168. Hypnotise your way to Better Speaking
Hypnosis is a brilliant tool to become a better speaker and this episode shows you how!
Experienced Hypnotherapist and Hypnosis Trainer HypnoHeather aka Heather Keys, explains -
😵💫 What hypnosis is
😵💫 Why it’s such a powerful tool
😵💫 How you can use it to improve your speaking
😵💫 What it feels like to be hypnotised
😵💫 How to get started if you're brand new to hypnosis
AND she even guides us through a short hypnosis session. (make sure you're not driving for this one!)
Transcript
Have you ever been in a trance before, right now? Did you experience that state as being similar to the waking state or different from the waking state? I'm gonna stop right now because maybe you're out walking or driving or doing something where going into a trance, it may not be safe, but did you read the title of this episode number 168? It's all about how to hypnotize your way to better speaking. I talk about this on that voice podcast a lot. The feelings we have around speaking are based on the beliefs we hold around speaking, and our beliefs are held in the unconscious or the subconscious mind, and that's the part of the mind we access through hypnosis. I was first introduced to hypnosis when I was about 20 and working in a cocktail bar of a leagues club down in Wollongong, West Illawarra Leagues Club for anyone down that way. And the little bar, I think it was called The Sunset Lounge.
Anyway, the little bar I worked in was used for private functions, and one night there was a hen's party. I remember that night so clearly because the bride to be was so aggressive and kind of funny. She marched up to the bar and thrust this handful of plastic penis-shaped straws into my hand and said, Lady, there's gonna be a lot of drinks leaving this bar, and I don't want to see one of them without a cock in it. It was very funny, but very stressful because she really hadn't given me enough straws to keep up with demand. Anyway, at this hen's party, the entertainment was a hypnotist and it was amazing. People were acting like chickens and crawling around the room, and one of my colleagues who volunteered to be part of it walked over to the bar and professed his undying love to me.
Maybe that was a suggestion he wanted to take on. Anyway, I thought hypnosis was just a bit of fun. Fast-forward many years to last year, I did my hypnosis practitioner training, and this was where I went, oh my God. This is a powerful, powerful tool to access and alter the subconscious mind. It's a place where you can feed suggestions, you can really absorb, and I use hypnosis in my coaching quite a lot. I take clients on a journey to help them find where those blocks are around speaking and rewrite the story. Actually, our August coaching call in Soul Speakers is all about rewriting the story and there is a hypnosis audio track in soul speakers for you to experience. So if you're listening after August 8, the replay is in there. If it's before August 8, wow, what a fantastic time to join Soul Speakers right before this incredible live coaching call.
It is such a great one to start with honestly. And while I use hypnosis, our amazing guest today lives and breathes it, even her name is HypnoHeather. And Heather has generously created an audio track specifically to help with public speaking. That link is in the show notes. Definitely grab that. So if you want to unleash your soul's voice, connect with your audience, download this audio, and come and join soul speakers. So in this episode, Heather Keys, aka HypnoHeather explains what hypnosis is, why it's such a powerful tool, how you can use it to improve your speaking. And she even guides us through a short hypnosis session. So are you ready to go deeper and deeper down into the depths of this beautiful episode?
Sally:
HypnoHeather, what a name! Welcome to That Voice Podcast.
Heather:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here.
Sally:
Heather, let's start by explaining what hypnosis is. I know when I was first introduced to the word, I just had in my mind people standing on stage at some kind of show being told to act like a chicken.
Heather:
Mm-Hmm. Once we get beyond any myths and misconceptions, it's really quite simple and quite natural. All that hypnosis is, is bypassing that analytical logical thinking mind and falling into the perceiving and feeling mind. And so what this could look like just naturally is if you're driving home from work and you don't remember the way, or if you're really caught up in a movie, so much so that you're feeling the emotions that the actor's feeling. This is very simply hypnosis. And while it can be used to do very entertaining things, it's actually got so much more power for self-improvement and success and tuning into oneself.
Sally:
Mm-Hmm. And how did you get into it?
Heather:
Well, a long story short, I had been on my own healing journey and I was very aware of the things I was doing and where they were coming from. You know, all the psychology that we go through when we're on a healing journey to see how we learned what or what traumas we took on. And then I really had the guidance to just seek out hypnotherapy. And as soon as I found it and saw that, oh, this is the way to change those patterns and traumas and behaviors, not just be aware of them, I was automatically hooked and I knew that more people needed to know about this.
Sally:
Mm-Hmm. And how did you find it the first time you were under hypnosis?
Heather:
You know, I'm the type of person I go with anything. I kind of believe in everything. I'm very open-minded, so I don't think I was very much thinking about what I was experiencing, but I was surprised how much information and imagery and emotion I had access to right away.
Sally:
Mm-Hmm. Yeah. So I've actually got my hypnosis practitioner certificate as well. I did it as part of my NLP training, my Neurolinguistic Programming training. And I thought that when you were hypnotized, you were out of control. And that is a real myth because it's just suggestions and we will only do what we want to do.
