Melissa Tiers

Find Melissa

Learn more about Melissa, her trainings and other resources at https://www.melissatiers.com/ 

0 (0s):
If you were haunted and harassed by your own inner critic, if you've ever been curious about why hypnosis works so well, if you're a seasoned hypnotist, or if you suspect that the inner critic is actually hypnotizing you to hold back from reaching the greatness that you know, deep down is inside you, lean in and get inspired to get out of your comfort zone and create your one precious life with purpose and intention. If you like this show, you'll love my powerful hypnosis audio, the answer room, because it gives you crystal clear guidance and direction and illuminates an ingenious way to make triumphant decisions.

0 (47s):
No matter how stuck you feel or how confused you were. This powerful hypnosis audio is my gift to you. When you go to the imposter monster.com again, that's the imposter monster.com. Don't forget the, the, the imposter monster.com. And yes, I'm done saying it. Thank you. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart for listening. I'm Lori Hammond, and I'm truly grateful for you. When I first

1 (1m 19s):
Made the decision to start putting myself out there and going public and making videos and posts and cheat sheets, I was really nervous because everything that I was teaching people are tools that I had learned from other people. People like Mike Mandela, Freddie Jaquin, Melissa tears. And I was unsure about when it is appropriate to give attribution when it's appropriate, to just convey the message without the clutter of saying, I learned this from this person. And a few months ago, my friend Ned Kendall, who is an amazing hypnotist in Spain mentioned that a training he was taking had underscored the importance of giving quotes as you're speaking to people.

1 (2m 3s):
And as you're writing, because quoting another source actually lends credibility to you. And in this interview, Melissa tears shares how, when you give attribution to the people where you learned these techniques, even if you've tweaked them and made them your own, it demonstrates for the listener that there is a community of sharing inside the field. Yes,

0 (2m 25s):
You are teaching. This interview was so

1 (2m 28s):
Valuable to me because I got to hear the perspective from one of my teachers, from whom I've learned so much and understand what's important to her and what she believes about the importance of giving attribution, to the sources of your information. All of that takes place in the first few minutes of this interview. And as you continue to listen, you are going to find so much value. Melissa is going to give you a simple aha moment about this state, that she, when she's working with clients one-on-one, and I believe if you take nothing else from this podcast, whether you're a hypnotist, a coach, or have a completely different line of business, when you follow the tip that she shares, it's going to change everything for you.

1 (3m 16s):
And it's going to put you in a place where you have access to your own subconscious resources, that part of you inside that knows that things that you don't know, you know, so that you can create the change that you are going after, inside your client sessions, a quick disclaimer, I'm new to this podcast thing. So I'm not sure that the appropriate way to bring this up, but those of you who know Melissa know that she is a straight shooter. She tells it like it is, and there's going to be some strong language peppered throughout this podcast. To me, that kind of makes Melissa who she is. But if you have little kids listening or your offended by strong language, you might want to skip this episode or put headphones in.

1 (3m 59s):
So your kids don't hear. I hope you receive massive value from this episode, as I did enjoy this interview with Melissa tears. Thank you so much for being here. I was especially excited and intimidated to ask you to be here because of everyone. When I decided to go forward with this podcast, I thought, okay, I'm going to kind of start with the people I have a relationship with. And the people I feel really comfortable with, and maybe someday I'll get the courage to ask Melissa. And I really want this podcast geared towards people who struggle with, you know, the stories we tell ourselves to keep ourselves from moving forward. And so I thought I'm just going to be brave and practice what I preach.

1 (4m 39s):
And I would love to have Melissa on, on as my guests, you have been such a source of inspiration and education for me that I, I am truly honored to have you here. So thank you so much for being here.

2 (4m 53s):
My pleasure, Lori. My pleasure.

1 (4m 55s):
So let's just jump right in. I, what prompted me to reach out to you is a woman that I correspond with another hypnotist had sent me a Marco polo video, and she said, Lori, I need your advice. I want to know what you do when you've, you know, you read this book or you take this training from someone and then I want to teach it to other people, but I feel like I'm plagiarizing that person. And you're the person that came to the front of my mind, because so much of what I teach my audience. I've taken straight from your I've taken various trainings from you and read several of your books. And it's so much of it is your content. What do you think about people using the content you teach?

2 (5m 39s):
Well, I mean, first I, I, I teach them so that they can use it, you know, and spreading this stuff around. I mean, that's the main goal. One of the things that I think we all struggle with because, you know, where did I get my ideas from? Where do I get my stuff from? And, you know, it's a balance. We get inspired by someone and we want to share, right? We want to share immediately. We'll certainly we have that kind of unspoken permission when we go take a training to share with our clients, right? Otherwise, what, what, what are we taking these trainings for?

