What Is Hypnotherapy and How Does It Work? with Nancy Holguin

Kathi: Hi everyone, this is Kathi with Organized and Energized podcast, and I am back. Today I'm speaking with Nancy Holguin. Now Nancy infuses her clients with confidence, with wellness and anti-aging solutions, by helping them tap into the power of their mind through hypnotherapy at her business, ironically called The Confidence Shoppe. Her practice is in Southern California, and she reaches clients across the US through her online programs. The combination of practical solutions combined with the power of the mind offers Nancy's clients various options for greater confidence in order to live their best life. So we're going to jump right into it and welcome Nancy. Hi everyone, as I mentioned, I'm back with Nancy, and she's a clinical hypnotherapist, and we're going to talk today about her journey to becoming that, what she offers for her clients, and some sage tips and advice from someone who's been there, done that about their business and entrepreneurship. So welcome to the show, Nancy. Thanks so much for coming on and taking the time.

Nancy: Thank you, Kathi. I really appreciate the opportunity. Really do.

Kathi: Absolutely. So talk to me about your journey. What did you do before you became a clinical hypnotherapist?

Nancy: Well, a number of things. I was a bookkeeper, a mother, stay-at-home mom. I was also into wellness with anti-aging and nutrition, and just always been very involved in health and wellness, and trying to be strong, healthy. I was an aerobics instructor back in the '80s with the leg warmers and all of that.

Kathi: Oh yeah, baby. Get those leg warmers. That's great. So what do you find is the biggest… Well, why hypnotherapy, I guess. Why did you choose that specific modality?

Nancy: You know what, Kathi? I remember in the '80s, maybe even before that, hearing about the placebo effect. That would really spark my interest way back in the day. And then fast forward a number of decades, I just by chance, we know that's not really chance, but by chance, I was introduced to the university offering clinical hypnotherapy. And they offered me a work internship program with my bookkeeping background. At first I thought I would just use it for assisting my weight reduction clients in using their mind for that. And then I got deeper and deeper and realized this is really the avenue that I was always meant to be in. And I continued my journey all the way through a bachelor's degree in hypnotherapy, and I absolutely love helping people make adjustments in their mind.

Kathi: Nice. Talk to me about one of your clients, the before and the after scenario. Where were they, what happened, and where did they end up?

Nancy: So I've been in practice since 2015. Just recently I had a client that came in, and you could feel how tense she was. Her energy was tense and very agitated, not angry, but just agitated. And she didn't think she could be hypnotized, which is a similar concern for most people, and it's relaxation, so everybody can relax at some point. She sat down in the chair, and even though she had a hard time just closing her eyes and going through the breathing exercises, she finally got on board with it. She had been anxious and stressed from the time she could remember, about eight or nine years old, because her parents relied on her to take care of so many things in their household. And so she constantly felt from a very young age that everything was on her. It was on her shoulders, the pressure. Everything had to work because she had to get it right. And as a child you don't quite process that information at all. And so it gave her this anxious notion that she always had to be doing something and fixing something, and if something went wrong it was her fault, kind of a thing. And after that first session she was finally able to relax. She came out of the hypnosis, and her entire face changed. It was calmer, it was more relaxed. She took a deep breath in, and she just couldn't realize how calm and relaxed she felt at that moment. And I sent her off, as I do with all my clients, with something to do in between our sessions: an affirmation, a few simple, easy things to do, a water meditation. And she did those things. Not all of my clients actually do their homework.

Kathi: Why? We love homework.

Nancy: I know, it's wonderful. She came back the next week and was just elated by how good she felt, how her family was noticing how much more relaxed she was, and just having a really great time in general, feeling more calm and relaxed. And so we've had a few sessions, and the last session we had, she was walking on air coming into the office that day. So that's success stories.

Kathi: Yeah, a big load off her shoulders. That's a lot to put on someone at eight and nine years old for sure, and she just never shook it off, or she never had the permission, probably, until she met you, to actually release it.

Nancy: Exactly.

Kathi: I love it. So what would be your best piece of advice for entrepreneurs who are at a low point, or they're just feeling depleted and exhausted? What's the best piece of advice that you would give them?

Nancy: There's a few things you can do for mental rejuvenation that don't take long. I give people a lot of times a 30 to 60 second meditation. If you can do a 60-second meditation, find some place that's quiet, even if you have to go to the bathroom to do it and lock the door. Some place that's quiet. Close your eyes, take three or four deep breaths in, hold your breath, exhale slowly, and you think at the same time, I'm at peace, I'm safe. If those are hard things to believe at that moment, you can say, I like the idea of being at peace. I like the idea of feeling safe. And just giving your mind those messages will be very helpful. At the same time, I use a lot of YouTube videos, and I recommend finding a YouTube video of a waterfall sound. Play that while you're doing that 60-second exercise, and let that sound of the water calm you as it moves through your body. The sound moves through your body, and then you're saying those words, and after about 60 seconds,

Kathi: I love that waterfall idea. My husband and I have been sleeping to rain lately. We have our little story from Calm, the bedtime story, and then it rains all night long, and it's just a really good, relaxing way to sleep.

