Cal: Hello everybody, Cal Banyan here, Cal Banyan's Hypnosis etc. I'm so excited to be back here with Erika Flint. She is out there in Bellingham, Washington. And let me tell you what we're going to talk about today. What we are going to talk about is if there’s such a thing as too much emotion. Can they have too much emotion? Can clients come in with too much emotion for us to be able to work with them?
Let me tell you about Erika Flint. She's an up and comer in the profession. If you've been watching these podcasts, these hypnosis training videos, then you know that she's bringing that kind of perspective of the person who really has that hypnopreneurial bent on life of wanting to build a successful hypnosis practice efficiently, effectively. And you know what? She's been doing it, doing it, doing it. She's already been in the profession for little more than a year, and she's already a speaker at the National Hypnotists' Convention. She's already writing for my Banyan Hypnosis E-zine on hypnosis.org. And I'm so excited to have her here. How you doing?
Erika: I'm doing great, Cal. Thanks for having me again, and it is great to be here today. Let me tell everybody a little bit about you, Cal. Cal is the hypnosis celebrity because of his fame in the profession and not just because of all of the hundreds of wonderful training videos, just like this one that he's done over the years. I don't know how he does all of this. But he's also the hypnosis celebrity because he has received almost every single award in the profession. He's the author of one of my very favorite books, The Secret Language of Feelings, and he's also been on television. He's been on radio, promoting hypnosis and hypnotism. He is still training. He teaches lots of classes. He was my teacher, my trainer and still is. And he's still writing; he's still doing all sorts of amazing things.
And, so today, I'm here to talk with Cal a little bit about something that I've been thinking about; is it possible to have too much emotion? If your client comes in, and before they really even get going, they are crying or they're so upset and they can't really even look at you, what do you do? So what would you do, Cal?
Cal: Well I'll tell you what. This is one of those what-ifs. What if, what if, what if? What if this happens? And let's take a look at it. First, let me just start off with this little caveat, and that is, too many brand new, newly-trained hypnotists get stuck in the what ifs. What if this happens? What if that happens? And they'll just get bogged down with this what-ifness, and think, I don't know. What if this happens? And it'll just block them from getting started.
Now Erika, you're not one of those people. But let's get beyond it. I mean, it is...and I'm going to surprise you with this...it is possible that someone could come in so emotional that I just couldn't work with them. I mean, they are just a basket case. They are crying or they're so angry that I can't work with them. I have this rule of thumb when it comes to individuals; it's like, some say, is this person mature enough? Is this person mentally healthy enough? Is this person too emotional? And my rule of thumb is, if I can have a decent intelligent conversation with the individual, then I can work with them. Because ultimately hypnosis, and hypnosis work that we do is a conversation. So as long as they are emotionally level enough to where we can dialogue, then of course, I can work with them. If they're not, if they are in an emotional upheaval to where I can't even have a conversation with them, then, of course not. When people are very highly emotional, then absolutely, as long as we can have a conversation. How's that for a starter?
Erika: Yes, that makes sense. And, in my experience, sometimes people will come into the office just so overwhelmed, and for a variety of reasons. Maybe you're the last chance, or you are the only person that they can talk to; or for whatever reason the gates open and the tears come. And so sometimes you just have to allow your clients to kind of unload, just a little bit. This has happened to me a number of times, and you know, a couple of minutes later they're feeling better and they calm down. And then you can have a conversation with them. It's never really happened to me where that type of too much of an emotion type of thing has been a prolonged experience.
But, one thing that I was thinking is because I often use your AIAR induction; your AIAR induction is where you're helping people. They are experiencing the emotion right then and we know that if somebody is having a certain level of emotion right then, we don't really have to do a different type of induction. We can just ask them right there in the chair; we can just say, is it all right with you if we start hypnosis right now or at any time? Okay, go ahead and close your eyes and tell me about that experience, etc.
