 Hello, my name is Denise Danine and this is Holistic Happenings. I'm very excited to bring to you a show that will explore the many holistic and alternative practices that are available to us in the Pioneer Valley. My hope is to bring you information that can enhance your well-being by empowering you with options and to broaden your knowledge on the many types of holistic modalities that can complement your existing self-care routine. The whole person, the mind, the body and the spirit. Some of these practices you might be doing now and some you may never have heard of before. With so much information that is out there on complementary therapies, it can get quite confusing to know where to start. My guests will include all types of healing practices, from medical doctors to spiritual healers. So let's explore together. Let's get inspired, get healthy and have some fun along the way. Hi, I'm Denise Danine and this is Holistic Happenings and today I have for a guest Ruthanne Lundenberg. Hi Ruthanne. Hi. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to learn more about hypnosis and hypnotherapy. And you are a professional hypnotherapist. I am. You are. So can you tell me a little bit about what that is or how you came about? Well how I became a hypnotherapist. Yes. Well as you know, but everybody doesn't know, I was a yoga teacher for a long, long time. And also a passionate meditator for decades. And I had a yoga studio as you know, and 2008, the economy. And it struck me that maybe I should diversify a little bit. So I started thinking and then I consulted an astrologer. Wow. Yes, and I didn't have expectations about it. But basically my astrologer told me. So you went to your astrologer to ask for some guidance? I asked for a complete reading, soul reading, everything. And what I received was a recording. And one of my questions was with the economy and with my future work, where do I go from here? And it was interesting because what he said was anything as long as it's one-on-one, doesn't matter what it is, just one-on-one. You need to get in deeper with people. Well knowing you, it just seemed like it was just a natural thing for you. When I learned that you were a hypnotherapist, it just seemed like it was just a natural organic thing. I'm glad. I'm glad that you had to, not that you had to, but that you sought out an astrologer. Oh yeah. There was definitely a process there. That was definitely a choice point for sure. So what I did right after that once I listened to that recording, which was life-changing, is I literally started reading lists of jobs that are one-on-one, manicurist, accountant, financial planner, the list. And on the list was hypnotherapist. And it just jumped out at me and I thought, why haven't I thought of that before? Because it's like meditation, but it's better than meditation. So almost right away I went online and started looking at trainings and there were very few trainings that seemed sufficient for this kind of work, but I found one in New Mexico at the Hypnotherapy Academy of America, which is a long-term standalone hypnosis training school, and signed up, just signed up. That was that. Wow. Yeah. So how long was the training? They have a basic level of training that takes about six weeks to complete full-time and then there are subsequent specialties that you can do. So there's a past life, there's a clinical medical, and there's a neuro-linguistic programming modules. So you can add on modules. Right. So you can get up to, you know, good thousand hours. Yes. Yep. Yep. Just for hypnosis. I think it's amazing because I've tried it with you and we'll get to that a little bit later in the segment. So a hypnotherapist is... Well, hypnosis is the state of mind and body, right? So it's a natural but altered state in which the body is relaxed and the mind has selected awareness, and we call that trance. So a hypnotist is a person who can put someone in a trance. A hypnotherapist is someone who uses those methods to provide beneficial outcomes for clients, tailoring to the client. Okay. So is there a perfect client for you? Or is there a client that you tend to be able to help more if they're searching for a particular help with maybe the stop smoking or overeating compared to maybe an emotional tick or something like that? Right. Is there? I love all my clients. I really do. I don't worry about what my clients worry about. So the first question people often had for me is some version of, can I be hypnotized? Can you work with me? Can you deal with my problem? And the answer is almost always yes. If that person wants to be there, right, and they want the outcome, then I will work with them and the benefit of having the level of training that I have, the breadth of training, the amount of experience that I have over the last ten years during this full time, I find it's pretty easy to find a match between client and technique. It's very organic. And then I do get a lot of people asking for sort of the classic things, you know, behavior, change and stuff, but I really, really like the person who comes in and says, I don't know why I'm here. I know I need something and, you know, guidance told me to come to you. And that, that is always fascinating and open, it's a collaborative. That person is open. Well, it's nice that it's undefined. You know, it's nice that it's something, I like to investigate things. Right. Right? I'm a detective. I don't have a lot of time with people because it's a brief therapy. Clients self-pay, so I respect that and do my best to bring the result one to three sessions. Right. So I want every session to be and feel like something really good and