Nancy: I do that too, Kathi.

Kathi: I love the Calm. And then lately I've been doing Holosync meditation called The Dive, and that's with earbuds on. It's pretty intense, because it's binaural beats and stuff, which is pretty cool. It's called The Dive. You should check it out. You'll like it. So tell me about a time when you discovered a really powerful tool that would help you get more done with less stress.

Nancy: Kathi, honestly, the most powerful tool is probably what I just shared: calming my mind. Because when we're not calm, our mind is jumping all over the place, and any little thing can throw us off. And so if I just take a few moments to calm myself down, I check myself before I wreck myself, so to speak. But just calming your mind and having a practice of it, it's like building a muscle. If you just do it once every now and then in an emergency situation, that's okay, but you have to bring this into a daily practice, like brushing your teeth every day: training your mind to be calm and relaxed, and increasing your confidence. If there's any other tip I could suggest, it would be increase your confidence in yourself. Not arrogance or ego, but true confidence, believing in yourself. No criticizing. I think criticizing ourselves is one of the worst things we can ever do. We can be aware of something we want to adjust or shift, but criticizing ourselves just makes everything worse, and it puts us in a position of no creativity. So get rid of the criticism, build your confidence, practice relaxation on a daily basis, and you're going to find that pretty soon you're going to be able to tackle whatever comes along.

You have to bring this into a daily practice, like brushing your teeth every day.

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I think criticizing ourselves is one of the worst things we can ever do.

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Kathi: Yeah, I totally agree. Criticism is a powerful sabotage, and we will self-sabotage ourselves all the time. I'm not good enough. I didn't do it well enough. I can't do it. And we all are here to express our own gift, I truly feel. And if you have something that just floats your boat, that's your innate ability. That's your innate gift to give back out. Whether you feel like you can do it or not doesn't matter, because that's right there, staring at you.

Nancy: True.

Kathi: What's the best piece of advice that… Oh, I'm sorry. Go on.

Nancy: Oh, go ahead.

Kathi: I was going to say, what's the best piece of advice that anybody's ever given you, as an entrepreneur or even in life?

Nancy: Well, for me, personal growth and development. Years ago I was in a lot of personal growth and development training through a company I was with, and they just really said, "Hey pros, school is never out for the pros." And so if you want to be a professional in every area of life, you want to continue growing, learning, reading. I love books. I'm old school, so I love the ones you hold in your hand, but the audios are great. And just continually training your mind to be open, full of fresh ideas, and to rejuvenate or remind yourself of things that you may have forgotten. So I have two books that I use as my Bibles.

School is never out for the pros.

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Kathi: Let's hear them.

Nancy: So one of them is by Louise Hay. It's called You Can Heal Your Life.

Kathi: Yes, love that book. Love, love, love Louise.

Nancy: And it really is helpful, because it helps to connect what's going on with your body and your mind, and offer an affirmation that can move you in the direction you want to go in. I also love The Success Principles by Jack Canfield. So great for entrepreneurs, business owners, and also just for yourself, for personal growth. It helps you to really find your center, take ownership, and then move forward from there. And so this one I have worn out a number of times.

Kathi: Worn out, gently loved copies. Nothing better than that. I love a well-read book. It just feels good when it's had your intention put on it. That's really cool. Okay, so I know that down below we're going to put a link for something that you'd like to provide to the audience. What is it that you're going to offer? What gift?

Nancy: I would love to offer a free consultation. Whether it's an affirmation you want a little help with, creating and fine-tuning an affirmation, that can be one or two sentences, and putting you into a bit of an affirmation plan, or a hypnotherapy consultation. Either one, I'd like to offer those as a free gift to your viewers. They're so powerful and easy to do.

Kathi: That's fantastic. We'll definitely put the link below. Grab that thing, because that's not just worth money, it's worth value to add to your life. You'll definitely take something away from this episode, guaranteed. So that's the way it works. So is there anything that we should have talked about that we haven't really covered yet, with your business or with your life? I know you have a lot of grandbabies floating around out there.

Nancy: I do. Seven now, eight… seven or eight. I kind of lost track. But they're all adorable. I love spending time with my grandkids.

Kathi: That's excellent. Is there anything that you want to talk about that's like a burning question? Because I don't really follow the format. So anything that we missed that you want to talk about?

