Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 118: Hypnosis Curious? What Self-Hypnosis Is and How to Get Started

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118: Hypnosis Curious? What Self-Hypnosis Is and How to Get Started · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:27
  Polly Mertens: Hey superstars, welcome back.
• 0:28
  Polly Mertens: Polly here.
• 0:29
  Polly Mertens: And Sam Pruitt back at it.
• 0:33
  Polly Mertens: Let's go, lady.
• 0:34
  Polly Mertens: Let's go.
• 0:35
  Polly Mertens: Today, a fun topic for us.
• 0:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Hypnosis curious.
• 0:39
  Samantha Pruitt: It's really, well, I'm the curious one.
• 0:42
  Samantha Pruitt: We're the hypnotherapist.
• 0:44
  Samantha Pruitt: And it will be really fun for us to have this combo because I don't really know much about hypnotherapy.
• 0:50
  Samantha Pruitt: I believe in it.
• 0:52
  Samantha Pruitt: I know a little bit.
• 0:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, I know the power of it, but I don't really know much about it in any detail.
• 0:59
  Samantha Pruitt: And you're a certified therapist in it and have practiced it for a long time with patients, with clients, with yourself, etc.
• 1:06
  Samantha Pruitt: So I can't wait to dig into this.
• 1:09
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know, and I do want to give one um caveat.
• 1:12
  Polly Mertens: So I have not been doing so there's hypnosis and self-hypnosis, and that's one of the things that we wanted to like talk about a little bit.
• 1:19
  Polly Mertens: And um, I just want to say one of our sort of taglines as hypnotherapists is all hypnosis is self-hypnosis.
• 1:27
  Polly Mertens: So that's just something to just keep in mind.
• 1:29
  Polly Mertens: Is like they're not totally distinct.
• 1:31
  Polly Mertens: It's just sometimes you could say, is the therapist in the room or or not?
• 1:35
  Polly Mertens: You might say.
• 1:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Or is there an audio of the therapist?
• 1:40
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:40
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:41
  Polly Mertens: So, um you know, so today we'll go into like what is hypnosis, probably dispel a bunch of myths.
• 1:47
  Polly Mertens: Like when I first learned about hypnosis for myself.
• 1:50
  Polly Mertens: So I had uh I I could talk about my journey through what that we'll say that for another time.
• 1:55
  Polly Mertens: But you know, I had a hypnotherapist, did hypnotherapy, you know, with her for a while, then I got so curious in it.
• 2:04
  Polly Mertens: Number one, because you know, wherever I came from with my coaching background was a lot of like addiction and people with severe eating disorders, 30, 40 years and stuff.
• 2:13
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, you know, it's kind of like you got a major overhaul in there.
• 2:17
  Polly Mertens: You know, you know, you gotta get some serious tools because there's a lot in the way with addiction that uh keeps those patterns in place, right?
• 2:24
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 2:25
  Polly Mertens: And so I was really drawn to what else was available, like how else could I help these people unpack and you know, because the typical therapist works with an eating disorder client and not even treating them like like in recovery, seven years, like seven years is the average.
• 2:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow.
• 2:46
  Samantha Pruitt: I have I had no idea.
• 2:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, wow.
• 2:48
  Polly Mertens: Who wants to be doing this for the next seven?
• 2:50
  Polly Mertens: Like you, when you want it done, you're like, no, I kind of want that change now, you know.
• 2:55
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 2:55
  Polly Mertens: So yeah.
• 2:56
  Polly Mertens: So I was like, all right, well, how else, how else are people getting results?
• 3:00
  Polly Mertens: How else are people, you know, transforming addictions to whatever they are or improving?
• 3:05
  Polly Mertens: You can do it on like stopping doing things and starting doing things, right?
• 3:08
  Polly Mertens: And we'll go into lists of like ways that you can use this.
• 3:11
  Polly Mertens: So um A, I think one of the things I just wanted to touch upon, and we said this a little bit before we went on air, is I really see hypnotherapy and just hypnosis in general becoming more and more mainstream.
• 3:24
  Polly Mertens: Like, um, and maybe it's like a West Coast thing, because I'm in California, we're in California, it's a little more adopted, but um, or acceptable, if you will.
• 3:32
  Polly Mertens: Um, but I could definitely see as part of the consciousness movement, and you know, I mean, hypnosis has been around for hundreds of years.
• 3:39
  Polly Mertens: This is not like, oh, developed in 1990, you know, or 2007 or something.
• 3:45
  Polly Mertens: It's like totally yeah, and actually hypnosis, what it is, and maybe this is a good time to just talk about that, is hypnosis is just a state of relaxation.
• 3:55
  Polly Mertens: And so one of the things I think that helped most of my clients are people that are like hypnosis, it's woo-woo, what is it?
• 4:02
  Polly Mertens: Is you're actually in hypnosis a lot during the day.
• 4:07
  Polly Mertens: And people don't realize it, right?
• 4:08
  Polly Mertens: So some really easy examples.
• 4:10
  Polly Mertens: So it's states of mind.
• 4:11
  Polly Mertens: So if we think about being at rest, like asleep, is like like like alpha, like you're out, right?
• 4:18
  Polly Mertens: You're not conscious, if you will.
• 4:20
  Polly Mertens: Brain, you know, you've got activity and stuff like that, but you don't remember anything.
• 4:23
  Polly Mertens: Um, or you, you know, you won't conscious sometimes you remember your dreams, whatever.
• 4:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, but then you know, we're we're up here in active mind and you know, actively engaged, and then there's states, so like that drowsy, sleepy on your way to sleep.
• 4:37
  Polly Mertens: So you're like, you're like, I'm just laying there, but you're kind of still having thought.
• 4:42
  Polly Mertens: That's hypnosis.
• 4:44
  Polly Mertens: Oh wow, okay.
• 4:45
  Polly Mertens: That's all it is.
• 4:46
  Polly Mertens: So hypnosis.
• 4:47
  Polly Mertens: So I look one of the ways that I really started to distinguish it as I was getting trained in it.
• 4:51
  Polly Mertens: And the funny thing is like, so when you do the certification, you're hypnotizing people, like you're in class with people and you're practicing, you know.
• 4:59
  Polly Mertens: So I'm I'm hypnotized a lot, a lot, practicing a lot, and I was getting hypnotized a lot, right?
• 5:04
  Polly Mertens: So they were doing it on me.
• 5:06
  Polly Mertens: So there was one day where I got hypnotized five times, and it was like, wow, it was amazing.
• 5:10
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and you know, one of the things I can remember um, because I I don't do it actively with clients right now.
• 5:18
  Polly Mertens: Like I don't have my office and people come in and I hypnotize like on the daily.
• 5:22
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I was doing it a lot, is um I like I would tell my clients, it's like I just recently gave blood, and they're like, oh, you know, drink water and take it easy tonight and no heavy lifting things, whatever.
• 5:34
  Polly Mertens: And like when you go get a massage, they're like, be gentle with yourself, drink some water.
• 5:38
  Polly Mertens: Hypnosis is like that.
• 5:40
  Polly Mertens: Like it's such a deep state of relaxation that it's like you like don't make your brain do hard things after this, if you will.
• 5:49
  Polly Mertens: You know, just like like it's such it's you know, it's like a I would kind of liken it to a massage for your mind, right?
• 5:56
  Polly Mertens: Like you go.
• 5:56
  Polly Mertens: That's fascinating.
• 5:58
  Polly Mertens: You get a massage and you feel all like, ah, right.
• 6:01
  Polly Mertens: So depending on the length of the hypnosis and what you're doing, I mean you could just go in for like a little tiny thing, but it can be it's so such a state of relaxation for mind and body.
• 6:10
  Polly Mertens: And you and I know the subconscious is your body, basically, it's an expression.
• 6:14
  Polly Mertens: So when you have this relaxed state of body, your mind is still active.
• 6:20
  Polly Mertens: So in hypnosis, you're not asleep.
