Cal: Hello, everybody. Cal Banyan here. Cal Banyan's Hypnosis, Etc., and I'm back with Erika Flint. And we've got another very cool episode for you with just another of more than 400 free hypnosis training videos for you. You can get them, all of them, instant access to all of them, by sending a blank e-mail to videos@calbanyan.com or just signing up here on calbanyan.com. And if you're not on calbanyan.com, just go to calbanyan.com right now, and you can have a better experience because right below this video is additional text, links, and all of that kind of stuff. Let me introduce you to Erika Flint.
Erika Flint, she is an amazing individual. She just came into this profession not nearly as long ago as I have, which has been about 18 years of full-time practice, but she's come in the last year and a half, two years. She can let you know exactly. Went full-time in the practice in about a year, and now she's making headway like crazy. She's writing. She's speaking. She's training. And most importantly, she's seeing a gazillion clients from which she gets the experience base to be able to come on this show, to be at the convention and speak, and I'm just so proud of her. She started off as being trained by a local training center there in Bellingham, Washington, didn't feel the confidence and competence she needed. She got her 5-Path 2.0 distance learning course, got the tools to start moving ahead, and the confidence to get the kind of success she needed to make to go full-time in the profession. Then she took a week of Power Course online, and there we go. Now she's rocking it, so proud of you. How are you doing, Erika?
Erika: I'm doing great, Cal. Thank you so much. I don't know if I've seen a gazillion clients, but it is quite a bit. And I just love helping people. I just love this work, and I just am so thankful that you saw something in me and asked me to be on this show with you. So let me tell everybody about you, Cal. Cal Banyan is the hypnosis celebrity because of his fame in the profession and not just because of all of these great, free training videos that you can get here on calbanyan.com. He is the hypnosis celebrity and authority. He has received almost every award in the profession, but he's also an author. He's an author of one of my favorite books, The Secret Language of Feelings that I give to almost all of my clients. He is also a speaker. He's a trainer. He's been on television and radio. And he's the trainer of some of the best in the profession. He's had a profound impact on my life by answering all of my hypnosis questions. He's the authority. I go to him. I go on the website, the training video website. If I have any questions, the first thing that I do is go there and see if it's already been covered as a topic. So, Cal, thank you so much for all of the great work that you do.
Cal: Well, thank you for doing this. One of my favorite salutations when I sign off with someone, like one of our 5-PATHers or another hypnosis professional, is I'll sign off and I'll say, “Let's do great things together†because that's the best way to do great things. And, Erika, you and I are really doing some great things together. And today, we're going to talk about something that I've never heard talked about before. It was all your idea, but we see it all the time. And that is every day, unexpected hypnosis miracles. You want to tell them a little bit what we mean about that?
Erika: Yeah, absolutely. The idea is that clients come in for one thing, but they often leave with so much more. So let me give you an example. I started seeing this in my office over and over again. A weight loss client comes in. In this case, she's using some canes to walk, and we do a regular first session with this client on the weight loss program that I would normally do with a client. When she leaves, she doesn't use either of her canes, and she tells me that she's walking better than she has in years. Now we didn't even talk about the use of her cane. It didn't really come up as much in the pre-hypnosis interview.
I have another client who came in, another client for weight loss, and her neuropathy was reduced by a considerable amount. And so I started noticing that people were coming in for one thing, and they're leaving with so much more. And I started getting really excited. I love this work already, but that type of thing, I was just like oh my gosh. And, Cal, I thought of you right away because I thought, I wonder if Cal ever gets tired of these types of results. He's been doing this for 18 years, and I thought I hope I never, ever get tired of these types of results that I see in my clients. So I started thinking about how I can promote that type of a thing. So that's what I'm talking about, Cal. Does that make sense?
Cal: Yeah, and, Erika, even as we were talking about this before the episode, you never get tired of it. We were talking about what we were going to call this. You said Everyday Hypnosis Miracles. And as we were talking about it, this idea of unexpected came up, and Erika said, 'But I've come to expect these surprise miracles.' And I said, but the clients don't, and so that's why we put the word unexpected, because we see it all the time. I'm working with someone for confidence, and their headaches go away. Working with someone for anger issues, and the pain in their jaw or their back or their neck goes away. I remember one of the first times this ever happened to my client, I was working with him for stop smoking. And it was just like the second or third session, and they brought a note in from their physical therapist. And the physical therapist wanted to know what I had done to take away their knee pain. And so it's just something we see all the time. I'll hand this back to you in just a moment.
