Transcript: Christine Garvin 0:02
Hey everyone, welcome to hormonally speaking. So happy that you’re here with us in 2023. We have just had one episode one or two episodes so far and so I’m excited to dive back in with guests, and sharing all kinds of good new knowledge around your hormones and your health in 2023. So happy that you’re here with us. Today I am speaking with Brooke Ansley, who is a certified hypnotherapist and creator of Happy Body blueprint. Of course, it teaches women how to build a fit body with hypnosis so they can ditch the diet cycle for good. She combines her passion for the mind body connection with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a 200 hour yoga instructor certification and a unique skill set. As a former Applied Behavioral Analysis therapist. Brooke aims to help women heal their negative inner self talk so that they can free up headspace for more motivation, happiness and healthier choices. It’s her goal to empower women to reconnect with their bodies and create long term sustainable health. You can find out more at her website, Brooke Annesley wellness.com or on Instagram at Brooke Annesley. Wellness. Welcome, Brooke. Thank you. I’m excited to be here. So I’m I was pumped to get you here on the podcast because I don’t think I mean, I’ve talked in passing with some guests about hypnotherapy. But we haven’t had this deep discussion. And I think it’s something that as we were talking about before we got on here a lot of people have Brooke Ansley 1:33
ideas about what hypnotherapy is that are not necessarily true. And they don’t necessarily understand how it can help them not just with their mental health, but with their hormone health. Yeah, so what a lot of people don’t realize is that hypnosis is actually a natural state that we all move into every single day. It’s just Alpha Theta, brainwave state. And it happens as it actually happens, it can happen if you’ve ever been like really entranced in a good book. Or if you’re watching a movie, and you feel like you’re part of the movie, we call it and trance because you’re in a trance, essentially. So it’s a state of focused relaxation. It also we move through Alpha Theta brainwave state in the morning. So when we’re in a deep sleep, we’re in Delta, and we come up through theta and then alpha before we’re fully alert and awake focus, we’re in beta brainwave state. And when you’re in that, I like to call it Jacuzzi for the brain. Which is really fun in imagery. So when you’re in that state, the critical part of the mind is relaxed. So it doesn’t mean that you’re unconscious, and you don’t know what you’re doing. And someone can make you do something you don’t want to do. It just simply means that left side of the brain, that voice that’s telling you who you are, where you’ve been, all of those limiting beliefs that had been conditioned, since we were a child, that voice becomes more relaxed. And it gives us access to the subconscious to create change, using the whole mind without allowing that voice to kind of say, ah, like, I know who you are, I know where you’ve been, I know what your beliefs are. And, and that that’s kind of like a filter on our behavior and our perception. Yeah. And so we can use that state of Alpha Theta to get into that state, a very focused relaxation. It’s meditation essentially, is a state of hypnosis. The big difference between meditation and hypnosis is in hypnotherapy is that hypnotherapy is meditation with a goal. So we use AI fascinations and imagery to to to walk them the mind into that relaxed state. So you get into that state quicker and easier, because I know, yeah, a lot of people are like, Well, yeah, okay, tell me to meditate. It sounds great. But yeah, in theory likes to do that. Absolutely. And that’s what I was just gonna say is that, you know, in my experience with hypnotherapy, and my experience of meditation, I mean, you definitely have to usually do meditation longer, and, you know, consistently do it to be able to train yourself how to get into that state, right? Versus Yes, with hypnotherapy, someone else guiding you like, for me, at least, it’s like, I don’t want to mediate, but it’s really fast, right? Absolutely. And so I mean, even my own personal experience, if I look back to six years ago, I was self diagnosed busy woman syndrome. And I didn’t know how to sit still, I didn’t know how to slow down, it felt uncomfortable for me. And I think that’s a very common thing. Our nervous systems, we get used to being constantly on alert. We don’t know how to actually calm down how to relax, how to sit with ourselves, and the idea of yoga meditation. That just sounded not fun. Christine Garvin 4:55
But a lot of women are like, Yeah, I don’t want to do that in my free time. Yeah, and then I Brooke Ansley 5:00