Heather:
That's really great that you said that because it's still almost every day that I get calls from people saying, I tried hypnosis but it didn't work. Or, I tried hypnotherapy but I wasn't hypnotized. And what I found from just inquiring and being curious as to their experience was that they had a misconception about what being in hypnosis would look like. And there is that tendency to think that we would be unconscious, but that's very different than being in the subconscious. Unconscious would be sleeping, would be having no idea what the person was saying. And well, a deep state of hypnosis could be like daydreaming where you really might not be paying attention to what the practitioner is saying.
Sally:
That's different levels, isn't there?
Heather:
Yeah, there's different levels. And the main thing is, is what you said, which is you would just never do anything that wasn't in alignment with your moral and ethical values as well as for your highest good. And you can listen, you know, the conscious mind is relaxed, but it's still listening in. And that's why I kind of say when people get hypnotized the first time, it's sort of like with one eye open. 'cause The conscious mind is still checking it out, like, what's going on here? And then once they realize, you know, people generally come in nervous the first time, and then after that they don't wanna come out of hypnosis at all.
Sally:
It's so good. It is so good. Yeah. I've been, being in trance with a large group is so much fun. You know, there's the swaying and there's the giggles, and it just feels so relaxing. I've heard that a certain period in hypnosis is the equivalent of an eight-hour sleep.
Heather:
Mm. Sleep is a good one to talk about too, because sleep is a natural side effect of hypnosis. You know, the way I see it is like, I help the person's brain be trained to relax. And so while it might not always feel that relaxed, especially if we're doing therapy or healing work, there might be some discomfort or information coming up, but the whole time the body is still in that parasympathetic state where it's healing. And so that's why it could feel so restful, but also it helps people sleep better in general because it's activating that part of the mind that we're all born with. It's just maybe not been used to its full potential to really relax the mind, which is what we do need to do to be able to go to the unconscious and sleep.
Sally:
Yeah. And I love that line you said about being unconscious is different to being in the subconscious. So, great. So Heather, how can we use hypnosis to break through fears around public speaking?
Heather:
Oh, so many ways. So many ways actually. Because there is the simple kind of fundamental aspect of hypnotism, which is just using visualization and suggestions to really boost confidence or help the person visualize themselves where they would be, what they would be doing, how they would be feeling, how the audience would be responding with the energy around the whole situation. You know, that's one of the most fun and well like common ways to use hypnosis. That's really helpful. And then there's a part where when that doesn't work, because there's, there's kind of too much below the surface that even in the subconscious level, the mind's not gonna be convinced that they feel that confident or the audience is going to respond like that. So that would be the other side where we have the opportunity to go into different layers of what we might have learned over life or been told or taken on in terms of living limiting beliefs about life, about ourself, about our potential, about maybe even it could be something simple, but that's just kind of hidden there.
Heather:
Like a one client of mine, it was just a very simple thing that she was told when she was young that basically caused her to believe that nobody wanted to hear what she said, what she had to say. It's actually quite simple, but it's like a seed that got planted and that's where hypnotherapy is just queen to all these other modalities because we have that ability to go back and take that seed out, heal that child within. And then there's, there's reactions and responses that don't happen anymore. The other one is anxiety. So there is anxiety that can cause fear, and we might already know that fear is not really real and it's like, it's like the separation from ourselves, but it can feel very real in that moment. And I'm sure you've come across speakers where they actually have a visceral reaction, red face, sweating, palm, sweating, shaking.
Heather:
You know, that's where I've seen amazing results, because to me that's a trigger and that's something that really can go away. Like, especially if we find the root cause of that trigger. That's why hypnosis is becoming number one for working with PTSD and these type of anxiety-related conditions, because that kind of stuff actually really can go away, you know, aside from the normal nervousness of just life, of like putting yourself out there and taking that energy to speak. And then the last thing I would say is that my favorite way to use hypnotherapy for public speaking and for helping people show up, you know, as their sole voice or like your sole speakers, is because once you're in that space, which to me is like subconscious, but it's actually the super conscious mind because it's connecting people to their higher self. And the higher self knows no limits, has no limiting beliefs or negative self-perceptions. You know, the higher self is like what we can tune into for the creativity and the expression. And when we're speaking from that part of ourselves, or even just tuned in a little more to that part of ourselves, we realize that nothing that we say has to be exactly perfect in a perfect way to resonate with the people that are meant to resonate with us.
Sally:
Mm. And this is something that happens. If you've ever found yourself just speaking really freely and then going, oh gosh, I can't remember what I said, I dunno where that came from. I feel like that is the direct download from the higher self. That's when we allow ourselves to become the channel and for the expression to flow through us.
Heather:
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's when I always think, oh, I have to write this down. I have to record this, I have to write this down. Like I said, it's so perfectly.