I remember I was was talking to Ed Wunder, a hypnotist out there in Lincoln, Nebraska, and we were at the convention. And he says they only think they're coming in for stop smoking. They only think they're coming in for weight loss. Because really, the things that people come in for is just an outward indication of an inner problem. As we clear up that inner problem, that old, useless emotion, that tense, tightness, stress, whatever, then things just start working right and working better. Isn't that right, Erika?
Erika: Yeah, absolutely. And that's exactly what I believe is happening too. We get rid of that inner turmoil or whatever's happening from the inside out. I like to tell people that hypnosis works from the inside out. And that's the perfect segue into how to encourage this type of thing with your clients. I tell them you'll be surprised. You might get some surprising results. A lot of people come in for weight loss, but they leave sleeping better, having better relationships in their family, or those types of things. Right from the get go, I start setting my client up to be thinking that they might get more out of this than they thought they were coming in for. That's one of the techniques I use. The other thing is that it has to do with how we use language in the segue. When we work with a client in whatever technique we're working with, near the end of a session we're going to use some direct suggestion with that client. Because you have experienced these types of changes in your session today, here is what is going to happen. And so there is some other language that we can use in that aspect too that says, and now you might be able to use this learning in other aspects of your life that might surprise you, or you're going to be able to make such great use of this new learning in all areas of your life in order to promote wellness or healing or something like that. How about that, Cal?
Cal: That's really great. So as you're doing the segue, I'm going to see if I can look up a link to one of the programs we get more into the word segue. We say to the client, during the process, manages to tell us that they've changed in certain ways. Then I will say, okay, because you've changed in these certain ways that they told me they changed in, you're going to be able to accept these suggestions more powerfully than ever before. And then Erika says, why don't we just extend that to say not just the issue that you came in for, but prime the pump. Create an expectation that you may also experience other, maybe even unexpected, benefits mentally, physically, emotionally. Is that what you're saying, Erika?
Erika: Absolutely, yep. I leave it wide open because people are going to be able to make use of that information in ways that I can't even imagine, so I'm not going to try and guess for them, right?
Cal: Perfect. Okay, so I just find out it's podcast 328 where we talk about hypnotic age regression for trauma, and making suggestions more powerful with the segue, compounding and age regression. So that's podcast 328. We'll put a link below the text that goes with this video on calbanyan.com. All right, cool. Continue.
Erika: All right, so here's something that you should expect to happen when your client gets these types of results. Your client might say something to you like I can't believe this. It's too easy. Somebody told me, oh, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. This can't be happening. It was just too easy. Cal, how do you deal with that? Because that comes up and we want our clients to be able to expect this type of a thing to some extent, but believe that the results they're getting are real.
Cal: Well, I tell them the proof is in the pudding, are you actually getting results? They go, yes, I am. Well, good. Let's focus on the positive. This is a process. There might be some challenges up ahead. I don't know. I can't foretell the future. We're just going to keep on with the process that has brought you this success. It may be easy through the whole thing, or there may be some challenges. But either way, I know exactly what to do, and we're going to get through this together. How does that sound?
Erika: Yeah, that sounds great. And one thing that I tell my clients too is that change doesn't have to be difficult or take forever. Change can happen really quickly, so I think that a lot of people believe that change has to be really difficult. They have to cry. They have to get hurt. They have to stress about it. It has to take months. And that's just not true.
Cal: When I was doing regular talk therapy, right from the very beginning when I was a master's degree student at the University of North Dakota, and I started seeing clients. Or maybe I was a PhD student, and I started seeing clients on campus. I noticed that changes always happened in the blink of an eye. Now, they might be big changes or they might be small, incremental changes, but the changes always happened like that. And they were usually also associated with an emotional shift. So sometimes that emotional shift happens in a very pleasant way, and sometimes it could be tough. But in either case, the changes almost always happened instantaneously. That's my experience anyway.
