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The Light Within - Hypnosis to Help with Low Mood or Feelings of Depression · The Hypnotist

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Welcome to The Hypnotist, the show that gives you inside
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access to cutting edge hypnosis with real clients facing
0:12
genuine. Issues.
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Brought to you by The Hypnotherapist, demanded by
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celebrities, CEOs and even royalty, Adam Cox.
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These recordings took place live from Adam's clinic in London's
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world famous Harley Street. So get yourself comfortable and
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enjoy today's episode of The Hypnotist.
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Hi, it's Adam here. And this is a slightly more
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serious hypnosis session in the sense that it was created for a
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client that had symptoms of depression.
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And I'd encourage you to make a big, big distinction between the
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identity of being depressed and feeling low mood or feeling sad
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or feeling hopeless. Because all emotions are
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temporary, nobody's felt a single emotion forever, and
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therefore the world and life itself is a.
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Palette of lots of. Different colours, but this
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particular client was feeling in a low mood and they were kind of
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feeling disconnected. And therefore it uses certain
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metaphors that are quite good to inspire feelings of hope and joy
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while still addressing that it's OK to feel sad sometimes.
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It uses a weather metaphor, you know, unless you live in certain
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parts of the world where it's sunny all the time.
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I'm in England and it certainly isn't like that.
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You have good sunny days, blue skies and then you have Gray
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skies. And that's quite a good metaphor
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to kind of highlight mood sometimes.
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In fact, in cartoons and comic strips, someone depressed quite
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often has a a dark rain cloud following them around wherever
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they go. So this is a a cultural
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metaphor. But here's the thing, the
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weather is always temporary. Moods are always temporary.
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And what if rather than relying on external things to make you
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feel happy, there's something intrinsic?
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So this is based on this idea of an internal light within.
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So there's very powerful metaphors here.
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Now, this isn't a substitute for qualified medical advice.
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If you think you might be suicidal, if you think you might
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be clinically depressed, it's not right for you to make that
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diagnosis yourself, and certainly going online isn't
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going to be enough for that. I would encourage you to check
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out a doctor, your doctor, make an appointment and let them know
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specifically. And then even then ask for a
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second opinion or a more specialist, you know, kind of
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to, to kind of look at your specific situation.
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And even if they do say that you are clinically depressed, I
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would encourage you to look at that as that is a temporary
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statement. I've worked with people that
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they were told over a decade ago, not even they're depressed.
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They were just given a prescription for antidepressants
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and then they took on the identity, a permanent label of
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I'm depressed. And it made sense of their world
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for that moment. But then it became an identity
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that carried with them. So even if you are diagnosed
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with depression, considerate for the time being, you know, use
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any resources that you can, but really focus on things within
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your control as well. Eating well, sleeping well, good
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connections and friends, hobbies and things that make you feel
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stimulated and you're learning something.
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It's not just the situation of you're depressed and therefore
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you have antidepressants and a lot of research has looked at
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this idea of depression being a chemical imbalance as faulty
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research. But most people know that if
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you're in low mood, you're going to have different
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neurotransmitters firing than if you feel amazing.
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You're going to have less serotonin and oxytocin.
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So if you think you might be depressed, get yourself checked
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out. There are lots of help lines for
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anyone feeling suicidal. This is not a substitute for
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this, but if you are in low mood, this session might help to
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lift your spirits and to find something within and to give it
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a framework which is empowering. So I would encourage you to find
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a quiet, comfortable place where you won't be distracted or
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disturbed. Relax and see if you can find
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some enjoyment in this session. Take a deep breath in, and as
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you breathe in, breathe in a wonderful feeling of calm, a
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relaxing sensation, and as you exhale, feel a sense of release
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that any emotions you're holding on to that aren't that useful
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can be detached, released, and you can let go and feel it flow
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in your outward breath. I don't want you to imagine that
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if hope had a colour, what colour would hope be?
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Some people would think of a bright yellow, a warm blue, a
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pastel orange. But whatever color comes up for
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you, embrace it, acknowledge it, and as you breathe in, imagine
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breathing in wonderful feeling color and sensation of hope.
