How many times do you hear people say: “I’m tired of going round in circles.” ”I wish I could change.” “Nothing works.” ”I never thought it was going to be this hard.” “Something keeps stopping me.” “I’ll make do.” “It doesn’t matter.” ” Maybe something will shift soon.”
Perhaps you have said some of it yourself.
What if it were possible to flip a switch to take you, or your clients, from negative to positive, from anxiety to calm, from frustration to confidence, from stagnation to resourcefulness?
There is only one way to create permanent positive change, to have ongoing emotional resilience and vitality, and to have explosive creative energy whenever you need it.
It is to become aligned with your unconscious mind — your heart, your spirit .. it doesn’t matter what you call it.
And there’s really only one way to maintain this inner-outer balance, though it can take on different names and forms.
We’re talking about hypnosis or trance, the state that bypasses reasons and excuses, analysis and second-guessing , and gives you the magic keys to make deep change real.
It’s how you can sweep away the old obstacles and stories of what’s possible, and what’s not, and what you can, or can’t, should, or shouldn’t do.
For centuries, for as long as humans have been around, hypnosis has allowed people to dive into their sou, and do the healing work of making evolutionary change real.
Unless you can create trance in yourself and for others, unless you understand the power of words to evoke instant hypnosis you are missing a HUGE opportunity to help yourself and your clients live a happier, more integrated, and successful life.
This three day training at Manzanita Village is an immersion that we guarantee will change your life!!
Did you ever experience something that felt as if it had transformed you to the core of your being? Was there ever a time when you were certain that an old issue that had been nagging you for years was gone forever?
A powerful insight has shifted your understanding, and it’s as if you are stepping into a whole new way of being and living!
Then things gradually slip back to how they were before, as if nothing had really changed. Except that now you are even more frustrated, cynical, and disappointed than before.
People often come to NLP or Hypnotherapy as a last resort. They have had no success in dealing with issues like chronic pain, or emotional addiction, or the self-destructive mindset that results in continual personal and professional disappointment. They may have visited numerous healers and professionals and it all helped to a certain degree, but nothing has addressed the root of the problem. They have learned to cope, but they haven’t t learned to change.
Often something entirely different happens through hypnosis to tip the balance; and a year, or ten years later, they are still enjoying the fruits of that shift.
How is it possible that hypnosis and NLP Coaching work when other modalities fail? I remember a client who was suffering from chronic back-pain. She had gone through multiple surgeries, and years of visiting pain-clinics and psychiatrists. The pain had worn her down, and she felt completely powerless to change it. It was affecting her work, her health, and even her ability to sustain a romantic relationship. She was about to break up with her boyfriend of several years.
The hypnotic state gave her the ability to reclaim the part of herself that she had only known as ‘pain’. Think of this as a metaphor, because it may be the best way to describe how hypnotherapy works. We disown our ‘problem’, and try to fix it by getting rid of it. But it’s like cutting off a limb because we sprained a joint. We separate ourselves from the very thing that can make us whole. You might think that this wouldn’t apply to a physical symptom, like pain. But after the organic cause of the pain has gone, there is nothing there to support it except the habit, and the unconscious need, to recreate it. This is even more true when it comes to issues like your mindset, negative emotions, self-limiting beliefs, or addictive behaviors.
There’s no blame in this. You do the best you can at any given time. Hypnosis is simply a way to give you more options and choices.
After her first session my client’s pain disappeared, never to return (the last time we spoke was ten years after our work together). People call such things miraculous! But how it works is very simple. Hypnosis has the marvelous ability to help us address unconscious dynamics while we remain conscious. Hypnosis is not like sleep. It is simply a way of bypassing the filters that our conscious mind uses to process experience. Hypnosis is a natural state of mind that you experience several times a day – every time you go into a daydream, for example.
The Hypnotherapy process allowed my client to address the reasons why she had unconsciously perpetuated the pain. Of course, had there been physical reasons for the pain to persist, I would have referred her to a physician or a chiropractor. The fact that the pain disappeared so rapidly, and that she remained pain-free, told me that it was no longer a physical issue.
We continued to work together so that I could teach her how to use the hypnotic state to empower herself, and to apply it to every area of her life. I taught her different ways of self-hypnosis and gave her the tools to cultivate her creative unconscious, set a vision and develop the strategies and skills for attaining it, and to learn how to master her own psychology. After all, if she could overcome chronic pain that she had been told was incurable, what else could she do?