Did hypnotherapy and I, for the first time in my life, I tapped into that space between thoughts and everything kind of slowed down. And it was such a relief to experience it was very rewarding once you actually feel it, right. Yeah. And that’s when the process starts. I started seeking out more meditation because of hypnotherapy. It’s, it’s like the gateway drug to it. And that’s what’s really cool about the about about doing hypnotherapy is that once you practice it enough, you can you can do it on your own. Yeah, there’s a lot of self hypnosis techniques. Yeah, absolutely. And going back to what you were saying about, you know, that voice. So I think a lot of us maybe don’t even understand that there’s a voice that’s happening all the time that saying do this, don’t do this. Yeah. And it’s a protective mechanism, right? It’s, we’ve evolved to have that voice to protect us from danger. But it really does keep us locked in, you know, and so I always encourage my clients, if they haven’t really noticed that that voice even exists, because I think a lot of people don’t even realize that. So to understand that first, and then that’s just one voice. Right? And that sometimes it needs to, I think Elizabeth Gilbert said this, you know, basically, like, it needs to go to the backseat of the car, it can, it can be there. But she’s the driver, you know, and it doesn’t have to be in control all the time. And so I love that idea of getting to that state where it’s just it’s calmed down a little bit. And, and I don’t know if you’re an extrovert, but I think a lot of times the busy woman is an extrovert, too. And so that is so foreign to get into that sort of calm place. Yeah, so you finally do. Yeah. And it really has to do exactly what you said, Christine, with how you relate to that voice. For me, it was kind of this mind blowing concept. The first time I realized, just because I have a thought doesn’t mean it’s true. Or that I have to go along with it that I have to believe it. I can actually choose to say, okay, that’s, that’s my inner cave woman I call her. Right. Yeah, I think the name Yeah, she’s trying to protect me. And thank I thank her for that. But But I’m the one in charge. Yeah. I like to think of it also another way of thinking about voice. It’s kind of like the hostess at a restaurant. Let’s say like, you own a restaurant, you’ve got this hostess. It’s doing amazing. It’s overflowing with people, the hostess is there to see people and decide, like who gets to come in, you can’t be overflowed, right? And let’s say you haven’t been at the restaurant for a while you come to your own restaurant, the hostess doesn’t recognize you. And she says, Sorry, there’s a line out the door, we can’t let you in. You’re not gonna yell at the hostess, you’re not gonna get mad at her, you’re not going to say, oh, I’ll just go home, you’re gonna say, well, thank you so much for doing such a great job. That’s why this place is successful. But I own this place. FYI, oh, in case you forgot, I’m coming in. Right. And that’s kind of how you have to think about relating to that voice. And it’s important when we talk about stress, because I know I was watching your webinar with the five ways to win the five ways to make your message. Yeah, since 2003, which was an amazing webinar, I love to watch the replay. And you were talking about the brain being triggered by stress, telling me adrenals to release cortisol. This is where that like top down processing comes in. There’s, in the morning, when we wake up, we go through that state of hypnosis, and we don’t have a critical mind to filter what we want to take in. And so if you wake up first thing in the morning, and you check your email, you turn on the news, you look at social media, you’re taking in all of that information without a critical filter, interesting. And that’s a time in a day when or that’s that’s time when you want that critical filter, because you want the filter to say no, you know what, I don’t accept this as part of my reality. Just because I’m watching something really violent on on the news doesn’t mean it’s part of my day, right? And so it’s really important. One of the first tips that I share is that 30 minutes after you wake up and 30 minutes before you go to sleep are sacred times to really practice carving out even if it’s just five minutes or 10 minutes of calm. Yes, that practice over time will set your day and it will change the way you relate to stressful experience throughout your entire day in your entire life. Absolutely. Your stress response essentially is a habit. It’s a chemical habit. The more we practice stress, the more we’re triggered, the more we become trigger happy and a lot of us are operating in a state of chronic fight or flight. Absolutely. Yep, yep. And so we have to go ahead Christine Garvin 10:00
