In this enlightening episode, Stephen Towill, an experienced hypnotherapist, delves into the nature and benefits of hypnosis. The conversation begins by demystifying hypnosis, clarifying that it is not mind control or magic but a natural state of focused attention used for therapeutic purposes. The hypnotherapist guides clients to access their subconscious minds to facilitate positive changes, addressing issues like anxiety, stress, and unwanted habits.
In this episode, the guest Stephen Towill, an experienced hypnotherapist, covers the following key points:
Nature of Hypnosis: Hypnosis is explained as a natural state of focused attention, not mind control or magic.
Therapeutic Benefits: Hypnosis is used to address issues like anxiety, stress, and unwanted habits by accessing the subconscious mind.
Trust and Rapport: Effective hypnosis relies on trust and willingness from the client.
Empowerment: Hypnosis is a self-driven tool for change, not a magical solution.
Circle of Excellence: Introduces a technique from NLP to shift emotional states using visualization, physical anchors, and positive self-talk.
Impact of Words and Body Language: Demonstrates how emotional states can quickly change with the right techniques.
Personal Practices: Shares the Circle of Excellence as a personal tool for maintaining a positive state.
Engagement and Resources: The guest is active on Instagram, posting spiritual humor and offering booking for sessions via their website.
Listeners will gain insights into the practical applications of hypnosis and how it can empower and transform their lives.
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW: https://highvibemindset.buzzsprout.com/1504312/15225581-54-how-to-use-hypnosis-to-unlock-your-potential-heal-ft-stephen-towill-elise-schuchman
Guest bio:Stephen Towill, a clinical and spiritual hypnotherapist, based in Glasgow, Scotland. Stephen has helped many people overcome trauma, fears, and depression and he specializes in Past Life Regression and spiritual hypnosis.
STEPHEN'S WEBSITE:https://stephentowill.com/
STEPHEN'S INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/stephentowill_hypnotherapy/
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READ FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT HERE:
[00:00:00] On today's episode, I will be joined by Steven Towell. He is a clinical and spiritual hypnotherapist based in Glasgow, Scotland. And Steven has helped many people overcome trauma, fears, And depression as he specializes in past life regression and spiritual hypnosis. So in this episode, we are going to dive into what this type of hypnosis actually is, how it's different from maybe the more mainstream hypnosis that we've, a lot of us know about we're going to address the [00:01:00] common fears.
around hypnosis and talk about a way to do it. That's safe and how this can be really therapeutic and really helpful. This is a transformative tool where we can access our subconscious. And so that. It can really help us in a number of different ways in our life. We're also going to talk about how, like, what's the benefit of doing this?
What's the purpose? I'm so excited for this episode because Steven is a wealth of knowledge. And if you know, if you have ever heard of the name, Dolores Cannon, she's really famous for. for this type of hypnotherapy as well. And Steven's passion and just experience. He's been doing this for a long time is really cool to hear about.
So I'm just excited to dive in. Let's go straight to the episode. Quick note is that I also have my friend Elise on the episode with me too. So if you hear a second woman's [00:02:00] voice, it's my friend. She has some awesome questions. I wanted her on the episode. Stephen, I'm so excited for this episode and just to kick off, I would love to hear about what actually drew you into the field of hypnotherapy.
How did you become involved in this world? I was from a very young age I don't know why, but I can remember being 13 and trying to hypnotize my brother and my cousin waving a watch back and forward. And then when I was 17, I went to college. And I was doing a computer computing course, but it was first thing I remember doing was going to the library to find, try to find books on hypnosis and hypnotherapy.
So it was something that I've just been fascinated with from a young age. Yeah, that's so cool. So you've been fascinated by this for a long time. And when did you actually get started with it? Well, 17 I mean, my, I tell this story a [00:03:00] lot, but it was my first ever subject was my little brother. So I was 17, he was about six or something.
And I just remember I, I'd read these books. Which weren't purely hypnosis, but it kind of gave you some background on it. Yeah. More psychology books, and I tried it, and it worked. And I had them picking flowers out of a car an imaginary flowers out of a carpet. And I'd get into things like past life regression way back then as well.
That's I've had very curious minds. I was always interested in the unknown or things we can't explain. So I tried past life regression and he starts telling me, he can bring a six year old to tell me about being married with a kid. He's got a skin disease. He's fearful of dying. He's, so I was like, wow, this is cool stuff.
So at 17, that's where I sort of really get into it all and started doing it. Professionally, probably only in the last maybe [00:04:00] Six years I was an accountant as well for quite a long time. I played in bands and sung and played keyboard. So I've done quite a lot of things, but it was probably five or six years ago when I decided to make it an actual business.
Yeah. What does that look like? Today, the type of hypnotherapy that you do, and if you can even give a little bit of background for people who have no idea who are stumbling on this episode and, and don't really know what hypnotherapy is. Yeah, so probably about at the moment, generally it's about 50%, 50 50.
Half of it is general hypnotherapy, clinical hypnotherapy, helping people overcome fears, anxiety, depression you name it. Any, any mindset limitations or working through these things. The other side of it is like the past life. between life which takes a bit more spiritual. At the moment [00:05:00] this year it's probably been a bit more 70 percent actually more clinical hypnotherapy.
But all we're doing with hypnosis, again it's a, I don't like the name hypnosis because it carries a lot of prejudgments. I guess people have seen stage hypnosis and seen these kind of Almost like magic tricks where they just go sleep to people and and you can do these tricks like I said, I had my, I done some stupid funny stuff when I was a kid with my friends and had them forget numbers and wondering why they've got 11 fingers because the number seven's missing.