But, I'm wondering would you ever do that with your client when they're sitting in the chair before the pre-hypnosis interview? I'll leave it at that, Cal.
Cal: Okay, so now, Erika, one of the things we've got to do is if we say something we have to make sure everybody understands what we're talking about. So the AIAR induction that she's talking about really stands for affect induced age regression induction, and it was really an induction that highly influenced the creation of the time tunneling technique induction.
And I'll put a link down below on calbanyan.com on the page for this video, a link to the time tunneling technique. Right now, I'm trying to do a Google to see if I have something on the web about the affect induced age regression induction, and see if I can come up with any articles or anything I've done on that. I don't know if I've done...I don't see anything about that. Oh, I'm putting in air induction and I'm getting all kinds of air conditioning stuff. Hold on...hypnosis, and see what I get.
All right, I see that I have AIAR induction, okay, good. Affect induced age regression induction; I talk about it in podcast number 18. So I'll put a link below so that you guys know what that's about. All right, so what was your question?
Erika: You've also talked about it a little bit in number 107, Cal. So there is some more information out there. So my question is, the AIAR induction, would you do that with a client if they walked in your door expressing too much emotion and you haven't done the pre-hypnosis interview or some of that other stuff yet.
Cal: Okay, at my center I've kind of got a unique situation, in that I usually don't see my clients for the very first time until after they have watched the pre-talk, which is kind of unusual. They'll call our office; somebody else books the appointment. When they show up at the office somebody else greets them at the door; and then gives them the paperwork to fill out. Somebody else shows them the video, and then I walk up to them and the pre-hypnosis video. And let's say they're in for too much behavior, and then they'll watch the Secret Language of Feelings video. And then I walk up to them, meet them for the first time, and say, 'Hi, I'm Cal Banyan, and I'll be working with you.' And most of the people that I see already know who I am. It's not like I'm getting clients from ads. My practice is entirely by referral at this point in time, because I've been doing it for 18 years.
So yes, to answer your question, they would watch the pre-talk video before I would have the opportunity to do the AIAR induction with them. And so they would come into the office, and I would say, how can I help you today? And they start talking about what we're going to work on. Well the first thing I'm going to ask is, you watched a video or videos; do you have any questions about the videos? Then the pre-talk is done, and then I'll say, how can I help you today? And they start talking about the issue and if they become emotional at that time, not emotional about I'm so...see, there are two emotions that you were talking about. One is the emotion of ,"I'm so frustrated and I'm so worried because nothing I've done has helped. I hope you can help me." That's one. And I'm not going to do work on that emotion.
Then the other emotion is the emotion that drove them to come in. Maybe they have a fear of heights or a fear of public speaking, or a fear of intimacy. Or maybe they have anger issues, or maybe they have guilt issues, or maybe they have some psychosomatic illness. That's the emotion that I watch for to come up in the pre-hypnosis interview, which starts off with, how can I help you today? Please give me a thumbnail sketch of the history of the problem, that kind of thing.
And then, when the emotion comes up, I'll do just like you said, and just like I teach in class, is it okay with you if I start the hypnosis at any time? And once they do that, then there are two chairs where a client will sit in my office. One is at my desk. I'm sitting at my desk and my client is off to the right of me, cattycorner. And I turn and I face that individual, and we talk like this. And if they are connected to that emotion at that time, I'll just say, is it all right if I start at any time? And then I will just go ahead. And I don't do affect induced age regression anymore, which is kind of where you would just say, follow that feeling back. The affect induced age regression induction is really a derivation of the affect bridge, where you simply have them follow that feeling back to an earlier time they felt that way. And you cause the compliance of the client to follow that instruction back to an earlier time when they felt that way to simultaneously induce the hypnosis.
Now I do the time tunneling technique, which offers them greater structure. And I don't really want to go over the whole time tunneling technique at this point; I'll put a link down below to our series. It's three or four videos on the time tunneling technique. And also for you NGH members, I've done three or four articles on it in a series for the National Guild of Hypnotists Journal of Hypnotism. Does that help out?
