Transcripts
Well, Christina, welcome to The Accrescent Podcast. It's so exciting to have you on today.
Christina L. Woods (:thanks for having me, Leigh Ann. I'm happy to be here.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:We were talking off air a little bit of how you're actually the first hypnotherapist, clinical hypnotherapist I've had on the show. So I wanna give the audience kind of that general introduction to what is hypnotherapy. But before we get there, can you give us a little bit of your origin story? How did you even find hypnotherapy? And the little bit I know of your story already, it was moving enough that you completely changed career paths to
begin practicing hypnotherapy. So tell us a little bit of that journey.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Yeah, this is this is a big was a big shift for me. I had a 30 year corporate life that I thought I'd stay in forever and ever. so I was going through a big shift in my life. I I didn't know this would be the shift, but I was going through a big shift. I was married for twenty five years and my marriage wasn't going so well. My oldest son was about to go off to college. I was in a very successful career, but it wasn't a fulfilling career. I
You know, I had burnout, which is pretty common after I guess you've been doing something for a long time. But there were big, big shifts, you know, oldest son leaving home and some bigger life things were going on. And then I was hit with vertigo. And it was not just vertigo at a certain time, it was 24/7 vertigo. So this was, you know, can't go to work, can't function. And like anyone would do, you know, you go on a hunt to figure out how can I make this go away.
And I went to at least 25 different doctors, went on the search, no one could figure out or help me. And at the same time, all these other big things were going on in my life. I had started sort of a personal development journey and I found hypnotherapy. And it was just a one-off. Someone recommended it. And so I started listening to a hypnosis audio. And it was wasn't even a customized one, it was a generic one. And it helped.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:The vertigo, my vertigo got about 50% better. And I thought, well, isn't that interesting? so I had shared the news with a doctor and he actually kind of laughed at me and said, Okay, yeah, and kind of blew me off. And I I when I look back at that, I think, gosh, I really wasn't that offended. I should have brought, I was looking back, why wasn't I offended? I was actually more curious.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Maybe I should have been more upset about that. Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:But but I I actually was really curious because as I listened to it, I my vertigo started getting lower and lower. And so I just got very curious about well, my mind and my body are clearly talking to each other. And so I just went down that road with hypnotherapy. It really was just one of the many, many things I had tried on my personal development path. And it was something that I started digging in more and more. And in that
Journey and in that path, I started exploring and discovering things about myself that I thought were very, very true, which was I'm a perfectionist. I'm just someone who works really, really hard and goes above and beyond. But what I started when I peeling the onion, I started discovering wow, I do those things. I have beliefs about myself that actually aren't even true. And they had been driving me to be this overachiever.
And it was all sort of connected to vertigo and how I believed what I believed about myself. And that's how I stumbled upon hypnotherapy was it started allowing me to see beliefs I had about myself, which was I am bad and I'm not enough. And I looked back reflection and and saw, wow, that's why I did everything every boss ever wanted me to do. And that's why I have burnout and so many things. And
Started to really also listen to my body in a very different way. And that's so much so that I thought, wow, I really want to be able to help other people in a very natural way. Because to me, hypnosis was just such a very easy, natural way. There weren't drugs involved. There wasn't any machinery. There was nothing. It was this state of a mindset we could go in and really discover and take a peek into the subconscious and find out.
Hey, what's going on? What are these beliefs that are there that we can literally change through, you know, repetition and we'll get, we'll explore that. But that's that's kind of how I fell upon it. I really stumbled upon it.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right. Okay, I'm gonna pause just for a second because I see that my video is delayed.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:This is in depth psychology, the premise is the unconscious, first of all, is only ever trying to protect us. And it's always communicating. And in all of these different ways. And what I hear in a little bit of what you're saying is on some level, vertigo was a form of communication. And when you did some of that subconscious work, even just indirectly through the hypnotherapy recording that you were listening to, it was helping soften.
Whatever that was that you were experiencing. And I think that's so fascinating and just correlates so directly to my work with clients, which is how might disease be a form of communication? How might physical symptoms and different ailments have some kind of almost, you know, psychic communication in it. And of course, it's never reducing it down to one root cause. There's all of course physiological contributors to what we're experiencing as well. But
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:Sure.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:I love that you you were able to listen to that vertigo. You you know, even as you were talking and you were explaining, it was a really intense time in my life and you think about the symbolism of vertigo, which is I'm spinning, I'm spinning, I'm spinning.
Christina L. Woods (:I'm out of control, right?
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:I'm out of control. And how you know it's it's almost a beautiful metaphor for how you might have actually felt in your life in that time.
Christina L. Woods (:Sure, sure. You know, with I think back and I look, you know, I'm losing an identity of my being a mother and my son's leaving, my marriage was dissolving. I I knew, you know, no matter what I I saw as the future, I knew that corporate identity was dissolving. But when you have had an identity for so long and you see it changing, but you cannot imagine what else it would be, you know, then then you really start to get shaky.