So so I was doing all this kind of silly stuff when I first started, but the name hypnosis comes from the Greek god of sleep. which is hypnosis, and there's nothing about hypnosis that has anything to do with sleep. You probably give suggestions of relaxation. Relaxation is a good state to be in to help the mind to make changes and things, so that's where you'll probably have [00:06:00] a lot of hypnotherapists that will ask people to get more relaxed and because But it's not, that's not hypnosis either.
There's one really good phrase about hypnosis, and it's, if I can remember this, and I can't remember who said it, but it's hypnosis as a suspension of disbelief and believed in imaginings. So if you, if you look at, you can actually look at life in general and our whole life, our whole existence, our whole perceptions are based on beliefs.
They're based on what we think is reality. So I guess when we end up with limitations in us, when we have maybe through life we've been put down and then we start to think that we're not good enough or then we've got a belief unconsciously there that has been kind of programmed into us in some way through parents, through schools, through friends, through all our general interactions in life, we start to develop beliefs, [00:07:00] we start to develop behaviors based on beliefs and coping mechanisms, and so what we're doing with hypnotherapy is we are help, so hypnosis is a, I like the idea as well, it's a state of focus, it's focusing the mind, it's helping the mind.
to focus more internally. And so what we're doing is we're trying to help the mate to focus more on these parts of us, or these behaviors, these beliefs, and to help them to change. So if, for instance, you, just as an example, and this is a, this has actually come up numerous times with clients, but it could be that parents haven't been very supportive to their kids or they've been very busy with their work and they haven't paid them a lot of attention and so these kids start to develop beliefs that maybe they're not loved or they're not good enough or they're not worthy of love because their parents ignore them and so.[00:08:00]
This, this sort of sits within us as a, a deep belief. So fast forward 10, 20, 30 years later, 40 years later, could be, I've seen people in their seventies, eighties of what worth, who still hold these limitations all based on the kind of construct of, eh, grown up and learning to adapt into your environment as a child.
And so for instance, it may be depression. that we don't, you feel this depression because we believe that we're not good enough, that we're not loved and just by focusing the mind into this sort of, I call it, I like the idea of parts, so there's a part of you that holds that belief, the part of you that is formed and developed based on those experiences, but there's another part of you that thinks, I shouldn't feel like that.
That's not the way that I want to feel. So it's trying to resolve these conflicts within the mind. And that's what we're doing, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, a bit long explanation here, but to focus the mind into [00:09:00] these unconscious, these subconscious sort of constructs to try and help them to make change. Yeah, that's so valuable.
I think some people maybe just Come to you and are struggling in general with anxiety or depression, like you said, or some kind of trauma or just feeling stuck in life, or maybe they've even at some point pinpointed some belief and then might be able to come to you. Like I know for myself, the theme that comes up over and over again is the fear of success.
And I'm still wrestling with that, like, well, how do I resolve that? What does that mean? You know, so that work is important because if we're not aware, you know, we're just going to continue to run up against all these obstacles and not have the tools to overcome it. Yeah, that's, that's looking at a fear of success.
You could, when you look at where that could come from, it's, it could be, a shyness that's within you that you don't want to be seen by many or [00:10:00] it could be a, it could also be I've seen instances where there's money issues, where maybe your parents have came from very little, they've worked hard and then it could be that.
You you've got this limitation of what you can make or what you can actually achieve based on the limitations they may have. And this is a generational thing that comes through this as well. I've seen people that maybe came from maybe something like Eastern Europe, for instance, where there was maybe quite a lot of poverty, wars, there's been a lot of wars in Eastern Europe, and they've struggled, and so they've had to go through poverty, they've had to go through lack, and there's a whole dynamic with, I've seen with, like male and females, so the, the males may, They may have lost a lot of their self respect or because of the way maybe they've been affected by war or by the pressures that are on them to try and [00:11:00] provide for the family.
But, so, all these, all these kind of constructs then They sort of pass on generations. When we are born, between the ages of two and seven, our minds are like sponges. So we are absorbing all the beliefs, all the behaviours, from people like our parents, because we need to learn to survive quite quick. We probably fast forward or rewind about two thousand years ago.
We were probably in a position where we have to learn very quickly. Otherwise some kind of animal or something could eat us. So we need to learn fast to survive. And this is where the mind is in this high state of learning. So we're taking a lot of this stuff in that could have also passed from generations as well.
So this is the sort of stuff we're trying to unwind and pack and resolve and change. Yeah, I think it's so fascinating how you can recover memories from when you were two years old with hypnosis or past [00:12:00] life memories. Yeah. Where do you think those memories are stored? Okay, so the thing about memories is they're quite subjective.
I know that I've had I remember having an argument with my friend for about 10 years about the time when he fell into this big pool of water. I thought it was in a place called Glencoe. He was adamant that it was up next to Ben Nevis, and for years I was adamant. I knew that that's where, I remember it, but then after walking back up there a few times, I thought, you know what, there is no pool of water around here.
He was right all along. So memories are, you can never always trust them that well, but for me, okay, now that, this is, this is an interesting question because where are they, where are they stored? Now we know that the mind is, We can, we can study the brain and we can see things like electrical impulses shooting across neurons and through neural pathways.[00:13:00]
For me, in my own belief, I believe that memory is, I guess every time we're trying to recall a memory, we have to reconstruct it. So, I guess a memory is never how would you describe it, fixed, it will be re brought back up a bit like if there was an accident and the police took two different reports, one person could be saying that that person did that, and it was that blue car, and then someone else has got a completely different perception of that, and so their memories are Kind of completely conflicting, even though they both were there and witnessed it.