I just say you have to practice calm, you have to it’s like a muscle, you got to go to the gym every single day in order exercise that part of the brain. Absolutely. And that’s what I think is so key is that it is an exercise it is a, you know, your you won’t build muscle without consistently going to the gym. And the same thing is with you won’t create calm without consistently doing this. And you know what you said about that time, 30 minutes before bed 30 minutes when you first get up in the morning. I mean, so much of hormone health goes back to our circadian rhythm, right. And what women began to struggle with one of the first things that I see particularly in mid to late 30s is the sleep issue. Right? Yeah. And we are unfortunately, on our phones, you know, at bedtime, or watching something on our computer. And that is stimulating that stress hormone cortisol to stay high and suppressing melatonin, our sleep hormone, right. And so it’s there’s so many layers to it of not giving yourself that space, particularly before bedtime. Right? Brooke Ansley 11:11
Transition. Yeah, well, and I one thing that I work a lot with clients when it comes to sleep is it’s it’s that we’ve simply gotten bad at turning off fight or flight turning off that that system and moving into rest and digest. And so even though you might practice meditation in the morning, that’s impacting your ability to sleep. So it doesn’t matter when you practice it. It’s you’re practicing the transition that I think a lot of people think I in order to be resilient, I need to just never feel stressed. And that’s my true stress. Exactly. We need it. I mean, it’s part of being human right. And it motivates us, we get things done to take action, right. And so resilience is really just learning how to hit the off switch quicker. So when there is a stress trigger, how quickly can I say, Can I take a deep breath and transition back into parasympathetic. And that’s what hypnosis does. It activates parasympathetic. So it teaches you how to get out of that fight or flight quicker. And so then you become really good at falling asleep. And also just becoming aware of the thoughts a lot of with sleep, a lot of us get stuck in the thinking stage. Yep. Right. And so the goal is to notice that you’re in the thinking stage and be like, Oh, I’m thinking there, none of this thinking is going to help me right now. Yes. So let’s move into. Yeah, and something that actually happens that we don’t realize when it comes to sleep is consciously or subconsciously, the thoughts start to turn to thinking about a relaxing experience. And that’s what walks us into the deeper sleep. And so I teach moving your thoughts into what is your favorite relaxing place? How does it feel to be at the spa or on the beach, start, take that critical mind and redirect her brain start, okay, I’m going to think about something that feels really calming and relaxing to me. And that’ll actually occupy that mind and help you transition in sleep. Right. And I love this idea of sort of building the muscle of going back and forth between our sympathetic or fight or flight response and the parasympathetic or rest and repair, it reminds me a little bit of the idea of metabolic flexibility, right? So this idea that we can burn, you know, fat when we need to burn carbs when we need to, and be able to go back and forth between those Well, right. And so the idea here is not to neither is good or bad, right? We need both right? And to train your body how to do that to easily go between those two states, is that, to me, that’s what balance is really, right. Because we’re never going to be truly balanced. But if we’re able to go in between these states, you know, under being an expert learning to be an expert at doing that, then that’s really what’s going to get you to the places that you want to go. Yeah, and the more you practice that state of calm. I mean, they’ve done research at UCLA on mindfulness meditation, where they’ve done brain scans, and they see that the amygdala, that’s that fight or flight center of the brain actually shrinks, like it actually gets smaller. It gets cool. It’s fascinating. The more you practice mindfulness, noticing, you’re in that state of fight or flight transitioning out of it. And so what happens is it then we become less reactive to the other things that you know, I remember this is kind of a funny story about my mom and I love her to death so probably listen to this and laugh but I remember getting a coming home from the bus stop. She picked us up at the bus stop. In school, we come in and she had left the oven on. And there was like, smoke and the Turkey had been burned. And it was like, Oh my gosh, Turkey. Right? And it’s like, it’s okay. Like, yeah, Turkey is not a code red. Yeah. Right. It’s nobody’s gonna die. So we have to remember, it’s important that we triage our stress, we have to become aware of when we’re going Code Red for things that are actually code yellow, or green. And a lot of us treat greens like they’re reds all the time. right all the time. Yeah. And it’s partly being stuck in that kind of what we talked about earlier. It’s I don’t want to say it’s an addiction. Yes, just being stuck in that sort of high stress high cortisol state is not and I love that you said it’s not that I agree, it’s not an addiction, but it is homeostasis, right. So your brains been functioning at a certain level, your body, your nervous systems been functioning there for so long, that even if it’s, it’s beneficial for you to move out of it, your body in your brain is going to be like this doesn’t feel right. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I was just reading something earlier about, you know, with alcoholism, is the reason that you have to step down and do it, you know, in a space that is support is because your, your body has gotten into this homeostasis, of needing that alcohol to function. Right? So yeah, quit cold turkey, then yeah, bad things can happen. Right? And so it is this step down approach. And it’s crazy that we think, Well, everybody’s always trying to get us to the best place. And I believe that, but it’s it is responding to how you’ve been living and the way that you’ve been moving through the world, you know, which isn’t all your fault, because the world throws a lot. Yes. But this is where you’re coming in, and you’re helping to kind of dial it down. Yeah. And it’s really important that there’s a belief system there. It’s the all or nothing thinking the perfectionism, right? Raise your hand if you’ve been in, stuck in that beliefs. Literally every woman I know. Yeah. Nick says, I see so many women, and so many clients and students of mine, that they they think they failed because they are not perfect in there. And that’s the problem is that they get a case of the effets 100%. And then they throw their hands in the air and they say eff it. I’m not going to start again till next week, next month, or January one. Yeah, exactly. That’s the, that’s the shift, shift. And what instead we need to do is focus on how can we gradually, every single day make a small shift focus on the schedule, like I’ll give you I just use this example. I left with a friend of mine who is trying to quit something cold turkey. And I said, Remember that time that I tried to cut out sugar, quit alcohol and stop drinking coffee all at the same time? I asked my ask my spouse how that was for for all of us, right? It wasn’t good for him either. Right? Yeah, no, it and it’s not sustainable. Anything that you can’t do for the rest of your life isn’t sustainable. So for example, I’ll tell you what I’m doing right now. I love January for resetting. I do have wine much more balanced now that I’m doing the work that I do. But I’m not having alcohol for the next month or two. But the other thing with coffee that I’ve done is I’m not cutting out coffee, but I’m making one small shift. And it’s something that I was reinforced on when I watched your replay of your webinar. I am I have chosen to not have coffee on an empty stomach. There you go. Yeah. Yes, yes. And, and it tell you it takes her lifestyle. So I have to wake up and make my smoothie before I make my coffee. Christine Garvin 18:58
Yeah, I could do that. Well, I can I can keep that up for the rest of my life. Right. Right. And I think that that is so important, too, right, is that we, our society is sort of based on this in 30 days, you know, you’re gonna have gotten this because you’ve done this really hard thing for 30 days. And the reality is, a lot of people can maybe the first time do that, you know, 30 day we take out all these foods, even though they’re miserable, you know, or maybe they feel better. But then as soon as it’s over, these things come back in. And so they get in this mindset of like, Oh, it worked before I’m gonna do it again. But then it’s harder the second time and it’s like, Well, did it really work the first time right? It just it was your first time doing it. And so you kind of you willpower your way through it, but yes, isn’t going to be for the rest of your life. And so it is, what are the small steps that you can take out and I and I believe so much in therapy and things like hypnotherapy. In order to help that process, right, yeah, a lot of stress can come up even just about making these changes. Yeah. As I’m sure you went through when you tried to quit. Yeah, yeah. Brooke Ansley 20:13
