Hyp Talks; Exploring healing, personal growth, and subconscious transformation through conversations with healing practitioners across modalities
Hyp Talks is a podcast exploring subconscious healing, emotional wellbeing, and personal transformation through conversations with practitioners across many healing modalities.
We explore topics like anxiety, trauma, relationships, self-worth, and life transitions—unpacking how different approaches can support deep, lasting change.
Hyp Talks; Exploring healing, personal growth, and subconscious transformation through conversations with healing practitioners across modalities
Episode 26 - Charlie DeLacey: The Monastery Experience & the Hidden Link With Silence
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Charlie DeLacey is a hypnotherapist who helps people change the patterns that keep them stuck — anxiety, chronic pain, unwanted habits, low confidence, and the quiet beliefs running beneath them. He trained through the Hypnosis Motivation Institute curriculum in the Kappasinian tradition, completed NLP practitioner training, and continues to deepen his work with Ericksonian methods, therapeutic imagery, and parts work. His practice rests on a simple conviction: the mind already holds what a person needs to heal, and good hypnotherapy is the art of helping them reach it.
Before he ever guided a client into trance, Charlie spent four years as a Carmelite friar, living a contemplative life of silence, prayer, and disciplined inner work. Those years gave him something no certification can — a lived familiarity with the interior landscape, with stillness, and with the slow, patient process by which a person is genuinely transformed. That formation is the foundation beneath every session: it taught him to hold a calm, undistracted presence, to listen beneath the words, and to sit with someone in the deep places without rushing them. It also makes him a natural fit for clients of faith — including those who wonder whether hypnosis and belief can coexist. He has stood on both sides of that question and can meet it honestly.
Charlie also knows from the inside what many of his clients are carrying. He has lived with arthritis for more than a decade, and uses the same hypnotic tools he offers clients — self-hypnosis, breathwork, imagery — to manage pain and medical anxiety in his own life. He is likewise open about being neurodivergent: he has ADHD, and has built his life and practice around a brain that works differently. When he helps a client quiet a racing mind, ease a flare of pain, or work with rather than against their own wiring, he is not speaking from a textbook. The tools he teaches are tools he uses.
Sessions with Charlie are collaborative and unhurried. The client is always in control; his role is to create a calm, focused space where new possibilities can take hold. Rather than treating symptoms in isolation, he works with the whole person — using trance, metaphor, and gentle reframing to change the stories the subconscious has been telling. He is an active member of the wider hypnotherapy community, writes on hypnotherapy and depth work, and shares freely with the professional community of practitioners he learns alongside.
Whether your goal is easing anxiety, living better with pain, breaking a habit, or simply becoming more fully yourself, Charlie meets you where you are — without judgment, and without a one-size-fits-all script. If you’re ready to explore what change might look like for you, he would be glad to hear from you.
https://charlesdelacey.com/
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Website: https://hincheyhypnotherapy.com/
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Original Song by Tracey Moore and performed by Jazzyfatnastees.
Audio editing and engineering by Zachary Treanor
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Hello everyone, and welcome to Hyp Talks. I'm your host, Katherine Hinchey. I'm a certified hypnotherapist, NLP practitioner, and SHRM Senior Certified Professional in Human Resources. After spending a decade working in the music industry, my path led me into the world of the healing arts, where science, energy, mindset, and transformation all meet. Each week, I sit down with a different healing practitioner to explore the many powerful modalities available to support our growth, well-being, and personal evolution. So come with me on this journey of discovery and learn about all the opportunities for healing and transformation that are available to all of us.
Welcome To Hyp Talks
Speaker 4Charlie is a hypnotherapist who helps people change the patterns that keep them stuck. Anxiety, chronic pain, unwanted habits, low confidence, and the quiet beliefs running beneath them. He trained through the Hypnosis Motivation Institute curriculum in the Kapisinian tradition, completed NLP practitioner training, and continues to deepen his work with Ericksonian methods, therapeutic imagery, and parts work. His practice rests on a simple conviction. Before he ever guided a client into trance, Charlie spent four years as a Carmelite friar, living a contemplative life of silence, prayer, and disciplined inner work. Those years gave him something no certification can: a lived familiarity with the interior landscape, with stillness, and with the slow, patient process by which a person is genuinely transformed. That formation is the foundation beneath every session. It taught
Meet Charlie DeLacey
Speaker 4him to hold a calm, undistracted presence, to listen beneath the words, and to sit with someone in a deep places without rushing them. It also makes him a natural fit for clients of faith, including those who wonder whether hypnosis and belief can coexist. He has stood on both sides of that question and can mean it honestly. Charlie also knows from the inside what many of his clients are carrying. He has lived with arthritis for more than a decade and uses the same hypnotic tools he offers his clients, self-hypnosis, breath work, imagery, to manage pain and medical anxiety in his own life. He is likewise open about being neurodivergent. He has ADHD and has built his life and practice around a brain that works differently. When he helps a client, quiet a racing mind, ease the flare of pain, or work with rather than or against their own wiring, he is not speaking from a textbook. The tools he teaches are tools he uses. Sessions with Charlie are collaborative and unhurried, and the client is always in control. His role is to create a calm, focused space where new possibilities can take hold. Rather than treating symptoms in isolation, he works with the whole person using trance, metaphor, and gentle reframing to change the stories the subconscious has been telling. He is an active member of the wider hypnotherapy community, writes on hypnotherapy and depth work, and shares freely with the professional community of practitioners he learns alongside. Whether your goal is easing anxiety, living better with pain, breaking a habit, or simply becoming more fully yourself, Charlie meets you where you are, without judgment and without a one-size-fits-all script. If you're ready to explore what change might look like for you, he would be glad to hear from you. Welcome, Charlie DeLacey. I'm so excited to have you here today. And I, you know, in full disclosure, we know each other. We were classmates together at HMI. We were in Joe Tabanella's NLP workshop together. Yes, amazing class, amazing people that we've stayed in touch with. So anyway, thank you for being here today. I'm so happy to have you on.