So for me, I think our minds are reconstructing to bring this memory back. Now, where does it stored? Personally, I believe it's in some kind of bunches field some sort of I think our minds are transmitters and receivers as if I think that's what's happening it's almost like a you can look at a laptop or a pc and the [00:14:00] circuit boards and there's all this electrical impulses shooting across these circuit boards and for me the brains are something similar it's a it's bringing in and putting out stuff in some kind of conscious field, some kind of there are many names for it, but I guess that's where you start to go into a spiritual perception of wowie, or some conscious energy of awareness and experiencing through life.
So yeah, that's probably what I would say. I think it's stored. I think it's, it's in a, It's all part of a consciousness of which we can reconstruct with our minds to try and recall or to, eh, bring back what's happened in life or in past lives as well. I saw on your website that you do between life memories.
That's the first time I've, I've seen that. So I've seen past life regressions. I've seen future life regressions, which are so fascinating. [00:15:00] And I don't think I've ever seen someone that takes people to their between life. I was just wondering, has that given you insight into what happens and what are some of the things that you've learned?
Yeah. I mean, like I said, I was young and I was curious. I was always wondering about. I was, I was curious about everything from ghosts to aliens to, to life. Why is there pyramids in Egypt and pyramids in Mexico and there's a big di So I was always, that's my mind when I was young. I came across a book.
So I used to do past life, so I would always stop at the end of the life. I had a few weird experiences with people when women sit and tell me all about the breakup of my parents and the dog that I've got when I did a just a past life with her and it was this voice started talking to me and talking about the girl and so I'm thinking what what is this so I'm speaking to some kind of ghost or something I didn't know and I always stopped after the past life.
A way back in [00:16:00] maybe 2010 or something, I read a book by a guy called Dr. Michael Newton, who again has stumbled into using hypnosis to help people, and someone came to him and they just couldn't get to the bottom of whatever this person's problem is. It was, I think they were saying it was the doctors and I was saying it was psychosomatic, but he was Struggling just in therapy with this person.
So we tried hypnosis and she starts talking about this past life. And what he then done was, he took it past the death point. What happens, if you can recall past life then, what about when you die? What happens then after that? And what he started to find was that all these people from all different walks of life are explaining the same stuff.
And it's the things that you hear in your death experiences, there's the light and all the kind of, whether it's a hard life and you've held a lot of pain and you suddenly it's all released. And so that's what [00:17:00] between life is for me. It's, it's not, you know, it's the best way I call it between life because Life between, he called it life between lives, I call it just between lives, and more a trademark thing, he trademarked it.
But it's something I've been doing for a long time anyway, and other people do something similar, and but it's, I guess it's starting to, like we said, this, where is memory stored? And again, it's what is, what is consciousness? What are we? And through these experiences, people are saying that, and this is, this is many, many ones I've done, ones that other people have done.
It's starting to bring up this idea that the whole purpose of life is for learning and experience. So with each life, we go through different experiences and through those experiences, we will deal with them in maybe poorer ways, but then the next time we get a better opportunity to improve on it.
And. [00:18:00] It seems that the whole purpose of it all is about an elevation of consciousness. It's about us learning and becoming, like, I like a little computer game type analogy. It's like, the more that you keep playing that game, the the better that you get at it to the point where you may complete it and you're now the master of that game and for me this is a bit like life we keep coming in and we keep living these lives we keep making mistakes but we keep trying we're doing it different ways and sooner or later we become the master of the game and that's what I see this it's like a school a learning place.
Have you seen parallels between people's current lives and their future lives, them learning the lessons over and over again and eventually mastering them and then moving on to other lessons? Yeah, you find that. So, so the way that I see this right, is imagine yeah. So, so that, that's the whole purpose of the learning is that we may have to keep repeating until we get it right.
And there is, [00:19:00] there seems to be parallels. You'll see people going through the same stuff again. Is there, were in the past life now those, those questions about how, what the mind is doing here. Is it creating a metaphorical or a. another version of something to try and help you work through what it is you're trying to work through now.
That's one other way of looking at past lives. Is it real? Or is it, is it, is it a kind of, I'm calling it the mind creating some sort of different version of what you're going through now to try and help you heal it maybe in an easier way that you don't need to recall, go through the pain of it. So that's a possibility.
But there is again a lot of people that I've experienced, I've come up with. There was a show on Prime, Amazon Prime, called The Ghost Inside My Child and it was all children just spontaneously bringing up these past life experiences. So, for me death is an awakening. It's not an end. And if you look at past lives, it's [00:20:00] an accumulation.
So if you look at your current life, look at let's say a school. So you start in school right through in the secondary school. I gave you a book and asked you to write down everything that happened every single day. What did you learn that day? Who did you interact with? What did you What conversations did you have?
Can you write all that down, day by day? You'd be sitting going, I don't know Maybe I can remember a day we went on a field trip, or a day the teacher read a story that I really liked, or You'll get little, little memories, but 99 percent of it We don't remember it, but we accumulated the experience, we accumulated the knowledge, we learned how to interact socially maybe with other children, we learned through maybe respecting authority in some way with a teacher that's trying to teach you something, you're learning about history, math, English, so we know this, we have accumulated [00:21:00] it, we can use it, but we don't remember.
And for me, past life's a bit like that. We are an accumulation of all that experience and unconsciously we are still playing it out. So we may hold limitations. We may hold fears based on these other experiences in the past. So it sort of makes sense that then, as you say, a kind of parallel and similarity type of thing is that it could be that these limitations were there.
And now you've still got them now, and this is another opportunity to work through them. Future life for me, again, I've done it a few times, but for me that there's, I guess there's a, there's a path that we're trying to follow. So for future progression, I guess I think that it could go anywhere, and we've got free will to choose whatever we want to do.
