Cal: Hello everybody, Cal Banyan here, Cal Banyan's hypnosis etc. If you're watching this video anywhere except Calbanyan.com, you ought to go there right now because on Calbanyan.com right below this video, we have additional text, links and graphics that just support this video and make it more valuable to you.
All right, gosh, I'm so excited, this episode number four about the secret language of feelings and it's all Brenda's fault. She talked me into talking about it. I knew I could go on and on and on and I didn't know if I could get it done in just four episodes but we're doing it, we're hitting the highest point of...certainly it's not equivalent to getting the book, that's why we're putting you over to thesecretlanguageoffeelings.com where I have some free audios there that you can listen to and get a much deeper sense of what's going on.
Let me tell you about Brenda, the co-host. I'll tell you what. She is a hypno one-percenter, she is a hypnotherapist in our office. I know she's good because not only does she talk the talk, I mean, we talk between sessions and she knows what she's talking about, but she walks the talk. She sees clients here every week. She gets referrals. And she is very excited to be a part of this profession. She's got a Bachelor's degree, a Master's degree, she was in talk therapy before and now she's getting stuff done so much more powerfully. How are you doing, Brenda?
Brenda: I'm doing great Cal. I love when we say that I'm excited, but I'm so happy. Oh my gosh, if I ever would have thought two years ago right now that I'd be doing this work, working for myself, working for my clients, working here, I never would have believed it, but I am thrilled to be here.
And I was just so fortunate that when my life took a turn, that I lived down the street from the Banyan Hypnosis Center. I came here, I got trained by Cal, I learned 5-PATH® hypnotherapy from the one who developed the whole system. I was able to learn 7th Path Self-hypnosis® which I use very regularly on myself as well as with my clients, teaching them that mind, body, spirit connection to really help just really solidify all of the work that we're doing here. It's just incredible.
And like I've shared, just actually working with the secret language of feelings I started to say the sacred language of feelings, so I realized that I would stop myself and be sure because I actually really do feel that the secret language of feelings has been an incredible blessing for myself in my life, as well as just everybody that I've ever talked to about it. So I'm really thrilled today that we're going to do a little bit more of that digging deeper, talking about the secret language of feelings.
So before we hit that topic, Cal, do you have any news or any other things that you'd like to share before we hit this ground running?
Cal: Boy, I just think we need to save every second for the content of this topic because we've got to wrap it up with this video.
Brenda: Excellent, well, we have today this is our fourth, final in a series of four talking about the secret language of feelings. And we've talked about how it can help you in your hypnosis practice, what feelings are for and the wisdom of fear, the feel bad distract cycle. So if you haven't seen those episodes, please go check them out.
Be sure to look at all of the links down below. Listen to the audios about the secret language of feelings. Order, oh my gosh, I buy them by the caseload because people walk in and I give them out like candy because I just believe in it that much. I just think it's so valuable in getting people to talk about feelings.
So the reality is that when we talk about the secret language of feelings, very much the way that Cal teaches is by doing. So how we learned even the secret language of feelings when we're doing certification is by him actually leading by example. And so when he's teaching 5-PATH®, when he's teaching 7th Path, we are learning by experiencing some of his techniques. So I realized there is so much depth to working with the secret language of feelings that I learned much just by talking to Cal. And since I get to talk to Cal in the break room, I like to bring some of those discussions out here to the podcast to be able to help all of you guys.
So, one day, I think I was just frustrated with what I was able to do with a client and Cal starts asking me these questions. And when I started employing some of these questions into my practice that I don't think I saw anywhere else except for really talking with him...I probably did in certification, but it just started bringing things home for me. So when I proposed that we talk about the secret language of feelings I used this topic as an example. I said, "you know, the digging deeper questions" I didn't know what to call them. And he called them the "uncovering phrases." So you know, our work, we're kind of like the archaeologist. We're digging deeper with our clients. So we're going to talk today about these uncovering phrases. So, Cal, here we go.
Cal: What do you want to know specifically?
Brenda: Well, I was hoping we could talk about a couple of these and talk about how they can be utilized. So why don't we start with sadness. We talk about how sadness is about something. Somebody lost a thing or a person that is important to them. Never occurred to me until really Cal and I were talking and he brought up the question. Cal, what's the question for sad?
Cal: Well, you see, the thing behind this, the back story is that you know, here we are, we're saying, "you've got to learn the secret language of feelings, you've got to understand what feelings mean and the cause of feelings," and then as I teach over and over again in our age regression videos and also in our class and also on the 5-PATH® 2.0 video certification set, is that there's, when you're going to do age regression, there's five things that you've got to learn from every event. You've got to find out what's happening, what are you thinking, what are you feeling, how old are you, and is that feeling familiar.
