaken as distilled wisdom. When you've heard the message but not made sense of the wisdom yet, let me know by nodding your head. That's it. And I want you to get a sense that somewhere on the planet of Tatooine is a solitary place. Just you. Perhaps in nature, perhaps inside. Just imagine sitting with yourself. There is resources, new beliefs, new potentials, new perspective. That all are available in your future. And I want you to notice where patience exists within and give permission to amplify that feeling of patience. So that all of those things that are yet to come are given permission to come when they're meant to come. I want you to scan your body for where you feel that patience and just point where patience seems like it would have a home within you. That's it. Imagine it as a shape, as a color, expanding, glowing, spinning, perhaps. And as it glows and spins, feel patience within you expanding, resonating, vibrating to every cell in your body. And when you feel that you have reactivated patience, the kind of patience that will enhance your life, reduce triggers, reduce unnecessary anger and frustration. Let me know by nodding your head. So leave that place, but take the patience with you, knowing that the wisdom from that old man on Tatooine will reveal itself when the time is right. I want you to imagine seeing a slide there on Tatooine. But you're climbing up the slide now. Time is distorted. Maybe it was minutes, hours, or days or weeks, but eventually you arrive at a place that you can only identify as heaven. And there, I want you to feel that the answer to that question of if you could go back and change anything in your life, what would it be? Will either reveal itself now or come to you as an epiphany, a eureka moment. The back of a wardrobe. Imagine walking through that back of the wardrobe, brushing past jackets and coats, jumpers and clothes, and eventually after a long walk, you find yourself there on the top platform of the Eiffel Tower. And there on that top platform is a glowing colour that represents a resource. A resource that you need right now. A resource from your past. Clutch it with both hands and absorb it there into your chest and feel that you are absorbing that resource. And then notice beside the wardrobe is a door. And just imagine written on that door are four numbers. Remember those numbers and walk through the door and find yourself on a beach in Hawaii. And on that beach in Hawaii is a train. Chest with a combination lock. And there are four numbers written on that door that open that lock. And just imagine opening that lock. The treasure chest is opened. And maybe it is full of gold and jewels and coins, or maybe memories and insights and beliefs. But there is one item in that treasure chest that is more valuable than all the rest combined. You may know what it means. Or just take it in the object that represents it, maybe a gem, a jewel, solid gold. Hold it in your hand and then imagine. Imagine seeing somewhere on that beach is a phone. Jump into the phone and imagine you're staring at the phone. Looking at photos of Hawaii. And realize you've been on a wonderful journey in your imagination. A journey of dreams within dreams. Thoughts within thoughts, ideas within ideas. But now it's time to return to the present. But you return with that patience. With that wisdom. With that one change that could be useful to make. With a new level of resourcefulness. And something valuable that will enhance the quality of your life. Time to return now, so take a deep breath in three ones. And out three on O's. Just wiggle your fingers, wiggle your toes, connect and calibrate into the here and the now. As I now count from one to ten to awaken you. Starting to count. One, two, three, waking up. Four, five, six, more alert. Seven, eight, open your eyes, open your eyes. Nine, ten, wide awake. Wide awake. Wide awake.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

Man, fantastic. Master, masterful. I love all the devices that you put in there and all the suggestion. You just prove how well that works. And great. I love and I know that everyone that listens or watches this is going to get a lot out of that as well. Even though it was tailored to the questions you ask me, there's a lot that they could go on the journey and experience for themselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:46

Yeah, and I think I think one of the key things there is that you know that that isn't something that I could have um scripted or written. You know, all I had is kind of four four places written down on a piece of paper just to kind of remember. But what's interesting there is that the structure of nested loops of you have you have a story, you know, a beach in Hawaii, and you open a loop, a locked treasure chest. Then you go into a story within a story on the Eiffel Tower. Why? We don't know. Um, and there is a glowing resource, but we don't know what the resource is yet. And then we go in a wardrobe, and there is a change about your past, but we don't want change to make yet. What we're doing here is we're opening the loops and we only close them when we go backwards, not we don't close them in the moment. And that's why it does mirror the idea of nested loops quite well, because you've got levels of disassociation, open loops, and then in reverse order closing the loops. And that's what that's what I'll be teaching people how to do in uh in Hypnothoughts.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:44

Beautiful. And your one-day class when is that one day thing that you're offering?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:48

It's uh hypnothoughts finishes on the Sunday, and my one day workshop is on the Monday.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:52

Oh, so the workshop is also at Hypnothoughts Live?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

They yeah, it's it's literally it's a post-conference workshop, so it's uh it's the first full day after um Hypnothoughts.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:01

Cool. So we'll we'll include the links to Hypnoths Live as well as uh how to get in touch with you as well. And before we close, is there just one quick little message that you want the whole world to know?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

I I would say um change is not just possible, it's inevitable. You can't not change. So if you're gonna change anyway, you might as well change in positive directions.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:26

I love it. Thank you so much, Adam Cox. I appreciate you being here and sharing what you know. And I know that people are going to walk away from this feeling so much better and positive about the change that they will see in their own lives. Thank you so much. Take care, Ryan.

unknown 1:10:42

Bye.