So whatever, if we saw some sort of, recalled some future life, we [00:22:00] could. Change that they could just decide, well, do you know what? I ain't doing that if it's part of a soul journey, which again came out a lot of this stuff of Michael Newton's work, Dr. Michael Newton, he's actually, what a book called Journey of Soul.
It's all about this path of learning and growing. And so in some way, I guess we're all trying to get to the same place in the end. It's just that there's many different paths to take. So yeah, I've answered your question completely, but but yeah, there's a commonality between the experiences when we are maybe some struggling with stuff that we struggled with before.
So you don't think that there's one fixed future, you think that there's a lot of different possible futures and then as we make decisions those possible futures narrow down to the present moment. We could get ourselves completely tied in knots with these concepts but there's ideas of multiple versions of us that the this multi [00:23:00] dimensional universe where there's other versions of us so we could have about 100 versions of us all living roughly the same experience but in different ways through different choices.
When you think of that then that You just think that, well, conscious is something huge, but but I think from what that, what seems to come up is that there's ideas of soul contracts. Soul contracts are we've got things to learn, we've experienced, so there'll be sort of experiences that will be presented through our life, our challenges, and it's for us to navigate these challenges, to overcome them, to grow within ourselves, to be stronger, to be better with these.
Yeah. And some people will also be involved in this, other, so again, when you do past life sometimes there's people in these past lives that are in your current life, just that they look different. If you ask about the eyes, I've said it so many times, we all say someone is really kind of close to them in that past life.
They'll say if you look [00:24:00] into the eyes is there anything familiar? And they'll say, yeah, that's, that's my aunt, or that's my brother. So it's the idea of these soul groups or soul families where we, it's like a, it's like a play or some big theatre production where we all come down with these parts and the plays for us to grow and adapt through that experience.
Have you ever? regressed two people that knew each other in a past life and actually had them recall the same event from two different perspectives. I think, I think I have. There is actually a very good book by a guy called Dr. Brian Wise, who's probably one of the biggest names in the world of past life regression.
His whole book is based on a story like that, where there's two different I can't what book it is but I know that there's two different clients coming and he's the both, the both of them are talking about the same stuff and he's, he's kind of thinking what's going on here [00:25:00] that person's talking about that person and it turns out they, they knew each other so that can happen.
I think I've done that many of them I forget most of them now but Sorry, there's a book by Dr. Bruce Goldberg called Past Lives, Future Lives, and he has a story like that. Ah, yeah. I think I've got a couple of his books in my bookcase. I don't think I've read Dr. Goldberg's stuff. But Brian Wise has got one, similar.
So it does happen that two people are having those sort of same experiences, but with Brian Wise's book, they didn't know each other. So come to his therapy room and sort of talk about the same two things and he must have been sort of thinking, what's going on here? This is, everything's the same as that person's.
Can I, can I ask just what does the future look like? Have you had any future lives that have really interesting versions of the future? Yeah, so What I've done, a lot of the work that I do is a lot of [00:26:00] healing, so it's really working with the people, but I have had some, so there's so many, I guess there could be so many futures, I think, and maybe we create our own future.
So I'm never one for saying that. That's where it's going to be. I've had clients that have told me, so they say that there'll be a split. I remember one client saying that there's going to be that split where there's people that are more into nature, more into I guess, I can, more positive living off the grid type of thing.
Whereas there will be this other direction of more technology, more people maybe even more living in fear, living in, so, I've had this idea of a split happening, and I've tried to think, I can never recall all my sessions, but there is the, that, that's probably the most common one, is that there's some split coming, there's some kind of, you know, Oh, [00:27:00] sorry.
I was going to say that split idea also shows up in human design. I love the human design system and that experiment. And they talk about that too, how there'll be a split like that. Like you mentioned, like some people more, you know, in fear and in technology and trying to preserve old structures and systems.
And then other people who are more, you know, into nature and spirituality and yeah. So interesting that's what I've been told as well. So, I've had spiritual psychic experiences, and that's something that I was told was going to happen. Yeah, and for me it's as well, it's, These splits, for me it's all about perception and it's all about experience and I think what is happening is that it's an elevation of the way that we experience.
So you'll hear these, one of the most common terms I use is this 5D type [00:28:00] of reality, but for me it's, these dimensions already exist. What we're, we cannot, we're, just that we're, we're more focused into this one, this reality, this perception. And we can, we can, Open our minds up more to these experiences, but There may be that there's a good reason why we've came in and we've stuck ourself in this to, we're still going through stuff, we've still got stuff to heal, we're still going through challenges, so, but I think there is no, again there's free will, so it's whatever we want, we can follow.
There's always going to be a collective consciousness that's pulling it different directions but I always think that we've always got choice. No matter what our circumstances, no matter where we are and what's happening with us, there's still a choice. Our entire life is choices, a lot of them unconscious, from waking up in the morning, going to work, some people go to work, some people, they'll drive the same route to work in the same car, but that person could decide one morning, I'm not going to work, [00:29:00] or I'm going to get a different car, I'm going to take a different route.
So, our life is a lot of choices. Unconscious choice. But there's always, no matter where you are in the world, there's leave, right? There's always something that you can do. So The choice is the sort of, I guess it's how we're learning, we're playing this game. Yeah, I like how you mentioned, I thought it was really cool, the approach and just kind of the mindset you had around our memories and when someone is in a past life regression, you know, their mind's trying to come up with, or maybe it's sending them some visuals or some words or names or events and whatever, and these things pop up and we can kind of question, you know, or sometimes we remember things.
Differently, it comes in however it comes in, right? Yeah. But based on what is coming through, whatever is [00:30:00] getting transmitted, we can take that information and then do something about it, right? And then maybe we pull out these different themes of I'm noticing this pattern coming up and that resonates with me.