Three Approaches to Healing and Transformation
Personal transformation and healing depend on your expectations. They also depend on the expectations of the person who is mentoring you.
George Estabrooks noticed in the 1940’s that the client “tends to fulfill the expectations of their therapist.” In our Hypnosis and NLP Training we emphasis the importance of setting no limits on the results you can expect from a client, to expect miracles. When you do that you will constantly be astonished by the positive results you get with clients.
If a therapist sees you only through the filters of neurosis and pathology, they will be incapable of seeing anything beyond that. Teaching you to cope with your ‘pathology’ will be the best you can expect from them.
If you have a physical illness and your doctor sees your body as something separate from the rest of you, they may be able to treat your symptoms, but they never actually ‘heal’ you.The symptoms will probably return when the conditions for them occur again.
If a coach sees you through their own preconception of success or failure, they will be insensitive to your own unique gifts and the journey that you are on, and they will unconsciously set limits on what you can achieve, based on their own projections.
Three approaches to change
The Bottomless Pit Approach: The old-school approach to transformation is that life is long and arduous and filled with difficulties. You must spend half a lifetime as an apprentice, years in therapy, decades of arduous spiritual practice. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with dedication and ongoing training. But the idea that deep change musttake a long time is simply not true. Some of the unspoken assumptions that drive that idea are:
Life is always difficult and complex.
Learn to accept things as they are or you will be disappointed.
People don’t change, they just become more of who they are.
Your problem is so complex that no one can really fix it, but you can learn to manage it.
The Magic Bullet Approach: Fueled by wishful thinking and a desire not to have to take full responsibility for the miracle of your life, the magic bullet approach is characterized by attitudes like:
If only I could find the right person, technique, mentor, place, etc.I know it will fix everything.
Here’s a new bright shiny object. It will will give absolutely, positively give you everything you need.
I had an amazing experience doing such-and-such, or with so-and-so, and I want to have that experience again (and again, and again).
If you do more of what you are doing things will eventually work out. (I will be healthy, have the relationship I desire, have all the money and success I want)
It’s not that magic doesn’t happen, nor is it true that some things aren’t hard. It’s that having a strategy is essential, for everything important that we do.
The Five Changes Approach: Integrated Praxis and NLP Coaching
Praxis simply means putting what you know into action consistently and strategically. It doesn’t mean preparing for something. It means that what you are doing right now is already having an impact on your life.
It means using the appropriate tools and skills and continuing to use and refine them on an ongoing basis. Unlike the ‘bottomless pit’ approach, you’re the one with the power. You’re the one taking responsibility for your actions and for the results of your actions. Unlike the ‘magic bullet’ approach you’re not just hoping for a miracle to suddenly change everything without your having to commit to making the change happen.
In the Third approach big changes can happen quickly, but you are developing the insights you get from them to adapt what you do, to course-correct, and go deeper on an ongoing basis. When you find the support and mentorship that works for you, you know that it works as a collaboration, because you know that no one else can ‘fix’ your problems for you. They simply give you the support, the skills, and the perspectives that you need.
Anyone with enough time and patience can learn to give their car a tune-up or rebuild the engine; but unless you are a car mechanic you’d be better off getting someone else to do it. This applies even more when it comes to getting the perspective for your life and business that you simply can’t get on your own, simply because you’re too close to them.
The Third approach is not a compromise between the other two approaches. Energy and consistency are required, but not in order for you to bury yourself in the process.
When change happens it’s not because you stumbled on the right magic formula. The obstructions we put in our own way are not be as insurmountable as they seem, but we can’t fix them by driving blindly into the dark and thinking that if only we could go faster we’ll get where we need to be.We won’t fix them by giving our power away, or by hoping for a miracle. There is an art to it, and it really is possible to master that art. You just have to start taking the steps to do so. Want to take the time to talk?
A few years ago Caitriona and I started to integrate our various skill-sets. We were already excited about helping people make big changes, but something was missing.
We had been teaching meditation retreats for a long time, and we are still impressed at how deeply meditation and mindfulness training can transform people’s lives. However, we also noticed that there are many people who are drawn to meditation, not because they are contemplatives or visionaries, but because they are natural introverts. They come to meditation for comfort.
If you are a natural introvert, meditation might actually not be the most direct way to make meaningful change in your life. In fact, it can hold you back.
Then there are others who find meditation difficult, even though they may be naturally visionary, and very much in touch with the power of their imagination, very driven, and very much aware that the deepest change comes from inside.
We knew there was something more we could do that would bring lasting positive change to a far wider range of people than we were reaching.