Sally:
Yeah, yeah. I so hear you
Heather:
Oh, but you know, it also fosters that trust in our self, which to me is really huge about putting yourself out there, because when you're spending time with that part of yourself or just fostering that relationship with yourself, that's really beyond perfection. And just relaxing a little more into who you are now, and that what you have to share right now has value. And then when you can speak that from, even if you have it a little prepared or you have notes or something like that, it's like, it creates a different energy of showing up because then we're not worried about how they're gonna take what we say or if we said the right thing or if we did this for them. And it just creates like a connection actually with the people that are right to hear it, I suppose.
Sally:
Oh, Heather, how long does it take to get hypnotized? So if someone's thinking right, I've got a speech coming up, how long is this gonna take?
Heather:
Well, you know, in general going into hypnosis is pretty quick. Like it will depend on, you know, a person that's done it more will go deeper. Like, I have people in my community, I could almost just say, you know, go now deeper because they're so used to it and used to the sound of my voice. So it is helpful for like beginners or people that are starting out to just have a little bit of patience because it will feel lighter and it will feel more like your logical mind is still there when you're starting. And then the more you do, the deeper you go. So it's kind like 5 minutes to 20 minutes.
Sally:
Mm. And I know today we don't have time to do a full hypnosis, but it would be great to hear a demonstration of how just the start of how you bring somebody into hypnosis, it's worth mentioning as well. Hypnosis isn't something that is done to us.
Heather:
Like a lot of times they'll say all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, because it really involves the, the continued permission and acceptance of suggestions from the participant, because we could easily just say, Nope, I'm not listening to your suggestion to relax. But when somebody is willing and open to follow the suggestions, they'll go deeper and they'll get better results.
Sally:
Hmm. So if you're listening to this right now and you are driving or operating heavy machinery, or even walking in a busy street, it, it may be a good time to hit pause and revisit this part at another time. So a quick safety message before we go into an example of how to be taken down, how to be taken in.
Heather:
Very professional. This is why I love you. And yes, that was very essential. So one example, we would start off, I always start off with breathing. And so you could start by taking a couple of deep breaths right now, really letting out that exhale. Like knowing that right from the beginning, every breath that you take will continue to take you deeper and deeper relaxed. And at any moment you can take another breath. And as you exhale, feel your muscle softening, feel your jaw soften, feel a wave of relaxation starting from the top of your head, and let it slowly, gently, wonderfully move through your entire body. As you relax more and more in a moment, I will get you to open and close your eyes, and as you close your eyes, and when you close your eyes, that'll be your signal to yourself to relax even deeper. So you'll feel yourself relaxed two times more when you close your eyes. So opening your eyes and close your eyes down deeper and deeper, relaxed. And then we would do that a couple more times and probably a bit of a countdown. And, and you know, depending if somebody was like more or less resistant, we might do just a few more convincers, like get their eyelids to stick shot just so they can really feel like, oh, I am in hypnosis and this is working.
Sally:
Mmmm. And hearing your voice as well. It's so, oh, it's so beautiful, isn't it? The pace is slower, it's got that beautiful lil to end, the pitch goes down more relaxed, deeper and deeper down and down. So it's that--
Heather:
Deeper you go, the better you feel. Yeah.
Sally:
Oh, I, I love that. I love hypnosis so much. Oh, Heather, was there anything else you wanted to add? How can people find a full hypnosis experience?
Heather:
Yeah. So I actually have put one together for everybody who's listening that it is, yeah, it's a hypnotherapy audio for speaking your voice. And, and it would be very simply like this, like really just introduce the process of going into hypnosis and, and going down into hypnosis and giving a chance for a release and letting go of anything, just no longer serving or anything that they picked up along the way that's no longer serving them or is hindering them from really speaking up and speaking confidently, actually. And then because I do a lot of group work, there are certain things that just work for everybody. So then we always offer an opportunity to really tune in to like the visualization and the creation of like, what it's gonna be, like, how they're gonna feel. And of course, there'll be somewhere to access that higher self and, and really get the support from their soul.
Sally:
Oh, I love that. And I'll put the link in the show notes. Mm-Hmm.
Heather:
That's perfect. That's perfect. And everyone can always find me hypnoheather.com or @hypnoheather on social media,
Sally:
So catchy. Love it. HypnoHeather, was there anything else you wanted to add?
Heather:
When I was meditating about coming here today or, you know, I've been getting more into self-hypnosis, like what really kept coming to me is that anything that we do in repetition, but not from a place of like, oh my gosh, I have to do this, or I won't be okay. But just from a place of like relaxing, just relaxing and rehearsing, and again, not this word for word, but just like relaxing, rehearsing that. Then when we get to the moment sort of throwing that rehearsing away, like that's the moment that, that you have to just come and trust and trust that like your voice will speak, your soul will speak. Like you'll say, you might say it different than you rehearsed, and that will be better because you'll be more present with your audience. And that's the message that really kept coming through to me for your audience, which is just like you already have everything that you need in you, you know, let your soul, let your voice shine.
Sally:
Oh, so beautiful. I absolutely receive that, and I hope if you're listening to this, you are receiving those beautiful words as well. Heather, thank you so much for coming on That Voice Podcast.
Heather:
Thank you so much for having me. I had a blast.