2 (6m 21s):
And what, what do you think the teachers want from us or for us anyway, now the problem comes when we start to, you know, write books or, or share it on a wider scope nowadays, it's, you know, making videos, making training products and here is where it does get a little confusing. There's that weird gray area that we're not really sure of what to do with. So I get it. I mean, I've been there, you know, recently I had someone now many times people will email me and say, Hey, I'm writing this book about anxiety.

2 (7m 2s):
I would love to put in this or this or this. And I always say, sure, go right ahead, Nate. They always credit me. They'll always say, Oh, I learned this technique from Melissa tears and the same way that I, whenever possible, whenever I know the source will share it. I mean, that's just a professional kind of courtesy. So people understand where you got the inspiration from. I know that my students get very tired of hearing, you know, Erickson, Bandler, John overdraft, you know, Stephen Porges and, and you know, all of the people who, whose work looms large in my own.

2 (7m 45s):
But, you know, as, as someone, for years, I would see posts on Facebook or Hypnos on two groups and they would say, well, I used, you know, Melissa tiers backwards, spin, and I would quickly type Richard Bandler, Richard Bandler, Kiki

3 (8m 4s):
Gun.

2 (8m 8s):
And so, you know, you'll always hear me say, I learned this technique from Richard Bandler. I'll even say from neuro hypnotic, re patterning, here's some variations. You know, we do that because that's, you know, it's a professional courtesy recently. I got a newsletter from someone who took an excerpt from my anti-anxiety toolkit, and I'm the first person to say, share it, share all that stuff. As soon as my students take, you know, my class, I mean the first three hours is basically the self directed neuroplasticity frame where I include all of these pattern interrupts.

2 (8m 50s):
And all of them are gathered from all different modalities in places. Some I made up, but so many of them are taken from, you know, HeartMath polyvagal theory, bilateral stimulation, you know, EMDR, all of these things, EFT and adaptation. So I always quote that. But recently when I saw this newsletter, it was literally taken right out of the book word for word verbatim. And they didn't mention me. And it's one thing. If you use a technique even, and you make it your own, and you kind of don't say, Oh, I learned this from this person or this person that's okay.

2 (9m 30s):
But when you like directly take the five paragraphs where it's my language, it's my, Oh, and here's the bully. And anyway, so I kind of got a little bristled with that one. Like, Hey, you can use your own words to describe the technique you learned from me. You don't have to pull the entire chapter from my book without actually saying excerpted from. But anyway, so, so we're, so w we navigate this weird area. I, I really am a bit of a stickler when it comes to, to sourcing. I think it shows people how, how much we all share, you know, that you don't have to be so innovative as to create your own, you know, inductions and deepeners and techniques.

2 (10m 25s):
I mean, you know, there is this thing that we move on, we learn and then adapt and then create, and then have our own voice in this. But, you know, who are we going to credit everyone with? You know, the progressive relaxation induction, I don't know who started that. It's like, so, I mean, this is why I say there's a gray area here, but whenever possible I do, but you have to feel comfortable enough to say, ah, I learned, you know, this, this, this technique from Alyssa, I learned this technique from Stephen Porges book, polyvagal theory, or I got this idea, see, that's more of what I, like, I got this idea.

2 (11m 11s):
And then I kind of created this intervention based on this, this and this. And I think it actually teaches more if you can see the thought process behind it. So if I can say, well, I was in a class with Jerry kine and I watched him do this ultra hight process, which is very similar to, you know, a timeline approach, but goes a little beyond it and is kind of this, you know, and I can say this when people actually get a glimpse into, you know, how, how these things spurred on creativity and how to make them your own.

2 (11m 58s):
I think it's, it's actually better for people who are learning these things to see that.

1 (12m 4s):
So that makes a lot of sense. And if a person is working, you know, say one-on-one with a client, or maybe teaching an anxiety course to a group of non hypnotist, to me that would still be important almost like when you give a quote from someone and it almost lends credibility by saying, you know, so-and-so said,

2 (12m 24s):
Sure. I mean, I always do. It's just, it's a habit that, that, that I got into because I too, when I first started, I here's a little story. So I was going through editing my first book, my first book was really mostly spoken. Right. I had recorded a certification training, which means at the time I was doing my own stuff, but I was still kind of including a lot of what the old curriculum, you know, what they wanted me to include in. So, you know, there was this, this weird, you know, how can I, how can I edit out all of the stuff that is clearly not mine that belongs to this curriculum?

2 (13m 14s):
How can I include this? And it became very hard to separate it out because I would speak one line of the given script and then go off on my own ideas. You know? So even one chapter in that book is, is like called Elman deconstructed because I couldn't separate out the Dave Elman technique from what I was teaching. It was, how do we take that, you know, authoritative language and soften it? How do we bring in more, more room for response? You know, how do we do this? How do we update this? And so, you know, at one point I was editing it and I said to my husband, what the fuck am I doing?