Now there's a problem with that. Our clients stink at talking about feelings. You ask them "what are you feeling" and they'll start telling me what they're thinking. Or they'll mix up their feelings and stuff like that. So sometimes I get around asking those questions directly. So instead of saying, "what are you feeling?" because they're probably going to mess that up anyway, I'll say, let's say they're five or they're three years old in the regression and I'll go, "Okay, little one. What do you want, little one?" And when they tell me what they want they're telling me both what are they thinking, because they're thinking, "I want mom" or "I want to be held" or "I want to be safe" or "I want to feel good about myself." And then what they're thinking tells me what they're feeling. Okay? So, that's the other way you can do it.
Remember, one, two, three, a, b, c? What are you feeling, what's the cause. The cause is always what they're thinking. So like with sadness, as Brenda was asking about, if they look sad and I go, "what do you want?" And I might say that "so what are you feeling." They might say, "I want my mommy," or "I want my puppy." Why do you want your mommy or puppy? "Because they're gone." You see, sadness always comes from the perception of loss. Sometimes they will say...I'll say, "What are you feeling?" And they'll say, "I feel sad." Now, I'm looking at the whole situation in a holistic gestaltic way. I'm looking at the background, I'm looking at the foreground, I'm looking at it contextually. What's happening? So there's some event that's going on.
In previous podcasts, I talked about x happens. You give it “mâ€- meaning. And that leads to an emotion which leads to a feeling which then leads to a behavior. So when they, if they're in a situation where any normal, rational person would think something bad is going to happen, they're in danger and they say, "I am sad," well now I'm going, this doesn't compute. Danger, something bad is going to happen should make them feel fearful. But sometimes because of misunderstanding of the child or the context in which the child is being raised. For example, it's a little boy and the little boy's been taught, "You should never be afraid. You should always be courageous and fearless." Well that child's not going to want to say, "I'm afraid." So the child might say, "I'm sad." So I can do a quick reality test in the middle of the session by saying, "So you're feeling sad, what did you lose?" And when they say, "I didn't those anything" then we know it's not sadness. But if they say, "I lost my mom," or "I lost my puppy," or "I lost mommy loving me." Then I validate the emotion. Does that kind of make sense, Brenda?
Brenda: Definitely. Yes. And, I just think it's such a different way to open them up to sharing and getting down to the feeling and what they're actually thinking about it.
Cal: Right. Once we understand that all emotions come from our perceptions. I don't have, I'll put a graphic below. But x happens. Something happens. We give meaning to it and that's what we're thinking. And then our thoughts lead to emotions. In emotions, we don't really know what we're feeling. I mean, we don't really know what emotion is going on inside of ourselves until we feel it in the body. So emotions are kind of like chemical and then how that chemical or electrical response in the nervous system, how it is felt in the body is the feeling. For example, fear, thinking x happens, the meaning is uh oh, something bad might happen, and then you have the emotion inside like adrenalin and then you feel it in the body like in the form of anxiety. And then that anxiety is there to motivate you to behave in a certain way so then you can react or respond to the situation in a way that is satisfying. If it is fear and danger, then you need to be seeking safety, security through either avoidance or preparation. You see? It's hard to squeeze all this in in such a short period of time.
Brenda: I know.
Cal: Yeah.
Brenda: Well Cal, if we were to run over what would happen?
Cal: What would happen is, people would say, "this video is too long! I'm never"...or some people might go, "Wow, this is like extra cool...
Brenda: Bonus! See? See?
Cal: Because it's longer?
Brenda: Exactly. So I really want to talk about one of my favorite uncovering phrases which is, "what could happen." When I'm dealing with somebody and we're getting down to that fear and asking them, "What could happen?" That's another one of those great uncovering phrases in addition to, "What do you want," and "What did you lose" that I just love. So what would you like to add about, "What could happen?"
Cal: Well, particularly when we've got someone regressed to childhood state and they go, "I'm scared" and we go, "Well, what might happen?" And they go, "Well, mommy might not come back." And then I say, "and THEN what might happen?" See, now I'm peeling the layers of the onion. I'm drilling down to the base thought, the base emotion, the most fundamental thing that's going on. Even perhaps at a genetic or instinctual level. So, mommy's gone. Well, then what might happen if she's gone? "Well, she might not come back." And if she doesn't come back, then what might happen? "Well there'd be nobody to take care of me." And then what might happen? "Well nobody would be there to feed me." And then what might happen? "Well, I'd be hungry and I'd get skinny." And then what might happen? "And I might die." So we uncover this very basic level of fear. And it boils down to this, own genetic, fundamental existential emotion of, "am I going to die?" Now one of the cool things about this is whenever you're doing age regression, you have actual proof right there with you that they will not die because you've got grown up who can say, "Hey, little one! Three!" however old the child is. "Guess what, we don't die." And it's like, Ah Hah...and then just, is that great reality check that shifts everything. And wow, it's so transformative. Is that what you're getting at?