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I just imagine because it's a warm colour, it can melt away
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any thoughts, beliefs and stories of hopelessness.
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The hopelessness melt away and is replaced by a feeling of warm
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hope. And as you exhale, just imagine
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a dark shadowy colour leaving your body and you're out with
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breath. That's it.
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Consider this an emotional transfusion.
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Breathing in the resources that are useful and exhaling any
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emotions that aren't useful right now.
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Breathing in what you need, exhaling what you don't.
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That's it. And I want you to imagine there
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is something within you that is hopeful, smiling, energetic, and
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creative, but it's trapped in a block of ice.
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And as you breathe in, just imagine that positive version of
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you is seeing the ice slowly melt.
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Each breath of warm hope is melting away the prison of that
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ice. And slowly but surely, you're
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starting to free that version of you.
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Not immediately, but each breath thaws the ice a bit more.
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And you've seen ice accules melting on a spring day.
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You've seen sunshine beaming down on snow.
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And you know what it looks like to see snow or ice melt?
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And just imagine that prison of ice trapping that version of you
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is slowly melting with every breath.
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And maybe you're 100 or 200 breaths away from freeing that
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creative, positive, energetic version of you.
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Each breath contributes to the melting of that ice.
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And as your body relaxes, your imagination awakens.
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And I want you to imagine a forest on a sunny day and just
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imagine what it would feel like to have the warmth of the sun on
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your skin under blue skies, exploring and foraging around a
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a forest looking for mushrooms. You're developing an eye for
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where they may be, the colour, the texture, and maybe there's a
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dog running around helping you. And just imagine floating into
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that version of you, feeling what you would feel like to feel
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the energy of walking around, breathing in fresh air, sunshine
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on your skin, surrounded by nature, and just connect with
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that ever increasing positive feeling.
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That's it. And just allow your breath to
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continue being deep, continuing to thaw that ice within.
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And I want you to know that wherever you are right now,
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whatever you're carrying, there is no need to put it down or
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pretend it isn't there. You can bring it with you into
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this space. This space is large enough to
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hold all of it, and sometimes the heaviest thing is the effort
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of appearing fine, of coping, of managing, of holding everything
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together for everyone else. But right here and right now,
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you don't have to do any of that.
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Just breathe. Not a special breath, just the
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breath that's already happening, the one that's been keeping you
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going. That quiet, faithful thing that
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has carried you through every difficult day you've ever had.
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And there have been some difficult ones.
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And you are still here. Evidence of your resilience,
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inner strength, a part within you that still has hope.
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So notice the weight of your body, the places where you are
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held and supported. Feel the sensation of that
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material beneath you, clothes on your skin.
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But feel supported. And just for now, you don't have
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to carry yourself, you can just relax and the world outside can
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simply wait. Wait because it will still be
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there and you will meet it again.
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But not yet. Not quite yet.
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I'd like you to imagine that forest.
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The weather changes. I want you to imagine that
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rather than sunshine, you're seeing heavy clouds.
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One of those grey, flat days where the sky seems to press
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down, where the light feels thin and the world feels muted.
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And I want you to think about something about that sky.
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Is the sun gone on those days? The days of heavy cloud?
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Well, does the sun still exist? It's just simply obscured.
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It's there even if you can't see it and you know the sun is
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there. It's not stopped burning, it's
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not moved. It's precisely where it always
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is. The cloud simply sits between
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you and it. And clouds, no matter how heavy,
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no matter how long they've been there, always temporary.
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Clouds aren't permanent. Emotions and moods aren't
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permanent. And the part of you that feels
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joy? Part of you that feels creative,
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part of you that can get lost in your own imagination when
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walking in a forest or doing something creative.
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The part of you that smiles when people think about you and plan
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something special. The part that has plans and
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ideas and a particular way of seeing things that is uniquely
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yours. That part has not gone anywhere.
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It's just temporarily behind the clouds.
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Exactly where it has always been, patient, waiting, intact.
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And as you breathe in that hope, you can imagine going deeper.
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Not deeper into the heaviness, but deeper through it.
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Down through the cloud layer, down toward the part of view the
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weather cannot touch. I'll countdown from 12:50 and
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you will imagine going beyond the clouds, 1098.