So we began experimenting. In addition to being Zen and Vipassana teachers of many years standing, we were Hypnotherapists, we were trained in NLP. We had already been bringing other elements into the meditation, to broaden the context and make it more applicable to everyday life. In addition, I am both an artist and a martial artist. I’ve taught non-violence in a range of settings over many years. There is no way I can avoid bringing these perspectives into the work.
What is Five Changes?
Five Changes is born out of the range of perspectives and skills we have developed over the years. It is a deliberate integration of skills for long-lasting powerful change. It works for anyone who is ready to get out of their own way, step into their unique brilliance, and live their life, not at 50% or 75%, but at full throttle.
By the way, it is far less stressful to live at 100%, because when you are in alignment, when the activity of your conscious and unconscious mind match each other, you tap into new sources of energy and creativity.
People ask what the Five Changes are:
They are the Five Principles for Change.
They are the Five different modalities that we have integrated.
They are the Five building blocks that make up who we all are internally.
They are the Five Precepts – the five guidelines for living with awareness and integrity
They are the Five areas of your life where change happens .. in work, with family and friends, in romance, with physical and emotional health, and in your inner spiritual world..
I would also like to say that there are at least five things any one of us could usefully change in their life. But when you really change one of them, all the others will shift in unison. Because each of us is a system. The way we work in Five Changes is to look at the whole person, and to work with each person as a unique living inter-connected whole system.
What is Five changes, Five changes, Five Changes is, Mediation, NLP, spiritual practice, Neuro linguistic programming, Hypnosis, personal development, unconscious mind.
If you missed the call/webcast last Friday you can still catch the recording at Recording of Call
We only had time to answer some of your questions. So here are a few more.
Thanks to everyone for your participation and energy. Most of these questions have a relevance beyond NLP, or our Five Changes NLP training. There’s a bigger picture here that has to do with change, transformation, and healing of all kinds.
Q: What are the possible negative outcomes for taking the training and doing this work?
This will apply to any genuinely transformational work that changes you from being the victim of circumstances to living your life at choice. Think of all people who have done amazing things in their life, sometimes against all odds. Some may be iconic heroes, like Mandela, or Oprah, or Cesar Chavez, others may be people you know. You may even be one of them yourself. Think about it! Think of people who have beaten the odds to do something extraordinary.
At some point they refused to put up with excuses for not doing what they knew they could do, what they hadto do .. whether it was changing the world or dealing with some personal misfortune.
When you change what you are willing to tolerate in your life, whether it’s a bad situation or negative people, some doors may close. But others will open. When it becomes more important to you to face your challenges, than to continue hanging out with the situations and people who reinforce your excuses for not changing, you may lose some of those friends. But that may not actually be a bad thing, It may not be a negative outcome. You may have to change some of the things you do and places where you hang out. That may not be a bad thing either. But anyway, consider yourself warned ..
Q: Are NLP and hypnosis the same? How are they related?
Milton Erickson
Yes and no. Hypnosis and NLP are certainly related, and share some common ground. But you can practice NLP without any formal reference to hypnosis, and there are numerous styles of hypnotherapy that make no overt use of NLP techniques. Consider hypnosis as simply the means to bypass the rational mind in order to effect deep long-lasting healing and change by accessing unconscious mental and neurological patterns. Based on that, then NLP and hypnosis certainly have a lot in common.
Some people are intrigued by hypnosis. Hypnosis may seem exotic and mysterious. Actually, hypnosis is a daily occurrence for all of us. As the great Milton Erikson said, “Most people walk around in a trance of disempowerment, our work is to change that into a trance of empowerment.” We are using the words hypnosis and trance interchangeably.
You will learn more about the amazing Milton Erickson during our training. His use of Conversational Hypnosis is very much a part of our NLP curriculum.
Q: I’ve heard people speak of ‘NLP magic’ and would love to know what that means.
It used to take weeks, or even months, to get people to overcome a phobia. In the traditional behaviorist methodology curing a phobia is a long process of gradual desensitization.
With NLP we can effectively remove a phobic reaction in just a few minutes, permanently. People find it hard to believe that something that used to take so long can now be done so quickly; but in NLP rapid permanent positive change is commonplace.
Q: What else can NLP change?
If you can quickly and permanently change a phobia, something that used to be considered so hard to change, do you think it might be possible to identify and change a limiting belief? Or a deep-rooted negative emotional pattern? Or compulsive or addictive behaviors and habits? Do you think common fears, like fear of public speaking, might also be something you might be able to change pretty easily?
