Cal: Hello, everybody. Cal Banyan here, Cal Banyan’s Hypnosis, Etc. I’m back with three in a row with Erika Flint. Let me tell you about Erika. I’m awfully excited to have her. She’s bringing kind of a different point of view because she’s pretty new in the profession still. She’s been about a year and she’s leaving the world of the software engineer/problem solver world into now dealing with the most powerful processor, the human mind. And I’m excited to have her as a 5-PATHer. She was initially certified and trained there in Washington and then she got a hold of 5-PATH 2.0 DVD set, took the exam, became a 5-PATHer and then just a few weeks ago, came to the live Week of Power workshop, actually online and got that certification and now she’s moving on to becoming a trainer. So I hope she’s really training the heck out of the northern Pacific part of the United States and the western part of Canada as well.
Oh, before I move on, I want to tell you also that this episode is going to be covering heartbreak. Remember the old James Taylor song that’s like “I fix broken hearts and I’m a handyman†and stuff? I should have had that in the background because we’ll talk about how hypnotism and hypnotists can mend broken hearts. Hey, how are you doing, Erika?
Erika: Great, Cal. Thank you very much. I wanted to bring up this topic of heartbreak because I get a lot of clients calling me and they ask “Hey, can you help me with this? I can’t think straight.†They feel shattered and they share this with me on the phone and of course I say yes, we can help people with heartbreak all the time. They don’t call it heartbreak always, it’s helped me get over my ex, sometimes, right? And, so I really want to do a topic on this just to highlight some of the ways that we can help people feel better about themselves and a relationship ending and there’s other things that go on with this type of topic that I want to talk about, too. So let me first introduce you to Cal.
So, Cal is the hypnosis celebrity because of his fame in the profession and not just because of all of the hypnosis videos he’s produced to date. He’s written so many wonderful books. One of my favorites is The Secret Language of Feelings. He has another book on hypnosis and his books have made him an authority on the subject of hypnosis and hypnotherapy. He’s also been on television and radio programming talking about the secret language of feelings and talking about hypnosis and hypnotherapy and he’s the authority on hypnosis that works. And his hypnosis really works. I can tell you that because after I took 5-PATH, I felt confident and comfortable to go see my clients and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. So he’s the person that the experts in the field of professional hypnotism turn to for education and guidance and I’m really excited and happy to become a trainer teaching some of Cal’s stuff, teaching 5-PATH and he is a trainer of the very best in our profession—I just took a class from him, The Week of Power, a few weeks ago, it was amazing—he’s still teaching, he’s still speaking and writing and seeing private clients. He’s had such a profound impact on my practice because everything that I know, I’ve learned from him.
He’s really shared everything that he wished he would have known back then, he’s sharing with people now. What do you think about that, Cal?
Cal: I think that’s why I’m having so much fun.
Erika: Good.
Cal: Do I look like I’m having fun in class?
Erika: Oh yeah. We had a lot of fun in class. I mean, there was a lot of fun, a lot of work, a lot of learning, a lot of everything. I mean, I did feel tired every single day in his classes and I didn’t even have to commute because I got to take it remotely online. But even so, it was still a lot. There was a lot going on, it felt great. I took so many notes, like annotating all the great material that you provide to your students to just get a deeper level. Because this was the second time that I took the class and I’ll tell you: taking it again I just got it at a deeper level. So if you’ve taken it once, take it again. You’ll get it at a new level, right? You’ll learn more.
Cal: Awesome. And I’m always learning. Hey, so what are we going to do today? Let’s get started.
Erika: Yeah, so I wanted to talk about heartbreak today and kind of relationship issues in general for two reasons. One is, first of all when a client comes to you and asks you “Can you help me with this,†they’re often feeling completely shattered. So losing somebody important, a relationship in your life, sometimes it’s someone they’ve been with for quite some time. Sometimes it’s a spouse, okay, and they’ve gone through that. So their life is, they need to start over again. They’re shattered. Their life has crumbled. But the other reason I wanted to bring this up, so the first one is it’s a big deal in this person’s life, right? And the second is that even if your client isn’t coming to you with this as a presenting issue, I’ve had a lot of clients where there is some form of a relationship breakup, something that comes up during the hypnosis process. So it could be during forgiveness work—that’s actually when it happens, some type of forgiveness work—there is the residual relationship issues that weren’t ever fully resolved.