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Going gently deeper 765. Heaviness becoming lighter as
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you descend through it rather than sitting beneath it. 4, 3,
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2:00 and 1:00. And now, as you imagine the
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forest, it's back to sunshine. There is a quality of light,
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softer than sunshine, but steady.
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The light that is simply yours and has always been yours.
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We're going to spend some time here with this light.
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Everyone feels different emotions, different times.
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Everyone can feel low and sad sometimes.
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There's a particular kind of darkness, and one of the
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features of being in that mood is the way the brain starts to
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edit and change memory and possibility.
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It can make it difficult to remember feeling well, and
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difficult to imagine feeling differently.
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It narrows the view to the immediate and the difficult and
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whispers that this is simply how things are.
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Because right now I know that your unconscious is listening.
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I will say directly that what you are experiencing is real.
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The sadness, emptiness, heaviness is real.
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Low energy is real. The feeling of not being good
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enough is real. And though it's not accurate,
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it's still real emotions. There is an important difference
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between those two things. Something can feel completely
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true and still be a symptom rather than a fact.
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There was perhaps a moment in your childhood thinking of Santa
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Claus or tooth fairies or something else magical, and the
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excitement and the joy was real, even if the belief behind it was
19:27
false. And you've had times when you've
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had a fever and you felt cold even when it was warm.
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Or the way that grief makes the future feel impossible, even
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when it's not. You are not broken, and you are
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not beyond help. You are not a burden.
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You are someone whose nervous system has been running on empty
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for long enough that it has begun to send distress signals,
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and those signals are asking for something, not announcing a
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permanent state. And what if what you feel right
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now is real and also not the whole truth?
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What if both things are true at the same time?
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And if there's a particular thought, even if it's only
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fleetingly popped up any idea that people you love might
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somehow be better off without you, I want you to sit with that
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thought, just for a moment. Not to dismiss it, but to look
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at it carefully. Because when we look carefully,
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we find something unique, special, or unexpected inside
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it. Because that thought arises not
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in someone who doesn't care. It exists within someone who
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cares so deeply about the people they love that they've turned
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that care against themselves. Someone that has looked at pain
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and thought maybe my pain is their burden, and that thought,
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however painful, is actually evidence of an enormous heart.
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Someone that cares, someone that loves, because a person who
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didn't love their family couldn't have that thought.
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It requires love to generate it. And love, real love, cannot see
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clearly when it's turned inwards against itself.
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So your unconscious can hold this.
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The thought of others being better off is simply love that
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has become misdirected, love that is trying to protect
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others. And what that Love Actually
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needs needs to be turned gently outward again toward connection,
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toward the people, the people you love the most, the people
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you'd love to have more time to be with.
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And these people don't just want you here.
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They need you here. Not a version of you without
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struggle, and not a fixed or perfect or endlessly capable
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version. You, imperfect and still
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valuable, filled with creativity and warmth, a generous spirit
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that is uniquely yours. You are not a burden to the
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people you love you or someone they love.
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And the very essence of love needs you here and allow your
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unconscious to search. The kind of search through draw
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for something you know is there, the search for keys you've put
24:00
somewhere and can't quite find them.
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And I want you to search not for something tangible, but a
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memory. It doesn't need to be a large or
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dramatic one, Just a moment where you felt genuinely like
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yourself, when something creative was flowing, when there
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was energy present, when you felt warmth for the people
24:34
around you and it moved freely rather than being blocked.
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Maybe you can recall a moment of doing something inspired with
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creativity and in that moment, sometimes when you're immersed
24:53
in something creative, time has a habit of disappearing in those
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moments. The way the body feels different
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when it's engaged in making or creating something beautiful.
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Or maybe you visit a memory of real connection, laughing with
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someone, feeling understood, being fully present with another
25:24
person without the effort of managing how you appear.
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Maybe it's a hug, maybe it's something else.
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Just let that memory or that feeling return to your body, not
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as an instruction to feel differently, just as a reminder
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that this quality of experience is yours.
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It exists in you. It is part of your nervous
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system's genuine repertoire. And that sadness has made it
26:04
harder to access, but not impossible.
