Melissa Tiers: Stay Curious, Keep Evolving, and the Punk Rock Edge of Hypnosis

In this episode of AWAKEN with Ryan DeJonghe, Ryan welcomes Melissa Tiers, a true powerhouse in the hypnosis world, founder of the Center for Integrative Hypnosis, and the author of multi-award-winning books like Integrative Hypnosis: A Comprehensive Course in Change. Coming from a background in punk rock, Melissa brings a beautifully disruptive, anti-authoritarian energy to the changework field.

The conversation dives deep into why practitioners must avoid falling into rigid protocols or getting bored of their own methods. Melissa emphasizes the vast unknown still remaining in consciousness research and advocates for an evolving, adaptable framework that integrates hypnosis, neuroscience, and conversational agility. From discussing the "fledgling" nature of modern psychology to the necessity of keeping a sharp, experimental edge, Melissa provides a masterclass in staying endlessly curious and letting go of clinical dogma.

Key Takeaways & Meaningful Quotes

• "Having come from rock and roll, I was in no way, shape, or form a rock star... but recently, because of the political climate, really, I've been missing having that kind of punk rock outlet."
• "They never expand, and when you listen to them lecture about it, they're bored. They're bored of their own shit. And so, you know, that's what I would suggest, is to... is to stay curious."
• "We have barely scratched the surface of this field. We still can't agree on what the fuck consciousness is, let alone unconsciousness. And so, once you get that, that this is still fledgling, even though it's been around for thousands of years..."

How to Connect and Work with Us

Connect with Melissa Tiers: Explore Melissa’s books, practitioner training programs, and integrative approaches to clinical hypnosis and coaching.

• Website: melissatiers.com
• Center for Integrative Hypnosis: centerforintegrativehypnosis.com

Work with Ryan DeJonghe: Ready to explore your own transformation through hypnosis?

• Website: trancewell.help
• Email: ryan@trancewell.help

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, everybody, my friends, my new family. I'm so happy that you're here with us once again. And today we have an amazing guest, a rock star, a literal rock star with us. Welcome, Lisa Tears. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

It's so funny, you know.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Having come from rock and roll, I was in no way, shape, or form a rock star here in uh the East Village of New York City. But um recently uh I have because of the political climate, um, really I've been missing having that kind of punk rock outlet, you know. My bands were all political. I was a political activist when I was much younger. I used to do uh punk rock the vote, you know, yeah, and register all of the people turning 18, you know, way back when, when I was there. Um and so uh I've been making these really angry, venti, you know, uh political rants on Instagram, and it's become like my new punk rock band.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

It's almost like it's an outlet because I'm at that place where I feel like silence is complicity and we need to shake it up, and everyone needs to be like trying to do what they can, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

I don't know where you live, where are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I'm in Connecticut, just up the street from you.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

All right, so you know, um shit's crazy here, but anyway, um you just calling me a rock star. I had to qualify that I was in no way, shape, or form a rock star. Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I think you would look great in the purple mohawk, you know, like in some like leather with those studs on it with the big like metal spikes on the shoulders.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, not my kind of punk, but that's okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Maybe then another life. But yeah, thank you for thank you so much for being here. Like everyone that I'm around, they're always like just praising you. You know how sometimes people could go to like a different teacher, and then you see those people again, and you're crossing paths in your career, and you're like, oh, well, that was kind of like but everyone that comes to you as a teacher, they all like just during cloud nine singing your praises, like you've changed their careers, you've helped them help clients. So bravo, you deserve all the flowers here.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Wow, well, thank you. You know, my I take my my role as as uh as a teacher in this crazy minefield we play very seriously, and you know, one of one of the things that I have been doing, and I've been teaching clinicians for uh 30 years at this point, right? So that's a long time, yeah. Before like social media, even really the internet, I mean, I can remember being on a Yahoo group so advanced. But um one thing that stays with me is I am always the teeth, I'm always teaching the class I wish I had had. So because I lead with curiosity and my my course, integrative hypnosis, has been ever evolving and growing with me, which is why it stays fresh with me. Because, you know, as we get more and more research coming out, you know, I develop different protocols. And I feel like um that's one of the things I wish I had had, which is a more current, up-to-date, you know, as much as possible form of what we're all doing, but also a place to land. So I've been doing bi-weekly supervision for my students for over 20 years. It used to be in person every other Wednesday, they come in. It's the first hour is QA, second hour is practice. It's like here is where it's a safe place to try things, to develop your new things, you know. And I've been doing that, yeah, for 20 years because I feel like Wow, that's for all your students can come to this? Yeah, my certification students. So it's part of like again, what I wish I had had, but you know, it's not just for them. Like during COVID, I don't know where the hell I would be without without every other Wednesday being surrounded by my people talking about the things that only us crazy people like to talk about. Now that's changing, obviously, with you know, cognitive science is no longer like shunning the nature of consciousness. That used to be the thing we never talked about, you know. It's like it's like quantum physicists not really wanting to get into non-locality. It's like we can't, we don't want to go there. But now it's just opened up, you know, and so I feel like when I do my supervision, it's an uns because I don't charge for it, right? It's just a part of of this community that I'm I'm always building. Uh, but I do get something out of it, not just in the community, but also everybody knows if I say, you know, I'm playing with something here, everybody close their eyes, everybody closes their eyes. Yeah. They know that they are my guinea pigs.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

And I am there, you know, I will answer any questions every other week, but occasionally I need I need some minds to uh test things on.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah, maybe maybe we could play with that a little later, like what you've been playing. I like the idea of you coming in and playing with it. It's just like how Erickson didn't seem like he ever had the same induction twice. It's like it's just something new and it's coming from somewhere, right? Is it coming from our subconscious these ideas and these metaphors?