Erika: Yes, that does help quite a bit, Cal because my office is set up a little different. I do show them a pre-talk video, but I'm the only one in my office right now, so I meet them first. So I do have an opportunity to see them first sometimes. And I would in that case talk with my client a little bit; have them watch the video, and then start some hypnosis with them after that. So it's kind of the same thing as you, but I do get an opportunity to see them first.
I do have another question though and it still has to do with too much emotion. This is further on down the road when we are in age regression. Okay, in age regression what do you do when your client has so much anger? This has happened to me before, and the client has so much anger. They are so angry. And this is what we would call righteous anger, okay, so this is valid anger. This is a true perception from my client; something that occurred that was extremely unfair, completely and totally wrong. I think anybody would believe what happened was wrong. And they just could not move forward. So would you ever do any type of forgiveness or any type of thing to try and help the client move past that so that you can continue with your age regression work?
Cal: Okay, I was waiting for you to say, you know, as you're asking this question, what am I doing with the client, so you're saying that I'm doing age regression work, and we run into anger. Now this anger that they are experiencing, are they experiencing it in the regressed state in an event?
Erika: Yes, they are experiencing it in the regressed state. And the adult, the grownup, is also experiencing the anger.
Cal: Yes, okay, so let's just do this in a way that paints a usable picture here. So you're with a client; you're working on some issue and you're following the feeling back. You are time tunneling for example, and you go to an earlier event, right?
Erika: Right.
Cal: And is that where they feel this anger?
Erika: Yes.
Cal: Okay, well at that point we don't know that it's based in reality. We've got to ask the five questions; what's happening, what are you thinking, what are you feeling, how old are you, and is the feeling familiar or new? And so, we find out what's happening, and what they're thinking. And if what is happening and what they are thinking and what they are feeling all make sense, then that could be valid anger. And then I would do nothing with it at that point. I don't want to reduce it because I need that anger to continue to regress on using the time tunnel.
So I would then have them tell me where that feeling is in their body, suggest that that feeling is a tunnel to the past, to mentally go into that and follow it back to an earlier time. So I go back to an earlier time. I ask what's happening. What are you thinking? What are you feeling? How old are you? And is that feeling familiar or new? The fab-five questions. And again, I look to see if that makes sense with what's happening.
One of the things you folks have got to understand is that according to The Secret Language of Feelings book, one of Erika's favorite books; it says that emotions start off with a thought, a perception, right? And then that causes you to feel a certain way. So something happens; you give it meaning, and then you have an emotion. So we say, what's happening? That something is happening. And you'll say, what does that make you think? That's the meaning you're giving it. And then how does that make you feel?
So those things, if they make sense, okay, then that's righteous anger. And then we can continue on that. I will not remove or reduce or do any forgiveness until after I get to ISE. And in ISE what we're going to do is, and in the Secret Language of Feelings book, we talk about how do we work with emotions when we find out what are they thinking, and then what the emotion is, and the thinking, the thought always behind anger is this is not fair; or this is not right. It's that kind of thinking that causes anger.
So when I say, does it make sense; what happened; what they're thinking, and what they're feeling, so something has to have happened and then they believe it's not fair. Now, how do we know if this is true or not? We could always have the adult help us with this and say, was that really not fair? If they say, yes, it was really not fair, then we have what Erika called righteous anger, as I teach in class.
But if we get all the way back to that ISE and we're ready to do that informed child work where an adult goes back to before this event, where we found out what was happening, what they're thinking, what they're feeling, and how old are they, and if it's familiar or new, and we're identifying ISE, we go back before that time and if the adult says that was a misperception of the child, because it wasn't not fair, or in other words it was fair. Then, if we can give that knowledge to the child, then the child can go through the event without becoming angry, because the anger, once again, comes from the perception of something being not fair. If the adult can go and talk to the child before the event, and now they can go through it knowing it's fair, then they won't get angry.