And that's that's what I see now when I look back is okay, my body was talking to me. And and what that audio was doing when I think about it, it was called a healing vortex. And it really was just a very grounding hypnosis audio that helps you kind of swoosh out everything that feels negative and ground into things that feel positive. And so it was really just saying, okay, calm down and feel really grounded and safe.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm. Which is you again, when the psyche's communicating and some of those signs and symptoms, for me, sometimes it's what are our dreams showing us, are just the psyche saying, Hey, here's something I'm really stuck on. Here's something I'm really hung up on. Here's something I'm needing. And so that that hypnotherapy audio gave the psyche some of the messages it was really needing to be able to settle.
Christina L. Woods (:That's right. That's right. And from there, Pandora's box opened for of of hypnosis and and so many other you know, areas that I wanted to explore. But I I think the aha moment was, wow, I had beliefs about myself that weren't true. And I can't be the only one. Of course I'm not the only one. And you know, those beliefs weren't necessarily created for any other reason other than what you said, which was to keep me safe. And those were
were there for a good reason, but they also are creating behaviors in my life that aren't necessarily the behaviors that I want in my life and the results that I want or the physical things in my body that were showing up. So that was where I knew, wow, I really want to, you know, at 50, 50 years old, I want to change careers and completely change the course of my life. So
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah. it's so amazing and it's so inspiring. So for those of us, I want to pretend like we've never heard of hypnotherapy before, even though most of the audience probably has. But I also think it's one of those things that you might have heard about in the ethers and still never really gotten a description of what actually is this. So I know that's probably a very oversimplified question, but for someone who maybe has never heard of it, what is hypnotherapy?
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah. Yeah. So hypnotherapy creates a naturally focused state of mind. And so I'm just gonna start with that because it's a very natural state. It isn't something that's unnatural. We go in and out of a hypnotic state every day, all day. So if we've ever driven, and I'm no, I'm not the only one, ever driven home and you don't remember the lights or the stop signs, and you think, uh-oh, I hope I stopped.
if you've, you know, so been so immersed in a movie, you you know, and your someone at home says, Didn't you hear the dog going crazy? And you're saying, I didn't hear a thing. We're so immersed in this other state of mind. So we go in and out before we go to sleep or when we first wake up in these other states of mind. And so we just intentionally get there in hypnosis with a with an intention in mind to go and find out.
Exactly what is perhaps behind a behavior, behind the root cause of something that we want to change. And we just do that by moving into a slower brainwave state. And it feels like a meditation. I think the the first thing I want to change in everyone's mind is that you lose control. Because I don't think anyone would want to sign up for that. I know I wouldn't want to sign up for that. So hypnosis is definitely a place that it feels like a
A meditation or something that you're listening to. But we're talking. We we're having a dialogue the entire time. You can still hear the UPS truck go by. You can still hear the phone ring. You can still hear things. So you're still very engaged and you're not losing control at all. You're still very much engaged throughout the entire conversation. But what we're doing is we are quieting the conscious mind, which is
The analytical part of our mind, the part that's very needed and important. But just during this time, we want it to get kind of quiet and push, you know, just set aside for a second. Let's not analyze and get critical. And let's expand the most suggestible part of your mind, which is your subconscious mind, which is where our beliefs are stored. And also it's the most suggestible part of our mind, which especially when we're children, is so active. So we're going into that.
Christina L. Woods (:part of our mind which is so open and suggestible and saying and asking specific questions. So it's a very intentional process. So if you came to me and said, why do I procrastinate or why do I have this behavior? Or why do I eat cookies at midnight every night? And can I, you know, make that stop or something, you know, maybe more serious. Why do I do this in my relationship or speak with my children this way? We can just ask that specific question.
And go back and find the root of a belief. And it will show us stories and scenarios and we can put that little story together. So we'll stop there. We can ask more questions.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm. Yes. So when we're in a hypnotic state, we're more suggestible. I think the essence of what you're saying is we create we create narratives from life experience that we might not even realize we have. And those narratives are being stored in the subconscious mind and are therefore then rippling out into behaviors.
But because they're in the subconscious mind, we might not necessarily bel be aware of what the narratives are. We might just be aware of the behavior. Like, I I know I keep screaming at my kids, even though I know I don't want to. I I don't know why I keep doing it. Or I know that I want to, you know, stop dating that toxic people, but I seem to keep attracting the same type of person in.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah, that I love that you're saying that because we do have the awareness of the behavior. And insight isn't enough to make a change always. So we read the books, we listen to the podcasts, we have awareness and insight, but our subconscious is where our beliefs are stored and they are so much more powerful than our conscious, our conscious mind. So what we're wanting to do in hypnosis is yes, we're kind of opening up.
That awareness to where what are our beliefs that are guiding and directing the lens in which we see the world and we see ourselves and which is guiding those behaviors. And they're not, they're not, again, necessarily the truth about us, but it's the meaning that we attach to a narrative. So it's let's go take a peek and find out, okay, so the belief might be if you're more visible, that's not a dangerous place.
That's a dangerous thing to do. So let's let's have you procrastinate and not put that presentation together for work. if you you know are vulnerable with your emotions, that's not so safe. Maybe it wasn't safe when you were younger. So instead, cause a fight and pick a fight with someone or date people that are emotionally unavailable. That's much safer. And you're saying, no, no, no, I really want to be connect with people more.
But the belief is there and it's sabotaging those deep relationships that you want. So we can go in and find the root and and and then and then we can start to to take action. So the insight is where you can start to get curious, but we can't really solve it there, right?
