How to Let Go of Negative Beliefs with Hypnotherapy with Sara Raymond e on The Healers Café with Manon Bolliger

a background, and also that you are already running a practice teaching etc. One of the biggest problems because I trained healthcare practitioners as well, is there…well, there’s several problems. But one of them is running the actual business.

 

Sara Raymond 04:02

Sure.

 

Manon Bolliger 04:03

And is that something you could speak to a bit? Or was it one of the challenges you had? Or not really because you actually started a business? Which is…

 

Sara Raymond 04:14

Well sure. Well, I have not have no training in business other than experience. I actually was a kindergarten teacher before all of this. And I guess you learn a lot about working with people when you understand how to work with five year old’s. Because you know, I think at heart we all have a little bit of kid in us. But that was where my academic training, psychology and early childhood education started. But speaking to running a business, I think that there’s always a balancing act of the actual work that you’re doing. So, in my case it was teaching classes and working with clients one on one, and even teaching teachers to become teachers. So, there’s that. And there’s all this technical training around that and confidence and belief in yourself. And then there’s this whole other piece, which is the business part. And it was, I found personally very challenging to find a balance of, okay, where do I put my energy and my effort and the amount of time that I’m spending learning and, and growing as a professional, and that was definitely a challenging balancing act. And ultimately, I had a partner, my mom actually was my partner in this business, and she was very good at the business side of running a business. And I was very fortunate to have her help with that. That part of it. So does I hope that answers that.

 

Manon Bolliger 06:02

Yeah, no, no, because I was curious, because that’s, you know, something that comes up. The other one is confidence.

 

Sara Raymond 06:08

Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger 06:09

Which, which is interesting, because, you know, so many practitioners, and we like yourself hypnotherapy, it’s not like, you know, you wake up and you are one, there’s, there’s a training and there’s, you know, it’s quite a bit to go through. Most of these that most practitioners, you know, are learning something for several years before they’re actually doing it. And so, what’s the confidence? Where do you see that being a hang up for people? Why is it like, just let’s talk about that?

 

Sara Raymond 06:43

Sure. Well, I think that’s a really big challenge. I know, when I was working with instructors, I would always say that ultimately, you need to find your authentic self, your authentic teaching style and voice and in the beginning, there’s a little bit of parroting back or copycatting if you will of your instructor, because that’s the only way you really know how. But eventually, the layers of your instructors voice and personality peel away. And then hopefully, you blossom into your own unique self. And I know that that’s a bit of a journey. And the only way that we can really get there is through experience. But I always, you know, myself and the other instructors that I’ve worked with, I always look for the lessons in the…from the students or from the clients. And you know, the hundreds of people that I’ve worked with hypnotherapy, every single one of them has taught me something. And it is not necessarily, you know, a technique or a skill or a method. But they have all had their own unique experience as a person and their own beliefs that have formed because of their experiences. And so, every time I work with someone, whether it’s hypnotherapy, or even Pilates and yoga, that person in front of me that I can, hopefully I try my best to be very present with and connected with they are really are our best teachers.

 

Manon Bolliger 08:40

Hmm I totally agree. I think I’ve learned most of everything from my patients, because otherwise, it’s just, it’s knowledge, but it’s the application of it. And the ability to decide whether it’s the right thing that this moment or you know, all of that and what’s really come coming up that one needs to address right.

 

Sara Raymond 09:04

Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger 09:05

But so, have you found what why do you think people have a confidence issue? What’s that about in your mind? I mean, it’s just a guess, or made, you know, but…

 