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And when you relive that moment, even if it's just the idea of
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it, notice where in the body that memory lives.
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Sometimes intense memories come with a feeling, maybe a warmth
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in the chest, a lightness in the shoulders, a particular quality
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in the breath. Let it be there, however faint,
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because even a faint signal is a signal.
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And signals can be amplified and strengthened because the
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creative, loving, energetic part of you is not lost.
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It is resting, and it will return.
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It has always returned and always will.
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And what if there's something important to understand about
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how mood and action relate when you feel low?
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The brain tells a convincing lie about this.
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The lie sounds like this. When I feel better, I'll do
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things. It presents itself as
27:36
reasonable, as self compassionate, as simply waiting
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for the right conditions. But the research and the real
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experiences of thousands of people who have come through
27:54
this same darkness tells a different story.
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Paradoxically, the action comes first and the mood follows the
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action, not the other way round. And it doesn't need to be large
28:14
action, It doesn't need to be a goal that will take months,
28:21
happening in days, doesn't require an immediate
28:28
transformation or a fake smile. But the pressure, the pressure
28:36
of becoming a different person isn't pressure if it's broken
28:43
down into small, manageable actions.
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Because even the smallest possible action still counts as
28:54
something. Whatever creativity is for you.
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A paintbrush, sketching ideas, writing, just doing that even
29:08
for 5 minutes, not because you feel like it, but because there
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is a part within you that loves it and it's still there.
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I want you to imagine a flower that's been deprived of sunshine
29:32
and water. Imagine it wilted.
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And if the flower waited to feel strong again before it had water
29:41
or sunshine, it would just get weaker and weaker.
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But the moment that wilted flower gets sunshine and
29:48
rainwater, within minutes it starts to strengthen, revitalize
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and with creativity or movement. Connection is like sunshine and
30:05
rainwater for you. It feeds the part within you,
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but likes to feel hope and joy, happiness and connection.
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And something wonderful happens in the nervous system when we do
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even tiny things like this. A small release of the chemicals
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that low mood starts to suppress, a tiny signal sent to
30:35
the brain that says I did a thing.
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And the brain reliably responds to that signal.
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Not dramatically, but still measurably.
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And measurable is where we begin.
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You're unconscious. Can make a note of this not as a
30:58
demand, but as an invitation that when darkness or heaviness
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or lowness is present, the smallest creative act, the
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briefest moment of engagement with something or someone that
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is genuine, is not a distraction from this low mood.
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It's the treatment. You do not need to wait to feel
31:27
better, to begin. You begin and then you feel,
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even if it's just a little bit, you feel better.
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Small is not nothing, and small is where it starts.
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And what if there's a belief, one that's been present for a
31:54
long time, perhaps longer than this current feeling of low
32:00
mood, the belief that says I'm not good enough?
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And your unconscious can begin to examine this belief, not to
32:13
fight it, but to ask some honest questions about where it came
32:18
from and whether it was actually yours.
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Police are not born with us so much belief, such as programming
32:31
installed by our parents. A newborn does not wonder
32:39
whether they are good enough. They simply are holy and
32:45
completely without condition or caveat.
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The sense of being not enough is learned, absorbed from an
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environment that perhaps had its own pain, its own limitations,
33:06
its own difficulty. Loving well.
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And when love is conditional in childhood, when that warmth is
33:18
inconsistent, when a child learns that they must earn their
33:24
place, sometimes that child's nervous system encodes a rule
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that somehow they are only acceptable when they perform
33:38
well enough, when they please well enough, when they manage
33:44
well enough. That worthiness is conditional
33:51
on them being valuable. Just allow a different way of
34:00
perceiving it. That your worth is not something
34:04
can be added to by achievement or subtracted from by struggle.
34:12
It is simply there, underneath the cloud, underneath any
34:19
depressive feelings, underneath the belief that was handed to
34:23
you by someone who was themselves limited.
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It is there in the same way that joyful, loving part of you is
34:37
there under the ice, the same way the sun is there on a grey
34:43
day. Not earned, not at risk.