So that’s kind of what this session is about. So let me just get started. What do we need to be aware of? So, in my experience, like I said, the clients come in shattered. They feel as though it’s not just a relationship with that person but their entire life has shifted. Their entire life has changed. Perhaps they’re having to get a new home. Maybe they’re moving out of their home. They might have friends with their spouse or with their partner that they’re not sure what to do with there. They’ve lost this one person who they thought in many cases they’d spend the rest of their life with, so they might have planned in their mind this whole lifetime with this person and now that’s gone.
So I just want to point out a couple of things. So, first of all, one thing: Elronn did a couple of episodes just on this topic, heartbreak so it’s episode 230 and 231. He goes into great detail as to some of the things that you want to say. So I’m kind of taking that topic and adding some things to it, okay. So once you get your clients in the office one of the things that you want to do is you want to validate some of their feelings. So Cal, I was hoping that you can just briefly touch on how do you properly validate your client’s feelings? What should you do and what should you not do?
Cal: Well you know, one of the things that I think we’ve got to remember is 5-PATH is made up of five phases. And the first phase, our job, the goal is to technically get them into somnambulism, once they’re in session and also not in a technical point of view but just in an overall feeling of the client, we need to take them from a feeling of hopelessness into a state of hopefulness. And one of the things we can do is exactly what the doctor doesn’t do, exactly what the psychiatrist doesn’t do. The doctor and the psychiatrist, they like to label you as having some kind of disorder and then giving the client some medication for anxiety or depression or whatever. And one of the first things I’m going to do is I’m going to say look, I’ll tell you what I think about this: anyone who has been through what you’ve been through would be thinking pretty much and feeling pretty much the way you are now. And so that normalizes them and it takes them from the state of being some kind of diagnosable mental case into someone that is a normal, everyday person going through a normal, everyday problem that you’re going to help coach them through. How does that sound?
Erika: That sounds really good. I think that’s really helpful because you’re helping them feel like you just said, somebody else going through this exact same thing would feel the same way. Because I think we’re not diagnosing them, not making them feel like there’s something wrong with them and we’re not trying to give them a pill to make them feel better, either. So let me ask you one other question about what might happen…
Cal: Before you do that, before you do that, let me say one other thing. It’s another thing I’m going to do. I’m probably going to have them watch our video about the secret language of feelings or I’m going to discuss the book The Secret Language of Feelings and give it to them because it really explains the wisdom that is involved in the way they’re feeling. Like if they’re angry because this previous partner of theirs was unfair, how normal that is and actually how wise that is. Or, if they’re feeling sad—see, people get confused between feeling depression and sadness—and anytime you lose someone or something important to you, you’re going to feel sad. We’re wired to do that. And so it not only helps them normalize what they’re experiencing but it also turns this previously thought of as irrational or useless emotion into something that can really show them the way back to wholeness. How’s that?
Erika: I think that’s great. Everybody, of course, would want to have that hope, right? It’s so important, feeling like they can be whole again and feeling like they can be themselves again and that’s a really important aspect, part of this is because a lot of people that come in with heartbreak feel like a part of them have died, a part of them is lost. They had been seeing themselves as a partner with this person, perhaps a family and even their family too, right? And now, that’s no longer there so they’re struggling to find their place once again. One other question that I wanted to ask you, Cal is sometimes a client will come in expressing very obvious limiting beliefs, right? So I’m going to give you an example.
Let’s say a client tells you flat out something like this: I know I’ll never find true love. My parents never got married, my grandparents were never married and the longest I’ve been in a relationship is one year. So there’s no hope for me. What would you say to a client like that?
Cal: I’ll say you know what? If I’ve been through what you’ve been through I’d be thinking and feeling the same way. But the person I’m looking at right now is a person that I think with—we make some little changes in how you think and how you feel, so you can evaluate things different—can have a lifetime filled with happiness and a meaningful relationship. How’s that?
Erika: I think that’s great, Cal, because it’s just the same thing, right? We’re not trying to complicate things. It’s like yep, I understand why you’re feeling that way but we’re going to make some changes so that you’re going to be feeling great, right?
Cal: Absolutely. But I’ll tell them you know what? Sometimes I say “But you know what? This is not magic.†It’s going to take all your effort, all your heart, all your soul. You have to do everything I tell you to do and we’re going to work together, metaphorically hand-in-hand to get you through this and make this transformation. Are you up for that? And by the time this hopefulness is brewing inside of them and they’re starting to breathe again and to have that twinkle of optimism and then at that point I can say perfect, well would you like to do hypnosis with me now? I’ll get them in that hopeful, ready-to-go state and they say yes, and you get them over to that big chair and you change their lives. How’s that?