• 6:22
  Polly Mertens: It's not like you're not there.
• 6:23
  Polly Mertens: You're actually like like one of the common questions is like, Am I hypnotized?
• 6:28
  Polly Mertens: Like, you know, like one of the first things you go, Am I hypnotized?
• 6:32
  Polly Mertens: You know, like you'll you'll ask that or wonder.
• 6:34
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, yeah, you know.
• 6:36
  Polly Mertens: So anyway.
• 6:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Uh so a couple questions.
• 6:39
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm gonna ask lots of questions today.
• 6:43
  Polly Mertens: What's that mean?
• 6:44
  Polly Mertens: Oh, your your audio broke up on me for a second.
• 6:46
  Polly Mertens: Say it again, please.
• 6:47
  Polly Mertens: Can you hear me?
• 6:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:49
  Samantha Pruitt: So one of my questions is if it's that state of relaxation, we'll just liken it to that kind of you know, minutes or time before bed sort of thing.
• 7:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, and it is a massage and really a reprogramming of your brain.
• 7:08
  Samantha Pruitt: We'll get into all of those things, how it works.
• 7:11
  Samantha Pruitt: There must be an ideal time to do it, because an example would be we probably don't want to hypnotize somebody five times a day, even though you were in classes and you this is just how it went, right?
• 7:23
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like when I was studying holistic health and we were doing therapies over and over and over to learn the therapies, and you're like, I'm pretty sure this is not how we should do it in the real world.
• 7:34
  Polly Mertens: Cleansing five times a day, exhausted, chiropractic.
• 7:38
  Polly Mertens: You know, somebody's like learning chiropractic.
• 7:40
  Polly Mertens: You're like, I don't think I need another adjustment.
• 7:42
  Polly Mertens: Thanks.
• 7:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Don't touch me.
• 7:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally.
• 7:45
  Samantha Pruitt: But there must be an ideal time for it to be most effective, correct?
• 7:50
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, 100%, especially when it comes to self-hypnosis.
• 7:53
  Polly Mertens: So like I said, you always have two states of hypnosis per day.
• 7:58
  Polly Mertens: I I guarantee you probably have a hundred, but you always have two, right?
• 8:01
  Polly Mertens: In and out of sleep.
• 8:02
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 8:03
  Samantha Pruitt: In and out of sleep.
• 8:04
  Polly Mertens: In and out of sleep.
• 8:04
  Polly Mertens: So the number one best time for self-hypnosis is coming up from sleep.
• 8:08
  Polly Mertens: The number two best time for hypnosis, self-hypnosis is right before you fall asleep.
• 8:13
  Polly Mertens: And the other best time I would say is just like after lunch, you know, kind of midday.
• 8:17
  Polly Mertens: But there's no wrong time to do it.
• 8:19
  Polly Mertens: Um yeah, and and it's not the I've had, you know, so with good practice and good practitioners, I've definitely known when people in my chair go so deep, and not asleep, but they just go so deep that they kind of like come up and they're still a little groggy, you know.
• 8:37
  Polly Mertens: So they're sort of like in that state still.
• 8:39
  Polly Mertens: And you know, and I you do everything to make sure they don't drive and leave driving, you know, because you don't want hypnosis driving or heavy machinery, and you know, all those right.
• 8:48
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 8:48
  Polly Mertens: Disclaimer warnings and stuff.
• 8:50
  Polly Mertens: So yeah, yeah.
• 8:51
  Polly Mertens: So attach it to a siesta is the ideal.
• 8:55
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, exactly.
• 8:55
  Polly Mertens: Interesting.
• 8:56
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, exactly.
• 8:56
  Polly Mertens: My brain is naturally in that state, right?
• 8:58
  Polly Mertens: So, like what I'm doing right now, so one of the things we're gonna talk about is I'm doing a lot of self-hypnosis.
• 9:04
  Polly Mertens: I'm actually, you know, like in a run, like doing it three times a day.
• 9:07
  Polly Mertens: I'm doing it at those times, so in the morning, in the evening, and midday.
• 9:10
  Polly Mertens: And there's ways that you can trigger yourself to go into a hypnotic state that you know you can put yourself in quickly, if you will.
• 9:17
  Polly Mertens: Um and it's it's it's great, you know.
• 9:22
  Polly Mertens: I mean, so I'm doing it at those times, and just you know, I do it before I get out of bed, you know, like sit up in bed, get my headphones on.
• 9:29
  Polly Mertens: I do have a program that I listen to, so and maybe this is a good time to talk about it.
• 9:33
  Polly Mertens: So I had heard about the Silva method.
• 9:35
  Polly Mertens: You probably heard of it from the 70s or whatever, you know, it's making a comeback.
• 9:38
  Polly Mertens: I don't know.
• 9:39
  Polly Mertens: Well, in in my world anyway, it seems like it.
• 9:41
  Polly Mertens: So I've and I had never heard of, never did any of that work.
• 9:44
  Polly Mertens: It wasn't part of my hypnotherapy practice, but as I look into it, it's very much self-hypnosis basis, it feels like.
• 9:51
  Polly Mertens: So and I find it to be quality work.
• 9:54
  Polly Mertens: Like I'm listening to them and and I'm doing that material, and it's awesome.
• 9:58
  Polly Mertens: It's awesome.
• 9:59
  Polly Mertens: So feels good to be back in you know, strengthening that muscle.
• 10:02
  Polly Mertens: And I really think that that's where, like for me, um, you know, there's and we'll go over like some of the possible use cases, or how could you apply this, or you know, why would you do this?
• 10:14
  Polly Mertens: You know, um, I mean, people do it to run faster, jump higher, you know, those types of things.
• 10:19
  Polly Mertens: Some people, like we talked about addiction and habits and stuff.
• 10:22
  Polly Mertens: Mine is like, I found that my brain was going so much to scarcity thinking and just like these, like I just saw these negative pattern loops that I'm like, that's like no.
• 10:33
  Polly Mertens: And I did a little work with a uh coach therapist on narrative therapy, which helps me see like one of my stories was actually one of my inherited stories from my parents, you know, on scarcity.
• 10:43
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, hold up, right?
• 10:45
  Polly Mertens: At least getting it out of my subconscious and getting it where it was.
• 10:48
  Polly Mertens: I was conscious that it was in my subconscious helped me.
• 10:51
  Polly Mertens: I'm not attacking that one, but I'm doing some other things through my self-hypnosis that are, you know, um retraining those pathways.
• 11:01
  Polly Mertens: So I'm not going down this scarcity, scarcity, scarcity, you know, mindset.
• 11:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's kind of you were starting to go there, like walk us through what you're doing.
• 11:12
  Samantha Pruitt: So you're listening to an audio, but like from start to finish.
• 11:15
  Samantha Pruitt: So A, what's your intention behind doing the series of hypnosis, self-hypnosis sessions or audio-driven self-hypnosis sessions, however they're called?
• 11:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, and then what's like the walk us through it for the virgins in the room?
• 11:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, what do you what does this even look like?
• 11:32
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, people visualize weird things, you know, like whatever they saw on the movies or on TV and they think zombie apocalypse kind of bizarre things.
• 11:40
  Polly Mertens: And people do see what we call stage hypnosis, so in hypnotherapy, and then there's stage hypnosis, right?
• 11:46
  Polly Mertens: Which is even surprising to me.
• 11:48
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, damn, how do they you know?
• 11:50
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I did take one class which was I wouldn't call it stage hypnosis, they weren't training you to do that, but I was like, I could see how these techniques, like crazy things, like you just pull someone's hand and they just like go right into hypnosis.
• 12:03
  Polly Mertens: I was like, wow, you know, that's amazing.
• 12:07
  Polly Mertens: And they fully were like, I saw it all like hours of it.
• 12:10
  Polly Mertens: I was like, okay, so it's not we're not we're talking about a totally different thing that's totally possible and sure, whatever.
• 12:17
  Polly Mertens: Um, but like just so you know, like a lot of social media is hypnosis, all right?