SpeakerThank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to do this.
Speaker 4Tell us a little bit about , I know I read your bio, but I love to hear it in your own words about what corner of the healing world you're working with.
SpeakerWell, I have a somewhat interesting uh journey into hypnotherapy. Um, that even from when I was a kid, I was kind of the strange one where I would be more likely to be staring up at the sky and just just kind of meditating and uh thinking about deep things than playing in the dirt or something. Uh my parents didn't know what to make of it. They look out the back window and like, what is he doing? He's just staring. What is he doing? Um and so uh I went into a Carmelite monastery and I lived there for four years, and it was supposed to be forever. That gives me kind of a unique look into hypnotherapy, in that I learned how to enter into the interior life to kind of be quiet. And the Carmelite order uh in the Catholic Church is a little bit different than like a Franciscan order. Franciscans are more active, they go out and they're the when you see a a man in a brown robe uh and sandals, you're he's probably a Franciscan. A Carmelite you would be less likely to see because they stay in the monastery. We would have uh about five hours of prayer a day, five hours of formal prayer,
A Life Drawn To Stillness
Speakerwith two hours of just silent mental prayer, which is the thing that I really wanted to go into it for, is every day you spend at least two hours in silence. That was just right down my alley. And with the with the spirituality of Saint John of the Cross, a f 16th century Spanish mystic and poet, speaking of like the wound of love, that wound that is dealt to us, that slight bit of knowledge that dives us into mystery that keeps that sends us on the chase for greater knowledge, and that uh that we can never quite fully know. And that chase was was uh certainly something that I really liked about it. But that silence, learning to get comfortable with silence, and they send you into it pretty quickly. As soon as you enter, it's what I call secular detox. Uh, you give up your phone, television. The only communication you have with the outside world is if somebody agrees to like send you an actual handwritten letter, no emails or anything. And uh I had a few people who promised that they were gonna send me a letter, and I'm like, no, you're not, and yeah, they didn't. Like getting actually sitting down to write a letter uh is just so strange in our in our world today.
Speaker 4And that's so funny because I think most people would be really terrified at the thought of being silent for two hours a day, but you were drawn to it.
SpeakerYeah, it it definitely I can see why people will be afraid of it because you get to know yourself. You can't hide away from yourself, you can't just like when you have a a thought or when you go into you discover a certain part of your mind that you don't want to deal with. You just like, oh I'll just turn on the TV and drowned it out. But it got me comfortable with the silence and the interior life and the misnomer of St. John of the Cross is well known for the dark night of the soul, which is some people think of that as like, oh, well, and something bad happens to you, that's a dark night of the soul. That's a misnomer because the dark night of the soul is actually about escaping the prison of your own senses, in the sense in a sense, that as Darren Brown, an entertainment hypnotist in the UK, would say, we are all trapped inside our own minds. Uh, we're all trapped inside our own senses. The only way we connect with the outside world is through our senses, and we have to trust our senses. But our our senses are such a a small sliver of reality. We can't perceive the wholeness of reality. We like just like looking at the electromagnetic spectrum. It is so broad, and yet we if you like look at a copy of it, we just see that slight little sliver that we call light going from red to ultraviolet is just such a small bit of the electromagnetic spectrum. Imagine being able to see microwaves or gamma rays or something. That's kind of a symbol of how limiting our senses are to be able to silence our senses in that one dark night, all the sheer grace. I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled. The house being stilled, it was literally he was able to escape from prison at night at the darkness when the house was all stilled, he was able to escape being imprisoned, but it's also the same with our senses. We can invite that silence to come in and allow it to to like to rest in it like a nice hot bath, in a sense. Into the silence.
Speaker 4So you mentioned that your intention was to stay in the monastery for life, but you're you're not there. What happened?