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think if it was awareness alone, most of us wouldn't have any issues because there there is a, I think, a subset of individuals who are caught in patterns that they are unaware of or they don't see an issue with, right? They maybe do scream at their kids and they don't think that's a problem. That's a whole different subset. But I think a lot of people are quite self-aware and want genuinely want to make changes and are putting their best effort out there.
Christina L. Woods (:No, no. And
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:However, they're maybe only working with the conscious mind.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah, and that's frustrating. You know, it's it can be so frustrating. And in fact, it's probably one of the most common things people will call me and the first thing they say is, I know, I know better, or I've worked on this so for so long. This should not be showing up anymore. In fact, I don't want to talk about it anymore. And, you know, we can work on things. And and I always say, and now you're at the phase you're being asked to just go even deeper. Isn't that beautiful? Let's go even deeper.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right.
Christina L. Woods (:because it doesn't mean you haven't worked on something before. Of course not. But here we are, and you're being asked perhaps to go even deeper. You're ready to go even deeper.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah. Can you help me? Because I also have never experienced hypnotherapy and I'm so visual. Can you help map out what a session might look like? And I know of course that is gonna be so unique to each person, but in general, what a hypnotherapy session with you might look like.
Christina L. Woods (:Yes, sure. So it can be either virtual or in person. So I don't think people realize virtual is just as effective. And you're usually lying down. and you will start off with your eyes and looking up, and we kind of go through some certain motions because to get into that hypnotic state.
Instead of me waiting for you to fall asleep right before and and remember it's a it's a naturally focused state. So I'm just gonna get you there in maybe five minutes, 10 minutes. And so I'm gonna have you do something with your eyes and flutter. So your eyes will be closed the whole time. But a hypnosis session is usually about 90 minutes to two hours long. we can do it in like an hour, but it's usually about that long. And what we're doing is you've come to me wanting to know about, you know, wanting to.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm.
Christina L. Woods (:improve an area of your life. And so I will simply ask you a question. We'll say, let's go back to a scene, a place, an event or time that has something to do with the same feeling of, you know, has something to do with say procrastination or this feeling of not being able to connect with people, whatever it is that you want to work on.
And you'll go back to a moment, maybe when you were five, and you're saying, I have a scene in my life. I'm eating cereal with my sister. We're watching cartoons. So it might feel like this very benign, normal, nothing situation. And or you might say, I'm looking at a photo. I'm look so it none of it really matters, but it's the meaning that we've all attached to these little things. And I know what I'm doing. I'm putting all these things together. And we'll go back to three or four scenes.
And you're you're in that moment of when you're 12 or 25 and six, or a teacher said this to you, a coach said something to you, or a colleague back then, and they all are sewing together a story of beliefs. And again, they might not seem like anything, but after a while you're starting to see when these beliefs and the meaning you attach to these moments in time and
We you're very quickly the aha moments start. And what I love about it is I don't come in with any any preconceived ideas of, I know how this is gonna land. It's fascinating to be able to see what comes up in the subconscious mind because it just like a target, it knows exactly when and where these beliefs started. Often they're in the womb when we overhear doctors or
A mother having a conversation of maybe she was afraid to be a new mom, little moments where we hear things and say, gosh, I'm not wanted, or mom's scared, and we we feel the chemicals and the anxiety in mom. So we feel so much at such an early age, and those are the things that come out. And then from there, we are able to say, okay.
Christina L. Woods (:Well, I'm not five anymore. I'm not 10. And we kind of start to flip the script. And following a session, I make a custom audio recording where it's customized for each specific client. And then using very descriptive, powerful words of putting it to theta music, you listen to that audio recording for about 30 days, sometimes longer, every day. And you can even fall asleep while you're listening to it. Your subconscious is still actively listening. And that's when
we are rewiring or through neuroplasticity, we're starting to hear a new belief. It's starting to mean something different. And we're starting to accept that something different can actually be true. And that's that's when the magic starts happening.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah. And so the essence of it really is identifying what are I call them unconscious narratives, but what are the beliefs, what are the beliefs in my subconscious that are fueling this behavior and where did they come from? And then starting to rewrite those narratives.
Christina L. Woods (:Exactly.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah, yeah. And and you know, it's so many times people will feel like, you know, I didn't have trauma or I wouldn't consider that or that wasn't as bad as XYZ or it, you know, or my dad was strict, but it wasn't that bad. And and you know, it it it's all the meaning that we attached and you know our subconscious mind's only priority is to keep us safe and alive.
It is not that we thrive or have a lot of money or even find love. It's to keep us alive and safe. And I think when we really understand that real core basic primary need of our subconscious, we get to really have a lot more patience and compassion for ourselves.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right. And it I I love that you're bringing up this point because it's it's not just quote unquote traumatic events that can create subconscious beliefs. Our subconscious is constantly scanning and observing what's happening and making conclusions. And the childhood's the the child subconscious might look at something that as adults we look back and go, that's completely benign, but the child subconscious.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:created a narrative about it that might be quite extreme and quite limiting.