2 (13m 58s):
You know, I mean, they can just read Milton Erickson if they want this, you know, they can just read Bandler and they can just read. And so my husband says, yeah, and who else would they have to read to get that? And as I started like re you know, going, Oh, well, they would have to, yeah. Know a little bit about Candace PERTs work. Oh yeah. They would have to know a little bit about, you know, some quantum physics. Oh, they would have to know a little bit about, you know, the holographic model of the mind. Oh, they would have to read. And then I realized, okay, they would have to spend 15 years worth of study, practice, trial, and error and error and error and trial and error and error.

2 (14m 39s):
They would have to do all of that in order to get the information in this book. But I was, you know, I was pulling back from it. I was like so much of the good stuff in this comes from Bandler it from Ericsson. It comes from, you know, so you see, we all have these moments and we all have this concern, you know, and it's really hot. How do you navigate it? And one is, you know, to feel good about the idea that we all do this, that, that we all learn from people and pull and put our own, spin on it and share it. You know, I can remember many moons ago when I was first starting putting together a team management workshops for nurses at Beth Israel.

2 (15m 29s):
And, you know, I had just been, maybe I was in it for like a year, a year and a half, and I was chatting, you know, I was just kind of thinking, wow, they don't know this and putting together things, you know, this technique and this technique and this technique. And I remember thinking, you know, boy, well, they should just, I mean, this is all Erickson, or this is all Bandler, or this is all, you know, this other guy barber, or this is this, but the truth is these nurses are not going to read those books. And Bandler is not going to go and teach these nurses at Beth Israel. And Milton Erickson is long dead.

2 (16m 10s):
So it's okay that I bring their stuff to these women, to these people. And so that's where, you know, that's kind of where we have to navigate. I wish there was a very easy formula I could share, you know, that would make this cut, you know, cut and dry, very clear, but it is this gray area, you know, for instance, there's, I think there's good ways and bad ways to do this stuff. I know some people that will go, you know, take a training from someone who is still in mid innovation, you know, they're, they're, they're sharing what they're learning, but it's a learning process and they're still developing, you know, so they haven't written the book because they're still developing.

2 (17m 3s):
And I know that certain people will go and, and, and quickly write a book on that. And I don't like that. See, to me, you know, it's like, it's one thing if it's already published, if it's already written and it's already out there to, you know, to then move. But when, when you get someone who still innovating and discovering and doesn't feel solid enough yet to write their own and you quickly go and publish it, that fucking annoys me. It's one thing if you're going, and you're sharing this with your clients, it's another thing. If you're going and you're doing workshops and you're sharing all these different, awesome ways to get rid of anxiety and we're pulling from everywhere, right?

2 (17m 46s):
Oh, here's another idea. Oh, here's something from yoga. Oh, here's something from this, you know, we're just sharing. We're trying to help people. You know? And so, as I said, as soon as I teach that, I, you know, I say, go and share it. Of course, Melissa

1 (18m 3s):
Is the book you were referencing at the beginning. That, that the first book you read wrote,

2 (18m 8s):
Oh, that was integrative hypnosis that you know, is, is, was, was the first book I wrote. I dunno, I guess that was about 14 years ago. Oh, no. Maybe it came out. I think it just came out 10 years ago. I don't know God, you know, during this quarantine, I'm like, what day is it? What year is it?

1 (18m 32s):
I know it's time. The time distortion. It has been so crazy the past few months. I'm curious if you think about when you decided to become a hypnotist, when you decided to actually sit in that chair and take on that first client, what was your level of confidence? What kind of state did you get yourself into to have courage to start actually working with clients?

2 (18m 59s):
You know, it's funny, you should say that because when I first started working with clients, I wasn't sitting in a chair in my office. I was, you know, in the back of a rock and roll club and I was just playing, you know, I was studying hypnosis just by reading books and things like that. I was just fascinated with it. So, you know, I was just trying stuff. And so then coming from that kind of curious, is there any truth to this and what is, you know, how does that particular drug, this person's on? How does that influence their suggestibility?

2 (19m 40s):
And, you know, so, you know, I was just curious and it was all fun and it was all interesting to me. It wasn't until I decided to kind of do it, you know, for real, once I got pregnant that I thought, all right, my days of kind of stomping around, you know, and rock and roll, you know, might be over and what do I love? And it was just, it was a hobby, right. That I turned into a career, but I can remember going and taking a, I mean, I was bit of a training junkie at that point.