SpeakerRight. Um, I got arthritis, unfortunately. When it gets to the and it got to the point where I they gave me two years of kind of a grace period to see if I could get better, and I got a little bit better, but then I kind of plateaued, and where I plateaued was not quite good enough. It's like basically if you can't make it to church when church is just downstairs. And they felt that it wouldn't be fair for me to be to be there and constantly not living up to the expected standard. And that that would be negative and a bad way to live. You not be able to live up to live up to what everybody else is doing and to constantly be just kind of a little bit down. I wanted I still wanted to stay, but I uh but I'm glad that it's kind of in God's will to send me out because I've been able to and it's taken me nearly 15 years. I left in 2013, so that's 13 years ago. And I'm just now getting back around to finding my vocation in
Leaving The Monastery With Arthritis
Speakerthe sense of doing a secular version of what I did in the monastery. Our main ministry was prayer. We also we did leave the monastery at times for missions, but our main ministry was prayer and union with God, and to do a secular version of that, to in fact to get so acquainted with silence and to get so acquainted with that interior life that we could take that interior life and in being familiar with it, explain it and give others the the experience of it. And so that's it kind of parallels with the uh hypnotherapy, uh entering into kind of a silence, letting the the soul and the mind kind of quiet uh for the our world is so busy and so noisy to learn how to have some silence and meet ourselves, the true us that is within, and to deal with uh what we find in there. And it's also is always, of course, very helpful to have someone to help guide us when we do enter into that world. And there's a whole world, like as uh Dr. Kappas teaches us, that it's like 10% of the mind is just the conscious mind. Like the the mind that we're familiar with out in the functioning world when we're awake is just 10% of the mind. There's a lot of people will say, like, there's that that uh misnomer that we only use 10% of the brain. No, it's can only 10% of the mind is conscious. 90% of that mind, or about that, is the subconscious, the hidden world, this uh world of silence, if you will, and this world of darkness, that we can get to know ourselves better and find tools to become better people to be who we want to be.
Speaker 4Can we go back for a moment? I want to go back to the arthritis for a minute.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 4First, I want to know, are you still suffering from arthritis now? And then the second question is, what does that look like? What are the symptoms?
SpeakerUm, yeah, I am still suffering from it. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten that much better uh since uh leaving the monastery. But I've changed my I've been able to change my lifestyle, which has helped the pain at least go down. And that's also what got me into hypnotherapy, is that I discovered I could have a little bit of control over the pain in the mind. I can I just for if it's just for a second, I can kind of turn the pain down a little bit. Then I discovered that I can practice a little bit more. If I turn the if I can turn the pain up a little bit like a dial, then that means I have control and I can turn it down a little bit more efficiently. And uh the symptoms, of course, stiffness and like swelling of the joints, redness and warm temperature joints, uh, especially in the morning, being difficult to get up and get going, and
Hypnosis For Chronic Pain Control
Speakerswelling, basically an autoimmune disorder. So it the rheumatologist that diagnosed me when I was living out shouldmant and when I was in the monastery, it was out west in uh California and Oregon. It also didn't help that I was in Western Oregon, where it's basically cold and rainy a good portion of the year. So that wasn't great arthritis weather. But my cart uh rheumatologist said that she doesn't she wishes they didn't call it arthritis. She wishes they just called it an autoimmune disorder because it will manifest as arthritis, or it'll also manifest as I have psoriatic arthritis, which uh also manifests as rashes and lesions on the skin, hair loss, uh alopecia, I think it's called.
Speaker 4Yeah, alopecia.
SpeakerThat's the lovely name.
Speaker 4Uh this is my friend alopecia.
SpeakerYes.
Speaker 4Wow. Okay, so you know, not unusual for people who suffer from serious health issues to come into the healing world because they're on their own healing journey and then they, you know, are able to help others. Do you feel like you could help somebody suffering with arthritis or that disease help them ease their symptoms with hypnotherapy?
SpeakerYes, definitely. And especially to understand the many the the very complexity of the symptoms because it's it's not just pain, it's a lot of it is just fatigue. Um, and so hypnotherapy is wonderful for for getting more efficient rest and dealing with the symptoms of it. It that's how we kind of go at it. We find the symptoms, we we get it more objective, find what the symptoms are, and we can deal with the symptoms. The pain with I was mentioning that it was called control room, kind of turning the dial up a little bit, just turning, you know, why would you turn the pain up to know that you're to see that you actually have control of it? And if you could turn it up, you could turn it down.
Speaker 4And uh I love the control room. I like using the control room both for pain but also for ruminating thoughts.
SpeakerOh, really? Yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's been very helpful for that.
SpeakerWith arthritis, particularly, there's a lot of parts of arthritis is misunderstood by it's it's a it's an inside pain, inside symptoms. They don't necessarily all show. And especially in someone who's younger, it it hit me when I was in my mid-20s. And nobody would believe me. Like, because I look just as healthy as I was. I'd look like a normal, healthy 25-year-old. Nobody would get annoyed with me, but I would say, I can't make it, and I'm having a hard time. It would get to the point in the monastery trying to make it to prayer down in the chapel, and I would end up like I've even passed out in the hallway trying to get to prayer, just for pushing myself to go. That's like the first step is finding somebody who can understand the complexity and the numerosity of, if that's even a word, of the symptoms, and kind of believing you, finding somebody to believe you is such a great first step. And that so that somebody can actually step into and step into the experience with you a little bit. Yeah, into somebody who knows how it how it is. Uh, I'm also on the neurodivergent with the autism autistic spectrum, which I discovered around time of the pandemic, going for two years without talking to anyone. I learned that I was masking it. I had practiced so much trying to be normal, studying people and how everybody else acts towards each other, and just trying to mimic that and imitate that. And I thought that that's what everybody did. When somebody would say, just be yourself, like, what does that mean? I have no idea what be myself. I would just never say a word ever. It's nice, though. It's kind of like nice and relaxed and casual.