important to get done. Okay. So I'm sitting with someone that I never met, don't know anything about for the first time. And what I like is being a detective and finding that perfect starting place in just a few minutes and then we collaborate, which is something interesting that people don't often expect because if you were to, you know, watch a silent movie of what goes on in a session, about a third of the time you would see two people just talking like this. Right. And about a third of the time you would see one person eyes closed, me, my eyes are open. Right. And we're going back and forth. And about a third of the time that person would be quiet, very, very relaxed, and I would just be talking to them. Okay. Yeah. So everyone's susceptible. So anyone can go to a hypnotherapist and go into the trance. What would that feel like or look like for a client when they come in to see you for the first time for someone that's never had even like gone to meditation? So this is kind of really outside maybe their realm or their comfort zone. Yeah. Well, the nice thing about it is, you know, one of the reasons I chose this field was I had the intuition or the idea, at least, that hypnosis was going to be like meditation, but way easier and way more beneficial. At least for the kinds of things that people go to therapy for, right? So hypnosis can be done by anyone if they can be coached appropriately. So for instance, if one has tried hypnosis and said I didn't go into trance or didn't work for me, I would encourage them to try someone else because each one of us is different. But the more different people you've worked with like I have and the more techniques like I have, like I said, I find that I'm able to help just about anybody do what they need to do. Their experience of it often is different than what they expected because we have the classic ideas that are not true. We do, yes. For instance, that you're not going to remember anything. People often remember everything or they'll remember most, that you can get stuck in hypnosis, which you can't. That hypnosis is some kind of truth serum, which it is not. Yes, thank you. Yes. And that I, as a hypnotherapist, can or will program things into them that they don't know about or want. And that's not true either. So you touched upon a question, all those questions. There is a fear around that, I believe, for people that don't know too much about it and hence why you are here to explain all that. How long would a session take with someone or does it depend on when you're sitting down and you're speaking with them what you think that they may need help with or is every session the same amount of time? I set up a duration for a session before each session. So there's no awkwardness during the session, right? We both know how long it's going to go. Usually an hour or an hour and a half and sometimes two depending on what we're going to be doing. Usually folks will book a first session, which they can book for themselves online and people really like that. You know, we like to do it that way these days, so they go on my booking website, they find their favorite time, they choose hour, hour and a half or whatever and one click and they're scheduled, which is nice. So usually folks will schedule for a first session an hour, which is really all that's needed. We can get a lot done in an hour. So could you help someone with smoking for and within that first time or is there something that you would need more? Usually I request three sessions with somebody, I don't force that, but to get the benefit and to give us both a chance to really go deep and get the work done, three is about right. Okay. So that's an option for people to continue for more if they want to, for more support, for more reinforcement. Oftentimes people feel complete with one issue, but there's something else they want to move on to. Or something maybe may come up for them within that one of your sessions. Yeah. Do you give them homework? Very minor homework. Sometimes I make recordings for people from their session and their homework is to listen to the recording once or twice a day. The homework is, the work is really done in the session. So I try to set it up whenever I can where that person is going to have automatic reinforcement based on their everyday circumstances. So that's my job to make that kind of unconscious for them so that they, it's not on them to do stuff, something that's there for them to support them. So if I give them homework, it's something to support them. So an example of homework might be, you know, just to notice something during the course of the week or week and a half. That could be big for somebody. Yeah. So a particular note is something or maybe to watch a certain movie or, you know, video or something like that that pertains to what would support them the most. Would you help them with self-hypnosis? Would that be part of that kind of thing? Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Self-hypnosis is very, very easy to teach and learn. Is that different than meditation or is it just kind of? It is. Yeah. Yeah. It's very different. And my experience of it, you know, I don't think there's one state of mind called hypnosis or meditation. There's a whole variety, right, or spectrum where you can dive in. So different meditations are going to have different experience associated with them, different mind-body states. Some meditations are like very repetitive like mantra meditation or visualization that's very self-hypnotic. Other meditations are more awareness-based. I'm guessing that's less hypnotic. So again, if you haven't had success with meditation, maybe try self-hypnosis and see if you can get nice and relaxed that way. Is there a particular client that is your ideal client? Is there one client that you prefer to work with as far as a condition or is it just everything? I really love that people bring everything to me. It makes me feel useful, right, and I like the variety and I don't know what's going to come in next or who's going to come in with what or once they get there we're going to go. It's a brief thing and people are looking for results. So I need to be very sharp and clear, clear-headed, pay attention. And so that's very challenging for me intellectually because people are fascinating and complicated. So what I like about the way I do it is that I don't have a preference for a particular kind of client. I just connect with each person as a being, right, as a spiritual being, as a consciousness. And when I work with somebody that's in the room with me, you know, call it higher power or guides and teachers, they're in the room. I can sense it and feel it and often draw upon it depending upon that person's spiritual leanings, right, and therefore as an individual I'm interested in a lot of things. I have a kind of a wide range of topics that I like to read about and think about and I get to bring all of that in order to help whomever I'm with. So I like philosophy, I like history, I like psychology, I like anthropology, I like art and music and dance and theater and literature as well as yoga and hypnosis. So I get to pull on all of that. Yeah, because those are universals. There's universal experiences and codes embedded in all of those areas and we can get to the heart of something more easily with, say, a story, right, than in any other way. So stories are a part of what we do. People tell me their story, I tell them a story. That's part of the work. It's non-psychotherapeutic, non-linear, non-autobiographical in nature. So it's accelerated, right, and a story or a myth is condensed, supercharged, super empowered piece of wisdom, right, piece of learning. Now is there, I like the idea that you said that you may suggest another therapist, a hypnotherapist if you're not feeling that the client is, do you have a pool of people that you think that... No, that's not exactly what I intended. What I meant was that if an individual, say in their audience, feels that they're unhypnotizable because they didn't succeed with another hypnotist, my brother-in-law tried it on me or somebody said I can't be hypnotized. I would put that aside and try again, try somebody who has a good amount of experience and also who you can feel comfortable with, that's really important, that rapport. I refer people out to different kinds of practitioners. That was my next question. Yeah, definitely. I like my people to have a team so I do ask them who else is helping them with their issue and what they've done that has worked, what they've done that hasn't worked. I think that's ideal, most of all I want people to succeed. I want to succeed. You have a high success rate from what I've read about you and I did my homework on you. Would someone come to you like maybe three years down the road that had come to you earlier with the same type of thing or would it be, so that would not be out of the norm? No. Things change. They change. We aim for things to be permanent but triggers change and then things can pop up, especially with unwanted behaviors or unwanted feelings. If there's a new situation that person hasn't confronted before and that old behavior pops up then we do some more work with the new situation to empower that person for current day needs and circumstances. So we don't do the same thing we did before because that work's already been done. That doesn't happen because it didn't work or the client failed. It happened because something had changed internally or externally that impacted them at the subconscious level. What is triggering something? Yeah. It's almost like taking away the layers and pulling away and then figuring it out. Like you said, it could be multiple things that have caused this, you know, the issue that they're seeking help for. Yeah. A lot of my job is simply asking questions. Asking the right questions. Right. That's really important. Yeah. It is just experience that I have a pretty good idea where to look for particular things. I'm sort of a technician in a lot of ways over what I do. Like to extract. Sometimes it's hard to extract the answers out of some of your clients, I would think, because they're very like, oh, yeah, I'm good or yeah, it's okay and sometimes it's hard to dig in and get all that meat. Yes, you are. I'm good at that. You're very good. Yeah. I remind the client that they're there to get a benefit and that we're both going to have to work hard at it. I remind them that I may appear to be pushy, right, because I want to move that person along, but I'm on their side. So oftentimes nobody but me will know why I'm asking for certain information or what my strategies are being understandable. So I know the kind of information I'm looking for. It's not everything. It's just specific details that will point me to something. And there's a lot of communication that's just nonverbal, most of it. Yeah. So right, if I'm paying attention and I'm observant of that person, I'm tuned in with them, we're having a conversation, I can discern pretty quickly based just on that. Yeah. What kind of how they're feeling. So even if they're in a trance state, if they're, you know, with their body movement or... Micro movements. Right. Yeah. Micro movements to the face. Yeah. And the eyes. Yeah. Right. Breathing. Stuff like that. Or not