2 (20m 28s):
And when I started to hear how you were supposed to do these things, which is very different than my, Hey, well, let's see what this does. Let's see what this does. What happens when you do this? And if you imagine this now what happens, you know, which was how I had been doing it for a couple of years, all of a, Oh, there's an induction process. And then a deepener and then it convincer and depth tests. And you know, this whole pre-talk and all of these suggestibility tests I'm supposed to be doing, you know, all of a sudden I was not sure of myself, you know, I was no longer the kind of Explorer of altered States.

2 (21m 13s):
And so that kind of put a little bit of a kibosh on my spirit for a little while, because I was trying to conform to what a professional hypnotist was supposed to do. And I can remember sitting, I got an office, it was on fifth Avenue, there's a little office and I set it up and, you know, I was all excited. And first the, the first thing I learned was once you get the hypnosis chair and you put the, you know, the speakers up and you get your desk and you get everything and you put the bookshelves in, and then you sit there, the phone doesn't ring.

2 (21m 55s):
Oh, right. Well, how would one even know, you know, to get to, to, you know, I mean, like, literally that was a learning. Like, I don't even know what I was thinking.

1 (22m 5s):
Well, I think so many people feel that way. So many people think if you build it, they will come. And you know, all this investment of time and money and emotional sweat later, and you're sitting in the office

2 (22m 18s):
At the time. I didn't even have a website at the time. I didn't, you know, I mean, this was 20 years ago at this point, but you know, totally not savvy. And that's why I started kind of going out there and doing talks or doing whatever it was a way to, you know, pull people in. I mean, I had some people contacting me from, they knew a friend too. I had helped in the back of CBGBs to stop drinking. You know what I mean? Like, but, you know, but it was, it was, you know, it was a hardcore lesson, but I do remember sitting there, the client comes in and I had prepared, you know, I had all of a sudden, I had the induction there.

2 (23m 3s):
If I needed to glance at it, I had a script that was supposed to be for this particular thing. And, you know, it was all going to, and I had the music, the hemispheric synchronization from my days at the Monroe Institute with binaural beats, I was going to play the surf sounds. I mean, I can remember having it all set up and, and being nervous, you know, the client comes in and, you know, as soon as we start, the client pulls out some crazy shit, like, yes, well, I mean, I bite my nails because you know, my mother never. And just so all of a sudden I'm in some other place and I didn't have the script for that in of me.

2 (23m 48s):
And I quickly learned that every time I thought I knew what the client was coming in for, and I prepared for it, I got flummoxed because people aren't so easily put into a category or a box and the smoker, you know, has some stuff they might bring in. And so, you know, quickly, I had to learn to just kind of let go of that. And I think more than anything, I relaxed more when I recognized that the things that the experts told me I should be doing, wasn't necessarily what I enjoyed doing.

2 (24m 29s):
I enjoyed sitting down and troubleshooting. I enjoyed being playful. I enjoyed going, Hey, you want to see this cool thing you can do with your mind? You know, that was more my style rather than to try and pretend to be, you know, Dave Elman or, or at the time who know Cal Banyan. I don't know who at the time I was, you know, I went through all of my different phases like everybody does, you know? And so, yeah, I remember being very nervous and preparing and doing a lot of research on the topic and, you know, that's why when people come to my trainings and I mean very early on, I, I recognize that that wasn't fun for me.

2 (25m 16s):
And the only way that I was going to be doing this, you know, for a living is if it were fun. And so I quickly changed how I approached it.

1 (25m 29s):
I love that. Is there anything that you do or, you know, maybe it's some, had some kind of a ritual in the past that has now just become automatic, that gets you in the right state of mind before you see a client, or maybe before you start the day with, with clients,

2 (25m 46s):
I guess I just always start with curiosity. Okay. As soon as I start to think, I know what, you know, this client who I've never spoken to is, is going to be like, Oh, because it's a quit smoking session or, Oh, it's just anxiety. Or it's just this. Then I quickly check myself, right? Because that that's going to get in my way. And it's going to filter the information in such a way that I might miss all the good stuff. So the first thing I do always is get curious, you know, I've been doing this so long. It's not, I don't necessarily feel the need to do any type of prep work except to be curious and know, you know, the basic structure of change.

2 (26m 37s):
And then there's a million ways we can achieve that. And once you kind of embody enough just by doing, doing, doing, then I think that just being curious about the person in front of you, and if you can, you know, if you can get a handle on how they're doing the problem and then how they can do the solution and how can you bring these things together? How can you basically, you know, widen out the aperture, you know, because so many people come with this myopic view of their problem and they're their, they're their possibilities that, you know, just shoving that a little bit aside or widening it out is, is enough to create some space and some room for us to play.