Speaker 4Yeah, agreed. And you're bringing up so many fascinating things. I have so many, I'm curious, and I have so many questions.
SpeakerSo good, good. Questions are very good. Um help guide it.
Speaker 4Yeah. So, okay, so in 2020, you discovered that you're on the autism spectrum. How did that happen? How did you discover that?
SpeakerUm, that I really discovered it in uh one situation where like I had a uh right after the pandemic, when the pandemic was kind of over with, I had a high school reunion. When I went to the high school reunion
Autism Spectrum Masking And ADHD
Speakerin a group, large group of people, I could not talk. I was completely mute. I could I would try to step up to somebody to say something, and I would just not be able to say anything. It was it was amazing how how much I guess social anxiety had just paralyzed me. That I couldn't and it was so strange. It like I would think like just right now, I could I would even like take a step out and be just like, This is crazy. I can I'm just gonna go right back in there and gonna gonna talk to somebody. It's a normal way, that's what I've done this whole time. Like my whole life. I've been I I mean I've had difficulty talking. To people, but I've been able to do it. Uh, and I know all these people, and then go back in there. And I basically just had to stand there by myself and wait until people started to worry about me and come over and talk to me. Um, and that's the only way I could talk. That was that was the biggest manifestation of it. I was kind of towards the end of the pandemic, I was noticing that there were some changes in me, uh, that I I was getting out of practice. I was I was losing my ability to mask symptoms and because I had gotten out of practice of just forcing myself to talk to people. And so I took some tests online that they were they were official tests, kind of like preliminary tests. You should maybe see your doctor if you score such a thing on this test. And I was scoring very high on those tests on YouTube watching uh some people who do have or who are on the autistic spectrum describe what they what they're going through and all that. And like AD, uh what I call ADOS. It's like attention deficit. Oh, shiny.
Speaker 4All right. So you're faced with a lot of health challenges. How does that make you uh I mean, you spoke a little bit about how that can help somebody with arthritis really understand what they're going through and really walking through the the pathback. But how does that make you approach what you do with your clients?
SpeakerCertainly with greater sympathy and empathy, those who go through the same things that kind of in a similar way to authorise it to be believed. Any client because they're these are most of these things are kind of it are all internal symptoms, and they're very complex. There's something about them that that you can't learn in a textbook. Uh, you can't learn in class. And that also goes for like what I've learned in the monastery or things that you can't learn in class. You just have to experience them. I have that special knowledge of it. It can help me formulate, like, it can help me when leading someone somewhere in the hypnotic journey, it helps to know the way. And I know the way. I know the terrain, and I'm rather familiar with the area. Now, of course, I don't have it's particularly with autistic spectrum disorder, that it's it's wide and varied. I don't have anybody else's particular experience with it. I only have my experience with it and and what it means for me. I've since having been diagnosed, I've gotten in touch with a lot more people who have similar situations, similar struggles, and just similar differences is a good way to put it, and complexities, and uh and learning, getting to know a particular person's fingerprint of their autistic spectrum experience, uh, or their how ADHD affects them, how when they're in class, they love to draw in their notebook while they're listening to the lecture, and they're so tired of uh educators saying stop doing that, you're you're not paying attention, when in reality you're occupying your subconscious mind that way, so that your conscious mind can you're doing that as a technique to rein in your mind so that you can actually understand what the person is saying.
Speaker 4Absolutely. Yes, I relate to that. In fact, I've always been a doodler and I now have this puzzle thing on my phone where if I'm listening to like a webinar or conference or even a podcast or something, it helps me focus to either doodle or do the little puzzle game. So yeah, I think that's that's um a part of well, I guess I do know that I have ADHD, but yeah. But I didn't realize that especially in children.
SpeakerYeah, especially in and especially in children that uh children will get in trouble for doing things like that. And because when I was in school as a child, I was constantly uh accused of of trying to want wanting attention, uh doing things to want attention, and I didn't care at all about getting anybody's attention. It was just getting my I forgot what they what it's called, but the getting my nerves out. Yeah, I forgot what the term is.
Speaker 4Ants in your pants. Yeah, yeah.
SpeakerStim stemming. Something like that. Oh yeah, stimming. Yeah, it is stimming. And yeah, just getting that out. And like there would be times when I just want to stand up in class, and I would be so much more comfortable standing up or just but it is just being believed is so so powerful and being understood and some experien and getting in contact with someone who has a similar experience so that you can know you're not alone in it. Uh that's helpful as well.
Speaker 4One of the things, Charlie, that sets you apart from the rest of our classmates is that you've really taken it upon yourself to become a source for practitioners. It's quite wonderful because you provide the WhatsApp groups and you provide all these resources, you gather everything together for people. Talk to me a little about how that started and where that came from, and why did that feel like something that was what you wanted to do?