• 12:22
  Polly Mertens: Because you get very doom, you know, scrolly scrolly related.
• 12:25
  Polly Mertens: I call that a trance, and that's hypnosis.
• 12:29
  Polly Mertens: Okay, okay, that's wild.
• 12:31
  Polly Mertens: Watching television, you know.
• 12:33
  Polly Mertens: So why TV, you know, in the days of old where you know, you and I, we would sit and watch television, our parents watch television, you're just kind of like checking out, right?
• 12:42
  Polly Mertens: Like you're in, you know, so hypnosis.
• 12:45
  Polly Mertens: Have you ever been to a movie and you're like so in the movie you like forget that you're in a theater, right?
• 12:50
  Polly Mertens: That's okay, yeah.
• 12:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, that's hypnosis.
• 12:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, dude, I think I hypnotized myself on the treadmill today.
• 12:55
  Samantha Pruitt: I know that sounds freaking weird.
• 12:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, totally.
• 12:58
  Samantha Pruitt: But it I do meditate while I'm moving, so why would this be any different?
• 13:02
  Samantha Pruitt: And I was doing a particular type of workout where I was lifting really heavy, then running on the treadmill, lifting really heavy and then running on the treadmill.
• 13:09
  Samantha Pruitt: And I was doing this really fun, crazy ass workout.
• 13:11
  Samantha Pruitt: And every time I went to jump on the treadmill and like kick it up, like go, you know, it was five-minute treadmill sessions.
• 13:20
  Samantha Pruitt: I just got so tunnel vision.
• 13:23
  Samantha Pruitt: I literally was staring at a plant, one plant, outside the window across the lawn.
• 13:30
  Samantha Pruitt: I was just like literally like and I was ramping up my pace during intervals, and then stopped and then back to, and I did that three times.
• 13:38
  Samantha Pruitt: And every time I just got on this plant and I didn't think about anything, my body was just doing it, doing it at a remarkable pace, form, everything just felt in sync.
• 13:53
  Samantha Pruitt: It was wild.
• 13:54
  Samantha Pruitt: My breathing, everything, it was remarkable.
• 13:56
  Samantha Pruitt: And I just thought, what am I?
• 13:58
  Samantha Pruitt: I had a lot of caffeine.
• 14:00
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm just crushing this workout.
• 14:01
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't think about the mental side of it.
• 14:03
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, well, you know, so one thing that translates for me, and so there's similarities of how I think that could.
• 14:09
  Polly Mertens: I mean, you're it's surprising me like you could be that much movement.
• 14:12
  Polly Mertens: Like, I think about me on the treadmill, I'm so spastic that like if I like just focus on one thing, I'd probably hurt myself.
• 14:18
  Polly Mertens: So I'm like, could you do that?
• 14:20
  Samantha Pruitt: But I could see you.
• 14:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, remember, I'm an ultra runner, we go zombie apocalypse a lot, we go into trances all the time.
• 14:26
  Polly Mertens: No, it is, yeah.
• 14:27
  Polly Mertens: I think that's why you enjoy that so much.
• 14:30
  Polly Mertens: Because I was thinking about that for you.
• 14:31
  Polly Mertens: It's like, you know, a lot of your just hours and miles of running is trance.
• 14:37
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 14:37
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 14:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, let's talk about your session.
• 14:40
  Samantha Pruitt: So you go into each session with an intention.
• 14:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 14:45
  Polly Mertens: Well, so you can have so like there's training, you know, so like learning how to do it.
• 14:50
  Polly Mertens: So, like some of it was I'm just learning the silva method.
• 14:52
  Polly Mertens: Like there's I don't know how I haven't gotten to the bottom of the I I'm literally just cheating and going on YouTube.
• 14:58
  Polly Mertens: I haven't bought anything, so I'm just like finding their library online.
• 15:01
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, oh, what's this one about?
• 15:03
  Polly Mertens: And you know, doing it.
• 15:04
  Polly Mertens: So there's um a couple I think that they do regularly, sort of like the core.
• 15:09
  Polly Mertens: And then I'm sure it feels like there's lots that they developed over a lifetime of study of this.
• 15:14
  Polly Mertens: They've got a bunch of them, but you know, some core ones.
• 15:16
  Polly Mertens: Like the first one is just like self-hypnosis 101, like getting yourself, let's say, with intention, how do you take yourself into a trance state, right?
• 15:25
  Polly Mertens: How do you go from this active mind talking to me, blah, blah, blah, to you're in trance, right?
• 15:30
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 15:31
  Polly Mertens: So some of their videos are just that over and over again.
• 15:34
  Polly Mertens: And then they can be laced with.
• 15:36
  Polly Mertens: So this is a you know, this is kind of like hypnosis 101 is whatever the we call them inductions.
• 15:42
  Polly Mertens: So whatever the induction is to get the person into the meditation, sorry, not the meditation, the hyp hypnotic state, get them in a state where their body is calm, mind is calm, they're open to subconscious, you know, messages that they want to have, you know, programmed, transformed inside themselves.
• 15:58
  Polly Mertens: Whatever the induction method is, and there's lots of them.
• 16:00
  Polly Mertens: Like on the stage, it's like boop, yanked your hand, boop, they're out, right?
• 16:03
  Polly Mertens: Like, wow.
• 16:04
  Polly Mertens: But you know, it could be so, and then it's various phases in the session of what you're programming, what are you doing, right?
• 16:13
  Polly Mertens: So definitely I've seen and have done, you know, guided journeys, you know, so metaphors, the brain loves metaphors.
• 16:20
  Polly Mertens: So sometimes it's like guided journeys of pictures and whatnot, and the brain um takes the story and interprets it, right?
• 16:28
  Polly Mertens: So, like I'll do ones that like give people confidence or releases baggage or you know, gets them self-expressed or gets them in action where they're procrastinating, you know, different things, right?
• 16:39
  Polly Mertens: So there's that.
• 16:40
  Polly Mertens: So whatever it is, and it can be very hyper-specific for you.
• 16:44
  Polly Mertens: So if you work with hypnotherapists, they're literally, you know, when I would take an intake with my client, I was like, what's going on?
• 16:50
  Polly Mertens: What's holding you back?
• 16:51
  Polly Mertens: You know, and a lot of times when you think about hypnotherapy, one of the key things is I know I should do something and I'm not.
• 16:58
  Polly Mertens: That's like fucking perfect for hypnosis.
• 17:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, that's pretty much everybody has those things, if not one significant, many, many, many.
• 17:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, so this really makes me feel strongly about you having a practitioner, a hypnotherapist, because having the conversation is also a critical element, which is, you know, it's a type of coaching.
• 17:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Understanding, you're talking about intakes and conversations in advance, what's really going on with the human rather than just plopping somebody down in the chair or just listening to an audio of whatever, like your unique person and your particular program, programming for the hypnotherapy should be unique to you.
• 17:41
  Polly Mertens: And that's where, so like if you have an outcome or result or something you specifically know you're being held back by, like I can't lose this weight, I can't stop whatever.
• 17:50
  Polly Mertens: I, you know, like like you said, you're wanting to do something and you know you're not doing it.
• 17:53
  Polly Mertens: If you've got that hyper-specific yes, you can through self-hypnosis, I can tell you how you do it yourself.
• 17:58
  Polly Mertens: But I think number one, go work with somebody because the way that they'll language it and they'll know they'll they'll put it in and they'll keep create a cadence with you.
• 18:06
  Polly Mertens: Maybe it's like three, five sessions or something, they'll have you come back on the weekly.
• 18:10
  Polly Mertens: Um, just really will fine-tune that, you know.
• 18:13
  Polly Mertens: So definitely.
• 18:14
  Polly Mertens: But there's like a lot of hypnosis can be very just generally well-being.
• 18:20
  Polly Mertens: You know, you can do a lot for your health.