Yeah, that's pretty much, when I first started Past Lifes, doing Past Life Regression, it was cool. I remember, eh, one of my, another one of my first ones was a friend who was living in England, watching, sounded like Winston Churchill, he was in a crowd watching him coming along. He worked in a bank. So I was always about trying to get the names, the dates, the, trying to, you prove it.
And there's some, I think, that some of these experiences, when, when you go through them, you think that that wouldn't work, that doesn't fit in, that's a different time, and that that will overlap with our current life. So then you start to look at, well, Is it parallel as well? Is there a parallel life going on?
There's the idea of no time, so that [00:31:00] everything is happening now. So past lives are simply parallel lives anyway. Is there different versions of our reality? So we're in one version. So these are all things that come up. But for me, as I said, I used to be really into trying to prove it, to try and find dates, times.
But now I don't care too much. The story doesn't, it's interesting and it's a, it's an experience for people but my focus now is always why is the mind showing them that experience? What is, what does it need? I've found with this type of work the best thing I can do is be a facilitator. I try not to Push people in any directions or just let the mind take them to where they need to go to and in some bizarre way sometimes you're getting to the end of the session and you're thinking okay that all fits now and it was at the start of the session but how did their mind know to tell us all that first and then at the end it's only now making sense and it's almost like the mind knew all [00:32:00] along.
It's, so it's trusting in that. I trust in the mind. I let the mind then sort of guide and it's, whatever it's to show you, then I'll look at, well, why is it shown? Is it, is it something that needs to be healed? Is it something that's a challenge in their current life and how can we resolve that? Yeah. I think that when I think of the past, And going back, I think of a lot of like those obstacles, the pain, what we need to heal and correct me if I'm wrong or expand on it.
And when I think of the future, right, it's like where we want to go. So it's kind of like, who do we need to be? We've got to figure out what we need to heal. But when you're doing a future session and maybe some different, I don't know, images or ideas, whatever come in, what can, what kind of are some examples of how that shows up and what people can do with that information.
Yeah, so I [00:33:00] probably don't do a lot of future progression, but I guess what it's showing you is it's just showing you a potential that's maybe showing different paths that you could take. So if you maintain this route that you're on now, then you could end up down this path that's not very good for you.
Whereas if you were to change what you're doing now, it takes you on a different route. So for me, futures are all different branches that could go anywhere. And, and I guess, so even past present or past the future, the key thing is now it's about how we navigate, how we move forward, what we need to change.
So I like the idea of healing. It's no matter what you want in life, what you're trying to achieve, how positive you want to be, you can't, I don't think you can hypnotize or something just to be positive, to be happy, to say, okay, well, you're right, you're going to be absolutely fantastic, feeling amazing.
They will, but as soon as, The other realities kick in like this relationship that I'm not happy with and [00:34:00] a job that I absolutely hate that I'm doing. You're never going to be happy when your environment or when your choices are not in alignment with what you're trying to achieve. So what is holding you in?
What's stuck? Why are you stuck? What's holding you in these these kind of these ways, these patterns of the way your brain works. And as I said, it's usually, it's just, it's your past as your past is. You're an accumulation of all your past experiences. You've developed beliefs, you've developed coping mechanisms, and that's what you are now.
So in order to move forward in the direction that you want to do, sometimes you need to do a bit of work on overcoming these limiting beliefs that you're, you're holding unconsciously changing these behaviors as well that are probably as a result of some belief that's there. Do you have people come back?
Like, what is your, I guess, success rate on healing people? And then do you ever have people that [00:35:00] come back for repeat sessions? Yeah, again, it's I've seen almost miraculous sessions in one session. I've seen clients that just struggle and you're trying to maybe have them, you could have 10 sessions with them, just trying to get that mind to change.
So every single person is different. And so you can never really say whether it's one session or 10 sessions, 20 sessions, 100. It's, it's and generally things like hypnotherapy, I reckon that in the first two to three sessions, you should be even, even one session, you can see a big change and that may be all we need.
Sometimes it's two or three. I remember one guy coming I need to watch to break confidentiality, but so he had a really high anxiety and panic attacks. And he came for, I think it was on his third session and he said to me, I don't think this is working. I says, okay. I said, well, sometimes the mind just struggles [00:36:00] a little bit and it just, this maybe isn't the right way.
But I said to him, how many panic attacks have you had in the last couple of weeks? And he went, none. And I said, all right. I said, well, how many have you had before you started coming? And he went, I I was getting them every day and you can see his head going and what's happening it's got an apex effect where change happens but you still focus on the condition that you're in now so he was probably still recognizing that he's got anxiety but he's not looking back to see the path how he's improved and so sometimes a session can be enough.
Sometimes it's a few sessions. I've had people that, I've had people that have actually came, done some work with me and then it says, could you help me with my business for like I've got this kind of limitation where I go, yeah. So we then work on that. And then they go, this is brilliant. So it's just a change in mindsets.
It's, that's what we're pretty much doing. We're trying to change the mind. And the thing about the mind changing is that [00:37:00] it's, the mind can change easily. It's a bit like if you were to drive to work the same day, way every single day, and then there's a roadblock up Woodworks or something. You might go, okay, what am I going to do now?
And then you think, right, let's go this direction and see. So you follow this other road, you get to, it's quieter, there's less traffic, and then you get to work. Five minutes quicker and you're thinking wow that's five years I've been driving that other route and that's five minutes quicker. The next day same situation you take the same route you just learned five minutes quicker again you're going wow this is cool and it's quieter and it's not as busy.