SpeakerWell, I'm definitely a glutton for resources. I I'm kind of obsessed with it. I like I love going out and finding this, that, and the other, things that will help, documents and tools. And we're in an age of AI with this rapidly developing age of tools. And of course, there's like I know as soon as I mention AI, there are gonna be a certain number of people that just cringe, like, oh no, not AI. Like, it's not the same thing as like just chat GPT that it's not the same thing the kids are using to cheat on their essays in class. But there are so many, there's so much, so many things that AI can't help with. Like I was mentioning, oh, I was mentioning
Building Community For Practitioners
Speakerbefore we started recording. I have some obsession with sharing. Anytime I find something good, I can't enjoy it until I've shared it. Yeah, it's it kind of it actually kind of relieves it's relieving in the sense that this tool that I just found, like some tool I just found, it has such potential to help and to help me in my tasks. But if I can share it with somebody, that kind of I feel like an obligation to use it to its fullness. And so if I share it, then I'm using it more to its fullness. That more people are using it and taking making use of it. That sounded better in my head, but but uh yeah, no, that's great.
Speaker 4And you also looks like you've part of your practice is also helping people setting up their own AI systems.
SpeakerYes.
Speaker 4And uh also were mentioning before we started recording about the obsidian app, and you were excited about that. Talk to us about that.
SpeakerYeah, that is it's an absolutely fascinating, wonderful sleeper tool. That meaning, like it's unsuspecting and it it has such a great potential. Obsidian is a wonderful note-taking app. It's super power is that it connects your notes. You take it's based on what's called a Zettel Castan note-taking system, which Zettelcasten is just German for slip drawer. Yeah, that's right. Like kind of like uh when you oh you know, in old days, when you would go into a library and you would get the cart catalog, that's a s that's a slip drawer where you a drawer and you have these little slips of paper in it.
Speaker 3Yeah.
SpeakerUm, and so it was Mr. Lewman who created this Zettel cast and note-taking system where you make atomic notes. Everybody'll be probably familiar with the the big hit uh atomic habits.
Speaker 3Yes.
SpeakerUm and it's uh it's I think there's a similarity with the the notes, taking a small note, and you you don't let any note just sit in by itself. You connect it to a note that's somewhat similar to it in some way, and you keep connecting them, and every time you write a note, then you go through the notes that you've
Obsidian Notes And AI Journaling
Speakeralready written and see what oh, this one's kind of similar to that one, so I I'll write a little link on it that way. Obsidian is basically the digital way of doing this, and when you connect your notes that are similar, after a while of doing that, after you've built up a lot of atomic notes, which an atomic note is just as a note that just has one idea, a couple paragraphs is just one idea explained concisely, and when you connect all those, you will end up finding connections that otherwise would not have seen. It makes your notes kind of have a synergy to them, a synergistic flow. In this with the in the age of AI as made that a superpower where with my like ADD and dyslexia and kind of difficulty and seeing like big pictures, I was actually writing a book. I didn't even notice that I was doing my journaling and I didn't realize that my journals were actually connected. Like I would write something one day and I'd write something completely different the next day and kind of go on, but it kind of had a cycle. I didn't know see the cycle, but my brain was producing the cycle where I would write, it would seem to me that I'm writing different things about different things each day, but I would come back around and then start continuing things that I had written about, and that I would write about a certain thing over and over again in a continuation, and AI was able to actually show me that I had this, it was basically just showed me an entire book outline with that was pretty well filled in already just from my journal.
Speaker 4So let me ask you, are you journaling digitally so that it picks it all up, or are you journaling?
SpeakerI'm doing both. That's kind of another thing that I have. I have these digital tablets. Handwriting is very powerful, as we know. That yeah, uh it's it's uh tied directly to the subconscious. And as uh as George Capus would tell us that even our if you're typing a lot, then typing is also tapping into that subconscious. But the handwriting kind of does in a more intense way, we especially when you're journaling, and we have like with handwriting analysis, you can see so much about yourself, your subconscious from analyzing your handwriting, and you can do it in reverse as well. If you want to change something, change a trait in your subconscious, then change something in your handwriting. It's kind of like hero poses. The TED Talk with Amy Cuddy said that if you want to feel confident, open your lip open your body language up as a superman pose, and just doing that for a few minutes, your brain will start producing the chemicals of confidence. You can kind of see my ADD as as I go from one topic to another, to another, until I come back around when I go easy Susan. But it's really fascinating. I the way I do it with the obsidian, I have a daily note just open on my computer at all times, which it helps if my computer can cooperate and stay booted up and doesn't shut itself down numerous times a day. But I'm getting a new one soon, hopefully. But I'll just have that ready so it's no friction to just kind of come back and write something. Anytime I'll I'll be watching TU watching YouTube, and some I see something that is is a bit clever and something that makes me think, and I'll pause it and then I'll go turn over. And it doesn't matter how short it if it's just like one phrase, a few words, or if I write kind of a whole essay about it. It doesn't matter either way, just write something out with a lot of being very productive in that way is reducing the friction with making it easier for yourself, which took me a long time to get through my through my sick skull. That you would think that just a little bit of willpower, you wouldn't need things to be so super easy. But it's amazing how you just if you just go ahead and make it super easy, make it like go ahead and make that path to leaving that a document up open on the computer, then then it's right there. So you can as soon as you get this clever idea or something, you can write it down. So I do that all in one document, and I have my AI linked into my obsidian so that every day the AI will analyze it and it will pick out like when I've it'll cut it up into mostly into these atomic notes and put it together in a Zettel casting way. Some of it will be put in like my journal, some of it will be put as permanent notes and uh literature notes, uh, if it's uh and always read with a pen in your hand. Always read with a pen in your hand. If you want to really imbibe, really chew on the uh on what you're reading and to get it into your mind, not necessarily just writing in the in the margins, but if you just have a notebook or or do it the old school settle casting away, just like some index cards. And each index card is one thought. Just write on that index card, don't write anymore. Don't if you if it's gonna have to take more than one index card, think of it how think of how you can break it up into because each card needs to be able to stand on its own and write as if you're teaching somebody something, write as if you're explaining it to somebody, not somebody who already knows about it, but write it as if somebody found it, just that one index card, they would be able to understand something from that one index card out completely outside of context. And one of the great things with Zettelcasten is that if you like if you read something, like read something, close the book, write down what you just read, and then open it up and open the book back up and compare it, and you'll see that's a really good way to see where the gaps in your knowledge is.