• 18:22
  Polly Mertens: Like if you just want to maintain a healthy body, um, you want to like the one with Silva, what one of the things my favorite things that he said is um every day and every way I'm better and better.
• 18:32
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, what the fuck?
• 18:33
  Polly Mertens: That's brilliant.
• 18:34
  Polly Mertens: That's that's just like golden.
• 18:36
  Polly Mertens: Like in the message inside the subconscious, it can solve a lot of, you know, it's sort of like a um, you know, it's like a disinfectant, and it can just like clean up a lot of bacteria quickly, you know, it can just it instantly reprograms the stuckness that many people sit in.
• 18:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, and what immediately came to my mind too was people who are ill, you know, I've got three people that are uh in cancer battles right now and talking about their nervous system and different things going on with them and how to work with that.
• 19:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Hypnotherapy could be an amazing tool for anyone in chronic pain and illness and all of this stuff, whether it's mental or physical.
• 19:15
  Polly Mertens: Well, imagine so two of the most remarkable, and I'm sure there's ten that I don't even two of the most remarkable, I think, just touching upon what you said when we go to the body, you know, like we were talking about like the mind and stuff, like oh, habits and stuff.
• 19:30
  Polly Mertens: Hypnotherapy for childbirth is a thing.
• 19:34
  Polly Mertens: Hypnotherapy for dental work is a thing.
• 19:37
  Polly Mertens: Wow, no Novicaine.
• 19:41
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, that's crazy.
• 19:42
  Polly Mertens: Crazy amount of work, yeah.
• 19:43
  Polly Mertens: So hypnotherapists go into the dentist office with you and they will hypnotize you for your session with the dentist.
• 19:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, what and there's like so basically to put it in simple layman's terms, since that's who I am, it is a type of therapy, and you can use a therapist, a practitioner to you know utilize this therapy, just like any of the therapies that are out there, and the more we have these tools and different types of therapies, the better we're all gonna all gonna be because society is suffering if people haven't noticed, right?
• 20:15
  Samantha Pruitt: So this is one of those therapies, but it allows you to get yourself into a deep relaxed state, to be open to changing programming.
• 20:26
  Samantha Pruitt: That's kind of how I'm vibing.
• 20:28
  Samantha Pruitt: This am I on track so far?
• 20:30
  Polly Mertens: It has so many that I I want to say.
• 20:33
  Polly Mertens: There was like a list of 200 common uses of hypnotherapy when we studied like 200 common, right?
• 20:39
  Polly Mertens: And not to mention all the ones that people I don't even know, you know, like the dental one is not everyday common, but it's common.
• 20:46
  Polly Mertens: Like there's like it's it's a thing.
• 20:47
  Polly Mertens: The childbirthing, it's a thing, right?
• 20:49
  Polly Mertens: Surgery, you know, like it, these are not unheard of, if you will.
• 20:54
  Polly Mertens: So um, phobias, fears, I mean, like you name like like that one I gave you.
• 20:59
  Polly Mertens: Like, if you've got something that you know you should be doing and you're not, that's like a clock like that's a classic one.
• 21:04
  Polly Mertens: If there's like things that you want to get better, I absolutely would use it for anyone that has the inkling of a start of a disease or a breakdown or a malaise or some sort of disease that they're starting with.
• 21:16
  Polly Mertens: You can even just do like I talked about like that um every day, every way, I'm getting better and better.
• 21:20
  Polly Mertens: That's just like um disinfecting, you know, just like wipe that shit on everything, you know.
• 21:25
  Polly Mertens: And you can also get very specific with like, I mean, there's people, and I would venture to say if we studied them, that transform illness, like deep illness, into recession or you know, cure themselves, like blindness of that type of stuff.
• 21:42
  Polly Mertens: It's probably because they broke through something in the subconscious mind and they did that through a series or some hypnotherapy hypnotherapeutic style work, trance-like work, putting themselves or working with a practitioner or whatever.
• 21:57
  Samantha Pruitt: So, how does it work?
• 21:58
  Samantha Pruitt: What's going on in this subconscious?
• 22:02
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I I wish I could do it so we don't have like spries and stuff.
• 22:06
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:06
  Polly Mertens: Because I used to always, whenever somebody would come to my office, the first thing is I'd draw them a picture of their mind and just so they'd understand.
• 22:12
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, you've probably seen this classic meme on social media where there's like an iceberg and you see like the top of it, and then there's the Bottom of it, right?
• 22:20
  Polly Mertens: So that's probably the closest that you can visualize, like for now.
• 22:24
  Polly Mertens: So the top of the iceberg is your conscious mind.
• 22:27
  Polly Mertens: That's what you think is listening to me right now and translating all this.
• 22:30
  Polly Mertens: Running the show.
• 22:31
  Polly Mertens: They're running that show.
• 22:32
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 22:32
  Polly Mertens: Subconscious is under the surface.
• 22:35
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 22:36
  Polly Mertens: So that's like your identity, the stuff you're doing, the things that you're doing that you don't want to be doing.
• 22:41
  Polly Mertens: Like that's where all programming.
• 22:43
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, that's leading to disease and all whatever it's you know doing.
• 22:47
  Polly Mertens: So the that that where the um water brain.
• 22:52
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, your brain has a so the human brain as a baby.
• 22:58
  Polly Mertens: Babies kids are in a state of natural state of hypnosis and all the time.
• 23:04
  Polly Mertens: All the time.
• 23:06
  Polly Mertens: So like I just want to do a little disclaimer here for some parents.
• 23:10
  Polly Mertens: Kids up until about the age of six, eight, ten are always in hypnosis.
• 23:15
  Polly Mertens: That's why they're so creative.
• 23:16
  Polly Mertens: That's why it's like you can tell them, like, oh, Santa Claus, whatever.
• 23:19
  Polly Mertens: They're like, ah, they can like believe it, right?
• 23:21
  Polly Mertens: Because it's like poof, like they have no filter, right?
• 23:24
  Polly Mertens: And then about that time they start not believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or really dad, you know, like those kind of like they put that's that filter.
• 23:33
  Polly Mertens: So you have this natural filter that starts to form over the brain that protects the subconscious.
• 23:39
  Polly Mertens: Because if we were walking around totally in trance all the time, and can social marketers would have their way with us, they're already having their way with us, but we would just very little discernment might be happening.
• 23:50
  Polly Mertens: Exactly, exactly.
• 23:51
  Polly Mertens: So the brain forms this natural filtering to protect, you know, what what you've created, let's say, in the subconscious, right?
• 23:58
  Polly Mertens: Like this is sort of like baked in, this is who you are.
• 24:01
  Polly Mertens: Good, bad, or otherwise, right?
• 24:03
  Polly Mertens: So things come in in the outer world.
• 24:06
  Polly Mertens: So this is where I mean, one of the great things I've seen people use it for is like deep learning, like they want to learn stuff fast.
• 24:13
  Polly Mertens: Hypnosis, and then deep learning because it just goes right in.
• 24:16
  Polly Mertens: It's almost like like inserting it into your programming, right?
• 24:20
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 24:20
  Polly Mertens: So hypnosis is like if we took that um that filter and we just opened it up and we opened the doorway and you said, okay, I'm allowing myself to be susceptible right now, right?
• 24:31
  Polly Mertens: So, for example, when we go to a movie and we get so into that movie, we're allowing ourselves to be in a trance and be taken away with where that director wants us to go.
• 24:42
  Polly Mertens: Same with commercials and social media if we're not paying attention, right?
• 24:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Like so unfortunately.
• 24:47
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 24:47
  Polly Mertens: So, and you want to be careful where when you open up that doorway, what's going in, right?
• 24:52
  Polly Mertens: So have that be very intentional, being very self-efficacy, you know, like giving you agency, more powerful, more of who you are, that type of a thing.
• 25:03
  Polly Mertens: So that's all it is.
• 25:04
  Polly Mertens: So, what hypnosis is is it opens that doorway to your subconscious mind, allowing messaging, allowing new programming, allowing replacement programming to go in, right?