So what are you going to do the third time when you get there and the roadworks are all finished now and that road's open that you've took for five years? Are you going to go back down this longer route that's busy and are you going to take this new route? And there's the It's found a new way and that's what we're trying to do with something like hypnotherapy is we're trying to help the mind to make that change to [00:38:00] recognize that it's a leaf around the way that does something isn't working or isn't the best way and to help it to make that change and so, but as I said, it can take One session, two sessions, 10 sessions, 20 sessions, it depends on the person really.
Yeah, for me too, I noticed I had a hypnosis session back in like 2021, I think, and I went through kind of a roller coaster of like, wow, this was so helpful. And I pinpointed You know, these times when I was a kid where this belief first showed up and it helped to just solidify like, wow, this is a pattern.
I wasn't aware of this, or I wasn't aware that this is just a belief that I can change and I can work on and I can start to, you know yeah, change this belief, but then as time went on to, it's kind of like, okay, you notice you have the block and you can start to beat yourself up of [00:39:00] like, well, why do I have to have this?
Why am I struggling with this? Why do I believe this? Oh, I'm so frustrated. It hasn't changed yet. Like I know it's there. I'm aware. But I haven't turned the corner yet. And then you can, you know, and then it's kind of like I think that fear too, or what can be controversial for people is when you tap into that stuff, you, you know, you touch on that trauma again, and it brings up all those really negative emotions.
Right. And then I had to go through the phase of like being. Enrage being sad, having regret, right? Like, Oh, why couldn't things be different? Why couldn't I have known better? But then again, turn the corner on that. And then it's like, Oh, wow, I'm so glad. And now I went through that whole process. And then years later, looking back, like that was so profound.
That was so impactful that, that like three sessions I had made a huge difference. But, you know, I can see it in a lot of different ways. And [00:40:00] I think the true impact really hit me a few years later of like, I look back and like, Oh yeah, this really actually set me on a totally different trajectory and actually transformed my whole life because I really did work through that belief, but it takes time and all through it, you're, you're in the trenches.
So you don't really recognize that. Yeah. That's it. I mean, I think about Eureka moment and that moment, and it was always I've seen people with severe depression, suicidal, who one session has actually just went, the depression's gone. I've seen people that struggle on with it, and it's quite hard trying to get that change to happen.
And again, it's, I guess it can depend on people's experiences and how their mind has formed all its coping mechanisms and constructs. Some of it could be really, really well done almost. And the way that I try to work as well as I've sort of changed a lot and I've, I guess I've, again, I went through when I did past life, I wondered [00:41:00] why is it some people don't experience the past life?
Why is it that some people struggle? Now I've learned a lot of things. Sometimes it can be fears. It can be that they don't feel comfortable with the person that could be so many different things. But what I did was I thought I want to study hypnosis. Maybe it's that I don't have enough skill to do it.
So I started studying or reading lots of stuff on Daryl Allman and guys like Gil Boyan and all these guys going way back to like 40s and 50s and 60s. A lot of the stuff It's based on, I think it's used now, it's still based on a lot of their things. So I did a lot of studying on hypnotherapy to try and learn.
And I guess what I've done, the way that I work now is, there's so many different ways of working with hypnosis. And again, it's another word that, it's like the biggest label that, that there's probably so many different ways to, for me it's, we're working with the mind. We could probably throw away the label of hypnosis and just use this way of focusing the mind to make [00:42:00] exchanges.
And there's probably other therapies that would tap into this idea anyway, just by a different name. But what I try to do now is that whatever the experience, you don't need to always relive it. I see it in a way as, as a part of you, as a part of you that is constructed. based on the experiences of the past, but the past will never change.
It will always be what it is, but the part of you that holds the belief, the part of you that is creating the behaviors of the whatever it is, that's the part that needs to change. So the way that I try to work is Bringing the helping. So whether that's again it can go spiritual sometimes, but there are, it's just another part of them that knows that the way they want to be and they want, and it's bringing them together to resolve this conflict.
So without having to go through All the experiences of pain or suffering or, so it's [00:43:00] trying to get, it's almost content free, that's the idea, is that the memories are always needed to get the change to happen, but what we usually, it'll usually make sense for this part, like it may be, I'll ask that part to come forward and it's four years old.
And then you start working with it, so you're kind of doing it in a child work almost or it might be a part of them at 27 or something, which we're going through a bad divorce in some kind of way, and so it could be all different ways. But for me, the mind is working, when I'm doing it in this way, it's like the mind is creating its metaphors, it's creating representations.
Of a, of the experiences that maybe the experiences that resulted in this unwanted behavior or belief and helping that to change. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And I think like you said getting the additional support. Two can be helpful for some people, but yeah, it doesn't always have to be that. Or [00:44:00] some people might be afraid or like, I don't, I don't want these memories to come up, but you're working with the mind or I guess the mind's going to do what it's going to do, right.
It's going to bring up what it needs to. And maybe for some people that's fine. Easy peasy. And for other people, maybe it starts to make them. Kind of ruminate on that memory that comes up. So I guess for anyone listening, it's just helpful to just kind of recognize that, like, we always need support anyways.
Right. So we always need to be able to have good support network around us. It's a journey, a journey of growth, a journey of healing. This is what we're, this seems to be the purpose of life. We're trying to expand, we're trying to grow, and sometimes we need to heal from the experiences that helped us to grow.
So, it's a way of looking at it. There is no bad experiences. It's all about just how can we move forward from it. It could be [00:45:00] horrendous things that have happened but that's for us then to think well how can I move myself forward in some way to heal the experiences that I've had and to live a more fulfilled life or an improved life or a better life.