Speaker 4And it's it's it's harder than you would think, but it's yeah, it sounds very productive, but very thorough and comprehensive. So your website kind of lays it out very clearly, the sort of three pillars that you work on and with. So let's start there. Tell us about those three areas that are your special.
SpeakerOf course, the uh first area is the hypnotherapy itself, with uh having clients. And that was originally just the area. Of course, going through school, that's what I was focusing on.
Speaker 4And then you started working with putting things together for the practitioners.
SpeakerRight. Yeah, very good. And that uh I just started this WhatsApp group for for the practitioners for just fellow students, uh, and it ballooned up so quickly that people wanting to come in, having that community, and I found, and I'm kind of a glutton for resources. I love to find books or places where I can get books and tools, uh, especially AI tools, and that kind of goes to the second, to the third pillar, is that I've been going headlong into this AI. And of course, AI is a tool, it's a very powerful tool, and a neutral tool. Of course, some people I've heard from both ends, like some people they hear AI and they're just scared. Like my mother is kind
Three Pillars Of Charlie’s Work
Speakerof afraid of it because it's so powerful, and she just says, I that's I just want to stay away from it as as long as I can. But it is just the tool and a very neutral tool. It can be used to cheat in school to just write your essays for you, and that and that scares people too, with they think that they think that it's going to be dumbing us down. Like we don't have to work anymore, we don't have to think anymore, but it can actually be a great tool to help you think. It can be a sounding board, very intelligent. Like it's basically one way I heard it, I heard a metaphor for what AI is. Originally, we had we got Google to Google something, and people were explaining what Google is, that it's it's kind of like a librarian, like the internet is like a big library, has all of this information uh right at your fingertips, but it's so much it's overwhelming. You needed the the uh librarian to help you find what you're looking for, and so that's what Google is like. Well, now imagine that librarian has memorized the entire internet, yeah. That's like AI, and that the librarian can go not just go get things for you, but can actually use that information that she knows from all this memorization of the internet and help you build things. Though, of course, it's still in the computer. The AI is not going to go get you a glass of water.
Speaker 3Right.
SpeakerUm, but it can do anything inside the computer. A lot of people don't know that, that it also has gotten to that stage where it's called agentic AI. It can act as an agent where it's actually building things, it can build a website for you, or it can it can basically if you could connect your mind directly to the computer instead of having to type and all these little poor inputs like typing and using the mouse and even speaking into it to record or whatever. If you could just like imagine, if your imagination was connected to the computer and you can imagine an image, and that image comes up as a picture. If you can remember an image, then that is kind of like AI has that ability. Has AI's brain is in the computer and it can imagine things. You just have to communicate with it through language.
Speaker 4So this is really interesting. So, how would AI, as you're utilizing it, be useful for a hypnotherapy session or a hypnotherapist?
SpeakerKind of like where I was talking about with all those books and reading them to be able to put the books to have the AI find things in the books for me. It's like a s a superpowered table of contents or index. They can pull up, I can just tell it in natural language what I'm looking for, the kind of because like we've had this one book that's the uh the handbook of hypnotic metaphors, something like that. Metaphors and hypnotic suggestions and metaphors. Uh, I can never get that title, it's a big title. Uh that's a very thick book from hypnotherapists all over the world from like for a long period of time that they put that together. And so it has so many great ideas and so many areas of expertise, it's kind of overwhelming. But if I just feed that book, I just show that book to AI, kind of give it over to them, and AI can read it in a second. And then I can actually
AI As A Hypnotherapist’s Assistant
Speakerhave a conversation with the book, or have a conversation with AI who has just instantly memorized the whole book. And I can ask, well, what does the book say about this? Or what advice having read the book already? What what advice can you come up with? And it's better than us because we can't have the whole book in our mind, even though we can read the whole book. We can't have the whole book in the front of our mind and our conscious mind at at the same time.
Speaker 4Unless you have like photographic memory. Which some people do.
SpeakerOh yeah, yeah. That's oh I'm envious of that. That's amazing. It's superpower.
Speaker 4These WhatsApp groups that you created for the students and graduates and the second year students, AOS and graduates, have become a really vital resource for this community. Kudos to you. Administering it and creating it and feeding it with our resources and ideas. And it's very active. People are constantly sharing information and asking questions. And you know, so um it's been, I think, a really great thing, and a lot of people really rely on what you've created.