So as I'm regressing back, I don't do anything to remove the anger, because I need that emotion to time tunnel on or to affect bridge on to go back. Once I get to ISE, then I'm going to have the child find out from the adult if that emotion is based in reality. Age regression is one big reality check, and we're going to check the reality of the situation, what the child was thinking. If it was not not fair, in other words, if the situation that they thought was not fair is in fact fair, and right, once we let the child know that they can go through without being angry.
Now the other situation is, of course, we go back and we find out it was not fair. Now what that child has is righteous anger; it's right on. And then what we want to do is simply validate. We let the child know that this unfair thing is going to be happening, and it is okay to feel that anger. And then I become the anger cheerleader. I want them to let it pass through them.
One of my favorite sayings, I didn't make it up. I think I first heard it from, oh gosh; what's her name? It'll come to me as I'm talking. It's that the way out is through, and when you, and if it doesn't come to me in the video, I'll put it down in the comments. The way out is through. And what it means to me as a hypnotherapist is the way for them to get it out of this emotional state is to let the emotion fully flow through them. And I remember Stephen Parkhill saying once that human emotions are short lived when fully expressed. They are not infinite. Human emotions are finite. When we allow the emotion to fully pass through them, and so we say, good; feel that anger. Feel it; let it flow through you. Feel it. This is the safe place; you've always wanted to find to where you could finally just let that anger pass through.
And so, I'm not going to do any forgiveness work in the age regression. The forgiveness work is saved post age regression in phase three, where I can really spend the time to fully do it. I don't want to do a halfway job in the age regression, and then not have the anger there to be expressed when I get to phase three where we really do an excellent, excellent job of doing the forgiveness. How's that?
Erika: I think that's great advice, and a couple of things stand out to me based on what you said. First of all, validating that feeling is so important. I know you probably had this experience, Cal. There are so many times when clients, if you just validate their feeling, you know, "Anybody would have felt that way. That was unfair." That can go a long way, because there are people out there who have never had their feelings validated. They've never had their feelings heard. They haven't been heard their whole life, a lot of people believe. And so, just validating feelings can go a really long way.
And the other thing that I wanted to just highlight is that when we ask our clients in this process, where do you feel that feeling in your body? That's always been so intriguing to me. But it's so valuable too, because in the end, right, when you have either removed some of that emotion, dissolved it away, that really didn't need to be there, was from erroneous perception, or something like that, then you can go and ask them again, hey, you know, remember that feeling in your chest or remember that feeling in your gut? How does that feel now? And so then you can validate to your client that we got rid of that feeling, and that's tremendous. I love that part of the process, when they can actually feel it inside, right. We're aligning what they believe with what they feel. And so then the client just gets this huge sense of relief going through some of that.
And so, thank you, Cal, for explaining some of that; the detailed part about what to do with that extra anger when you have it. Leave it alone, right? And then allow it to pass through the only way out is through. I love that expression, too. I use that. So, thank you very much.
One other thing that I wanted to ask you, real quick question. Do you ever find that there are particular emotions that end up in certain parts of the body in general or is it different for every client?
Cal: Okay, I'm going to get to that question in just a second. The individual I was talking about that I heard the way out is through, is Marilyn Gordon. I knew it would come to me. A very wonderful hypnotist. I think she's up in the Oakland, San Francisco area there. If you're watching, Marilyn; hello. A very wonderful person. A great hypnotist.
Now on to your question. You know what? Where do they feel it in their body? Most of these emotions are in the chest or in the gut. But I have not found any good reason to try to generalize that; to say anger is felt in the gut, and fear is felt in the chest, or anything like that. Because that kind of generalization is something the psychologists do. And we're not psychologists and I think that it can be a mistake to make those kinds of generalizations.