One of the things we teach students of NLP is the importance of letting go of negative expectations of their clients. Studies have shown that clients and patients tend to fulfill the expectations of those they go to for help. Even completely unexpressed expectations are like self-fulfilling prophesies.
This may be one of the fundamental problems with traditional diagnostic approaches. Diagnoses are valuable, but only as ways to identify problems. If the diagnosis defines the client, or patient, it places them inside a box. But the client is always more than that box. Likewise, the cure, or the transformation, is always more than the conventional prognosis.
You don’t have to believe in miracles. More than fifty percent of remissions from ‘in-curable’ illness is unexplainable by conventional means. These are already ‘miracle’ cures. In other words, for those fifty percent something changed on an unconscious level to make healing possible.
NLP has always been very curious about how this happens..
Q: How’s is NLP done?
We don’t have time to cover all the details. But the simple answer is that we all create our deepest reality, our inner landscape, our responses to the world, through the words and images that we use for mental access and recall. It is much easier to change those words, images, and the meanings associated with them than anyone realized back in the days when behaviorism and psychoanalysis, and related disciplines, were the only games in town.
NLP uses very specific ways to help people change how they represent and perceive the world they live in. We use a wide range of inductive techniques.In the NLP training we teach you how you can continue to develop ways to do the same for yourself, and others. You may take NLP into a therapeutic situation, a classroom or training room, or you may use it from the stage. The tools and techniques are applicable to almost any situation.
If you are working with clients you will have the tools to effectively change the physical, emotional, behavioral, social, professional, and even spiritual dynamics of their life.
Q: Can I talk to Caitriona or Michele about this training before I register, and will I still get the special price?
If you have worked with either of us privately in past the couple of years we do have a special offer for you if you would like to join us for this. The offer is good through the end of this month. So call us before March 31st
A Story
Once a client came out of desperation – as clients sometimes do – having exhausted all other options. She had chronic back pain from an auto accident years before. She had had several surgeries; had been to neurologists, acupuncturists, and pain doctors. She had been to a psychiatrist at a well-known Los Angeles university hospital who gave her pain medication on condition that she had sex with him. He told her that she would have back pain for the rest of her life. He also told her that if she ever mentioned his sexual abuse he would claim that she was psychotic and delusional.
She came to me for hypnotherapy. After one session her pain was gone. A year later she reported that she had no recurrence of the pain. Such cases help me remember how powerful these tools for change really are. Does that mean her pain was not real? Of course not! It had been very real for her .. for years. Does it mean those other healthcare professionals were incompetent? Aside from the psychiatrist, they were all probably very good at what they did. It is simply that she came to me at a moment when she was truly ready for change. Fortunately the tools I have were able to catalyze that change in an effective and permanent way.
The deepest change is often not about the symptoms. Effecting change is often a matter of helping people to claim their power back, and remember who they are. People may come with ‘incurable’ problems. But those problems are incurable only because the person had learned to believe them to be so.
We do not claim that hypnosis or NLP trumps every other healing or transformational modality. Amazing transformation takes place in many contexts and through many healing modalities.
We do say that there are huge possibilities for the deepest sort of healing outside of the traditional paradigm; and that deep healing often takes place beyond known and familiar territories.
We Get to Ask questions, Do we get questions!?, Do we get questions!?, What are the possible negative outcomes for taking the training and doing this work? victim of circumstances, genuinely transformational work, NLP and hypnosis, What else can NLP change?, questions on deep change, Mediation, NLP, spiritual practice. Neuro linguistic programming, Hypnosis, personal development, unconscious mind.
How many times do you hear people say: “I’m tired of going round in circles.” ”I wish I could change.” “Nothing works.” ”I never thought it was going to be this hard.” “Something keeps stopping me.” “I’ll make do.” “It doesn’t matter.” ” Maybe something will shift soon.”
A few years ago Caitriona and I started to integrate our various skill-sets. We were already excited about helping people make big changes, but something was missing.
If you missed the call/webcast last Friday you can still catch the recording at 
Once a client came out of desperation – as clients sometimes do – having exhausted all other options. She had chronic back pain from an auto accident years before. She had had several surgeries; had been to neurologists, acupuncturists, and pain doctors. She had been to a psychiatrist at a well-known Los Angeles university hospital who gave her pain medication on condition that she had sex with him. He told her that she would have back pain for the rest of her life. He also told her that if she ever mentioned his sexual abuse he would claim that she was psychotic and delusional.