Christina L. Woods (:Absolutely. Absolutely. And and that's why, you know, when you speak with a sibling, they'll say, that was a great vacation. What are you talking about? Or did we grow up in the same house? Because it's a different experience for everyone. And, you know, I was five and you were three. No, no, no. That's not the Thanksgiving dinner I remember. It's a completely different experience. And we have different a different nervous system and we hear it differently. And
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:the tone and and all of those things go into our body differently.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm. I love it. And I it's so powerful too because even things like being in the womb, we we are aware immediately, almost immediately upon conception. And I there's even there's some cool studies out there that show as early as a couple hours after birth, memory is being recorded. Even though that's not what conventional psychology is often telling us, there's this kind of thought of if I don't have like
Christina L. Woods (:y immediately.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:explicit memory of something, I don't remember it, period. Rather than implicit memory is very real and the psyche is absorbing, aware, observing even in the womb. And so what's happening in there is very, very relevant.
Christina L. Woods (:Mm-hmm.
Christina L. Woods (:yeah, I have I have so many stories and very powerful stories of clients and so much healing that happens and things that they didn't they weren't even aware of that they'll go back later and ask mom and dad if this happened and it's validated. Things they they weren't aware of. So, you know, we're such pure sensation at that time. And so the things that we are
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:are absorbing, like you've said, and and and taking in, and it has such a different meaning at that time. So to be able to come back now and look and reflect and say, let me give that a different meaning. You know, that's what hypnotherapy and and that's the work that I feel that I just am so honored to do is to say, hold on, at that time you s you didn't feel safe and this is how that beh that
That's showing up in your life now. But now you can look back and see it so differently. So let's now give it a new meaning. Let's look at now we have so much compassion for that little baby that felt that way. And now we can literally, you can almost rewrite a new meaning because you're able to look back and say, I have compassion. And now I understand it differently, don't you? So you can understand it differently and give it a new meaning. And that's
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm.
Christina L. Woods (:Really healing and life changing.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah. And it sounds to me like the two components of that are beyond beyond going into the subconscious, because that's where I feel like what I'm hearing say, and maybe I'll state it explicitly for the audience, is as they're in a more hypnotic subconscious state, some of that subconscious material can come into consciousness.
Christina L. Woods (:Yes.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:in a very organic way, like a memory when they were five years old, a memory when they were 20 years old. That is just spontaneously, organically surfacing in these states. So we're using it to identify things, but then we're also using it to input new beliefs, new material. And so it sounds to me like how do how do we rewrite these beliefs once we've identified them, it's repetition.
Christina L. Woods (:Yes.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:of the new belief on some level, but it does to me seem like it's important that the repetition is also happening on subconscious levels.
Christina L. Woods (:Yes. Yeah. So in the in the hypnosis audio, every every day that they're listening, they're actually doing self-hypnosis, which is so easy. So I'll start the audio with, okay, roll your eyes up, do this, do that. So that's what's so wonderful is they they learn so quickly how to get themselves into hypnosis, which is putting their brainwaves in the most suggestible state. And they can listen to it as while they're asleep.
But we're able to put our minds in this sponge-like state so that the words going in, the descriptions going in, the visions going in are in the most suggestible state. So in that state, we're able to create new neural pathways so that these new beliefs become familiar. And the more they become familiar, they just become who you are. And at first, they're unfamiliar. So at first,
they're they don't feel that great to be honest. You know, they don't just I don't that's why just affirmations, you know, you're beautiful, you're beautiful. Okay. Yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:I love this because I was gonna ask you how you feel about affirmations. I most of my clients just don't feel that they're that impactful. They haven't really done much for them. Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:Christina L. Woods (27:02.068)
No, they're not that impactful because it's like, nah, I don't believe that. because there's a stronger belief in our subconscious. I mean, some of them are are they feel nice maybe at first, but we're pretty powerful and our subconscious mind has a much stronger belief inside that will negate the affirmation that will say, no, if you believe that, then that counteracts what's going to keep you safe.
And so it just doesn't go in. It it just doesn't go in. So affirmations are good when they they reinforce the belief, but we got to know what the beliefs are. So if you know that it just it just doesn't make any sense if you really understand how the subconscious works. So yeah. So the the they're silly if if the belief isn't there to back it up. And I've even had clients who aren't ready for the audio.
And sometimes I've had to say, okay, hold on. I think some of the things I've said in this audio, I actually have to have an audio maybe a little bit before this one. Maybe this one was a little too intense. I have to one that has like a stepping stone audio because the subconscious is just not ready for these full-on the truth about you, but we have to do this in stages because your nervous system isn't ready for this yet.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Well, right. And I think what's so different about that approach too is it's I find a lot of affirmation work, a lot of things along that line can be very self-dismissive. It's if we just try and slap a new belief on without honoring the original beliefs and where they came from. It's very dismissive and almost like a second wound where, you know, if I have a belief that came from my
Christina L. Woods (:Mm-hmm.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:four year old abused self and I'm just trying to like slap something over it, there's still a four year old abused self who's going completely unacknowledged.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah, it's it's very dismissive. And that part needs to be heard and seen and validated. And until we take the time to see that part and validate and do that work, we're literally just going around it as if it doesn't exist. And that part will actually will get bigger. And yeah, kick and scream.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right. Because it's like you don't you don't even see me over here. You don't know the danger that exists.
Christina L. Woods (:That's exactly what will happen. And that's what does happen. So and and you know, and and that's that's the work is hold on, this part we might actually work on, let's say there's five big beliefs going on. We might successfully work on two or three, and these other two might roar up and say, No, no, no, I'm not changing. And so it's like, hold on, we actually have to slow down and they have.