SpeakerSo yeah, and I and I love it. The the more the more uh people talk on it is just uh it gives me such a thrill. Uh just just when I I have the messages kind of uh uh in my notifications, and uh so that I can if somebody's messaging me, I can uh get to them. And every time I hear that chime, I'm like, oh somebody actually likes the group. Uh they're using it. Uh and just people enjoying the the resources I've found. Uh and because it almost seems like and I might have mentioned this before, but I can mention it again. We can always edit it out if I've already mentioned it. Uh, but that um it having when I find a resource, it kind of automatically puts a little bit of a not really pressure, that's kind of like the wrong word for it, it's not forceful, but it's um I kind of an obligation or responsibility to utilize it to uh and to make use of it in some way, and what better way to make use of it than to show it to people who can probably even make better use of it than I can? There's this having uh that community, and this is the community is becoming somewhat large. Um, that's um that's a greater chance that there's somebody uh who is who has been looking for just that thing that I happen to have just found. Um and it's it's like it's kind of like a treasure hunt, and it the treasure is just not nearly as good if you don't have anybody to share it with. Um, and so this group has kind of is just put to come together uh wonderfully. Um I'm not the only one who put it together. There was another group that was started, uh and I'm so terrible with names I can't even come up with it, but um someone started another group that kind of became part of this group. So uh so there are several, probably about uh 40 or 50 people who were already who were brought into the group from that group.
Speaker 4Um so uh yeah, I think uh I think that's great. And I definitely can see myself calling you and hiring you to help me with AI to design some things for you so just you know, even looking at here's one idea I was thinking, looking at all of my clients and all the notes that I take about my clients, but clients that are having similar presenting issues, right? And looking at overall, oh, what has been successful, you know, and really having sort of, you know, instead of kind of remember it and anecdotal going through notes, having something there that says, bing, you know, yeah, it's got all the information. That's just one idea. I could I could go on and on and think about what are the different things that can use AI for. So um everybody go to Charlie's website and and find him to help you do your business with AI.
SpeakerUm yeah, because it's very good at finding uh finding uh patterns uh and things, and like I use it for my journaling, and it's it's just made my journaling so much richer. Um, that's how I found out that I was writing a book. Uh that's right.
Speaker 3Tell us about the book.
SpeakerYeah, the um the book kind of comes around to uh the uh it's focused on how uh it's kind of the story, it's based. I'll get it out in a minute.
Speaker 4It's okay.
SpeakerIt's uh yeah, it's uh the main thesis is kind of uses my life as kind of the back the spine of the book. Um and goes from when I was in the uh seminary in the monastery for four years and getting having that religious experience and that experience of the Carmelite contemplative life, um, and getting accustomed to the internal, the inner life, the the subconscious, the soul really. Um, and since there's so I've recently found so many um parallels between the religious life and the spiritual life, and with hypnotherapy, uh of course the spirit
A Book On Truth And Beauty
Speakerand the mind is not the same thing. There's they kind of can be considered even uh an infinitely deeper, um, but they're similar. They're kind of it's kind of like if you uh imagine like we're we are made up of a body, a mind, and a spirit, and each one is infinitely deeper, like if you had um a wound, like you scraped your arm, and on your body, that's a very superficial wound. Um it's only in the physical world, but then if someone says something hurtful to you, then that's a mental wound. And that's and you can just see how that is much so much deeper than just having a scrape, uh, if someone you uh care about says something, and then going even another infinite step deeper than that would be the soul, the part that survives if you believe that survives even passing away. Um, good, and that the uh parallels work again, going back up, that the mind survives us going to sleep every night, and it survives uh us growing up and our personality slightly changing over time. Uh, it survives trials and tribulations, uh, it's kind of a death and resurrection in a sense that we go we have times that are hard times that would go down as kind of like a death to the mental side, and but then we come triumphant, or we uh come back to joy again, and that's kind of like the the part of us that survives all that, and that uh so that's kind of how the soul would work. That sentence didn't end very well, but it it worked.
Speaker 4Yeah, no, absolutely. Um and you mentioned your working title of the book earlier. Do you want to share that?