• 25:15
  Polly Mertens: Sometimes if you can note where the root of an old program is, right?
• 25:20
  Polly Mertens: Like working with a good hypnotherapist, they can like let's say I was a smoker.
• 25:23
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 25:24
  Polly Mertens: I know it's used a lot for smoking.
• 25:25
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 25:26
  Polly Mertens: So say smoking and smoking is typically tied to two things.
• 25:29
  Polly Mertens: One, it's like your friend, or it's cool, right?
• 25:32
  Polly Mertens: So that that's often it.
• 25:33
  Polly Mertens: So like the hypnotherapist can go in.
• 25:34
  Polly Mertens: I have a friend in like hypnotherapy smoking one session.
• 25:37
  Polly Mertens: Fucking A.
• 25:38
  Polly Mertens: Been smoking for a long time, too.
• 25:39
  Polly Mertens: I was like, damn.
• 25:40
  Polly Mertens: So they can go in and they can help with the root of what's created it or caused it, right?
• 25:46
  Polly Mertens: Like that person's like, I know I shouldn't be doing this because I and they even know what caused it, right?
• 25:52
  Polly Mertens: Like my dad did that, and I still do that, and I show up in relationships and I let him walk all over me, whatever, you know.
• 25:58
  Polly Mertens: So, yeah, so it can go in and help break up that root and like sort of like pull the weed, if you will, and plant a new seedling in there, and then you water it.
• 26:08
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 26:10
  Samantha Pruitt: What's happening in the brain?
• 26:11
  Samantha Pruitt: How is that working?
• 26:13
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like you're in this state where you're open, you know, the veil or the covering or the protective uh, you know, elements have been.
• 26:25
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, so a lot of what a lot of the way that the brain, so a couple there's a few ways to share about this.
• 26:32
  Polly Mertens: I and I don't know it's like, oh, it's this one, it's not that one.
• 26:34
  Polly Mertens: So your brain is very much programmed in pictures and images.
• 26:38
  Polly Mertens: We love to hear words and stuff like that, but the most responsive hypnotherapy is actually in pictures, right?
• 26:44
  Polly Mertens: So oftentimes when I like working with people, I love creating metaphors for pictures for their mind because the mind is less this is where being in a story, like why adults love um parables and stuff.
• 26:58
  Polly Mertens: Because like it can slip past that subconscious brain's filter of like, what's this story about?
• 27:02
  Polly Mertens: And then it goes, Oh, that's good.
• 27:05
  Polly Mertens: No, so yeah, so some of it is pictures, so you're planting new pictures in the brain, and then there's like a lot of the brain is neuroassociations, right?
• 27:14
  Polly Mertens: So like these things are related to these things, and so when you have addiction, you've got a lot of neuroassociations going in a direction and bound up on a yeah, this is the problem.
• 27:24
  Samantha Pruitt: This yeah together.
• 27:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 27:27
  Polly Mertens: So part of hypnotherapy can break it up, loosen it, and then give it the new pathways.
• 27:31
  Polly Mertens: Like, okay, this is what we're doing now.
• 27:33
  Polly Mertens: This we're so here's for any like this is a this isn't even totally related, but I noticed this this morning, right?
• 27:40
  Polly Mertens: So I've been doing some of my own programming.
• 27:42
  Polly Mertens: So just this morning, so I have this idea, and we haven't even talked about this because this has me to do with me coming to Coachella Valley, by the way, and there's a whole story about that.
• 27:49
  Polly Mertens: So we'll talk about that.
• 27:50
  Polly Mertens: So there's someone who's having an event in Coachella Valley in the beginning of May, and my scarcity brain would have been like, oh, you know, I'll ask Samantha if I can stay there, and you know, I'll do all this stuff on the cheap, right?
• 28:05
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'll, you know.
• 28:06
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, and I know from having gone to other conferences and dah-da-da, like proximity is key, right?
• 28:13
  Polly Mertens: Like staying with or being around those people or those impromptu, like, oh, you wake up for coffee and then you bump into somebody at the Starbucks in the hotel lobby, and you know, you right, those synchronicities.
• 28:23
  Polly Mertens: And if I stay somewhere else or whatever, like I have I limit that.
• 28:28
  Polly Mertens: And so this morning I was like, you know what?
• 28:30
  Polly Mertens: Going to that event.
• 28:32
  Polly Mertens: And and I'm still deciding if I am, but I was like, if I go to that event, I'm totally gonna stay at that hotel, like and that would not have occurred to me before.
• 28:40
  Polly Mertens: So I'm just saying, like, so the it's not always like a linear thing, like I like it can be very linear.
• 28:48
  Polly Mertens: It's like um, I remember I was one working with this one gal uh who had I called it like a caboose.
• 28:54
  Polly Mertens: So she would eat dinner, and then the caboose was she would eat pie or dessert or something like that, right?
• 28:58
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, we gotta let go of this caboose, right?
• 29:01
  Polly Mertens: So I helped unhook that from you know the the tie-in, right?
• 29:04
  Polly Mertens: We talk about the neuroassociations.
• 29:06
  Polly Mertens: I was like, let's unhook that.
• 29:07
  Polly Mertens: And it just stopped that pattern of like the the what drove her into the kitchen after dinner, or what had her mind go thinking about that or looking for the dessert or whatever.
• 29:17
  Polly Mertens: It's like we we walled that off, and it was like, nope, the caboose is not on the train anymore.
• 29:21
  Polly Mertens: So it can be very like more just discreet and linear like that, or like mine just now, which was like, I didn't even know when that scarcity mindset turned abundance mindset would come up, but that was it's starting to show up.
• 29:36
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, it's a rewiring.
• 29:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally, you know, it's completely a rewiring, and you can fixate on one thing like I want to stop smoking or I want to do XYZ, or you can focus the therapy on a scarcity mindset or a victim mindset or a whatever addict mindset, all of the things, right?
• 29:58
  Samantha Pruitt: We take on these personas as part of our identity.
• 30:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So it can be this giant thing that you're re-really just breaking down.
• 30:07
  Samantha Pruitt: I kind of like the idea of thinking about it as scars and scar tissue, because I am a physical person and very, you know, knowledgeable about the physical body and scar tissue and muscles and all the connective tissue, blah, blah, blah.
• 30:18
  Samantha Pruitt: So I like the idea of like going in and you know, breaking down that scar tissue, those lesions that have had that arm, muscle, brain, body, person, fully exactly in limited range of motion, in limited capability, you know, and in breaking that down and rewiring that area, be creating health again in that area and getting full range of motion, movement, and all of a sudden they can build a bicep or they can do a lunge or they can whatever the hell the thing is they want to do, run again.
• 30:49
  Polly Mertens: I mean, imagine if, and I love that, you know, analogy, if you know, for me for eating disorder, I had a hundred um trails going towards overeating and like no pathway to healthy non-eating whatever.
• 31:03
  Polly Mertens: If you apply that kind of repetition, like to something that you really care about, or like, you know, like some people can take it too far, you know, you go to bodybuilding and then you get like super into bodybuilding or whatever.
• 31:14
  Polly Mertens: You can supersize it a little too much, you know, and some people, but like apply it in an area where instead of it being for harm for yourself, you apply it for good in whatever way that works for you.
• 31:26
  Polly Mertens: Like, you know, people want to get up early, they want to meditate every day, they want to go for runs, they want to be a better student, they want to say nice things to their spouse or you know, whatever it is, right?
• 31:37
  Polly Mertens: Like apply that sort of programming and those neuroassociations towards something that you care about with intention.
• 31:45
  Polly Mertens: Exactly, exactly.
• 31:47
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, and I don't even know what the number is, but how much of the time throughout the day that we're basically in this just default mode operating out of these habits, these grooves, these pathways, this programming that's not serving us, but yet we just allow it day after day after day to run the show.
• 32:06
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 32:07
  Polly Mertens: And once they're programmed, you know, it's just as much.