A lot to teach us. So I always will say the wisdom is in the wounds. Let's listen more. Let's listen more. Slow down. And we have, we have what exactly what you said. Let's hear what they have to say. And whether that be through inner child work or slowing down and truly, truly understanding why they exist.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah. Is where was I gonna go with this? Clients, if you're seeing clients who it is so resistant, like maybe stickier, I sometimes call it the belief sticky, than the average client. What do you often see is going on there when it's when you're just kind of like, okay, whoa man, this this belief really doesn't want to let go? I've had so many other clients who were able to shift things so much quicker. What's going on here? Are there any patterns you see with that?
Christina L. Woods (:Sure, yeah. That's
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah, sure. You know, I mean, trauma a lot of trauma, nervous system needs a lot of support and regulation. So it's just a real deep sense of lack of safety. So we need to really dig in and find out what what their needs are. So me plowing through and doing more hypnotherapy is not gonna be the answer.
It's okay, let's let's slow down and and see what kind of support you need with your nervous system. So whether that's through me or another practitioner, that's the route to go before we can really work on the beliefs, you know. So it's it's it's usually some kind of yeah, nervous system regulation that's that's needed or you know, dysregulation.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right. Yeah. Being able to support from from the physical side, the physiological side and the mental emotional side. And sometimes sometimes j the mental emotional isn't enough. We do need some physiological stimuli that are giving safety signals.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah. And you know, it might be breath work that I'll help them with. It might be EFT tapping. It might be something that they need that's much, much deeper than that. It it could be as simple as, all right, let's do these exercises and journaling. And it might not be. It might be something, you know, much deeper than that.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm. Yeah. What are some of the topics or areas that you're supporting clients with? And then we might start to get into some of these a little bit deeper.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah, so I would say the one of the biggest ones is
A a common feeling is I'm not enough. and I know that sounds so general and generic, but I I think this I'm not enough, and I work with a lot of highly capable, highly successful women. So this very fierce, you know, no one's coming, I'm alone. you know, yeah, I'm alone. And even if they have
A partner or a loving partner, it's still a belief that I'm I'm alone. I've got to do it on my own, I'm alone. This very, very fierce labeled, I'm just independent. I'm, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm independent, that type of thing. that's a very, very common one. I don't trust anyone, which shows up in their body and physical ways as well. And
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:And this also lack of at some point they've stopped trusting and listening to their intuition, stopped being in tune with their body, listening to their intuition, listening to their body, listening to their nervous system. When do they need to slow down? Balance. That's a very common one.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah. What does what does their life look like? When those clients come in, they're coming, they're not necessarily coming in going, I have a belief that I'm not enough. They're coming in going, Christina, here's the patterns I'm stuck in. And what are some of those patterns?
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:the pattern is they're controlling a lot of their life. So even if they're controlling personal development, so or they're controlling, you know, how they help themselves. So it might be, you know, I wake up at 4 a.m. and I go to the gym and I do Pilates and then I meditate and then I journal and then I I eat my sh you know, drink my shake and I have a nutrition. It's just very controlled. That's a big one. Yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:it also looks like there's just a lot of fear. So there's a lot of fear that if I let go, what's gonna happen? So not a lot of trust and faith in being okay, being okay if I let go. And when I what I mean by that is, you know, whether that is a faith in something more or bigger or just a connection with their truer self.
So, you know, I might be sounding woo, but just very grounded and centered in who they are and not something outside of them.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah, it sounds like that that hyper dependent person who is incredibly capable. And by the way, it's very tricky to pinpoint because these are behaviors that are so idolized in our society. You know, you from the outside looking in, people might go, She's got it all. She's success, she's so disciplined, she's so organized, and that can all be very true. And
Christina L. Woods (:They are. Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:she's on it. Yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:They feel that and I have absolutely been caught in these cycles before where I feel this sense of I can't I can't let go. I can't delegate any of these things, I can't slow down. And in its worst, worst moments, it creates this almost like groundhogs day kind of feeling of what is the point of life? If it's just as soon as my eyes open, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and then I sleep.
Christina L. Woods (:yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:And then I wake up, go, go, go, go, go. And so it's it's led to some very depressive like periods of time of going, This can't be what life is like, 'cause even though life looks really good, I feel myself just going through the motions.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah. Well, you're right. And I even left a corporate life that was like that to start doing what I love. And then I found myself in a very similar pattern, which made me think, this must be me, not the corporate life that if it followed me because here I am, chase, chase, chase, chase, chase, chase, chase. And you know, I've had to look in the mirror myself at the same thing, like, okay, it wasn't them, it was me.
That's literally creating the same scenario over and over. So and and it is praised, it is, you know, a lot of those things, but you know, that's why those clients are brought to me too, right? I I can see it, I recognize it. And so it's it's a pattern that is one that asks us to get quiet and really trust ourselves.