For example, you know, you take the diagnostic statistical manual of the APA, which is the Bible for psychiatrists and psychologists of all of these kinds of mental disorders and stuff. And that's what I was trained on, way back in the DSM3, and then the DSM4, and the DSM4R. And the problem with it is that psychology has always wanted to be as scientific as it can, and to match the hard sciences. And it's really hard to be scientific about mental states and moods and cognitive abilities and stuff like that. And so, they fall upon a statistical analysis. And with statistical analysis what happens is, we come up with generalizations. And these generalizations in psychology have come to a point where what they try to do is say that people with this mental disorder fit this profile. They get this kind of a result on MMPI or on the Rorsbach Test. Or they have these kinds of relationship difficulties, or these kinds of behaviors. And they put together a profile and then say, okay, bam, they put that diagnostic label on you. And we don't want to fall into that kind of behavior, because it's very, very limiting.
What I do is I don't care where they feel it in their body. I want to have them become aware of where it is in their body simply because that awareness magnifies the feeling and probably even more importantly, makes an emotional cognitive link so that I can do the time tunnel; so that I can do the affect bridge, so that I can do the age regression induction, and so that I can go back and visit relevant times in the past if I'm doing age regression, so that I can find out what was happening, what they're thinking and what they're feeling; so I can work on that stuff with insight.
As you can tell, my co-host, they just bring me these things. And I don't spend any time really preparing for it. If I don't know the answer, I'll just say I don't know the answer. And a lot of the stuff I give you is my experience on the topic, or my experience with clients, or my particular perspective on a topic. And so you know, maybe, Erika, you're wanting me to say that, oh yes, when it's fear it's in the chest or when it's sadness it's in the heart, or whatever. But I think that even thinking that way, unless I'm missing something in your question, can really kind of bias us in our thinking about the client and we don't want to be setting up these prejudices about what could be causing the problem by something as general as where they're feeling it in their body. How does that strike you?
Erika: Well, my experience is the same, so my question was more just about what, you know, what's your experience in this, because you've been doing it longer. My experience is that there is no rhyme or reason particularly about when somebody feels something in their body. I have had a few cases where somebody comes in with pain. For example, shoulders and neck, or headaches, or back pain. They often will feel, or report at least, that they are feeling more emotion in that area. But in general, I haven't found anything other than, you know, my experience is the same as yours; mostly in the chest and the gut area. So I completely agree with you.
Cal: Right, and then you'll suddenly have someone who when you say and where do you feel that anger, and they'll say in my hands or in my shoulders or in my arms or in my feet. And you go, wow! That's weird; we don't actually say that. But they just feel it wherever they feel it, because of their history or their physical propensity towards feeling the emotion in a particular part of their body. And then don't be someone who profiles your clients like that. Just let it take you to wherever it's going to take you.
All right, Erika, please wrap it up; it went a little bit long this time.
Erika: All right, well thanks everybody for joining us here today on this episode about emotion and too much emotion. My name is Erika Flint and you can find me at cascadehypnosiscenter.com. Thanks for joining us today.
Cal: All right. Hey guys, if you're watching this, thank you very much, Erika. Anywhere except calcanyan.com. Go to calbanyan.com because that's where we have the extra links, that's where we have additional comments and information and graphics that go with these videos. And also become a VIP member, because that's where we've got the list of all the podcasts, and I'll send you a notification each time one of these videos comes out.
And also, I'll see you in class. We've got a class coming up in October. It'll be October 13th through the 24th with a weekend off right in the middle. What a great time, October, to come to California. It's starting to get cold where you are perhaps and you can come to California and go to Disneyland and go to the beach and learn an awful lot about hypnosis.
And then, we also have in Feb/March a class coming up, and these are both 10-day courses, and gosh, I'd just love to see you in class. That's it.
Hey, take advantage of our specials on calbanyan.com. We try to make specials for you from time to time, and they are always really good deals.
All right, now I'm done. Cal Banyan signing off.