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Well, it it really depends. You know, I'm always about the dance, right? Yeah, dance and and Ericksonian hypnosis would call it utilization, you know, actors would call it improv. Improv, yeah. Like, you know, it's like the dance, the therapeutic dance. And so I have never handed out scripts. I've never, you know, I don't teach like that. I don't want people to read something written by somebody else to someone who, you know, it's like right here, their their focus is on a script and not every subtle thing they can possibly pick up. And once you get once you get your students really curious, yeah, what they can observe, they're locked in, and that is contagious. And once you get your clients as curious as you are about how they're doing what they're doing inside of there, and you know what levers we can begin to play with, then that releases so much dopamine, it really locks in attention in a way that um almost nothing else, you know. Curiosity is is just a it's a hub state, you know. You can kind of go anywhere from there, yeah. So it is a it is a lean-in state, right? When you're curious, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Like I see you leaning in. For those listening, she's leaning in, and it's it's causing me to subconsciously just lean in and be like, yeah, what else do you got?

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Because we definitely, you know, we thrive on that. It certainly most of us in this field, and um, and I feel like when curiosity is there, what is absent is anxiety, which if when people are anxious or fearful, they lean back. So it's almost like these two states are incompatible, you know, and and so uh so to me, you ask where do the inductions come from. A lot of it is just coming from the interaction between a lot of it is, you know, I play with my like standards, they're not like the typical standards because I like to, you know, play with you know things that are based in neuroscience and things like that, and you know, some cool trippier inductions, um, just because it keeps me attentive, curious, engaged. I couldn't imagine doing uh 25-minute progressive relaxation. So seriously, I don't know in this field if I had this set pattern. And so I do have my things that I teach my students, the standard inductions from my course. But they're there frameworks that can then be, you know, dismantled, put together in different ways, almost like Lego pieces. You can create so many different things once you have these vital chunks. And then everything else is, you know, I want to say window dressing, but the window dressing is important for novelty, for engagement, for you know, dopamine neural plasticity. Yeah, and so you know, while I can teach the underlying structure of change, and it's so simple, it's just essentially four or five steps, yeah. There's thousands of ways that we can implement that. And this is where the artistry comes in. Yeah, where your own personal style comes in, this is where your history plays a part. You know, I always talk about um with with my students and even my clients, I say, you know what, like if your life so far, right? If life was a graduate school, like what's your degree in? And because we tend to look at our struggles, our challenges, our problems, our histories, you know, in in certain negative lights rather than like what what did that really get me good at? Okay, like I always joke that I've got, you know, I got so many degrees, hard one, you know, I have a degree in addiction, which means I've created an addictions protocol, you know, and it's been it's helped thousands and thousands of people at this point for years and years. So I have, you know, a degree in chronic pain. I I had chronic pain for a a good portion of my life when I was young. And I created a chronic pain protocol. The first class I ever taught at a convention, probably over 20 some odd years ago, was called like, I don't know. I I know how to label things to get them accepted. And so that was brand new. Yeah, I knew they didn't know me, so it was something like the psychobiology of chronic pain syndromes. You know what I mean? I knew they picked that shit up.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, yum yum.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Exactly. So, you know, um, so what's your degree in? If if it's overcoming a narcissistic relationship, do you realize how many people could use your help? Like, how are you gonna use your degree?

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Right, yeah. It's like the it's that's like the Indian term, sadaha or something, like you you overcome to reach your desired place. Like that's your lesson. Like you said, that's your degree. I love how you keep saying these words. You said curiosity number of times, and then you say like the dance, the play, the fun, the improv. You know, it's like these two are like some of the largest levers in client change is curiosity and absolutely and play and dance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Because you know what? Here's the thing. If you can get people, as I said, curious, but also kind of playful, engaged, you know, and I work with people with some serious shit going on, you know, because I for most of my career um I work by way of referral, right? So, you know, I've trained, you know, therapists and psychiatrists for for many, many, many, many years. And I never, you know, marketed, promoted or anything up until the last couple of years. I didn't even really do that on social media or anything because it was all referral-based from psychiatrists, which means I had a broad range of um interesting uh mental landscapes to play with because I was working in conjunction, you know. I'm not uh a licensed therapist, I'm not a doctor, and you know, so for me, that was the way that I I worked. It it had to be in conjunction. And so, you know, I I got to uh model very different internal states because curiosity lets me climb inside. And um, we had mentioned something uh before recording when you asked, you know, what I'm you know, what I'm doing these days. Um I I have this course, hypnopsychedelics, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