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Simply there. You are enough now, Not when you
34:58
achieve more, and not when you feel better and not when you
35:02
look different. Now you are enough.
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And let's take a trip into the future.
35:14
Not far, perhaps. An occasion, a celebration, a
35:21
recognition. Maybe you visit a room, a place
35:30
already being prepared for you, A milestone, a representation of
35:41
the value that you have created over years and years.
35:50
Maybe you can imagine an invitation and your name is on
35:54
the invitation. Maybe you can imagine balloons
35:58
or people's faces smiling, and just imagine arriving not as the
36:09
person who is struggling to find the light, or still under the
36:14
eyes behind the clouds, but as the person beyond it.
36:22
The person, the version of you who made it through this
36:25
difficult period this season and emerged carrying something hard
36:30
won and real. And see yourself like you're
36:35
someone else. And notice how you're standing.
36:41
And notice there's a quality in the posture that comes from
36:45
having come through something. You don't need to be perfect,
36:51
not finished, not fixed, but present.
36:57
Notice what you're wearing. See the facial expressions in
37:03
that version of you. Maybe smiling, laughing,
37:06
talking, and how you are is enough.
37:12
No need to embellish or exaggerate.
37:17
People pay a compliment. You say thanks.
37:24
The confidence that comes from having not met some external
37:30
standard, but from being someone who chose one day at a time,
37:38
moment by moment. Lots of small little wins.
37:46
There'll be lots of people in that room who are glad you're
37:48
there. We don't see what you imagine
37:53
they see. They see warmth, competency,
37:59
loyalty, dedication. So let yourself feel, even just
38:07
briefly, what it might feel like to be that person standing in
38:14
that room, having made it from here to there, one small win at
38:23
a time. Every day you are here is a day
38:31
you have chosen to be here, and that choice matters.
38:39
You're allowed to receive help, and you're allowed to need
38:43
support. And needing support is not
38:47
weakness. It's how human beings are
38:53
designed, collaborative, and you've carried difficult things
39:00
before. Your past is full of evidence
39:04
that you can endure, you can recover.
39:06
You can wait for the clouds to pass and the ice to melt, and
39:15
the creative part of you is still alive and thriving within
39:20
you. And the more you reward that
39:29
part within you, the more that part within you will grow.
39:38
You are not a burden, you are a person.
39:43
It's good to improve, it's good to get better, but that is not a
39:49
requirement. You are worthy exactly as you
39:54
are. Because feeling low, it's just
39:59
like the weather, it's just a temporary state and just as the
40:06
weather changes, so. With the emotions and feelings
40:13
within you, you are good enough. You've always been good enough.
40:23
You were good enough before and you are good enough now.
40:30
And perhaps it's already that 200th breath.
40:35
And just imagine that smiling, energetic, creative version of
40:40
you is now free from the prison of ice.
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And just imagine the clouds are long gone and there is sunshine
40:48
in the forest again. And just imagine connecting with
40:55
that part within you that has hope, that has energy, that has
41:03
creativity, unleashing a desire to make tiny action, small
41:10
decisions that generate progress and tiny wins that move you
41:18
forward one tiny step at a time. Imagine leaving the forest and
41:27
floating back to the present. But give permission to feel
41:33
however you feel and allow your unconscious to make tiny changes
41:41
to enhance more of those resourceful feelings and less of
41:46
those unresourceful feelings. Still breathing in that colour
41:51
of hope and starting to think of all the things you can do.
42:00
Take a deep breath in through your nose, Stand out through
42:05
your nose and wiggle your fingers and wiggle your toes.
42:10
Connect and calibrate into the here and the now as I now count
42:14
from 1:00 to 10:00 to awaken you.
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Starting to count 123 waking up 456 more alert 7-8.
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Open your eyes. Open your eyes 910 Wide awake,
42:34
Wide awake. Wide awake.
42:48
Thank you so much for. Joining me on today's.
42:50
Episode of The Hypnotist if you've enjoyed this.
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description where you can subscribe at a very low cost and
43:27
only get access to the hypnosis. So if that's of.
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Interest, please check that out. Thank you again for being a
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regular listener of The Hypnotist and I'll see you again
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soon for more.