Sara Raymond 09:19

I would say that, you know, everyone’s different, but I think that, for the most part, babies are born with confidence. They have this expectation that their needs will be met. And I say most of the time because there are some, you know, traumatic birth experiences that can come with a lack of confidence or a lack of feelings of safety. But, you know, like a baby is born and they have this expectation that their diapers are gonna get changed they’re gonna be fed they’re gonna be snuggled and loved and they’re confident right? They except the tension. And even in like as babies grow up into being toddlers and young children, they don’t shy away from someone saying, oh, look how beautiful you look today, what a nice outfit or, oh, this painting that you made is so amazing. But then somehow, as adults, you know, compliments come in, it’s like we defer them or we deny that it’s true, or, you know, these things happen. We don’t believe that they’re true. And I believe and I think I’ve seen in myself and other clients that I’ve worked with, that we have these experiences when we’re young, when before our logical mind is really fully developed. To say that that’s not actually that’s not accurate. That’s not true. So, for example, a child might come home from school and show their parents their tests, and it was, let’s say, a B plus. And the parent says, oh, that’s great, but you could have gotten an A, and then they have this feeling that that’s not good enough, and I’m not good enough. And it sort of starts the cycle of not believing in one’s own abilities. And then our emotional mind that says, I’m not good enough, then just has this almost like it’s his job to prove that belief is true, over and over again, in various situations. So, we, you know, have these experiences that keep repeating themselves, to show us that that belief that I’m not good enough, is true.

 

Manon Bolliger 11:54

Yeah, you could say to that we tend to notice the experiences that reinforce that. Right? So, it’s hard to know how jacked up that is, right? But how so how does hypnotherapy help? Or is it related to that? Like when you’re helping your practitioners or teachers to be more confident? Do you use hypnotherapy for one with them? And is that a tool that would be used for this?

 

Sara Raymond 12:29

Sure, I have used it with practitioners, teachers and training but primarily I use it for clients that are not Pilates instructors and training. But I wouldn’t say that it’s very useful because we kind of as adults, like you said, we’re very aware of the situations that show us that we’re not good enough. If we keep using that example. And let’s say we use the Pilates instructor as an example. And this person wants to be a great Pilates instructor, they love what they do, and they just want to keep getting better at it. But something keeps getting in the way. And they feel bad about their performance or their ability to help their students. And so, we need to look at what’s getting in the way of the confidence what what’s stopping this person from really manifesting or experiencing the confidence that they desire. And well, number one, just being aware of the fact that it’s not what you want it to be is a really great first step. And then looking at experiences from the past that may have originally caused the lack of confidence, right? If we say that most babies are born with confidence, so something happened to change that. So, what is it that happened to that person that could have changed their belief about themselves? And using hypnotherapy allows you to get to this cause usually much more quickly than like logically talking through it with someone. Because when you’re in hypnosis, you get into a state where you can connect with your emotional, subconscious mind rather than the logical, conscious mind. So that’s logically, we could say, of course, I want to be confident, and I believe that I should be confident, but emotionally there’s this belief that saying, nope, you don’t, you don’t deserve success. You don’t deserve to have the confidence that you desire. So, getting to that cause that sort of route, the route event and that is leading to it can be very freeing.

 

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Manon Bolliger 16:13

So, let’s use an example. No names no nothing.

 

Sara Raymond 16:19

Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger 16:19

But so, let’s say the person goes back and discovers the event that then which they chose in that sense to interpret as that they’re not good enough, right? Or whatever, they’re not perfect, or whatever their story might have been, which then later in life makes them lack the confidence. So, they’re under hypnosis, they connect to what? Let’s go through the process, so I can understand that better.

 