To just know that, you know, those answers are inside of us, not outside of us. And so we have to look at those beliefs that are within that say, all right, a lot of the things that I do are to make me feel safe. And they lead to things that that really don't equate to safety. They make me feel safe. But if I let them all go, do they really? And
Let's step back and say, hold on, if I who do I have to be? You know, and and what does someone believe about themselves when they have all these behaviors? They believe literally that if I let go of them, the whole world's gonna collapse.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah, completely. What are some of the patterns you then see in terms of the experiences that created those beliefs? Is there a theme of yeah, a lot of these clients have childhood experiences like blank or a certain kind of traumatic event or something?
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah. most of them have been, you know, parentified. They were given a lot of responsibilities at an early age. They were praised for that, you know, given, you know, the the responsible one. And so you're you're very good with money. You're the responsible one to help with your siblings. Those
That's that's one of those many, many experiences I see. I also find at a very early age, like under three years old, many of them had experiences where their parents were not necessarily, maybe they were young parents. And so they left them unattended or not necessarily unsafe, but the child felt no one was caring for me or.
They felt who's in charge.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah, yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:So if they're if they're not in charge, who's in tr I have to be responsible for myself.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm. Again, I just want to highlight the three-year-old psyche. Maybe maybe you they were left alone in a room for 30 minutes.
Christina L. Woods (:Yes.
Christina L. Woods (:Exactly. It's not they were left at a bus stop. It's I was just left while I went and cooked dinner.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah.
Yeah, but for any number of different reasons, at that time, at that moment, that child psyche really internalized a message of danger, a message of threat. And then it creates a narrative of, okay, that was scary. I never want that to happen again. Therefore, blank.
Christina L. Woods (:Mm.
Christina L. Woods (:Therefore, therefore, yes. And and that is something in hypnosis we look for and people will reveal in hypnosis is that must mean what? That must mean I'm alone and I'll be alone forever. And we always see that under five is that must mean now must mean no one's coming and no one will ever come. But after like after 10, you don't really hear that. You only hear that really, really young. It's like a that will always be like that.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Bring him.
Right. The the extrapolation across everything. Rather than yeah. Yeah, and that tracks with I think developmental psychology, which is the child's world is the parental relationship, is the home. It doesn't go beyond that. So if there's something happening in the home, it does represent the whole world.
Christina L. Woods (:Right. Right. So it's like it's like that forever. Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:Sure.
Christina L. Woods (:Exactly, exactly. So that is that's that's a very common one. So it's it's all of a sudden again, I'm I'm it, I'm on my own, no one's coming. So, you know, and and but it's it's again it's the awareness. So we don't just go there to find that belief, but we have an aha moment. So in hypnosis also we say
You know, you're not reliving these experiences. You're watching them almost on a television or on a movie screen. So we are able to see them and look at them and say, wow, like a detective. Well, okay. And we we go through the process of that's not me anymore. I'm not that age. We we make sure we're separated to be able to separate and move on. And it's very, very helpful to have that separation and
That you know, that's part of creating a new belief and giving it a new identity.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I know there's so many other areas we could talk about, but as we said before we got on the recording, I saw a post you put up recently about medical trauma and working with clients who've experienced medical trauma. And that is just so relevant to a lot of my audience, to so many of my clients going through.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Cancer, chronic illness, so many doctors' appointments and treatments and oftentimes very invasive surgeries. So this is fascinating to me. I would just love to hear what you're seeing, what clients are coming in with. Maybe even, you know, how can someone know that that medical experience might have traumatized me or impacted me? I think a lot of people might go, Well, I was under anesthesia.
Christina L. Woods (:huh.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:and how is it maybe rippling out in ways where it's like, I wouldn't have necessarily pinned some of those behaviors to that medical thing I had happened, da da da.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah, I think the the first layer is
Allow yourself to express whatever you're feeling about an appointment or a doctor, that feeling that you were dismissed, or some a doctor rolled their eyes, or any of that. Because I think just that layer right there, before we go into any other layer, is allow yourself to say, Yeah, I didn't feel hurt, or I didn't, I felt dismissed, or
I just felt like they didn't listen or I felt that they, you know, blew me off, or some you know, that alone, just allowing yourself to say that that that didn't feel good. That that you know, that that because we don't allow ourselves to to even acknowledge that because for some reason we hold that. We hold that and then we we hold it and we hold it and we hold it and we add it up and then
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right.
Christina L. Woods (:What happens is we've added up an accumulation of from when when we went to the doctor at 16 years old and we had our first appointment with the doctor and it was embarrassing. And then our mom took us here and then we took us here. And so what I'm seeing with clients is maybe even a small experience now was really an unexpressed experience from many, many years ago. And it it's now
this unexpressed buildup of emotions that I'm not allowed to say anything. Cause maybe, you know, maybe a parent said, the doctor knows better. Just listen. You know, you shouldn't say anything. and and this isn't any, you know, disrespect to any doctors, but we do have a voice and we are allowed to be heard. And we are allowed to change doctors. And we are not leave a doctor. And, you know, there's just so many different
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:ways we can take this. but we also s we tend to swallow it. And so whatever we're feeling right now, sometimes we feel like it's I'm I'm blowing this up, but it all it might be from something very likely it's been accumulating for many, many, many, many years of of not allowing. And and if especially if we have not expressed emotions or we have oftentimes felt
Male doctors or this doctor or that doctor or different cultures. I mean, this goes in so many different directions. I don't speak up. I wasn't taught to speak up. it it can just be something that we're taught, something that we're told we have to do. and it can hold itself in your body, in your organs in so many different ways. So in hypnosis, I see it it come out even women.
have had experiences in childbirth where they didn't have the childbirth that they wanted or desired, yes, in surgeries and so on. and so it's it's much, I would say probably 50% of my clients, I'm I'm working with them on this.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah. It's more prevalent than you might initially think. I wanna highlight something you're saying because I think it's really important that what I heard you saying is sometimes clients might have an experience present day with a medical professional and on the surface they might go.