• 32:10
  Polly Mertens: We talked about like how addiction can be very pulling, like like a pull to the addiction, like they can't help themselves.
• 32:17
  Polly Mertens: You could have them in positive addictions.
• 32:19
  Polly Mertens: You could have like positive consequences and train yourself towards things that bring you more of what you whatever you want, right?
• 32:25
  Polly Mertens: Like, I want to be out in nature more, I want to be talking to my friend.
• 32:28
  Polly Mertens: You know, you can create those.
• 32:29
  Polly Mertens: They seem small or whatever, but use it for good.
• 32:32
  Polly Mertens: So I have um I thought of like, okay, what are 10 ways that people could use this practically every day?
• 32:37
  Polly Mertens: I just want to like fire a couple of these off.
• 32:39
  Polly Mertens: I think we've done a great job of sharing.
• 32:41
  Polly Mertens: So breaking habit loops, right?
• 32:43
  Polly Mertens: So whatever the habit looks like um that you're not liking, right?
• 32:46
  Polly Mertens: By interrupting the autopilot, reducing anxiety.
• 32:51
  Polly Mertens: Totally reducing anxiety.
• 32:52
  Polly Mertens: Who doesn't have that?
• 32:53
  Polly Mertens: That's thought loops, dude.
• 32:54
  Polly Mertens: Thought loops, right?
• 32:55
  Polly Mertens: Totally, yeah.
• 32:56
  Polly Mertens: Reducing rewire self-talk.
• 32:58
  Polly Mertens: I did that.
• 32:58
  Polly Mertens: I've done that from like pity to like fucking amazing, right?
• 33:03
  Polly Mertens: Improve sleep conditioning.
• 33:05
  Polly Mertens: Hypnosis is used a lot in sleep.
• 33:07
  Polly Mertens: I didn't even mention that.
• 33:08
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, but helping people sleep better.
• 33:10
  Polly Mertens: Um, improve shift emotional reactions.
• 33:13
  Polly Mertens: So, like, I was just giving that example of like scarcity mindset versus abundance mindset, where I was just programming myself for more abundance instead of scarcity, and it just showed up in this.
• 33:23
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I'm gonna go to this event.
• 33:25
  Polly Mertens: And I just how I come into the event or how I start looking at it is a totally different frame of mind.
• 33:30
  Polly Mertens: The same thing with like training for relationship.
• 33:33
  Polly Mertens: Like, like, oh, I want to come in instead of like, what have you done for me lately?
• 33:37
  Polly Mertens: But like, how can I be more kind to my spouse?
• 33:40
  Polly Mertens: Whatever.
• 33:41
  Polly Mertens: So it's like setting your, or even very hyper-specific things.
• 33:45
  Polly Mertens: If you know you have emotional triggers that, like, oh, I could line up and say these three things with this person, whatever, working on those.
• 33:52
  Polly Mertens: So strengthen identity by reinforcing who I am becoming, like on if you're on a path to somewhere, right?
• 33:57
  Polly Mertens: Athletes do this all the time, especially Olympic athletes, right?
• 34:01
  Polly Mertens: Support behavior change without willpower.
• 34:04
  Polly Mertens: We talked about that.
• 34:05
  Polly Mertens: Um, enhance creativity.
• 34:07
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 34:08
  Polly Mertens: So, I mean, and there's just like that's just the doorway.
• 34:10
  Polly Mertens: Like I said, there's like a list on most hypnotherapy websites of like 200 common uses of it.
• 34:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 34:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, a lot of times people don't seek out these sort of therapies, alternative therapies, maybe we'll call them, unless they're suffering from something.
• 34:24
  Samantha Pruitt: And the suffering has to become so great, so bad, so extreme before they will seek out help or a therapy to deal with it, which is absurd.
• 34:38
  Samantha Pruitt: We're wasting years of life over this, you know, deep ingrained idea that suffering is part of it.
• 34:47
  Samantha Pruitt: It's bullshit.
• 34:48
  Samantha Pruitt: I know, but look around.
• 34:50
  Samantha Pruitt: It is just it's what we're taught and sold, and blah, blah, blah.
• 34:53
  Samantha Pruitt: You know what I mean?
• 34:55
  Polly Mertens: Don't fall into seven years to change something.
• 34:57
  Polly Mertens: No, don't, you know, like I said, seven years.
• 34:59
  Samantha Pruitt: You can do a lot of damage in seven years.
• 35:01
  Polly Mertens: Oh man, that's that's just like, well, on the average, somebody's just gonna like get tired of doing it in seven years.
• 35:06
  Polly Mertens: Like, therapy didn't help that much.
• 35:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:09
  Samantha Pruitt: No, uh, why not?
• 35:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Or is this something you use in conjunction with um mindset training and just habit change training, like those kind of programs?
• 35:20
  Samantha Pruitt: How this just feels like it's like foundational for being able to do those things.
• 35:25
  Polly Mertens: Absolutely.
• 35:26
  Polly Mertens: I would say, you know, so why I think I went into hypnosis and I believe so much in it is I would see how much from myself, like, dude, 20 years.
• 35:39
  Polly Mertens: I'm a pretty fucking willpower person.
• 35:41
  Polly Mertens: You've seen me, right?
• 35:42
  Polly Mertens: You too.
• 35:42
  Polly Mertens: Like, there's a lot of right.
• 35:43
  Polly Mertens: For me, not for me to for an addiction for 20 years to say I wasn't gonna do it, do it that night, get up and do it again.
• 35:51
  Polly Mertens: Do it, you know, like just this.
• 35:53
  Polly Mertens: Like I felt just like I was just beating myself up, and I know what caused that, but like mindset training is bumping up against that natural filtering that is in place between your conscious and subconscious mind, right?
• 36:07
  Polly Mertens: So you have this subconscious that's like, this is known, this is who you are, this is the identity of who you are.
• 36:14
  Polly Mertens: It's like, oh, I'm a I'm a nice person, you know, like you're trying or whatever.
• 36:18
  Polly Mertens: I'm a multimillionaire, right?
• 36:20
  Polly Mertens: When people talk about like, oh, affirmations, do they work or do not work, right?
• 36:23
  Polly Mertens: It's like, what's down here?
• 36:25
  Polly Mertens: Some people have so much that needs to be, you know, purged and detoxified down here that's going to prevent.
• 36:31
  Polly Mertens: It's like bullshit.
• 36:32
  Polly Mertens: No, no, no.
• 36:33
  Polly Mertens: Like we've talked, you know, those neuro associations, right?
• 36:36
  Polly Mertens: So I think of it like a table.
• 36:38
  Polly Mertens: And so if I have an idea of myself or can I do something or the way that the world is, it's just like a table with no legs.
• 36:45
  Polly Mertens: But if I start to have experiences and I put legs underneath that table, it's like that's that creates a belief.
• 36:51
  Polly Mertens: It's like I have an opinion about something, and then oh, I see it in the world.
• 36:54
  Polly Mertens: That person's doing it.
• 36:55
  Polly Mertens: Oh my god, now everybody's doing it.
• 36:56
  Polly Mertens: Like, oh, I I'm doing it, right?
• 36:58
  Polly Mertens: Like it becomes a belief or a conviction, right?
• 37:01
  Polly Mertens: So when you have these in place, all those neuroassociations that create that's true for you, subconscious, whether it's true or not, you know, we got some people in the world that have done some wacky things.
• 37:11
  Polly Mertens: You try to get just this outer, like pew, pew, like try and like change it from the outside at the conscious level, depending on the the strength and depth and how many legs are standing on that table or how many experiences, or how emotionally charged it is.
• 37:28
  Polly Mertens: So something has a really strong charge, like people have fear of death, dying, rape, hurt, you know, all threats of all sorts.
• 37:37
  Polly Mertens: If that's really emotionally charged, all this, like, oh no, it's gonna be okay, you can walk down that dark road.
• 37:42
  Polly Mertens: Some people are like, I ain't walking down that dark road.