Sara Raymond 16:52

Sure, sure. So, the state of hypnosis is really just a very relaxed and safe state of the nervous system, the way that I practice, it’s not like you would think of stage hypnosis where you know, you’re going to quack like a duck, that’s a little bit different. So, you know, the client is always in complete control. And as I said, as you’re relaxed in this safe state of your nervous system, you have the ability to tap into your emotional side. And it’s almost like, the logical part of your mind is kind of resting or, obviously, it’s not going away, it’s still there. It’s just, we’re bypassing it in a way. And then I would as the hypnotherapist be guiding the subconscious to look at events from your past, to help you understand what the cause of the presenting issue is. So, in this case, it would be the lack of confidence. So, it’s truly amazing, like people will say to me, well, what if nothing comes up? What if I can’t think of an event and it almost never happens. So, when you’re not trying to come up with an event from your past, and you’re really allowing yourself to relax, trust, recognize that you’re safe, your mind will just show you show you the answers. And typically, I’ll go through a couple different scenes, and we look at, let’s say the first scene that comes up is from when you’re five years old. So, we look at how you feel when you’re five years old, because of the scene. And then based on that, what belief do form because of this event, and then they’re sort of like connect the dots. Right? Well, I had this event when I was five, and it made me believe this about myself. And this belief is now causing the issue that I’m experiencing in my present life. And then the really powerful part, I think, is when you can see, and truly recognize that this belief may have been true. It may have even served me when I was five years old. Right? It protected me in some way. It helped me to perform well in school or please, my parents stay out of trouble. Whatever it did, it was serving you in some way. But now as an adult, that belief, first of all, it’s probably no longer true or relevant. But now it’s holding you back from what you desire. So, you can say oh, I have this understanding now of the belief, how I got it, how it’s been holding me back and now I’m ready to let go of it. And I think it’s really exciting and powerful to see this almost ceremonious letting go of an old outdated belief that just really opens the doors for the transformation that someone desires.

 

Manon Bolliger 20:25

So, do you find with, with hypnosis, I mean, clearly, one can more likely find the event or the, you know, the original, as you say, sometimes useful at the time, but outdated, currently a story that we tell ourselves without realizing it’s a story, right? Because if it’s in the unconscious, you don’t know, necessarily where it came from, once you’ve identified it, so you brought it to consciousness to your awareness. Is that sufficient to heal? In your experience.

 

Sara Raymond 21:08

That’s a good question. I would say, very, very often it is, especially when we’re talking about issues like confidence or anxiety, or depression, even sometimes with medical conditions, like I’ve worked with clients that have cancer, and are working through treatment. And I think sometimes that it can, you need different layers of techniques for that. And really, I always say that I am supporting all of the other treatments that an individual would be going through for, for cancer treatment, for example, but I do think that just that understanding, is very powerful in the healing process. And, you know, sometimes I’ve had clients that will say, I don’t even actually remember this event happening. And honestly, I don’t even know if it matters if it’s true or not. I mean, I think most of the people I’ve worked with do have, you know, conscious memories of the events that show up, but I’ve had people that share that they’re having a memory from being in their mother’s womb. And I’m wondering, like, you know, can people really remember that? But I don’t know if it really matters, because it’s the power of the understanding and the letting go that really offers the healing process.

 

Manon Bolliger 22:45

Yeah, the reconstruction basically, you know, there’s that understanding that the brain doesn’t know reality, probably story, which is also interesting, you know, so who knows where it started, it does matter. But the awareness piece is very powerful. I, you know, totally concurred. My, in my practice. I think it really helps to become aware, I think, I think it’s one of the pivotal things for sure. So, do you have something like a story or something that just really blew your mind that you did not expect to see happen that you really learnt from or that it could be, you know, good result, mixed result doesn’t matter. It’s just something that really triggered you, I mean, not triggered, like psychological.

 

Sara Raymond 23:41

You mean, like me personally, or waiting…

 

Manon Bolliger 23:46

In your practice something, some way you’ve helped or no test with no names, obviously. But something that really surprised you.