So I've been developing this for well over I don't know how long. I mean, I mean, honestly, I could go back to you know tripping my brains out at 13. You know, sometimes I talk about my ingoes into the field of hypnosis being heavily influenced by uh a psilocybin trip I had when I was maybe 18 or 19. And in that moment, and I always describe it because I feel like the essence of this story has kept me chasing. Chasing chasing a glimpse of what I saw. Yes. I I can remember I was looking at this blade of grass, and all of a sudden it was in Central Park, and I was there with my band, and at one point, everything I just saw this like net that connected everything. And in that moment, all I can say is that I understood like everything. Yeah, right, my place in the world, how it all worked, and then it was gone. Yep, and but in that moment, yeah, right, because I was one of those kids, you know, I was a seeker, right? I was raised by with no religion, right? My mother was Jewish, my father was uh raised Catholic. By the time they had five kids, they knew the woman God, so they were they were like atheists, but it meant that I was always asking, and I was always joining, I would join this church and this church and this synagogue and this, you know, and like and nobody could answer my questions. And so for me, this was the one moment where I felt something akin to what people talk about when they talk about a mystical experience or something, and that honestly led me down a path of studying, reading voraciously what I could about consciousness, and and how the hell can that happen? How can a drug do that change my entire reality? And so for many, many years I was exploring various altered states of consciousness, and then the more I studied, the more I realized, well, we have these receptors inside, so there might be something internal, something that we create naturally that we can maybe hit on. And I started to explore, you know, that's where hypnosis it was another way of altering consciousness in a whole stream of things, and then I got hooked, right? Yeah, and then I did another class and another class and another class and another class, and then I joined this like DCH program so I could get into this 10-day medical hypnosis, and I was just inhaling everything for years. Um and anyway, so to me, because that is what really um launched me into uh the whole uh altered states of consciousness research, um, it was only natural, I think, for me to start to study it in a in a way that used all of my skills. So I used hypnosis to study the internal experiences of people that have had psychedelic um experiences, right? Transformational, not just ooh, trippy, look at the colors of the music, you know. Like I love the synesthesia and I love the what the brain is doing. But really, what I wanted to look at is, you know, what makes something transformational. Because you can have a lot of trips, but there's there's some things that are common in the psychedelic research that we as hypnotists can touch. So I would climb inside all different types of uh of trips, and I would just, you know, look around, really. I would use hypnosis to slow it down, to get inside people's experiences, and then to build a kind of repertoire right of of these these common things. One is that interconnectedness, what they call oceanic boundlessness.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah, oh, I like that.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

That well, I didn't come up with that.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

That's in the I like that phrase, it's just like, ooh, that sounds good. It's just kind of ripples, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

And um so I started to play, and it's you know, it's nowhere near, it's always evolving, right? So I had someone uh revisit uh my training, it was like, wow, this is very different than the first, then the first iteration. I'm like, well, uh I'm wouldn't you expect that? You know, yeah, it's all about feedback. So I'm I'm able to take people that have had a psychedelic experience, easily re-trigger it, then give them the control that sometimes you don't have whether it's a chemical agent working, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:45

Interesting, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

I had someone in one of my trainings who had taken a who had a DMT experience that was so rapid and so chaotic and so on so many levels they just could not make sense of it. And so we were able to re-vivify it to to anchor it in and to slow it down, to extrapolate the meaning, then to use the meaning, the insights to to then my you know, my work as a hypnotist and change worker is how do we take this amazing resource, these insights, yeah, connect it to the places in life where you need it. That is one of the biggest problems in the psychedelic um, you know, therapeutic fields is that integration. People compartmentalize their experiences, right? Like, oh, here was this mind-altering, I think I spoke to God experiment.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

And then the next day they're yelling at their teenager or raging in traffic. It's like these two things are kept in very separate places.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Wait, I don't remember working with you. That was me, like having a great trip, and like, ah, me and God are one, and then all of a sudden it's like someone spilled spaghetti. Who spilled a spaghetti? Like raising my voice and feeling myself just get all tight and constricted. And it's like, that wasn't God.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Absolutely, absolutely compartmentalized because the work of connecting, you know, one one way you can think about it is, you know, there's a there's a neural schema, there's a neural network that knows this transcendence, and then there's the neural network of driving and traffic, and these two networks don't connect. But if that's where you typically lose your shit, then that's where I'm going to take the oneness, the interconnectedness, the patience, the gratitude, whatever it is that they have really soaked up in that psychedelic experience. And I am going to condition it in to all those places in their life that they need it. And that is that is the combination of my form of change work, you know, integrative hypnosis, which is very different than your traditional standard stuff. It's more as we were talking about the dance, it's more understanding how the brain changes, right? How we can update, you know, therapeutically uh memories and then have them reconsolidate back into the brain differently. We can change the emotional track, how to instigate things like prediction errors so the brain naturally updates, yeah. But using the resource of that kind of hypnopsychedelic state to do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

That's cool because in while you're talking, and I'm picturing, you're talking about, you know, you have this, we'll call it the godlike experience, or we'll just say you're in the sun, you're one with the light. And then it feels like you take this light source that's hot and bright and full of love and gratitude, and then you like pull the attention to that you like you're disassociated from the car and you're now shining that light into the car. You're seeing yourself in the car, feeling the light being brought into you so that way when you're in the car next, oh, where'd all this light come from? I feel why I'm in the traffic now. Is it kind of like that?