• 37:45
  Polly Mertens: So I hope that helps.
• 37:48
  Polly Mertens: Totally, totally.
• 37:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, why do people do it?
• 37:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, it sounds like there's a million reasons to do it.
• 37:55
  Samantha Pruitt: It's more like, why not try it?
• 37:58
  Polly Mertens: It's you're already doing it.
• 38:00
  Polly Mertens: You're alright.
• 38:01
  Polly Mertens: I mean, like, if you're already doing it, you're you're doing it by watching a movie, you're doing, you know, like you running.
• 38:06
  Polly Mertens: That was amazing.
• 38:06
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, the one that I was saying, I don't know if that's what, but like based on what you described, that's how I felt.
• 38:12
  Samantha Pruitt: I felt like so in this zone.
• 38:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Some people will call that flow.
• 38:16
  Samantha Pruitt: So, what's the difference in like being in flow?
• 38:19
  Samantha Pruitt: And I've had that in other nature experiences, outdoor experiences for sure.
• 38:24
  Samantha Pruitt: For me, generally, I am moving my body, it's very rhythmic.
• 38:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, you know, my heart is at a certain beat, and my breath is doing this, and like there's this thing that happens in my physical body that allows my mind to go to those places.
• 38:37
  Polly Mertens: But is it the same thing?
• 38:39
  Polly Mertens: I think it very much is.
• 38:40
  Polly Mertens: So, what's happening is you're using hypnotherapy to use that optimal state to do something about your subconscious with it, right?
• 38:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, so when I was in those states, I shouldn't be listening to something, reprogramming my old bullshit story.
• 38:54
  Samantha Pruitt: I need to get I need to get that cued up.
• 38:57
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, so so let me just say one thing about so when we talked about help self-hypnosis, so you can either create a script and I would not just do this willy-nilly, I would look, you know, use an AI or use something to help you get some formatting to this, right?
• 39:10
  Samantha Pruitt: To or a coach, get a coach to help you.
• 39:13
  Polly Mertens: Definitely.
• 39:13
  Polly Mertens: That's where hypnotherapists are like, okay, and a lot of so it's like AI prompting is a thing where it's like, oh, prompt AI and it does these things really well.
• 39:21
  Polly Mertens: Like you're this and do this, right?
• 39:23
  Polly Mertens: Same thing with hypnotherapy.
• 39:24
  Polly Mertens: Hypnotherapists have a repertoire of wonderful prompts for, oh, you've got smoking.
• 39:29
  Polly Mertens: Okay, I know the prompts for that.
• 39:30
  Polly Mertens: Oh, you've got the you know, the rewiring, let's say, the language and the story.
• 39:34
  Polly Mertens: And yeah, there's some some nuances to this.
• 39:37
  Polly Mertens: So this isn't um, I don't want people to walk away and say, like, I can hypnotize myself to become the president or something, you know, whatever.
• 39:43
  Polly Mertens: But like, can you do some things through, like I said, me with self-hip hypnosis right now?
• 39:49
  Polly Mertens: I'm working on my abundance, replacing scarcity with abundance and seeing myself in a lot of it's great when you know we talk about um Olympic athletes see themselves winning the race.
• 40:00
  Polly Mertens: You know, that's oftentimes I tend to want, I'm guessing, they're doing a lot with their body and their mind in a hip in a trance-like state.
• 40:08
  Polly Mertens: And the imagery and they're they're just programming their mind with that, right?
• 40:13
  Polly Mertens: Over and over again.
• 40:14
  Polly Mertens: Like I did that with Iron Man, like I saw myself crossing that finish line and getting the medal.
• 40:17
  Samantha Pruitt: So, you know, so and it's not just visualization, you need to be in a certain state, this hypnotic or whatever state we're talking about, flow state, to be able to receive that, to be open to it and to receive those visual cues, et cetera, et cetera, those verbal cues.
• 40:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:35
  Polly Mertens: And so the thing, just as like a PSA here, is like social media, oftentimes people are just like hanging out, head down, you know, in bed or whatever, just like you're you're probably very close to a trance state, and whatever you consume at that time, you know.
• 40:54
  Polly Mertens: So I used to never have one of my big things with clients is like never watch the news before bed because you're right, likely in a trance-like state, or coming out in the morning and listen to it, write to emails, that stuff's most likely going through that barrier.
• 41:07
  Polly Mertens: So whatever you consume, absorb, or environmentally are around, your mind is open.
• 41:15
  Polly Mertens: So you could it could get populated in there pretty quickly.
• 41:18
  Polly Mertens: So yeah.
• 41:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and that's probably maybe why when people go to bed and then they have these dreams.
• 41:25
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't know exactly all the things about dreams, but like sometimes things that just came into your sphere, if you will, or into your body, or into your emotional body, your energetic body, however you want to call all this, will show up.
• 41:40
  Polly Mertens: Totally, well, and there's a whole body of work in hypnotherapy around dream um analysis too.
• 41:45
  Polly Mertens: So it's like I started to learn a little bit about it.
• 41:49
  Polly Mertens: I didn't do deep into it, but there's a whole thing about dream analysis.
• 41:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Girl, you gotta do that.
• 41:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I dream all the time.
• 41:54
  Samantha Pruitt: We gotta start figuring these things out.
• 41:56
  Polly Mertens: And then uh the other one is um your handwriting is a part of hypnotherapy too.
• 42:01
  Polly Mertens: So, like how you write stuff or whatever, that says, and you know how people say uh um so they can do that with handwriting analysis and then also like physical cues, because a lot of things hypnotherapists were trained to do is like see what's going on with the person's face and their body and stuff as they're going into hypnosis.
• 42:17
  Polly Mertens: So there's lots of nuances to this, and I don't want to overwhelm people with all of it, but the the basic was what we talked about, which is the induction, something that brings you down into that trance state.
• 42:27
  Polly Mertens: You have a period of whatever distance and length, it doesn't have to be very long.
• 42:31
  Polly Mertens: I mean, like hypnotherapy session can be like 15 minutes, you know, with a couple minutes for the induction, the trance, and then it's really key, remember, coming back out of it, right?
• 42:42
  Polly Mertens: So if you leave that doorway open to your subconscious mind, like I'm all you know, I'm always like one, two, three, four, five, and you're wide awake, you know.
• 42:51
  Polly Mertens: So making sure you have that at the end also.
• 42:54
  Samantha Pruitt: What's the best way before we wrap?
• 42:56
  Samantha Pruitt: How can people get started?
• 42:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, obviously, they can find you and you can facilitate this, but what are other ways that they can get started if they want to give it a try?
• 43:03
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, well, I would just be curious, right?
• 43:08
  Polly Mertens: So I think there are enough um hypnosis video.
• 43:13
  Polly Mertens: So like one I have a very favorite hypnosis guy that I just enjoy his uh YouTube videos.
• 43:19
  Polly Mertens: Um, what's his name?
• 43:20
  Polly Mertens: Michael Oh shoot.
• 43:23
  Polly Mertens: Michael Seely, S-E-A-L-E-Y.
• 43:25
  Polly Mertens: So like he's one of my guys that for years I just listened to his, you know, all I do his a lot for helping me sleep, right?
• 43:33
  Polly Mertens: So I'll listen to his before sleep, if you will.
• 43:35
  Polly Mertens: So and again, you're not gonna be able to likely go, I have trouble with this in my relationship X, and like going on YouTube and likely finding it, you know, like that's right.
• 43:46
  Polly Mertens: You're gonna find more of the generic, like help with sleep, maybe help with some confidence, maybe help with, you know, smoking is pretty specific too.
• 43:54
  Polly Mertens: Like smok smoking is actually quite intensive.
• 43:57
  Polly Mertens: Like smoking hypnotherapy practice or practitioners are hyper surgical.
• 44:02
  Polly Mertens: Like they get in there, they do some intense stuff.