 

Sara Raymond 24:01

Recently, I’ve worked with a client who she was going through her second round of chemo, she’s a young woman, and she had, I believe it was lymphoma. And she had gone through one treatment, but she was in remission, and then came back. And that’s when she came to see me. And she went through a session with me, and we talked about how the experience could have been serving her in some way. Not to say that she caused it by any means, but what it might have, how it might have benefited her. And so, we went through this process and then at the end of every session, I create a personalized recording for each client and it’s all about the beliefs that they do want and that they desire to nurture and develop. and cultivate more of in their life, the feelings that they want kind of a vision for their, their future. So, I created this recording for her. And she’s like a rule follower, right. So, she’s like, I’m going to listen to this every day, she was so determined and committed and dedicated. And, you know, I check in with clients after the session, and she had been listening to it diligently. And she had her first test after the session, and it appeared that she was in remission. So, she reached out to me because she was continuing to listen to this recording that talked about her healing ability. And she said to me, I can’t listen to this anymore. Because every time I hear the word healing, I disagree with it, because I am healed. Wow, she had this very, you know, very visceral, emotional response to it. She’s like, I need a new recording. We need to change this. So, you know, we work together again, and we created a new recording. And the second one was a little bit more collaborative, so that she could really know exactly what words were going to be said, because I think words have energy. And they’re very powerful. And the word healing was just not the right energy for her anymore. So, we created a new recording. And, you know, I just love to hear stories like that, because she did that, she did all the work, right? I went through the session with her and, but she was so committed. And she had this really powerful mindset and belief that everything was going to work out fine. She was going to be healed. And so, when that happened for her, she really needed to hear the words. healed. For you know, we changed a lot of the words to be vibrantly healthy or rejuvenated, or even just refreshing, you know, different words that really resonated with her. And thank goodness for the thesaurus. We worked it out.

 

Manon Bolliger 27:25

Wow, that’s so powerful. That’s it. Thank you for sharing that. Because it’s true. The word healing. And I use healing in my in my work, too. And but it is…its process, but it is tied to the past. Yeah. And so, it’s not a cree…it…you might feel creative during, but it’s not a future forecast word.

 

Sara Raymond 27:54

Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger 27:54

You know, it’s, it’s interesting. I really, I relate to that to what she said. But how amazing to be so clear that you need to change the, the instructions, because when you back right, so right, wow, amazing work.

 

Sara Raymond 28:13

Yeah, the other word that I find can be a little tricky is when we say my, and then say the diagnosis. So, like my anxiety. And I encourage people a lot to say, you know, the symptoms of anxiety or the depression are so that we stop kind of taking ownership of it.

 

Manon Bolliger 28:36

Yes.

 

Sara Raymond 28:37

And that can make a really a really big difference for folks to be interesting.

 

Manon Bolliger 28:42

I actually wrote a book about that.

 

Sara Raymond 28:45

Did you?

 

Manon Bolliger 28:45

Yeah, Your Diagnosis is not Your Prognosis. And it’s let go of the word. Because if you make it yours, and you know, you call it my this and my that it’s not particularly loving, it’s going through you and you don’t need to hold on to it, let it do its thing while you take charge of your life. So, I think and often when people associate to the diagnosis, they it’s embedded, especially with the current conventional medical system that this is the prognosis and it’s not. So many people have shown that we can heal as people we really can.

 

Sara Raymond 29:35

Yeah, that’s great to check out that book. I love the title. Yeah, it’s great.

 

Manon Bolliger 29:40

Actually, the title is What Patients Don’t Say if Doctors Don’t Ask, but if I’ve got…it would be a good title. That’d be maybe the book…right now the book that it’s coming out is called Your Body…Your Body is Smarter Than You Think. I have to think about the title because I changed it.

 

Sara Raymond 30:03

Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger 30:07

Anyway. Good well, yeah, it was lovely talking to you, and I think that those are really good points you know some people let go a little bit of a of the limitations whichever way and really bringing awareness and consciousness to the entire process is huge.

 

Sara Raymond 30:29

Yeah, yeah, like you said, your body is smarter than you think. I love that.

 

Manon Bolliger 30:36

Well, thank you so much for, for sharing your time and your wisdom.

 

Sara Raymond 30:41

Well, thank you for having me. I’m really glad to have the opportunity to get to know you a little bit and get to chat with you. Thank you.

 

Manon Bolliger (Deregistered with 30 years of experience in health)

Thank you for joining us. For more information, go to DrManonBolliger.com.