Hypnotherapy is such a powerful tool for healing and I know a lot of people are scared. You had touched on one of your earlier answers about, you know, some of the tricks that you had done when you were first learning hypnotherapy. And I know that there's people out there that think that if they're hypnotized, you could tell them to do anything and they would do it.
Can you clarify some of those conceptions about hypnotherapy? And, and then maybe go through a little bit of what it looks like when you actually have a session with a client. Okay, so yeah, I guess stage hypnosis is that that what you're kind of trying to do there is you're trying to bypass this critical thinking this [00:46:00] critical faculty, they'd call it, and that's the part that will question things.
Now, the, maybe the, I guess this, this is ties into things like placebo as well, that have our mind, so we can talk about hypnotherapy, but for me it's we are working with your mind. That's what it is. Your mind is doing all the work. I'm doing some kind of little charades to, to almost, what we said before, to suspend that disbelief.
So as soon as you just suspend that disbelief, then you're open to imaginings. And what are imaginings? Imaginings are creativity, it's possibilities, and if you're trying to find a solution or a resolve and a better way to be, that's where you're believing in the imaginings. So so really there is the, the theatrical part of it, the stage stuff.
And let me say this, it won't work with everybody. I guess you're looking for people that are quite more open and a bit more [00:47:00] susceptible to this type of thing where they completely just let go of that critical thinking and they just, it's almost like, you see the unconscious minds about like the program and just plays.
It doesn't need to think whether it's right or wrong. So when you give, you know, an instruction to that part of the mind that will just play out what it believes or what you tell it. So, and as I said before, when you do that, if that then after a day or two or something, you may be thinking, no, my relationship is still crap.
I hate that job still. So I'm not happy at all. So you can't just, you know, control somebody into being a certain way. If that was possible, I'm sure the governments of this world would have us all like robots, which probably have in some kind of ways, but it would all be just sort of these people that are just commanded to do what we were told to do.
There's plenty of hypnosis. And here's the thing as well, to be fearful of hypnosis it's, it's everywhere. [00:48:00] It's in advertising. It's if you look at, there's a story about Ray Crocker, the guy that created McDonald's and he has, he's programmed children, he's seen Walt Disney and how he was able to market to children and he used the happy meal, he's used the, the little gift that you get when you get your.
Your meal, your soft play areas where you can have your party, where everybody loves you that day and you had such a lovely time and then fast forward ten years. I don't feel loved today, I feel down, what will make me happy? I think I'll have a McDonald's. So there's programming that's happening, there's hypnosis happening in society, it's happening everywhere.
They're using sounds, they're using colors, they're using, these are the communication systems, your senses. So they're using nice music, they're using nice sort of things to make you feel good, colors, colors. So, hypnosis is happening all the time and under that way of thinking then is that [00:49:00] it could be that we're always in hypnosis or continually in hypnosis.
I'll give you an example. If I said to somebody, think about your last vacation. You can watch their eyes. Most people. There's a whole NLP thing on IQs, so when you look up the way you're visualizing when you're down the way it's kind of static, but you might see them going like that. Oh yeah, I was in Europe and it was just as beautiful, but where were they for that little second?
Now that's, their eyes just went up and they paused. And then they come back with the answer. And these are little moments of many trance that's happening all the time. So we're in and outta this hypnosis. But if you think about the way that we live our lives, it's, again, I said before, it's all routine.
It's all ch, it's all unconscious choice that's continually playing out. You go up, you go your work, you come home, you have your dinner, you go to bed, you got, you go up, you got shower, you got, so it's this routine that just is a combination of all these unconscious choices. So in [00:50:00] a way we're, we're already living in that.
sort of trance and what we're trying to do is break that, so that we can take a bit more control. And this is what hypnotherapy is. It's about, it's about helping your mind to take control, to be, to improve, to heal, to change the way that, the limitations that you have. So so in terms of being fearful of hypnosis or some kind of mind control, As we've just seen, there's people using something similar already all through films and programs and in fact, is there any, is it a coincidence that the programs that we watch are called programs or maybe programmed?
But it's happening all the time anyway, but what we're doing with Sock White Hypnotherapy is it's to try and help you. And again, it's a tool, as you said, it's a tool. It's a cool tool, but the best thing about it is it's not the hypnotherapy that's. cool or magic. It's the person's mind that's magic because the mind is [00:51:00] being changed, it's resolving its conflicts.
So the beauty of this is that when it's done right is that it's the actual person's mind that's the magic not some funny word called hypnosis that has been brought up based on a Greek god of sleep or something. So so that is, that's the cool thing about is it's the mind. And also, when something like hypnotherapy, you're still, again, it's what's the experience like?
Some people say it's a bit like a daydream, where you're there, but you're not there. So that you said, what's really happened is you've, as we said, hypnosis is focus. Your focus of attention has went more inwards. And we're then starting to explore the constructs of how our minds play out. So so really what we're trying to do here is focus the mind again.
And if, in a daydream, if you decide, you know what, I don't like this, then just open your eyes and say, okay, I don't like it. I've never had anybody do that, I don't [00:52:00] think. So, but it's a, it's almost like an empowerment to a person to help them to make their own changes. My, I see my role as a facilitator.
I'm not a magician. I'm not somebody who's sitting with magic powers going on their fingers and making somebody's mind change. It's, I'm just simply, Dave in their mind to help it to make its changes itself. Yeah, this has been so informative and thank you so much for being on the show today. It really is going to be helpful for listeners to understand more about hypnosis and I think it's an awesome type of therapy and tool I had.
A little bit of experience with it. And I'm always interested in having more. So thanks so much for sharing with us. My last question for you is the question I ask all guests. In addition to hypnosis, what are some of the favorite tools, resources, or routines, things that [00:53:00] help you to stay high vibe? Okay.