SpeakerYes, that it being um being exposed to the light. Um and I chose that title, or at least I'm thinking about choosing that title. Um, it'll be something like that. That uh that, like in prayer, and even in this is a good image that we use in uh that I've used in hypnotherapy where um you take some time, and it's kind of good for meditation and the a good metaphor of meditation, that you take some time, and there are so many parts of us, there are infinite parts of us, and as we live and go through our days, uh they can be kind of turned askew, um, that a certain part of us is has lost its way, like um, like you would say, of a person having lost their way, but well, we have we are almost kind of made up of many people, many characters, uh, and the parts of us can have lost our way. So when you go into meditation, you actually get a chance to tap into those, to spend some time of intention and to allow those compasses, it's almost like to imagine yourself sitting before a great magnet, and all of those parts of you have are compasses that have a magnetic north. And so, and but they're the the hinges are a little bit rusty, so the longer you stay in that kind of meditative state, even just you could even imagine that you're sitting before a magnet and allowing all those parts of you to all those compass needles to come back towards north. Um, and that's kind of how I I that's kind of being exposed to the light when we go into hypnosis or go into a meditative state, we're exposing all those subconscious parts of our subconscious to the light of logic. Like our logic is very much uh a part of the conscious mind, and it doesn't necessarily dig too deep into the subconscious because it so it's it's very helpful to take time and expose the different parts of us that we're not constantly thinking about, because we can't constantly think about every part of our life at all the time, right? Um to bring those areas to the light of logic to see it's kind of like what I used to do, or what I sometimes do, which um a lot of people like to count their blessings and it makes them feel better. Um I started a practice of doing the opposite. When any time that I felt uh down or kind of depressed for no apparent reason, I just kind of felt out of whack. I would stop and very much stop in my life, just kind of stop everything and become quiet and focus and kind of go through my subconscious mind, kind of taking the light of my conscious mind, my logical mind, going through memories and uh experiences in my subconscious and all the negative ones until I find one that's tender, that's a new fresh wound, or that's a wound that's not been uh tended to properly. And then I will know that's why I feel the way I feel right now. It's kind of become buried. Uh, and our memories can do that, or our uh if somebody says something like says something bad about us or something that makes us feel bad, it can kind of get buried and get away from the light of logic and kind of be like a wound that can fester. Um and so bringing it to the light and tending to it. They they say that time heals all wounds. Uh I would add on to that time heals all wounds that are well tended to.
Speaker 3Yeah.
SpeakerUm, you can't some wounds you can't just ignore.
Speaker 4Yeah, absolutely, because they'll just come back to haunt you. That's fascinating. Um, I love this. And it's I I'm glad that you explained that because when you first mentioned exposed the light, I really took it in like the spiritual light um connotation, but the light of logic is uh amazing. And that practice that you have, I can't wait to read the book.
SpeakerAnd that and that actually is a good example of how uh like you your interpretation of exposed to the light is kind of actually a deeper truth. That's kind of what the book is about, is how there are different levels of truth. Um, there's there's like a physical truth, uh, a mental truth, and a spiritual truth. Um, a and like I a lot of it is based on uh the writings of the father of Neoplatonism, Platinus, um as particularly on uh his first Aeneid sixth tractate on beauty, where he takes up the question of what is beauty and what is it about something beautiful that causes us to feel drawn to it? Um, and he examines what kinds of beauty there are and finds that, well, there's physical beauty, and there's also beauty of sound. Um we have orchestral arrangements that are pleasant to the ear. Uh, we have wonderful tasting food to the other senses, but then we also have beauty of character, virtue. When someone does something that they that they otherwise would not have reason to, except that because of virtue, there's also even deeper levels like creativity, uh creating something beautiful, and even and he goes and those who there's different levels of beauty, and I kind of use his um his system of seeing how there are different levels of beauty, of different levels of truth, um, and different levels of experience of reality, and how my life in the monastery um is so similar to my life now as a uh hypnotherapist. Um it's just dealing with different levels of the same thing.
Speaker 4Thank you for explaining that. That's I mean, this is all I could talk to you for hours and hours about this stuff, and we'll have to have you come back and talk more. But before that happens, would you like to lead us through an exercise?
SpeakerYes, that would be wonderful.
Speaker 4Hey everyone, if you're listening while you're driving or operating heavy machinery, please hit pause at this point and come back when you're safely somewhere where you can listen and go into a nice trance state.
SpeakerSo if we can take a moment to pause to stop the very the varying levels of life. We stop the sound and enjoy the silence. We stop the sights by closing our eyes, eliminating distractions. We stop or slow the thoughts of the mind and go inward
Guided Trance Toward True North
Speakerinto the interior life, breathing deeply and slowly and thinking about the varying levels of reality, imagining, bringing to mind the most beautiful image that we've seen, taking a moment to recall the most beautiful thing that we've ever seen, the most beautiful physical sight. Bringing that to mind and allowing us to sit before it in mind, as if that beautiful image was a magnet, and that the parts of us are little compasses, and allowing all those compasses to be redirected towards north and now to envision the beauty of character. Remember an event that just made you feel a swell of pride to be a human that restored your faith in humanity. It could have been in a movie or in real life, or even something someone did for you that they didn't have to do. And as we allow that memory to surface, we can sit in the presence of that memory and allow it too to be a magnet, pulling those even deeper encompasses in us towards true north, towards the good, the true, and the beautiful. The beauty of love. Bringing to mind that one person that we love most in this world and who loves us. That one person that we give all for, and who gives all for us. That power, great power of love, the greatest beauty of all.
Speaker 2And to pull the deepest hearts of us, the deepest compasses towards true north, the good, the true, and the beautiful, allowing a pause of silence in his presence. And taking a nice deep breath in.
SpeakerComing back to the surface.
Speaker 4That was beautiful. Thank you. Charlie, how do people find you?
SpeakerBest way is on my website of charlesdelacy.com. It's Charles spelled normal typically, but the delacy is spelled D-E-L-A-C-E-Y.
Speaker 4Great, and I'll be sure to put that in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming. And thank you, everybody, for listening to another episode of Hip Talks. You've been listening to Hip Talks, original music by Tracy Moore and the Jazzy Fat Nasties. Podcast Editing and Sound Engineering by Zachary Trainer. If you like what you heard, please like and share and follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you leave a comment, I promise I will respond.