Brenda: Yes. It is truly transformative, especially that reality check. And, I think especially with what might happen or what could happen, you just keep drilling it down. Okay, and then what could happen or what might happen. And it really just peels everything away.
And I've had some really great success especially with this phrase with a variety of things but, especially when I'm dealing with some performance anxiety issues. Where they get down to this, well, I could succeed or I could fail and it's so interesting to see people get to that, you know, the deep down what could happen or what might happen. So I really wanted to share that one because I think that's probably, and I do use this with children in my life already and people in my life when they start, not even in hypnosis, it's like, "Okay, so what could happen?" And quite frankly, my husband will use it on me too because he knows it's my trick and he knows it will work. And I just think it's such a valuable phrase to really start breaking down that fear so that people can bust forward and not be living in a fear-based life any longer. So that was probably one of my biggest inspirations for talking about the secret language of feelings over these last few weeks was that really working with that phrase, "what might happen" or "what could happen." But also, like I said, that "what did you lose" and "what do you want" they are amazing ways of really breaking things down and digging deeper beyond the original great five questions that we ask in age regression or in any other work.
Cal: You know, as you're talking about that, there's another thing that comes up. You know, as you're talking about your husband using it, so obviously it's not just something that we use in age regression or forgiveness work or parts work, but it's also something we can do in just normal waking consciousness working with the secret language of feelings.
Brenda: Exactly. Exactly.
Cal: And one of the things that...when I was in graduate school, my master's thesis was on things that facilitate self-disclosure. Now at the time I was working with how computer interaction, faceless computer interaction, back then it was bulletin board systems but now it could be any kind of network or our hypos base. But people get very revealing when they have a level of anonymity. Now where does this get into this? What happens is, as I was doing my literature review for what facilitates self-disclosure, talking about yourself and even more personal things about yourself, I also learned about what inhibits self-disclosure. And one of the main things we do as helping professionals, it could be counselors, psychologists, medical people like doctors and, of course, hypnotists, is we have to facilitate this self-disclosure. We need to find out what's going on inside. And what happens is, the most general term, the thing that inhibits self-disclosure is the fear of being judged negatively for what's going on inside of us. And because of that, when we ask people to self-disclose, what are you thinking, what are you feeling, they tend to give you the safest response they can first. The one that they perceive, and this is especially true if they take a moment to think about it, you'll see those slow responders, you ask them a question and they kind of think about it. And they're trying to come up with a way to respond to that in a way that they're not going to be judged negatively. And so when we get into this rapid fire kind of drilling down technique of, "Okay, good, and then what might happen? And then what might happen? And how does that make you feel? And how does that make you feel? And how does that make you feel?" Then what happens is you quickly get rid of the safe response. And if they trust you enough to proceed to self-reveal, to self-disclose, then you can drill down very quickly to where they're telling you stuff they've never told anyone before. Even in hypnosis, people can conceal what they think and what they feel if they fear of being judged negatively for it. And this is a rapid way to drill past those defenses and get to the core of the problem. Isn't that cool?
Brenda: It is excellent.
Cal: All right, let's wrap it up.
Brenda: All right, well thank you all for joining us on this journey into the secret language of feelings. I hope that it inspired you to dig deeper and learn more about the secret language of feelings. Check out that audio series, check out the book, take a look at the video that you can show your clients. I just can't speak highly enough about working with this in your hypnosis practice and also working with it in your life. So I look forward to, leave us questions, leave us comments and I will be back in the future for another series. We'll see what we decide to talk about next. Thanks so much everybody and I will see you next time.
Cal: Thank you so much, Brenda, for, you know, these co-hosts are just so wonderful. I mean, they don't get paid for this they don't get rights to the video. They just do it for the benefit of the viewers. That's all there is to it. They get nothing out of it except for the feeling of having done something good for others. So, thank you, Brenda for taking the time of putting that together and pushing me to cover this very, very important topic. All right, let's see if anyone saying, gosh, I guess not. Let's just wrap it up. This is Cal Banyan. Signing off.
Copyright 2014 Calvin D. Banyan . All rights reserved.