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Well, essentially, essentially, what you're doing is you're, you know, you're you're you're lighting up but both of these neural networks at the same time, and you're integrating them in through then hypnotic conditioning, right? So it's it's basically looking at how does the brain change when it changes? How can we instigate a more rapid form? How do we condition it in so you don't have to remember? You're not like in the oh no, let me white knuckle it and remember that I'm not this compassion. No, we want it to be seamless, and in order to do that, it takes that type of conditioning in. And so yeah, it would be like that light in in your in in in your uh version it would be like you know being the in the light as you're driving and somebody cuts you off and just conditioning in all of those little little um annoyances but when seen through the lens of that connectivity you don't get annoyed yeah things are like oh that that's so weird how that works we must need to get somewhere fast i hope everything's okay now okay we're not gonna make you that crazy but i hope so i mean i think that'd be pretty groovy i mean at the same time though it's a little boring if if everything's always like hey i'm i'm just a flower in the sun and then it's like so i'm from new yes and i never want you know everyone to walk around you know with daisies and lollipops because you know the real world needs a little bit of our um grit and so you know for me it's and that's why i joked we're not going that far but we do want you to be able to um take the resource states that you have gained and and and and have them when you need them integrate them into your life in such a way that um the meaningfulness of that experience starts to you know invade every every part of your life and if nothing is perfect if if you know quite often I work with people and and maybe we'll we'll take away their phobia and or we'll take away their anxiety about this or about this or about this. They're like oh my god I can't believe like I'm fixed. I'm like well you would be if we take you now and put you in a hermetically sealed box and we lived on a in a world with no other people. It's those people life keeps happening and so it's not about being fixed it's about you know being able to have the skill set so that those things don't throw you anymore and to know that you have you know the ability to respond differently no matter what life is going to throw at you because life is going to continue to throw shit at you.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

We can't live in this world you know in this crazy world that you and I live in um in this country well world because we we have our sticky fingers everywhere um to I've gotten a lot of pushback uh this year um from like the light and love community because they do love my work right they follow me and because you know hypnopsychedelics but also you know energy psychology and I have dabbled in many things that's why my course is integrative right like I don't there's no boundaries anything that deals with the unconscious mind right the unconscious system the nervous system is fair game I don't pull just from your standard hypnosis field because that would be boring yeah I mean I want to go outside the field and then you know and then play and pull things into a hypnotic repertoire but you know a lot of people have said things like oh my god you know you're you're so angry you know your post about you know this administration is so angry you know you always and I'm like they say I can't you know I can't watch your videos because it really um it it it just takes it lowers my vibration and I just like I can't handle that anymore I'm like you know what fuck you isn't there a study that says that uh cursing helps lower your pain like I thought I saw yeah yes it does I you you don't know every time a new study on cursing comes out a hundred people send it to me yeah yeah yeah you don't even need to do the research back to the whole reason that you know I re I react that way it's because people think that they're doing something great by wanting you to just say in peace love and as you would say you know you know um sunflowers and lollipops but you know what with the rise of fascism and the horrors that are happening to people to our neighbors you just walking around that is a privilege that most people who are really being hurt can't don't have right and so if I'm saying here's the number to call to stop this bill and here's the number to call to stop this here's why we're boycotting this and here's why we're gonna starve the machine here you know it's because I'm trying to do what little I can so this year I've done a lot of free classes a lot of I've worked pro bono with like immigration lawyers and you know like people with their boots on the ground you know who are who are fighting a good fight you know I did a lot of like courses for the resistance right all for free yeah like resistance training yeah resistance training and it was how to keep your shit together in this crazy world so we can focus you know and yeah I do want to yeah I want to go down that path with you not on the like vibrational level and I just feel like I feel just a little pause I want to shout out my fiance she works at an immigrant and refugee uh service agency and she's a sweet I I fell in love with her and it was our second date and then it's this Afghan man that has two daughters out by the pond and then she walked up to them and then spoke I think she knows Darry. There's two main languages there. And she just starts talking Darry to them just offering them love. I was like holy cow I'm so this is like a genuinely caring person. I was like okay I'm in love now and they had tights in my car.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

That's not such a good person. That's a smart woman.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah yeah so I've given her her flowers there too. And then you're talking about this um this you know I I use these word energies but talking about the science of it when in the anger I feel like you know you got that whole cascade of hormones going on. Do you feel like you let out your anger and then let go or do you hold on to it like how do we do it that's good for our bodies.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

Right. So you know here here's this thing and how emotions are made do you know Lisa Feldman Barrett's Yeah yeah James turned me on to her brilliant lady yeah brilliant lady I'm I'm about to stay with James in Edinburgh when I move oh now I'm jealous. No we're good friends. So you know I I bring her up because a lot of times this idea of like if you don't let go of your anger it's gonna stay in your body um no tension might stay in your body because of repetitive you know um maybe suppression or just not letting it out we also know that catharsis right the that used to be punching pillows or rage you know doesn't actually work because it promotes more of that emotion right violence begets violence and that kind of thing so so so here we have to look at like these those extremes to understand that you know emotions typically have about a 90 second duration they flow biochemically through the system. Now what makes us feel that we are angry for an hour or a decade um is because we're so good at reigniting that 90 second you know lever. So think of it like this somebody cut you were talking about you in traffic right? Yeah somebody cuts you off and in that moment you're like what the you know and you get that burst there there it's it starts to spike yeah now if you just observed it if you just were like one of those mindfulness gurus and just like oh there is that anger right it would be gone in 90 seconds most of us aren't good at that so what we do is we spike it right it starts the 90 second clock and as that clock starts to slightly wind down we go how dare he do this you know like we replay it yeah yeah and then we we we talk shit to ourselves you know like why is it that everybody and then we generalize you know and then we just keep we keep as my friend John Overdorf would say we keep throwing logs on the fire so in answer to your question right and and and then I'll I'll loop back around to why if your love and light is so fragile that what that that listening to me you know uh condemn certain you know horrors and you know and then tell you the number to call to come to to to voice your dissent if I'm using you know if fuck or whatever and that's going to lower your vibration then you need to work right we don't you know the resistance needs your love and light but it's gotta be freaking stronger than that lady yeah you need a love and light that can withstand the darkness that's coming you know what I mean or that's here and so and and that is my response but more importantly so many of those people over this past well I mean for a long time but especially over this past year um because I've never really been on social media in this way I mean I used to on Facebook because I I have friends it was never about business and I would get a lot of flack for my political posts but more importantly is they're trying to they don't want to speak up and they don't want you speaking up. So they're literally trying to silence the people that are using their platform you know to to you know to be a part of the resistance in whatever part you know mainstream media is is a joke we're not hearing what the world is hearing we live in a propaganda machine and you actively have to go find out you can't you no longer sit back and be fed this information you have to actively look for it and so part of what I do is I share hey there's a bill coming up in Ohio and it's gonna do this and it's gonna do that and here's the number like holy shit people they're trying to you know stop this from happening they're you know they're taking away women's votes and everyone called me an alarmist you know uh there is no pleasure I have in saying I told you so I love the I freaking told you so I'm a New Yorker I know who Donald Trump is yeah we know him right if you're especially if you're in like the the scene right where he would try and come be cool guy at the party and nobody liked him.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Nobody wanted him at his parties I mean except Epstein but we won't go there have you seen the apprentice the movie The Apprentice I haven't yet oh it is spot on it's so good when you talk about knowing him in New York it's like part of me just I just uh yeah it kind of rings some bells and I want to rewind a bit because you're talking about that 90 second window of of feeling that emotion and I think it's so great that it aligns with that's a perfect length for it an Instagram or TikTok 90 seconds let your anger out and then boom 90 seconds is over and then go back to you.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