2 (27m 30s):
And I think that if you start with curiosity, that's contagious, you know, it makes the, it makes the client curious. If you can get your client curious about how they're doing this thing they're doing and all the different ways that we can shift it and change it and have fun doing it, then, you know, half the job is really done. I th I really feel that way. I feel like curiosity is one of those powerful cure. Alls in that you can't really be anxious and curious or afraid and curious, angry, and curious.

2 (28m 11s):
It's like curiosity creates a very different state of being physio, physiologically speaking, just on, on every level. And you focus in a little differently,

1 (28m 25s):
I'm on so many hypnosis forums. And I see people saying, I have a client coming in for this specific thing. And how would you approach this and all, you know, all these different scenarios. And I feel like if someone listening were to rewind back and listen to what you just said and truly absorb it and take it in, you can map that to every, just about every reason a client would come and sit in your chair, you know, find out, get curious about how they're doing the problem and how they would do this, the solution, and just stitch that together.

2 (28m 59s):
Yeah. I mean, I've been saying these days, you know, certainly for the past few years, as I've been simplifying, simplifying, simplifying down my work that, you know, I, I treat the, the person, the nail biter the same way I would, you know, work with someone with an anxiety disorder at this point. There's, there's these, these things that are common, right? And, and the end result, whether it is biting your nails or smoking or drinking, or pulling, or picking or overeating, or, you know, that's the end result. And it's a habituated pattern.

2 (29m 41s):
And if you understand habituated patterns in the brain, then you understand how you can reshape them or help clients to rewire them. Then it doesn't matter what it is. You know, you, you know what I mean, if we're dealing with some, you know, health condition that almost all of them are exacerbated by stress, then we know that stress management is a big dose that, that, that, you know, allowing people to go into a nice hypnotic state where they can access kind of that healing rest and digest state is really good for people with chronic health conditions.

2 (30m 23s):
You know, like you don't have to know the, you know, the ins and outs of the specific medical thing going on. That's, we're not doctors and we shouldn't try to beat, but we can teach clients to go into a state of comfort and then come up with their own imagery without having to know the particulars of the thing.

1 (30m 47s):
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. You mentioned a minute ago that when you started learning all of this, that you were a bit of a training junkie, and I think you might still be, are, are you still,

2 (30m 60s):
Well, I'm, I'm still a bit of a training junkie, I guess. Not as much as I used to be. I tend to bring people to me. I have a center in New York city, so, you know, but I would say that I, I go to at least one, sometimes two big kind of trainings a year, but I also, because I teach at these conferences, I am one of those people that actually goes and sits in the classes. You know, I am one of those people that, Oh, I I've never seen this person.

2 (31m 42s):
I don't know what they're about. Let me go see. And sometimes it's just a little metaphor I walk away with, and I'm really happy with that. Anything that allows me to like go, Hmm, I haven't thought of it that way. And now that I do try on this different perspective, what am I noticing? You know, what's different here. How can this widen out? You know, the way that I had been thinking about it. And so, because I teach at so many conferences, I get a lot of opportunity to learn, but I'm always reading, I'm listening. You know, I walk in the woods, I I'm a big fan of audio books and, you know, so I'm always trying, I'm always feeding into my curiosity.

1 (32m 28s):
So what would you say to a person who has perhaps completed some certifications, read some books, done some trainings and they keep feeling, you know, they're almost addicted to those trainings and that education, and they're always waiting to get one more certification, one more training before they actually get started and start to walk toward their goals in this industry.

2 (32m 53s):
Right. Right. So I know that type of person, and what's funny is I actually turned one of those types of people away from my certification training recently and said, it sounds to me like the best way you're going to learn is just by doing it. And you still want to take my training a year from now, when you've got, you know, when you've been doing this work for a year, I'm happy to train you because that, that is one of the things we get caught up in. I need to know more. I need to know more. Well, one of the things that I like to share with my students is this is a lifelong process.

2 (33m 33s):
You never get it done. You know, that is why I'm still in this field 20 years later, if there was a cap on it and you and I, Laurie were having a chit-chat and I would say, Oh, I know everything there is to know about hypnosis, or I know everything there is to know about consciousness or the brain or the mind body connection. I would have moved on to a different thing. Right. I love this field because we're always expanding. You know, we just, there's still so much, we don't know. There's still arguments about what is it? We have an unconscious mind. What is that? You know?

2 (34m 13s):
So you have to kind of appreciate this idea that you're always going to be learning, but the best way to learn is to do, and you don't really take intellectual knowledge and embody it until you play with it. You know what I mean, until you just are in it embodied and doing the work because you can't judge this process by how it goes in a training situation, none of it, you know, it, you have to test drive them in the real world over and over and over again. And that is how you get good.