• 44:05
  Polly Mertens: Anyway, so I would say maybe just play around with some videos on YouTube and see, not play, but like go to some of the popular hypnotherapists on YouTube, like a Michael Sealy, and just listen to some and see if you enjoy it.
• 44:19
  Polly Mertens: See if you and you can listen to it wide awake.
• 44:21
  Polly Mertens: So, like one of the things that some people are like nervous, like, what's gonna go in my brain?
• 44:25
  Polly Mertens: What are they gonna say?
• 44:25
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's like, well, just listen to it and don't be intending to be hypnotized.
• 44:31
  Polly Mertens: You'll probably be hypnotized anyway, but like, don't be intending, just just watch it or listen to it, you know.
• 44:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, don't pick some Yahoo who's spouting off some stuff that you don't want to become in.
• 44:44
  Polly Mertens: It's very calming, it should have you feel really comfortable with that person, not any like, oh, something's not okay here, you know.
• 44:51
  Polly Mertens: Very and um even in hypnosis, finding some, like there's some out there that I do that have like the I am affirmations, right?
• 44:59
  Polly Mertens: And so you can do the induction to go in, and then just listening to the I am affirmations, it's like programming, program.
• 45:06
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'm I'm a beautiful person, I I take good care of people, I'm loved, or whatever, you know, and then they can bring you back out.
• 45:15
  Polly Mertens: So those tend to be a little bit longer, and some I don't know.
• 45:19
  Polly Mertens: I've I I'm a little more hit or miss on hypnosis on YouTube or whatnot.
• 45:23
  Polly Mertens: Um, I would say if you really have something you want to work on, like there's a blank that you want to not have anymore, work with somebody professional, you know, like do the work and try it.
• 45:33
  Polly Mertens: But it's a therapist, you know.
• 45:36
  Polly Mertens: Be selective.
• 45:38
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:39
  Polly Mertens: But if you want to start, just you know, just like meditation, there's meditations and yoga videos out there, there's hypnosis, um, just to give it a little sample, you know, and you'll find your favorites and then you'll find that you're just some, you know, like uh this person doesn't do it for me, you know.
• 45:52
  Polly Mertens: Like I'll listen to some and I'm like, oh, this guy's voice, I can't stand it.
• 45:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Energy, voice, all of it has, you know, has an impact.
• 46:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 46:02
  Samantha Pruitt: I might have you uh do one up for me for my pre pre-training, like when I'm gonna go into a big training session or something like this.
• 46:09
  Samantha Pruitt: I kind of like this idea.
• 46:10
  Samantha Pruitt: That's so fun.
• 46:11
  Samantha Pruitt: So I know.
• 46:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Maybe one for like my long runs and then one for like my gym sessions.
• 46:17
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I'm gonna crush it.
• 46:19
  Polly Mertens: Well, and then you can just have it in the background of like, who are is that like the general, you know, it's like programming yourself.
• 46:27
  Polly Mertens: You know, remember when um in The Matrix where they're like, Oh, I need to know how to fly that helicopter, and they're like, you know, can fly the helicopter, right?
• 46:35
  Polly Mertens: And so, like, program you for like, I want to be X many miles runner a week or a or speed or I wanna whatever.
• 46:43
  Polly Mertens: And it's like it will just like your body will get there.
• 46:46
  Polly Mertens: It's amazing.
• 46:47
  Polly Mertens: I love this, I love this.
• 46:50
  Samantha Pruitt: So thanks for sharing one of your many, many, many talents with our audience and with me today.
• 46:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Sure.
• 46:57
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I I just you know, like we call it hypnosis curious because I was like, we've been talking about sober curious, and I'm like, come on over.
• 47:04
  Polly Mertens: Like, I think this is just gonna become more and more mainstream, you know, as people go, oh, that's like sitting on the couch and getting into a movie.
• 47:11
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I'm doing it right before I go to bed.
• 47:13
  Polly Mertens: It's just the state of theta.
• 47:15
  Polly Mertens: It's that's all hypnosis is with hypnotherapy is to work with it, you know, or you know, elite athletes use it, you know, in high intention.
• 47:23
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, put it to work for you.
• 47:25
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 47:27
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 47:27
  Polly Mertens: So what's our one thing?
• 47:30
  Polly Mertens: Like, um, let me see if I have any notes here.
• 47:32
  Polly Mertens: Like one key takeaway.
• 47:33
  Polly Mertens: So you're already experiencing hypnosis every day, so like make it work for you, right?
• 47:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Embrace it, embrace it, exactly.
• 47:40
  Polly Mertens: You know, one of the things I found just with working with a lot of people with addiction is um to get at that identity level.
• 47:46
  Polly Mertens: Hypnosis is one of the key ways to get into those root things that either you want to pull out the weeds or put in something new at the identity level, like truly some reprogramming.
• 47:55
  Polly Mertens: Like, I don't want to be doing this to myself or the world anymore.
• 47:59
  Polly Mertens: Um, and then self-hypnosis is really fun to play with, you know, as a just a tool in your toolbox of your self-development.
• 48:06
  Polly Mertens: So I'm gonna play.
• 48:08
  Polly Mertens: Let's go.
• 48:10
  Polly Mertens: Well, thanks for letting me talk about this.
• 48:12
  Polly Mertens: This was really fun.
• 48:13
  Polly Mertens: So it was.
• 48:14
  Polly Mertens: Do you have any takeaways for you?
• 48:15
  Polly Mertens: Anything that you've discovered, or uh no, but if I'm gonna play, everybody should play.
• 48:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's play.
• 48:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's go.
• 48:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's get great.
• 48:23
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, yeah.
• 48:24
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, here's the thing: we spend a lot of time trying to improve our lives, ourselves, our physical body, our emotional body, our career path, our relationships, our financial status, blah, blah, blah.
• 48:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Right?
• 48:36
  Samantha Pruitt: This is an available tool to you that A, you can do it for free if you're gonna do the self-hypnosis, right?
• 48:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Why not try it?
• 48:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Why not try it?
• 48:49
  Samantha Pruitt: And I can't tell you how many people from the athlete side of my world and even business professionals are always like, I how do I get in flow?
• 48:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Or even creatives, I want to get in flow, I want to get in flow, right?
• 48:59
  Samantha Pruitt: So, this is one of those ways to like play with flow and maybe build that muscle a little bit more, build those grooves a little bit more, right?
• 49:08
  Samantha Pruitt: That's kind of turning me on.
• 49:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, that's one of the reasons I want to try it.
• 49:12
  Polly Mertens: I didn't even talk about something called anchoring, but we could talk about that.
• 49:14
  Polly Mertens: That's NLP tied with hypnosis, which is fabulous.
• 49:17
  Polly Mertens: So it's like how to create that state quickly.
• 49:20
  Polly Mertens: Like, I have an anchor, it's basically a touch point on my body right now that if I do it, I go into that state, right?
• 49:26
  Polly Mertens: And you can create that, like, oh, I want to be hyper focused for business, or I want to be like really attentive and listening for my kids or whatever.
• 49:34
  Polly Mertens: Like you can do that with what's called anchoring.
• 49:36
  Polly Mertens: So there's so many fun ways.
• 49:38
  Polly Mertens: And I like in this, I was thinking about when you said, you know, why wouldn't they do this?
• 49:41
  Polly Mertens: Like, you know, there's an inertia.
• 49:43
  Polly Mertens: It's like it's so easy to put on a pair of shoes and go out for a walk, right?
• 49:47
  Polly Mertens: And it's also so easy not to, right?
• 49:49
  Polly Mertens: And it's like it's easy now that you've heard about hypnosis, you've here like it can be very easy to do and it can be very easy not to do.
• 49:57
  Polly Mertens: So just know that it's there and it's available, just like walking in nature and getting outside and you know, drinking water for your health.
• 50:03
  Polly Mertens: It's also if you just want to ignore it, but like you can find ways through this to take care of yourself and help yourself, like people who you know.
• 50:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Dude, you can feel better because how your life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 50:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Hello.
• 50:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome hold on.