Thank you for for bringing me back around I I I tend to just you know conversations go in loops you know just like my trance work but you know as far as what do we do I think channeling your rage into action is probably one of the best things I think they did a study where they looked at people who were equally like groups that were equally angry about the same things politically one group took action whether they were a part of a protest or a boycott or a community uh you know and the other people didn't and the happiness set point as well as the quality of life and your life having meaning was so drastically different. So I like to get people to the point where they can use that anger right use that anger and look this is not perfect. I am in no I mean I I know this shit and I still you know have my daughter walk by me like um maybe you should tap on it you know I've got a daughter now she's 25 and she's a therapist oh you know so what's the difference between you're talking about these studies with like there's that catharcism but then you mentioned like the ones where you just like beat a punching bag and that actually increases the violence so what's the difference between having anger and letting go and it's good for you versus punching the punching bag metaphorically I think I I mean this is my guess obviously they haven't done a study comparing those two yeah we do know that there was two different uh you know studies and and you know catharsis was studied a long time ago when primal scream was really a thing and beating up pillows was really a thing and they wanted to know it's so funny because I'm thinking of this one client who came to my office and they they were like oh I do this you know that you know I do this primal scream therapy up the block right I used to have a a a center in Chelsea and and I was like yeah well what's that like and they're like well I've been doing it for six years and I'm like wow and they're like so I said what do you want to work on my anger and I'm like seriously that's funny kidding me because if that shit worked the way they say if you could really scream and get it out then why would you do it for six years? What's happening in your day-to-day life that makes you scream and rage every single day because clearly you know you're not it's funny because you say that and it reminds me of being a US Marine and they try to train us to scream and grunt and let out these like primal things of anger and the more we did it the more we became programmed to do that the more angry you became the more bloodthirsty we became anger begets anger it's almost like you are you are teaching you are practicing you know uh Rick Hansen one of the quotes that I I use all the time Rick Hansen who wrote um hardwiring happiness on the Buddha's brain he says you can practice an emotional state until it becomes a neural trait and so when they have people practicing that you know people that are you know always stressed out it's almost like when they have no stress they're almost uncomfortable because their body and their brain are used to this particular drug right we're all yeah all the time and this cocktail needs to be hit again and again and again people would say I forget where maybe it was like Candace Purt's work the molecules of emotion but she talks about repeated emotions when this when cells divide they have more receptors for that particular emotional cocktail oh so think about that yeah you know I mean I can't remember whose work that was from but I think it was like Candace Peart and um but so practice right when you're practicing those emotions you're just digging them a little deeper into the brain. So back to the question of how to you know what is healthier and we know that taking action helps. We know that um not suppressing the anger but allowing yourself to feel the anger acknowledge the anger and then I mean in in our world we we do things therapeutically right so I can quite often um once felt sometimes we dive right into the center and then feel it be present to it let your unconscious mind know that it's okay to sit with your emotions whatever they are because that's a good lesson. Yeah you're always trying to get the hell away from it so part of it is being present to it teaching your unconscious mind that it's safe that these that you can feel it and then drop through it what's underneath it. And then what's underneath it sometimes you know localize the anger where is it in your body does it have a message for you right what is the positive intention underneath this anger sometimes dissociating from it shaping it. What what what does it want to become so there's uh so many different therapeutic ways we can first feel it acknowledge it and then in some way process it in some way make it useful I think I love that you're talking about what's under it what's under it what's under it and maybe call me a hippie here.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

So like I went to this men's group they're based on like young young stuff and so like under the under the anger is usually like fear sadness. And then my my theory now as you're talking it just came to my mind that if you keep going what's under it what's under it at the bottom of all emotions I think we're driven by love.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

So now you're describing a process uh known as either the drop through or even journeying depending on who you learn it from. And Brandon Bays uh covers this in her book The Journey does it slightly differently I turn it into a definitely a hypnotic you know and what the goal is you go through these layers and then you get to um what my friend John would call um an enduring state of being and it's typically love or God or interconnectedness or whatever whatever gels well with your belief system of something that is big something that is indivisible.