Erika: I agree with you, Cal. And I think that's the same thing as far as for our clients, you can ask them, have things ever changed for you that quickly? And you can snap your fingers. I think you were snapping your fingers there. And most of all, say, yeah, absolutely things have changed for me that quickly. Well, that's how quickly this type of change can take place too. And people will believe that, and then they understand it. And then, as you were suggesting, the proof is in the pudding. So are you actually feeling better? Are you actually not noticing the chips when you walk in the room? Are you actually shopping on the perimeter of the grocery store and not going down the chip and the cookie aisle? Yes, yes, yes. Well, there you go. You've changed. That's great.
Cal: That's right. And it will continue to be compounded and reinforced and habitualized as you continue to remain focused on this positive change, right?
Erika: Right, absolutely. And that's really important, so just keep focusing on the positive. What we focus on grows. I think my clients all have heard me say that 100 times. Keep focusing on the positive. What we focus on grows. It will grow and push everything else out. So I really want people to keep focusing on what is working. Nobody's perfect. Nobody's going to have a perfect day where they eat absolutely perfectly. That's just not going to happen, so you just focus on what you're doing right. You look for progress, so what did you do right last week? Is it getting better? Are you 10%, 20%, 30% better? Is this better than last week? Any of those types of things can be helpful for a client, depending on who the client is, right? Some of them don't want to quantify it. Some of them just feel better, and that's great.
Cal: I just so agree. Just as a quick little side note, there's a lot of research coming out right now on the negative effects of sugar and how sugar just permeates our food system in all kinds of different forms. And the holidays can be a really tough time for that, but there are two ways to look at this. You want to eat as low sugar a diet as you can, but also enjoy the holidays. So give them permission to indulge a little bit, but to know in the long-term, they want to do what's best for themselves. And that is to be healthy. Some people can also talk about trigger foods, that if they have just one. It's like cigarettes, you can't have just one cigarette if you quit smoking. Ninety nine and forty-four one hundredths of the people who quit smoking, if they have that one cigarette, they're on their way back to smoking.
And what you want to do is to be aware of the fact that sugar, it just so permeates everything. My wife, she's always trying to let me know about healthy things. I really appreciate that. And she brought me some gluten-free brownies, and I looked at this packaging. Gluten-free brownies, right? What do you think the very first ingredient, and in case you don't know, the ingredients on a package are ordered according to what's most to what's least. So like bread, what's most would probably be wheat or flour, right? Well, what was most on the sugar-free brownies was sugar. And I'm looking at this thing, and I'm going the number one ingredient in this thing is sugar? Amazing. I'm just amazed. Okay, go ahead.
Erika: All right. Well, that's a good point, Cal. You've got to be careful of those fat-free items too, because when they take out that fat, they've got to put something else in there. So usually, like a fat-free sour cream's going to have a lot more sugar in it. That's a tip that you might want to share with your weight loss clients because not everybody realizes that. So if they are thinking that they want to reduce the amount of sugar, fat-free items should not be on their shopping list, for sure.
Cal: If they want to indulge, sometimes indulging in something that's not sugary would be okay. Like go ahead and have that extra piece of turkey, or have that extra piece of ham, because that, in the long run, is going to be healthier for you and more satisfying throughout the day than having that cookie or that candy or whatever.
Erika: Right, because we don't want our clients to do something that then makes them feel guilty. That's what's gets them into that feel bad distract cycle. One of my favorite parts of your book, Cal, The Secret Language of Feelings. You feel bad about something, you distract yourself with food, and then you feel bad about eating the food. So you don't want to eat some food and you enjoy it, and then you feel bad about eating it. Because that guilt can get people locked into a cycle that they don't want to be in. I've had some clients where you know what? What works for them, it's different for every person, they have a little, teeny bit. So they had one really small slice of cake or one little piece of chocolate. There's no guilt. They enjoyed it, and they feel really proud of themselves because they're in control now. Food's not in control. They're in control.
Cal: Absolutely. And so sticking with the theme of miracles, the miracles really come from two different things. One is removing the weight, for example, with the lady you were talking about with the knee problems. When they lightened up, then there's a side effect like that. And then there's surprising little side effects where suddenly pain is gone, headaches are gone, or the drive to do other negative things. I was working with this couple who were both crack addicts. We were working on them to get them past that issue.