Nancy: Well, I want to debunk a little bit about hypnotherapy. It's become so much more mainstream than it used to be, but a lot of times, if you say hypnosis or hypnotherapy, some of the responses I get are, "You're not going to make me cluck like a chicken, are you?" I say, "No. I really haven't trained to do that, so I don't know how to do that." So, no problem there. But it's really a very natural process. It's moving your mind into a state, an altered state, sometimes called a trance. And we're in and out of trances all day long. You can drive down the freeway, go five, ten miles, and wonder, I don't remember going those five, ten miles. How did I get here? You were in a trance. You can be watching TV, close your eyes and nod off a little bit, maybe hear a little bit of the background TV, but mostly you're just so relaxed you don't even notice anything. You were in a trance. And so, hypno is Greek for sleep or deep relaxation. And when you use a hypnotherapist, they're simply guiding you into a state of relaxation, whether it's a very light or very deep state, that's up to your inner mind, and then offering gentle, helpful suggestions based off what you've told them you want, the results you want. And in doing so, you help your mind and body become more relaxed, more calm, and more in tune and in line with what you're wanting. And so it's just a great experience. I would say I haven't had anybody that's ever left not feeling great about the session. And most of the time they leave feeling a little surprised at how wonderful it was. It's like, "What did you do to me?"

We're in and out of trances all day long.

Kathi: Well, I know a lot of people feel that they can't be hypnotized, and I think pretty much everybody can.

Nancy: Yes, it's just a matter of, if you can go to sleep, you can be hypnotized, because it's just guiding you into that state of relaxation. And I call it oftentimes adult nap time, where you get to take a nap or just rest and have wonderful words of affirmation or positive reinforcement for what you're wanting, what you're telling the hypnotherapist you want. And then leaving with your inner mind, which is the driver, the one that generates everything, on board with that idea more and more.

If you can go to sleep, you can be hypnotized.

Kathi: Yeah, I love that. So how about a tool that you use to keep your business organized? As an entrepreneur, what's one of your favorite ways to just stay on track with the busyness part of the business?

Nancy: I create a little bit of a schedule for myself. For example, if I want to organize reaching back out to clients, checking in with people, I do that on a certain day and a certain time. My Facebook posts, having an idea of what I want to say ahead of time, creating a little bit of a monthly promo, so to speak. For example, I believe it was March was Mental Health Awareness Month, that sort of thing. Having promotions that line up with what's going on in the month, whether it's holidays and finding more relaxation during the holidays or whatever it is. Just making sure that I'm lining up with what's going on in the world. And using an online calendar to schedule things and reach out and communicate with my clients, and then follow up and make sure their appointment's going to actually happen. So I'm just using some of those things: social media, and mostly scheduling it out so that I don't have to wonder what I'm doing and when I'm doing it. And then if I miss it, I miss it. But at least it's scheduled, and next week I'll catch up to it.

Kathi: Yeah, it's always what I tell people when they do time management calendars. If you have it in there and you didn't do it, it's fine. You know that you can do it, and you get to get back to it. If it's not in there, you don't even know you didn't do it.

Nancy: Exactly.

Kathi: Yeah, there's no judgment. Half the time we get everything done, and the other half of the time there's stuff that fell by the wayside, but at least we know we didn't do it.

Nancy: Absolutely.

Kathi: Yeah, I like that. And I like the idea of what you said that… Oh, now I just went brain dead. Snap. What was that? Oh, setting up your social media and basically your reach-out based on holidays. I have so much fun with this, because there's a holiday every single day of the year, and no matter what you're doing, you can tap into three to four to five different holidays that are applicable to your business when you market. And it's really fun. It's like, oh, it's National Hot Dog Day. Okay, what am I going to do about that? It's just really fun, because there's so many. I've always thought about making a national holiday, because you can just make one and have it be a national holiday. I guess I didn't look into it much, but obviously you can make a national holiday out of just about anything.

Nancy: Exactly.

Kathi: So yeah, it's smart to come up with themes. I think it really helps us as content providers and content creators to be more focused, which is always a good thing.

Nancy: Yes.

Kathi: And I know that hypnotherapy can also help you focus.

Nancy: Absolutely. Absolutely. It kind of helps clear out the clutter in the mind. You have a lot of clutter up there.

Kathi: I love it. We're simpatico.

Nancy: Yes.

Kathi: Okay, I don't think there's much more that I wanted to talk about. I think that everybody should definitely take advantage of this offer. It's a huge offer. So go in and schedule a consult so that you can see what it's like, especially if you've never had hypnotherapy. That's a very generous offer. We appreciate that.

Nancy: You got it. My pleasure.

Kathi: Okay, gang. It's nice to meet you, and thank you all for tuning in, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Nancy: You got it.