SPEAKER_04 40:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

And so then you take this state and now we're back to our discussion of hypnopsychedelics you take this really big resource state that feels like God or feels like love. And as you come back up these layers you are collapsing right like in we have a collapse of of those emotional states you're you're infusing that loneliness with love.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Then you come up and you're infusing that sadness or that anger or that you know um and yeah I love where that's back around like you on Instagram like it's cool to think that you're being motivated by love or whatever your God or whatever you're calling it at the root of your existence. That's what's motivating you to take this action and that's really when you look at it in that framework not from other people like the vibrationist goose you know they're like no no no sort of like looking at it but when you look at you and you operating out of that place of abundance and at your center that's that's music. That's magical to see you doing that. That's the dance.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

You really are a hippie you're so sweet.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

I mean you know it's it's it's funny you know our our our little text exchange this this morning you know I I was thinking about it because we don't really know each other you invited me to do this and I thought you know let's let's have fun. Yeah um and uh you know me saying oh I gotta go to the hospital and you were just like what bless what blessings can you find and at first I was like uh oh but then like you said something else and I was like okay you know what Melissa smile and here's this dose of positivity stop being so snarky yeah it's a New Yorker you know like you said you're a New Yorker you know I get it I get it yeah and it's just yeah there's there's just something magical about because I work in a hospital and like it could be a place of depression and yet I find it's often a place of miracles.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

I get a little like when I get up in the morning and say I wonder what miracle or gift will happen today and just with that mindset and I go and I start looking for it I usually find it.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

Well that is right when people say you get what you you get what you look for on many levels when you're looking at what's happening unconsciously and the filtering system that you are honing that you are shifting right you're putting a certain um filter uh on information when you ask a question like that. And so you're you more often than not are you know you're looking through a s a particular lens and that cognitive lens will start to reflect back what you know what ener what energy as I as I air quote but what what you know what emotional state um you're utilizing to look through the lens. And so I I think it's great because I you know um I tend to have the opposite idea of hospitals. Like my in my experience with hospitals and I Estrogenic illness in general. And if you don't know for your listeners that don't know what that means, it means you know, either death or harm done by the treatment, done by doctors and nurses and the treatment in general. And there is something like I want to say over 500,000 deaths a year that attribute to iatrogenic illness. And when you look at what that is, so so I have a very different idea of hospitals based on what I've experienced, based on how they fucked up this person that I love and this person that I for me is you know, how quickly can I get my father the hell out of there because it's not where you go to heal. To heal, you need sleep. Like I go on these, these whenever I have to spend time in a hospital. I literally could design the best hospital ever because it wouldn't take that much money for the small tweaks, or like the plants behind you.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

Like at my hospital, it you're not allowed to bring in plants because of potential parasites or whatever in the soil. Yet I feel that's more healing than what a lot of these hospitals are doing.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Research that backs up what you just said.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

So we know this. We know that if you can get out in nature, that boosts your interleukins, your immune system on every level. If you can't do that, if you can bring nature in, that's the second best. But here's something good for you. Because if they refuse to let you do that, there is some boost in immunity if you bring in pictures of forests and oh now that's cool. That's one thing. So I would design a hospital that would have windows overlooking green. Yeah. We know that that heals. I would have hospitals that do not have an intercom system behind every guy in the bed. Yeah. I could have a rule. I would for 20 bucks, I bet you I could design a soundproof tent to go over the patient so that they could sleep. We know that healing happens when you sleep, and it is the very opposite thing that happens in a hospital. My father was woken up every 20 fucking minutes.

SPEAKER_04 46:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

How are you supposed to have deep restorative healing when you won't let the patient sleep? So, and then food, don't get me started on new. Anyway, yeah, you're all fair.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Those are all great points. And to be fair, the miracles I witnessed aren't usually from the treatment, it's usually from engagement with people in the hallways. Right. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

And so very early on in my career, I started doing workshops for nurses. And you know, this is this is like 30 years ago. And it's because I was sitting in a hospital with my grandmother, and I was listening to all the bad hypnosis being thrown around, just in every question, how's your pain today? Yeah, it's like you woke her up to ask her how her pain is. You know, like, how about we say it this way? And then I heard some woman in with with the woman in next to uh next to my grandmother, and she was clearly doing a hypnotic, wonderful, guided visualization. So as she walked out, I went up to her. I said, It's so nice to hear someone who's trained, you know, in hypnosis. And she looked at me like I said, You're a witch, you're practicing witchcraft. She was horrified, and I realized just time doing this work kind of gives you insight into how best to speak to people, how best to guide their minds. So I immediately went to whoever put together these. Um I lived at the time near uh three different hospitals in New York City, like within like within a 10 block radius. And I went to Beth Israel School of Nursing and I went in and I said, I have some ideas, right? Like who's in charge of teaching? And, you know, no, I'm not a nurse, no, I'm not a doctor, I'm just a hypnotist, but you know, and they were ready to dismiss me because they didn't have like the academic cred at the time. And I just started, and I remember I um they said, Well, you know, from what I understand about it, hypnosis takes, you know, our nurses just don't have the time. And so I walked over and I said, I'm sorry, what's your name? And I did this quick handshake induction and then immediately made her hand numb and then twisted it so that the other woman was horrified that I was like, Oh my goodness. And all of this was in like 35 seconds. And I said, So, as you notice how comfortable this is for you, yeah, right? And then I let it go and I said, but I don't know, maybe that wouldn't be useful. And they were like, Okay, when can you come in? Yeah, because the truth is they need quick, fast ways to calm people down. So for a long time, for cuff quite a few years, I was teaching uh nurses and people that worked in hospitals because of me sitting in a hospital room thinking, oh my god, somebody needs to teach them about language, you know, somebody needs to just reframe this in a slightly different way. But anyway, but it is it is our again, I bring that up because it's the lens we look through. You you go into a hospital thinking what miracles can happen. I go into a hospital thinking, how can I get them the fuck out of here? And and we both have the experience we're expecting. Right? And welcome to hypnosis.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

And I just want to note and highlight here for everyone like how natural and gifted you are, Melissa, about doing this. Like you're dropping into that, like, and you can feel that you know, like you have that just you you're you're putting it yourself like it's all just hypnotic watching or listening to you.