2 (34m 54s):
That is how you learn. And so, I mean, I get it. I get where that individual might be coming from. And that is why, honestly, I'll tell you, I do this, this, this pattern, or at least someone pointed out that I do this pattern, which is if all you got was right, if all you learned from me was, and so I start the day with, let's say five different techniques from the self directed neuroplasticity frame, right?

2 (35m 35s):
The protocol, the, what you would know, the anti-anxiety toolkit, right? And, you know, that includes peripheral vision, faster EFT, bilateral stimulation, maybe heart breathing, you know? So, so down-regulating the vagus nerve. And more importantly, with the overall frame of here's, how you interrupt any habituated pattern. If you use this, it'll stop either a craving or anxiety, but more importantly, it'll start to rewire the brain, make new neural connections.

2 (36m 17s):
And I make sure that I have that done right before the first break on the very first day of like my eight day intensive. So that I can say, if all I gave you was this that's more than Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz has, who has, you know, who has impacted the lives of people with OCD for many years, right? That's more than most people have that. There are people that are, you know, EFT practitioners out there doing great work, that there are people that just, you know, work with this using Stephen Porges, polyvagal theory and teaching people to down-regulate their vagus nerve.

2 (36m 59s):
And they're doing great work. So if all you had was this to give someone no matter what the condition is, you're already possibly transforming their life. And so then as we, so then the next segment is like teaching three different ways to teach your client's self hypnosis, the self-hypnosis template, and a few of that. So I can save all you did was give people this well, there's sports psychologists out there that are doing just this one piece with athletes, and they're getting paid five grand, right.

2 (37m 39s):
Or this or that. And I pointed out like, okay, it's been three hours of class. And if you were to leave now, you would already have so much to share with people. And so we start there and it's only because Laurie, I've been doing this for so long and training people for so long that I know the kind of person you're talking about. And so I'm, I've now set up my training to, to take that into account, to make sure that, you know, and, and really a lot of this comes from not just that, but I had a psychiatrist in my class who had, after the first day of class, had a family emergency and, and couldn't, and had to go and fly back home.

2 (38m 29s):
And the emails that I got from this person, just for the next year, about how many people, they were helping with all the different techniques and just teaching them, you know, the, you know, peripheral vision and bilateral stimulation and EFT and Celtic noses, just teaching self-hypnosis to them

0 (38m 53s):
Was transforming.

2 (38m 55s):
They just had the first day of class. And that really gave me the idea. So now I teach within the back of my mind, if all you got was this, is it enough to bring into the world? Is it enough to shore up your confidence so that you can even say, Hey, I just learned this technique from this crazy hypnotist. Let's see what it does. Let's see if you like it, you know, and, and different ways, because at this point, I mean, primarily I trained therapists, right. So I've also had to sort for, how do you segue into some of this stuff if you've been already seeing this patient for five years, you know, because that's also a problem that they're

0 (39m 40s):
How, you know, they're used to me doing this thing.

2 (39m 44s):
How do I, all of a sudden, they come in and I start with, what do you want to change today? You know, that's going to be a little disquieting. And I said, yes, as it fucking should be five years into therapy. Yeah. Let's shake it up now. And if you've got to say, Hey, I just took this crazy training. Let me try something with

0 (40m 4s):
You. I don't

2 (40m 6s):
Know any patient. Who's going to be like, no, don't try anything new. Of course, they're going to be like, okay. And if they're really not, if they really don't want you to try something new, you think would help them, then maybe you need to rethink your therapeutic

0 (40m 20s):
Relationship.

2 (40m 23s):
So, anyway, sorry, I went off on a tangent there, but you know, for me, that's what it's all about. It's, it's being able to have something which will allow you right away,

0 (40m 36s):
Two

2 (40m 37s):
Work with people. And so it goes back to the first thing you said, which is, you know, people take a training from you and you had said, the reason I agreed to this is you had said in your invitation that so many people suffer from this thing where they take a training or they learn something and they want to share it. But they're, but they're afraid that they're sounding like this person or they're stealing this person's material. And you said, and your name keeps coming up. And so I, that's why I wanted to come on this because I feel like I've set things up so that my students can right away share this stuff.

2 (41m 17s):
And we know that if it, if it's all they did, it would work. Now that gives them the confidence to start working with people immediately

0 (41m 27s):
To start

2 (41m 28s):
Bringing it into their yoga studio and doing a workshop on stress management or an anxiety, you know, management, pain management. I, I train a lot of doctors so they can immediately go and share with their whole, you know, their whole clinic's worth of nurses and doctors. This, these pain management techniques where my chronic pain protocol it's meant to be shared. And it's, it's a way that I believe has sharpened my skills as a trainer to make it so that my students can immediately share it.