Erika: I think that’s great. And that is a perfect segue into what I was just going to mention because a lot of the clients that I’ve had with this issue, they’re almost to the state where they are obsessively thinking about this problem, okay? So they’re thinking about—and I could understand why they would do that, especially in certain cases where they are moving—they’re moving to a new home. Perhaps even they’re bringing kids with them. They’re having to do separate their finances or perhaps they’re going through a divorce. Those are big life changes, okay? But by the time they get into my office they are frazzled. They are really kind of, they can’t even sit still. This is just something that’s really impacting their life in every way possible. And so I just wanted to point out that after you give them that hope and when you get them in the chair and just give them that moment, that space just to stop for a moment and get that hope. Kind of get them to stop that thinking, that thinking in their head that is just constantly running, constantly trying to fix all of these problems and you get them in your hypnosis chair and you give them some good hypnosis.
I’ve had clients walk away from that, by the time I see them the next week they are a different person. They are clear-headed. They are communicating exactly what needs to be done. They have already made changes in their lives. So for example, they’ll come back saying “Well I contacted my lawyer. I found a place to live.†I’m not going to do this, but I am going to do that and they are able to think clearly. So even just after that first session they’re already seeing huge improvements in their life.
Cal: You know, and they start, once they get that hopefulness and they can get that motivation, not motivation, that movement in the right direction again, and then things start to fall into place. And I want to say one thing before we run out of time and that is that the people who come to hypnotists or hypnotherapists, whatever you want to call yourself for these kinds of emotional problems, they’re normal, everyday people with everyday problems but there’s something that this is, something in this breakup that is resonating with something in their past that’s causing them to not move through it at the usual level, at the usual speed. They’re stuck on it or it’s hitting them much more powerfully than it has in the past. Or it does other people. And so it’s these people that we see for heartbreak have got something going on inside of them that is resonating with the past. And that’s why we don’t direct suggestion them out of this. We’re going to go through 5-PATH. We’re going to do Phase I to make sure we have a somnambulistic, hopeful client. Then we’re going to do Phase II to uncover what it is that’s in the past that’s resonating into the moment that’s causing too much behavior, too much anger, too much sadness, that kind of thing. They feel locked into this.
And then we’re also going to do Phase III, which is forgiveness of others, so that they can cut the cords, the emotional connection to the past and the people who, from the perspective of the child caused them to feel this way. And then when that’s done, we really need to get them to forgive themselves. Phase IV, which is really the last emotional connection to the past and it has to do with guilt and anger at themselves. Once they get through that we’re really getting to that point where they have the clean slate subconsciously so that they can, in a healthy fashion, in an energized fashion begin to move forward and perhaps dare to love again. Now, once in a while, not too often in these kinds of situations there’s a possibility that there’s secondary gain and that’s what Phase V is all about. But usually in these heartbreak situations it doesn’t come up that often and Phase V is only used when we have a situation where there is secondary gain. By that I mean something in the present is either reinforcing the behavior or demanding it. Does that help?
Erika: Yeah, that helps a lot, Cal because it just highlights that we can use these techniques like we talked about in the last episodes, insight techniques to help these people. There are some things that are important to know that we talked about today: how that client might be feeling, but we still use age regression. We still use forgiveness therapies. We might even use the parts therapy in Phase V if there is secondary gain but a lot of the process is just the same. That’s what I love about 5-PATH, right? I just love that 5-PATH takes care of all these things. It’s good to know some subtle differences in your clients and of course that comes with listening to your client, understanding your client and then you just do 5-PATH. You just do that, right?
Cal: Erika, you’re fired up, aren’t you?
Erika: I am fired up. Can you tell? I was excited about the episodes today so I’m glad that that’s coming through.
Cal: Hey. We’ve got to wrap it up. Can you believe it? Our time is up.
Erika: No, I can’t. But time flies when you’re having fun, so on that note…
Cal: I’ll keep it there if you need it, but then we’re going to carry on to the next episode.
Erika: All right. So, the next episode we’re going to continue talking about heartbreak but we’re going to talk about a special situation, okay? Because sometimes in the situation where you have a breakup you still have to see your ex. And I do see that a lot in my office as well, so the next episode is going to help people help us help our clients when they still have to continue to see somebody in their life. And I think this is going to be really helpful for them.
Cal: Thank you very much, Erika. And I’m going to see you next time, I see you in person, it will be at the convention and I’ll be in the back of your room when you give your talk just to kind of give you some support and I’m so looking forward to this next episode. And what else do I want to say? Hey, come to class! The class coming up on July 14th and October 13th, our next Banyan Hypnosis certification courses, NGH approved. Be there. It’s 10 days, it will be life changing and you’re going to see me change some lives while we’re at it. Okay, that’s it. Cal Banyan signing off.