SPEAKER_02 49:52

You're natural, like it's just stuff we like to talk about, you know. Yeah, and we could uh have 30 years of you know, like fascination with the field. So, and much longer than that because I, you know, I've been playing with altered states of consciousness, you know, since I was, you know, hyperventilating as a six-year-old, just to get dizzy. Do you remember spinning? Yep, yep, hyperventilating and doing whatever we can, you know, our obsession with altered or my obsession with altered states. Same, same.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

And for me, it was my NDE. And then, like, you're still a Simon trip, and it's like, oh, you see it all now. You're like, this place is really cool. It's like it has all this potential and all this interconnectedness and all these things going on. And then you wake up into this earth and you're like, okay, that like my little words, my first words when they brought me back from the death was what the fuck? I just screamed it over, like, what the fuck? Like, what this doesn't feel as good as another place, you know?

SPEAKER_02 50:54

I you know, one day, uh, maybe at a conference, you and I, I'm gonna buy you a cup of coffee. We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna dive deep into that. Oh, I would love that so much. I'm inside your mind, yeah, and and coast on that experience because it's it's I studied NDEs for a long time. I was literally going down rabbit hole, and this is when I was in my teens. I was like studying religion basically to because I uh my fear of death, you know, and um I was obsessed with what the hell happens, and I tried religion, they didn't know, they couldn't know. So I was like, well, how about studying the people that have actually died and come back, you know, studying children and reincarnation and you know, all of these things. And I went down a big old rabbit hole. At the time, I had literally read everything there was to read, you know, we're talking about 40 years ago. Yeah, you know, I'm kind of old.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

So what did you find out in all your down at the rabbit hole? What's down there? What'd you find?

SPEAKER_02 52:02

I mean what's down there is uh you know, people seem there seem to be common themes. There seems to be things that we then push through the lens of our belief system. So, you know, um I think it's not as pure as people think, in that you can't get away from, even though you can say, well, the brain is not necessarily working the way it should be working, um, there's still remnants and emotional holdovers, and I think you're still looking through a particular lens, which is why some people will meet pure potentiality, and some people will meet Jesus, and some people will meet, you know, uh Buddha, and you know, so there is some level of expectation and belief, but there's also the common things, right? The the light, the you know, and for me, as as someone who studies influence and suggestibility, I had to, in order to really get pure, as pure as we can get of experience that hasn't been because we know how memory works and how it doesn't work, we know that we consolidate stories, TV shows, books into our personal memory file, and we believe it, we think it's real. So then I was looking at near-death experiences of children and and the reincarnational stories of children that haven't had time to be totally exposed to the interesting cultural uh, you know, um uh stuff that's out there on it. Everyone's heard of no, do not go into the light, even if it's just watching culture, you know what I mean? Like so, so me as a natural skeptic, I'm always looking for how can we explain it other than on on its face value. And I don't want to diminish in any way anyone's experience. I'm just saying that is how I naturally approach everything, right? How how else can we explain this? Right? Some will say, well, it's interesting you get a dose of DMT when you're born and a dose of DMT when you die, which is a psychedelic. The most powerful psychedelic in my experience has been like 5MEO DMT anyway. So we do make this, every everything in nature makes it, it's fascinating on some level. Um, so I think I mean I learned a lot, right? And it just all to me, even though most, you know, it's it's anecdotal because it's really hard to study subjective experience, the more and more and more anecdotal evidence you've gotta take note. You've got to say something is happening here. These are people that didn't expect this, they didn't know this, this is a scientist that didn't believe in this, and yet they're having this experience. Now we could say, yes, of course, the stories have gotten in unconsciously because 90% of you know, uh all the information through flowing around us goes directly into our unconscious mind. So while people will say, Well, I never read a book on this subject, I never watched a movie, it's like, dude, you have no idea how much that is is out there in the ether that you are soaking up. But I mean, to me, it was certainly enough and convincing enough that I kept wanting to look into it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

What was uh the in the kids you said you studied kids that had NDs, did they have similar experiences?

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Yes, yeah, they had no idea. Yeah, they you know, they talked about seeing you know dead loved ones. I mean, there's this there was one story of you know, a kid who knew the name of uh their sibling that had died before this kid was born, just like a stillbirth, whatever, and was like bringing it up with the parents and all of these things. And I saw grandpa and he said this, and just interesting things.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

So interesting, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:08

I love all that stuff because um I'm a I'm a true agnostic. I know I don't know, and as long as I don't know, I'm open and curious to find out, you know.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

So yeah, you're like Socrates, you're just like I said, so we have gone in so many circles.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

I don't even know what time it is here.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

Yeah, it's almost time. I just want to touch base on this. So the hypnopsychedelics is what you're doing. So are you working with people that had trips or are you teaching people?