1 (42m 11s):
I love that a moment ago, you said one of the first things you teach in your trainings is self-hypnosis. And another thing that I hear repeated over and over from other hypnotists is, Oh, I'm not very good at self-hypnosis. I can, I can help other people, but I'm not hypnotizable what would you say to that person?

2 (42m 38s):
So now we have to, now we have to talk about defining terms, you know, what is, and what isn't hypnosis. But I immediately, like, like I said, from the first, maybe the second hour of my class, they're going in and out of they're hypnotizing each other. And so we, we have different ways of explaining it so that they understand that, you know, we're all going in and out of various altered States. And now it's about, you know, what do you want to do with the state? Right. And then it becomes, you know, what w what, what needs to happen in order for us to get that, or get that, or get that result.

2 (43m 19s):
But for self-hypnosis, you know, I mean, people are learning that right away. And I also use some easy convincers so that people can have a sense of it. Right. Whether it's just, you know, going into a state and doing like a heavy leg, convincer you, you know, that one, right. The, I do. Yeah. I learned that from you. Yeah. Okay. And to me, it's an easy one that most people can get a sense of. Right. It doesn't have to be drastic. And, you know, there are plenty of NLP patterns that don't work for me in, in the sense that I don't, I don't, it's hard for me to see that it's hard for me to hold a visual in place enough to do, you know, this particular map across the modality.

2 (44m 14s):
So I've had to adapt it, right. I've had to make it my own. And in the same way that I do that, I do the same thing with clients or students who think that they can't go into a hypnosis. Maybe they just, you know, need a clear understanding of what isn't isn't. So maybe that's a, you know, that's a me problem, and I didn't define it well in us, or as well as we can nowadays. It's really hard to define, but also just to, to have a sense of what do you need to do then, and to be playful enough, to try and figure out where you're already going into trance and how do we utilize that?

2 (44m 60s):
You know, but I think it's important that we teach our clients different techniques to, to help themselves, you know, this is one of my, as, as you know, you've been in my classes before, I'm a stickler for that, you know, what are you giving the clients walk away with? You know, because you know what, it's one thing that they feel great for that one hour in your office, but it, you know, what are you giving to them that they can take home? And, you know, in, in, in a few different studies, what they found, and this is not just hypnosis, this is a therapeutic interventions in general.

2 (45m 41s):
There's two main things that, that, that are the top of, you know, what makes a therapeutic relationship or intervention, you know, what's the efficacy of factor, right? And the two main things are rapport, the therapeutic relationship and how well you teach your clients to manage their own emotional States without you. Those are the two main things, you know? And so by immediately giving people self-hypnosis, by giving people different affect regulation tools, you're covering that by starting with curiosity, with an intention to help and be curious, then you're helping that, that relationship as well.

2 (46m 31s):
I just heard

1 (46m 31s):
You say recently on Jason Lynette's podcast, how important it is to collapse that resource into the problem. Do you have any specific guidance as far as how to let them know when to use this tool?

2 (46m 45s):
Well, sure. I mean, as you know, for me, we're always, I mean, we're always instigating change on a few different levels. And so, you know, you've heard me go on and on and on and on and on about the need to light up the relevant neural network before interjecting the change. Otherwise you're not really going to create a fast but long lasting change. You know, it'll take a lot more time if you don't do that, if it happens at all. And that that's unfortunately not necessarily written into the trainings of, you know, of everybody, let's just say that.

2 (47m 28s):
And so what you'll is, people will come in, they'll talk about their problem. A hypnotist will, you know, put them into a nice trance and make some suggestions or help them to create imagery. But because they weren't strategic enough to make sure that, you know, the client had activated the relevant kind of problem state and not just talk about it, then you're not really getting that, but that's a whole nother, I mean, that's, that's a lot. So do I future pace? Absolutely. Do I do that as much as possible in my office? Absolutely. Do I test, test, test before I even see them walk out the door?

2 (48m 12s):
Absolutely. Another thing I'm a stickler in, you know, I've heard people say, Oh, but aren't you afraid that they're, you know, that they're going to get that fear again. Well, if you're thinking like that, if you're actually afraid that your client, if you're going to have them revisit the trigger or the, the stimulus, and you're afraid that they're gonna, that the, the, the change won't hold, then you're better off having it fall apart in your office so you can fix it so you can keep going. So you can try something else as well as, you know, the, have them try it in your office and then connect it to where they would use it in the outside world.

1 (48m 51s):
Okay. Okay. I'm so grateful for your time. And before I say goodbye, is there anything else that you would want to say to that person who, you know, I have so many people approach me. It's crazy. Especially since all of this lockdown stuff started where they say, I wanted to use this opportunity to start building my business and start moving forward. And instead I'm just sitting on the couch and watching Netflix, because there's this something, I, I think it feels like procrastination or laziness to them, but underneath, I think is this whole imposter syndrome idea that they're not good enough, or someone else has already doing it, or they don't know quite enough.