The the level of anxiety or activation I'm having does feel a bit e exacerbated compared to what actually happened. And they're doing a little reality check with themselves. And I feel like what I'm hearing you say is if you do think you're truthfully having an exacerbated reaction to something present day, it might be because there is something from the past with a medical professional that never got metabolized.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:That's right. That's right. And listen to allow yourself to listen to your body. Listen to what's coming up. And just be curious. Just be curious. And just say, why, why am I reacting this way? What's going on? And, you know, and and have a conversation or journal. And, you know, one of my favorite journal prompts is just to say, I, Leigh Ann, feel, I, Christina, feel, and just see what comes up.
you know, and sometimes you'll be surprised at what comes up. You know, it's like, my gosh, I remember that dentist was such a jerk and this thing came up and completely dismissed me. I mean, just the other day I had one of those experiences and I was dentist, you know, said something and I walked in my car to my car and I started crying afterward. And I thought, well, what is this about? And my husband later goes, Don't you remember that one conversation you had? I was like, yeah. It was a built-up.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right.
Christina L. Woods (:something had where I felt very dismissed and you know and I'm not not to snowball it and make it, but it was a very buried emotion of, you know, I I don't feel heard and I'm not gonna go back to the doctor, the dentist. and I I think we forget that we have the ability to change medical professionals to to be with people that we feel resonate with us.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right.
Christina L. Woods (:That are positive and and I'm sure you tell that to your clients all the time.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah, 100%. And some of the ways I've seen it express in more severe or intense terms is you know, I've had clients who could be right after some kind of medical procedure, they start experiencing claustrophobia or panic attacks. And sometimes it it's so stark. It's I was in the hospital for 17 days and the day I got out I had claustrophobia.
Christina L. Woods (:Yes.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Or sometimes it's a bit delayed. I remember I had a younger client come in who we were working together because she kind of had these panic attacks that seemed to surface out of nowhere. And after you know, a as we did the work, what surfaced was this dental appointment about six months earlier that had created this feeling of being trapped, being out of control.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah.
Christina L. Woods (:Yep. Anxiety, claustrophobia, sleep disruptive your sleep is disrupted, eating being disrupted, just any kind of change. But I I think the more we just pay attention to how we're feeling and just say let me just, you know, let me get curious about that. And I always say these are little whispers, just what's going on with the whisper. So that's why going on a walk is so good. And
That's why we always have these epiphanies that wake up our world in the shower, right? Because there's no noise in the shower.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right. Hopefully. Hopefully, yes. But again to this point, and we we keep reiterating it, but I think it is so impactful, especially in a world today where we use the term trauma over and over and over, is it doesn't necessarily have to be something that would be labeled trauma, right? This dental experience she had, no one's gonna look at her and go, Yeah, that was traumatic, that was medical negligence, you should sue. Anyone would have looked at that and gone,
you know, everything kind of went as it should, but the level of trapped that you felt was significant enough to kind of cr later down the road create some of these experiences.
Christina L. Woods (:That's right. And, you know, in in hypnosis, I'll have also clients come to me for other things where medical trauma will come out. And, you know, they will say, gosh, I came to you because I was stuck at work, you know, with my career, my career path. And they're trying to find their purpose in life. But these things will come out. So, you know, it's also something that might show up in another area of life. And
we don't even connect the dots. So it's it's medical professionals play a significant role in in our life in a very powerful way, more than we really even think about because they're just sort of there. But they have a significant role in our our well being, in our system. So it's it is something to just think about, you know, and and
It isn't sometimes until somebody even just gives you this permission in this conversation to say you have a choice to if you just have a gut feeling this isn't your person or you want to have a different conversation, you can.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah. No, I remember I'll just share really quickly, in twenty twenty when I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, I was with one of the best surgeons in LA. And he just was so aggressive, so so did not resonate with me that I did change surgeons. And I'm so glad I did, because going into that, my body would not have felt safe, my nervous system would not have been calm and regulated.
Christina L. Woods (:Mm-hmm.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:And it was very counterintuitive. You know, I think it could have been easy for people to write me off. And I'm grateful, who knows how I was able to be able to go, not for me. So I get it. But they're they're in such a place sometimes of authority. And also we have to put so much trust in them, which is why I think when things happen or things can maybe go wrong, it can be really devastating to the psyche. Yeah. Okay. Last two questions I want to ask. If we have a second, I might take us a maybe five minutes over if that's okay.