breathing. Hopefully there's some breathing going on. But yeah, breathing can get very slow. Yes. Stuff like that. And then there's this technique in hypnosis called idiomotor response, which is you plant a subconscious suggestion that the body will move in response to something. So that means that if I have a question, a yes or no question, that that person will subconsciously signal me that it's a yes or it's a no. Okay. So that means that if I, like, raising up one hand or one finger or something like that. Yeah. How does a client feel when they come out of a trance or at the end of a session? What can they expect to feel? People generally feel really good. And you know, it's a special state of mind and body. It's super charged healing. Just being in hypnosis is super charged. Right. So people feel really refreshed. Their mood is elevated. They just feel great. Right. All of those processes of the body and the brain that are beneficial, right? Whatever gets suppressed in our stimulated or stress response, right? We take the stimulation, the stress response down so the healing response can come up, which I know you know about, right? So we're enhancing that to the maximum and hypnosis is like the maximum most accelerated version of that. Yeah. I love that because it's empowering the client and it's instead of having something done to them, like having a medication given to them, it's empowering them that they can do this on their own, you know, with some help, of course, with yourself. Yeah. Is there an age limit? Well, generally I don't work with kids, but I refer to someone else who does work with kids. Generally, I'm about 16 and up. Right. Right. So there's no upper limit? No. Right. Right. So how many sessions have you done the most? Like someone came to you and they needed extra time or do you just do, have you ever just done the three or four or have you done, I guess it just depends, a subjective, isn't it? For each person? For each person. Yes, indeed. I really, I have a lot of confidence in the individual, they're sincere about wanting what they want, so I just let them, I encourage them to check in with themselves and when they feel complete, then they're complete. If they want to come back, they can come back. So once they've completed, they've moved on, so I don't get to know what happens next a lot of the time, except that people will get in touch later on or they'll send someone else who will refer and say that it was good that it worked for them and so on and so forth. Right. Usually when people are coming back, they're coming back for a different issue. They're not coming back for the same one. Well, then you know that they get the help that they need. Yeah, it's a resource for them. It's not a therapist-client relationship necessarily, it's just a resource. So my door is always open to them to come back and I hope they will. Think of it that way. They've already invested in working with me, they've already invested in the hypnosis in themselves. They are doing it. It's a collaboration. It's very much a collaboration. So they're the one who is creating the trance state and they are the one who is having the experience and at the subconscious level creating that new programming and that new empowered strategy that we have me and I and the client together already agreed about the outcome. So part of the process just starting out and having these dialogues getting to the bottom of things quickly is I want us to agree what we're here to do, what the goal actually is specifically. An array of people come to you for all kinds of issues. Right. Yes. And would you suggest they see a doctor, a general doctor or if they're on medications are ready for this certain issue? It's nice to have a doctor's approval. Right. And if they are coming to see me for a medical issue then I want to check and make sure that they have seen a doctor already for that, that they're not using me to suppress a symptom of something that may be serious. Absolutely. Right. That's important. Have you done groups? I know one-on-one, but do you do groups? I have done some groups. Yes. Groups are fun and fascinating. What's fun is that people can share their experience with each other, which is a nice convencer. Right. Most people want to know that they're normal. You know, is this normal? Am I doing this right? Normal. Yeah. What am I supposed to feel? Right. So what is nice in groups is of course that people can share their experiences with each other and they can support each other. So I think groups are great. What you don't get is you don't get the depth of detail, you don't get the tailoring. In a group it would be difficult to do anything but the sort of simplest kind of behavior modification. Right. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The benefit of one-on-one is, as I've described, it's true collaboration, bringing everything that I have to bear just for that one person, just for their special circumstances. I take into consideration their environment, their home life, their history, their belief system, their most important values, their sense of who they are and where all of this fits in their life and you can't do that in a group. When those things line up, then the change can take place. Well. Yeah. They all need to be there for a real change to happen. Well, it's an amazing process and I'm so happy to have you on. Thank you. It's been great. We'll have information about how you can contact Ruth Ann at the end of the show. Yeah, I'd love to. But I want to thank you so much. Thank you. For coming. All right. So thank you for tuning in and remember, get inspired, get healthy and have some fun along the way.