1 (49m 31s):
And is there anything that you would say to them to take them out of that complacency and move them forward?

2 (49m 39s):
Well, I mean, I think you just, you, you hit on a couple of things and I do have to address some of the assumptions, right? Because sometimes I'm binge watching Netflix and snacking on my couch when I could be doing any number of things to further my business, but I don't fucking feel like it. And that's certainly not because I have any type of, you know, I'm not good enough or imposter. It could just be I'm feeling fucking lazy, or I don't feel like at that day. So I am really aware of when I am making an assumption, because they tend to get in the way, some people, you know, they're just, they just want to watch Netflix and the hell out of their mind during this crazy time.

2 (50m 30s):
And that's okay too. Now that being said, if somebody comes to me and says, you know, I really want to do this thing, but I I'm teaching. I want to do this workshop, but I feel like I'm, you know, I'm sharing someone else's work. You know, the thing we started with, then I would say, look, you say, I got this idea from this one. I'd love to share it with you. And you've just solved that problem. That's it give credit where credit's due and it shows that you're sharing, that's it, when you innovate and you make up a new thing. Fantastic. You can say, I got this idea from this, but here's the way I, I see it, you know?

2 (51m 12s):
And so, so there's that piece, the piece of, you know, I'm not good enough, you know, that, that really, you want to look at the skillset they have. And as I said, I mean, if it's someone who's taken my training, I say, look, if all you did was these two techniques, do you feel you could do that? Right? Do you feel you can teach someone self-hypnosis, do you feel you can teach someone to stop internal dialogue and segue into a more resourceful state? Do you think you can do that? And so we pair it down to what they can do. And most of them are like, well, of course I can do that.

2 (51m 53s):
I'm like, okay, well, you're doing more than most traditional therapists out there, you know? And so I remind them of what they already know, but then also, I mean, you know, I've worked with people like this, and this is once again, you've got to activate the problem network in the brain and then introduce change, right? So that's a whole that that would require a bit of work.

1 (52m 17s):
This is amazing. And for anyone listening, if you haven't taken Melissa's trainings, I, I highly recommend any of them or reading her integrative hypnosis books. I, I devoured your integrative hypnosis with, for kids and teens. I read it on a, an airplane ride and I apply so much of what you teach for kids and teens into my sessions with adults. I don't really work with a lot of kids in teams, but I find when you activate that imagination mechanism inside adults and get them in a playful state, it's so transformative.

2 (52m 52s):
Right? Well, as you know, I mean, that book was written with the amazing Kelly words and she is just a fricking inspiration on every level to me. I mean, seriously, she just has not just this kind of natural talent with children, but just as a person in general, she's, she's really just amazing. And I mean, that book wouldn't have happened without her really. She was inspiring every everything she wrote. So that was, I would have to say of all of my books. That was the most fun that book.

2 (53m 34s):
Yeah, definitely.

0 (53m 35s):
She's such a wealth of knowledge, especially regarding kids and teens. She's an awesome lady. Well, thank you so much for this, Melissa. If someone wants to learn more about what you were trained with, you, where's the best place for them to find you,

2 (53m 51s):
Melissa tears.com is, is a website that I occasionally update. I'm sorry. I am one of those people. I am lazy at heart. You know, if my, if it doesn't inspire me and fascinate me, I tend to just not do it. It's probably not the smartest way to operate your own business. But, and also I have a lot of my classes, aren't on a streaming site, the center for integrative hypnosis, and I teach all over. Although at this point I'm teaching mainly from my bedroom, I've actually taken my I've been doing webinars during this lockdown period.

2 (54m 36s):
And now I'm doing my certification course, my, my intensive, as some type of hybrid zoom and then ultimately live training. But it's been an interesting learning for all of us. You know, things that I just have been saying for so many years, couldn't possibly be done online. You know, I'm a kind of, hands-on kind of gal. And now I realize, well, I guess they can.

0 (55m 10s):
Thank you so much for listening. If you have any suggestions for future guests to bring on this show, or if you have any burning questions that you wished that I would ask, get ahold of [email protected] T R a N C Y. And let me know what you would like to hear on this show. I am so grateful for you listening today. You can find all of Melissa's information in the notes beneath this episode and get out there and start making a difference. I'm so grateful. You've listened all the way to the end. What is one tiny action step you'll take now based on an aha moment you got during the podcast, maybe that life changing action step is to come accept the gift I have for [email protected].

0 (56m 1s):
Head there right now to get your powerful, hypnosis audio, the answer room that lets you make important decisions and get crystal clear about your next step forward on this path of purpose in your one. Great and precious life.

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