And it was about the third session, and I saw them individually as we were getting them off this crack. And he asked me did you slip any suggestions in for stop smoking? And I said not specifically, no. He says that's really weird because I've just lost all my craving for cigarettes, and I've quit smoking cigarettes. And he says what do you make of that? And I said, well, it's pretty simple. Did you want to stop smoking? He says yes, I've been trying to quit smoking forever. And I said, well, once we got rid of the thing that was driving the smoking habit at an internal level, that was probably the same thing that was driving your crack habit. As we were working on that, we neutralized the thing that was driving also your cigarette smoking habit. Then just your sheer desire to stop smoking was sufficient. That's just another kind of unexpected hypnosis miracle.
Erika: That's great. I love hearing the unexpected miracles. People come in and they'll tell me, for example, I had a client tell me that she didn't even notice food when she was in the grocery store. She didn't even realize until she was checking out that she didn't even go down-I think I might have mentioned this-she didn't go down the cookie or the cracker aisle at all. But she didn't realize it at the time, so she had moved beyond that state of, oh, I want to go there, but I'm not going to. She just skipped it entirely. She didn't even notice it until she got home and was unpacking her food. She realized I didn't even think about getting any of that food at all. And to her, that was a miracle because when you are thinking about food all the time, and then all of a sudden you don't think about it all the time and you can go to the grocery store and get food and come home and everything is healthy, and you didn't even realize it, that's a miracle to them.
Cal: Right, and these miracles are convincers, and they convince the person. It makes them even better clients in the future, and it gets you referrals because they want to talk about when they're surprised at something. Miracles are always a surprise like this, the ones we're talking about. They want to share it with other people, so it's very good. One other thing is we don't talk about it nearly enough on the program, is the miracles that we see with clients or students who are doing 7-Path self-hypnosis all by themselves. This is one of the most amazing things to me. As you folks may know or should know, I developed a program of self-hypnosis that's mind-body-spirit. And it was designed to do everything and more what 5-Path does, which is five phases advanced transformational hypnosis, which is what a hypnotist does with a client. But they can do it in the privacy of their own mind. And so we just got through having another class. I teach it in class. During that 10 days of class, they do it for 8 days in a row. And we just watched one amazing thing happen after another.
People losing skin problems, people losing fibromyalgia, headaches, all these things just going away. Now that was not our intent. We were not treating those things, but there's this concept with the diathesis stress hypothesis. And that's the concept that diathesis, two theses, two ideas, two causes, and that is everybody has some weakness in their system. And when put under stress, that one thing will start to give. Under stress, some people will get eye problems, back problems, hair problems, skin problems, digestive problems, joint problems, circulation problems, whatever it is, as we're under stress. And then as we unstress, as we begin to get rid of and neutralize those old vestigial emotions of fear, anger, guilt, these kinds of things, then we de-stress ourselves. And everything starts to work better, and we can recover from those stress-related or stress-induced problems. How does that sound, Erika?
Erika: Oh, that sounds great, Cal. I love to hear the science behind some of this stuff. I love that, and a lot of my clients absolutely want to hear exactly that type of thing. If you've got your analytical client, there are all sorts of things and a lot of information out there on neuroscience, and a lot of things supporting the mind-body connection and this type of healing. So I like to keep that in my repertoire for particular clients who just eat that stuff up.
Cal: Perfect. Can't believe it, our time's up.
Erika: Yep.
Cal: You want to give us a wrap-up?
Erika: All right. Well, thank you for joining me today. I am Erika Flint, and you can find me at cascadehypnosiscenter.com and erikaflint.com. I would love to hear from you. Leave us your comments about this episode or an episode that you would like to have us cover in the future, and have a wonderful holiday season.
Cal: All right, thank you, Erika. And all you folks out there, have a great holiday season. And you know what? I want you to start thinking about next year. I want you to start thinking about, gosh, what do I want to do and accomplish next year? Start making those plans. Maybe I could talk Erika into doing something she wants to do anyway, and that is maybe do an episode on that. And you guys out there, we'll see you in class. It's one of the things you should think about. No, not think about, plan and commit to, and that's showing up in a classroom of mine next year. We've got one in March, and we've got one in May. Just look at our schedule here on calbanyan.com, and you'll be able to see what it is. All right, that's it. See you in class. Cal Banyan signing off.