SPEAKER_02 56:39

So I am so in order to develop it, I've I've uh in turn hypnotically modeled people's psychedelic experiences so that I can then develop ways to to instigate it in people that have never had a psychedelic experience.

SPEAKER_03 56:55

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 57:09

I work with uh psychedelic therapists so that they can learn how to use this along with the psychedelics, you know, for preframing as well as for integration, as well as for you know strategically placed um suggestions.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

Yeah. So like me as a as a hypnotherapist, I don't have this training. So could I come to you or your core on your website and then learn how to help people?

SPEAKER_02 57:36

I've got uh one coming up in in June, the beginning of June. I also have just restructured my integrative hypnosis training to make it more of a masterclass that that that includes that does deeper dives into things that in a in a limited time I I'm known for throwing out a lot of seeds, right? So I'll do a technique and then I'll throw out you know 30 different variations that you can play with just to show people that you know the shit is all made up, right? And so um, you know, so so this time I've reconfigured it. It's starting in the fall, and one of the weekend modules will be the hypnopsychedelics as well. So whether they can want to take it as a standalone thing or whether they want a bigger, broader uh integrative hypnosis training, they can they can check that out.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 58:32

And I have three things on my site, you know, like a free rapid self-hypnosis. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

And we'll be sure and include that in the description, of course. And I'm wondering, is it included when you did that with that nurse where you're like 30 seconds to hand catalepsy and she doesn't feel pain? Do we get to learn that little Jedi trick too?

SPEAKER_02 58:51

Well, you know, not exactly in that way, simply because it's over Zoom. And so the handshake interrupt doesn't really lend itself to Zoom. But I've I I have some different variations, you know. Like, so you you you you spoke to James Tripp. So yeah, so I've I've been able to do like handsticks and things like that. Cause I worked my last book was on working with kids and teens. And uh, you know, so so I've I've developed some of the hypnotic phenomena to work with Zoom, but for that you got to come live, and that's you know, I'll be in uh at Hypnoths. And um next uh oh my gosh, actually, in about three weeks, I'll be in Dublin. So I don't know if any of your listeners are in Dublin.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

Yeah, yeah, we got a few, yeah, up there with um John Scanlin and them.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah exactly. I'll be teaching a one-day workshop on uh conversational brain change. Sounds cool.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

And I'll be doing hypnopsychedelics in the conference proper as like a free, you know, as like part of just uh an experience that's other than yeah, that's cool. Anyone that wants to go to that, just check out the Irish Hypnosis Conference.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

Yeah, and then you and I think we can uh do that coffee thing. Um right now um I'm just waiting for final approval but I think um I was one of the the finalists to be the apprentice janitor for Hit in the Thoughts Live, and then so I'll be under Scott Stalin's wings, and he'll be teaching me how to do the because I know he's CEO slash janitor. That's his title for Hit in the Thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

Oh, okay. I'm um this is an interesting thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

Yeah, so I said hey, I don't I want to take that title. I hope your ego is not too big that I can take that title from me. Not CEO part, you could keep that. I want to take the janitor title.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

So you and me, you and me in Vegas.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

Uh we we will definitely explore that because um I'm taking a two-day pre-conference and a one-day post-conference and that thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:49

Cool, cool. I'll be there. All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:51

Well, it was nice talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

Yeah, and before we let you go, what's just one final thing? If when when what bubbles up to you when I say what's one possible thought that you would like to tell the world now in this moment?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

Oh my god. No pressure, no pressure, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

I mean, it could be anything. I love plants, you know, whatever. Or what are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:11

It's funny because all these plants behind me, and I know your listeners can't see it, but I've got this huge wall of plants, and I was never a plant person, but during COVID, my sister went and rescued a bunch of plants because no one could get, we weren't allowed to go into the office buildings, so no one was watering the plants. And so she comes up with this van of like a hundred plants, and she's like, You have to take some. I'm running out of places with sunlight. And I went, No, no, no, no, no. I can't even keep aloe alive, like I can't do it. And she looked at me and she said, You have windows and sunshine, yeah. The plants, so there you are. I found that naming them keeps you, you know, guilty enough to be attentive. Yeah, and so these are all those plants, they're still very vibrant and healthy, from you know, and I had to really encourage some to come back to life for real. Um, anyway, that's not what I would have left you with, but you did bring up the plants, but they're rescues, so we love that, right? Some other good things to come from from COVID. Um, as you would say, what blessings can you find in that? Um, I don't know. I would just say, you know, to to for people in the field, you know, to stay curious. My my favorite minds in this field. Um, you know, you mentioned James Tripp and you know, John Overdorf. My favorite minds are people that lead through curiosity, experimentation, and play. People that feel like they have all the answers, they have their thing. You've got to do this thing, this is the only way to change. Right. My protocol, yes. Right, yes. They never expand. And when you listen to them lecture about it, they're bored, they're bored of their own shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:04

And so, you know, that's what I would suggest is to is to stay curious. We we have barely touched scratched the surface of this field. We still can't agree on what the fuck consciousness is, let alone unconsciousness. And so once you get that, that this is still fledgling, even though it's been around for thousands of years, it's like uh Egyptian, you know, sleep temples. But yeah, we still don't know. We still don't know. And so that would be what I would leave my colleagues with is uh play and be curious.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

And that's a great message for everyone. Hypnotist, you're not be curious, play. Yeah. Thank you so much, Melissa, for being here.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

All right, my pleasure.