Christina L. Woods (:Scarring. Yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Question one is, how might hypnotherapy be different from other things that get us in altered states like substances psychedelics? I don't know if this is a question you get asked a lot, but I would I would be really curious your input because I think so many people now are going, yes, let's go do ayahuasca. And my god, the epiphanies I had, it opened up so much. And we're not even trying to say like,
Christina L. Woods (:I have never. I've never.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah, yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:one is better or worse, but I'd be curious what you think maybe the difference is.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah. That's a great question. So well, one, that's natural. So you're not doing you know, hypnosis is a natural is a is a natural process, a natural state. Not that the others aren't natural, but you know, we can in one minute say, you know, I'm taking you out of this state, or thirty seconds I'm taking you out of this state, and you can get up and drive home and you know, you're done.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right.
Christina L. Woods (:you're not stuck in it. There's not a wind down process or anything. It's it's instant. So and also, you know, this is
Not something where you have, you know, and all those other things you've listed, I've not experienced all, you know, all of those, but it's not something where you have a bad experience. because as you're being guided, you know, your your subconscious mind is able to take you it we're asking a specific question. So it's a very focused purpose. We're not just going, you know,
Let's just see what happens. let's just go in hypnosis and let's go, you know, free for all and and see where what beliefs we're going to come up with. This is a very focused intention about, you know, we want to achieve this. And this is, you know, we're gonna ask these specific questions. And as things come up, I might take a right turn or a left turn because your subconscious is showing me.
a different belief. And I feel like I want to explore that one even more. And that's that's coming up more. It's like, wow, okay, let me, let me ask that more. It's it's evident that is a really prominent belief that you have. you know, it's it's showing up more. But it's not that's why even, you know, if past life regression, sometimes that could just be like, we let's go. But when I do past life regression, it's very specific. We're not just going to go
go check something out to see if you were, you know, in Egypt, we're literally going to find out what is it, why do you want that? You know, what is it, how's it gonna, what's it gonna do in your life? So it's a very focused intention. And the experiment experiences that I've ever heard of with ayahuasca and other things, I know it can be very rewarding. but I just I appreciate the fact with hypnosis, when we are done with it, we know
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm.
Christina L. Woods (:We have information about what we went in for.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Right. Yeah. Yeah. For me it's there there needs to be a level of reverence for the psyche for the subconscious. Because I think why some people have really bad experiences on substances is sometimes a lot of what is in the subconscious is there because it's too much for our conscious mind. It was there to protect us.
Christina L. Woods (:Correct.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:And so if we go, I sometimes I see substances as of like we're breaking down the door that's separating conscious from subconscious, and we have no idea what's gonna come out. And sometimes things come out that the conscious mind truly wasn't ready to face.
Christina L. Woods (:Isn't ready for. Yeah. And that's that's a good point because I've worked with clients for years. And the things after two, three years, I look back and say, wow, that is so different than when you first started, because we, you know, you weren't ready at that point for that level of depth or that belief. And it's fascinating because look at the trajectory of of of where you are in your healing journey.
And your nervous system never would have, you know, we just look at never would have been able to adapt to that. You've just had this incredible journey of, you know, this stepping stone and process makes so much sense.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm, absolutely. So being able to have a practitioner who can pace it for you and also understand the cues and signs the subconscious is giving of I'm starting to get a little overwhelmed, I'm starting to reach my capacity.
Christina L. Woods (:Right.
Christina L. Woods (:Yes, yes. And there have definitely been moments too where we'll be, you know, on that journey and you can tell when someone is getting too anxious and someone's uncomfortable. And, you know, yeah, absolutely. I'm I'm guiding them through the process to to remain in a state that feels safe.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm. Yes. Okay. Last question I wanted to ask is, is there anyone that hypnotherapy isn't for? Almost like contraindication. Like it's really great, but it might not be for you at this time if
Christina L. Woods (:Okay.
Christina L. Woods (:You know, no, except if if you don't believe that it will work, I will explain or I think it's important to have it explained. But beyond that, if it's only if it's if if you have epilepsy, no, it's not it's not a good process for you because it can can trigger epilepsy. and any kind of psychotic diagnosis, it's not good because it alters your state.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Okay, yeah.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm.
Christina L. Woods (:of being. So those two things then we want to, you know, be aware. but otherwise, if you need to be convinced that or it would work, then I think it might not just be for you. Yeah. I think a good explanation is good. And then beyond that, it might just not be your thing.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yeah, completely. Completely.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. I think that's important because I don't I think most of us aren't here saying, you know, what I do is the end all be all for everyone out there. The reality is there's so many amazing resources. Certain things are gonna resonate more for some people, they're gonna be aligned more, and it might not be aligned for some people.
Christina L. Woods (:Right.
Christina L. Woods (:Exactly. There's Right. That's right. There's too many amazing things.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:Yes. Okay. This was amazing. Thank you so much. For the audience, I'll make sure it's linked in the show notes, but can you tell them where to find you if they want to learn more or work with you? What does that look like? How do they get started?
Christina L. Woods (:Yes, thank you so much. So my website is ChristinaLWoods.com and I have a free weekly hypnosis and healing experience that I do every week called the Reset Room. So I'll make sure you get all that information. And it's 40 minutes every week and I love it because I try to demystify hypnosis so people can come and check that out.
Leigh Ann Lindsey (:I love that. Yes, we'll get the link from you and make sure it's linked in the show. I I might join one of those. That sounds fantastic. Have my first little like mini hypnosis experience. It was so lovely. Thank you so much.
Christina L. Woods (:Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me, Leigh Ann.