So it's funny cause my whole mind is all about resolving and healing. And that's a really cool. Right, I'll give you one. It comes from an NLP really. An NLP is, I don't know if you've found it, it doesn't know, it's Neuro Linguistic Programming. It was two guys, Richard Bandler and John Grinder that created it back maybe in the 70s but they studied, it was all about modeling modeling.
Success modeling I guess empowered states. How is it some people can be very successful in business or, so they were looking at how the mind works. And they studied Dr. Milton Erickson, who was a, The kind of big names in hypnotherapy a way back. So one tool that they come up with, and you'll find this all over YouTube, it'll be everywhere, and it's called the Circle of Excellence.
Now that's an empowerment tool. It's the idea that it's a state changing tool. So we can look at it again from, if you're, you could [00:54:00] be in a depressed state of mind, you could be in a an angry state of mind. You could be in an anxious state of mind, but you could also be in a, a confident state of mind.
You could be in a, and you see all the time people shifting in and out of these states. I could actually talk to somebody and change their states. I could say, oh, I saw that your mom died today. Six months ago, I've not seen you since, but I just wanted to say I'm really sorry and, and you'll see that person go down, their shoulders will drop down, you'll watch their body language and you'll see all this.
Yeah, it was really sudden and we never expected it, but then you could maybe say, oh, I'm sorry about them, but I heard you got a new job as well, is that? Did you expect that? You wouldn't believe this. And I certainly hear this change in state again. Certainly the body of language changes. The shoulders come back, the head comes up, they're smiling.
They're talking about how they've got twice as much salary as they had before. They were headhunted and they couldn't believe this. So, there's just two questions that have [00:55:00] shifted state. So it's understanding then that sometimes we're And unwanted states. And this thing called Circle of Excellence is a tool to shift your state.
What you're doing is you're anchoring, and again hypnosis uses things like anchors, where you're anchoring in it could be a kinesthetic thing, like press your fingers together, and when you press your fingers together you'll feel confident, you'll feel, so people that are doing maybe stage presentations or something that can use the kinesthetic, or it might be the With the circle of excellence, it's when you step out of that circle, what's your power?
So if it's a power state, what's your power color? What color makes you feel powerful? And if it was, it was red or blue or you imagine stepping on that circle and that color is flowing all the way up through your body. And so finding it in YouTube, it's I think people at Tony Robbins, he used to be an NLP trainer way, way back.
Oh, I didn't know that. That makes sense. Cause he has a lot of tips like that, that sound kind of like that. [00:56:00] Yeah, so he's, he, he was an NLP trainer. He was one, he was a young guy when John Grind and Richard Bandler were kinda creating NLP and he was one of the kinda guys there early on. He has shifted it more into I guess away from NLP or hypnosis.
So he just calls it life coaching and yeah, how to get people in a more positive. So something like the circle of excellence is a pretty cool. I use it sometimes with clients. The idea is that you're like a cheerleader for that person. So when I'm doing it, it's like, you don't want to be using a voice that you may use for relaxation or you're feeling really confident and feel how amazing you feel in a moment.
Do you think anybody's going to feel confident and amazing when you're talking like this in a very so what you're trying to do you're trying to get that power state so it's that color kinesthetic auditory is another one of the the key in communication systems so come up with a word it might be [00:57:00] power it might be Whatever your word is, to get you to the state that you want to be in.
Imagine you're in your mind, you're just shouting out that word. You see trainers doing it, and the person actually standing there going like, Power! Power! Power! In your mind, you're standing in that. What you're doing is you're changing state. It's called circle of excellence, you'll find it all over YouTube.
But it's a really cool little tool for empowerment and for shifting states into a positive states. Awesome. Thanks so much. I love that answer for what keeps you high vibe. So circle of excellence. And then finally, please let us know where we can send off our listeners, what current work you have, how they can work with you and like the best places where they can find you.
Yeah, so there's my website, which is just h TTPs slash Steven Towell, and it's Steven with a PH to is T-O-W-I-L [00:58:00] l.com. So there's my, that's my website. Probably the biggest platform that I'm on is probably Instagram on Facebook as well, but Instagram's probably the best place to find me. There's actually a booking.
I took my booking scheduler off access all my website 'cause I was getting too many people booking in, but there's still one on my Instagram page. So you can go on and book a session on Instagram through my what It takes you and into my website. So the page is there. But it's you just don't, when you want it from a Google search you won't find the mass booking page, but you can get it on Instagram.
And so yeah, come on Instagram, I'm always posting stories of things I do. I like the idea of comedy, I like the idea of fun, and I think there's enough. Garbage in this world, so we need a bit more fun in the media. So I do a lot of spiritual stuff, like spiritual humor. So I'm constantly posting memes of funny things.
You have the best spiritual memes. I was saving some of those. Like, [00:59:00] yep, yep, those are good. I didn't steal them and share them about. I've probably stolen a lot of them myself. But yeah. Spreading humour. I was, on a Friday, I used to I used to collect memes that were funny but had no relevance to spirituality and I thought, that's hilarious, that meme, but it's not really suited to my page.
So what I started doing is, I thought, you know what? On a Friday, Friday funnies, I'm going to post the funny ones. Some funny, the funny memes that I find that don't necessarily link to something spiritual. So every Friday now I stick out probably 10 memes all in just one little, what did I call that?
Carousel. Carousel. Instagram carousel. Yeah, so you can go through, laughing your way through each of the memes. So that's every Friday I put out the Friday funnies, but Instagram's probably the biggest platform where I'm on. Awesome, great, well thank you so much. Not a problem, it's been a [01:00:00] pleasure.
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