Well, we it’s important that you look at what is this offering me like, for example, with somebody who comes to me with to quit smoking? A lot of times, what we see is, well, that’s the only time they take a deep breath and a break. And so that’s a irony. Okay, deep breaths. Deep breaths and a break. Yeah. So if we’re going to take away a coping mechanism, we need to put something else in place. Right, right. Right. Yeah. And do so gradually because the homeostasis factor the addiction factor, right. But and what I will say too, like the 30 day challenges or the 21 days of XYZ, the behavior therapist in me wants to say if that motivates you, rate, but the key is what happens after what happens when you’re finished that and then how can you focus on the schedule? And then we come back to this idea of the case of the efforts, right? Yeah, of Ali, are you in that moment? Yeah. Who are you in that moment? Well, we want to the goal is to get to a place of okay, so I had two slices of cake at this birthday party. Now I’m going to I’ll go for a walk to help my my body process out that sugar. Tomorrow morning, I’ll have a protein smoothie. I’ll do a couple of other things to balance it out. I’ll start again tomorrow, I’ll start again with the next meal. That is the key. So literally, yes, yes. We’re talking about farting again. Yes. And this is something that because of our, you know, salesy kind of approach that the way things are, unfortunately, these days, I mean, I guess sales have been around for a long time, but in terms of like the social media stuff coming at you, it’s like, you know, eat this perfect way, do this part, you know, and then everything will all be fine. And the reality of any, every, almost every person, maybe a tiny little percentage can make huge changes and do that for the rest of our lives. I doubt that there are any, but the reality is we are going to have holidays, we are going to have things happen where we you know, if you want to call it fall off the wagon, or whatever, I don’t even like to think about it that way. Because it’s just life. And yeah, isn’t to beat yourself up about that. It’s that, like you said, like, I sugar for me is a good example where I used to, sort of once I went down that path, then it was Yeah, long situation, right? And who’s coming into play, they’re your inner critic, the cave woman, right. And that’s where the internal self talk comes in. And that’s where the belief systems come in, where it’s like, there’s a belief there of like, who you’ve been with sugar before, and what that means about who you are. And you’re that internal self talk, that identity is like, well, I’ve, you know, I know how this goes, like, I’m just gonna go down this path. And so that’s where when you change the belief system around all or nothing around perfectionism around how you’re talking to yourself, you shift who you are in that moment. And yeah, and you’re exactly right. I think, I think the key to health is getting really good at starting again, because it’s just like, you want to think about, and this comes back to homeostasis, when it comes to success. It’s never a straight line up, like a good way. Right? Yeah, a good stock goes up and then down a little bit, and then up and then down a little bit, and up and then back a little bit. So it’s a gradual progression. And so I like to think of it as like, you might come out the gate, like zooming up. But if you have some sugar, you have a few steps back. Okay, that’s homeostasis. Yes, kind of saying, Whoa, we’re not used to this. And we got to integrate this level a little bit. You’re always moving up. And I think about my own health journey with food, like now, if I don’t have gluten or dairy for weeks, I won’t. Sometimes I won’t even notice. I mean, I do have some gluten, like if I eat out, whatever. But like, during the week, I don’t cook with it that much. And I don’t even notice, but six, seven years ago, it was a huge deal for me to not have gluten. And it took it was a process of integrating things a little bit at a time, and of dabbling and in it and then coming back to it for a little bit and then realizing how amazing I feel without it. And then I started to rewire that association. Like it’s really rewarding to eat these healthy foods like and this is what I teach in my course it’s rewiring using that. Subconsciously, we’re all essentially trying to move towards what feels good and move away from what feels bad. And in the beginning change can feel bad? Because it’s unknown. Yeah, yep. But if we consciously choose to set a, this type of food doesn’t feel good in my body, I want to recognize that, then it’s not because we’re not punishing ourselves. We’re not shaming ourselves. We’re just taking data. And interesting, that doesn’t feel good. That’s not that rewarding. Yep. After that. Yeah, go ahead. And then you look at a piece of cake. And you’re like, not running away from it, not running towards it. But you’re kind of like, I don’t really know if I want that, because it doesn’t feel that good in my body. Yes. And this is just I’m so glad we’re talking about this. Because this is the stuff I feel like that isn’t talked about enough. The reality of changes the reality of get, especially if you’ve had any, you know, eating disorder in your past or disordered eating. Yeah, that way, that it can be hard to get out of the mentality of like, I’m doing this to lose weight, or I’m doing this, you know, for body image issues versus like, I’m choosing not to eat that, because it doesn’t make me feel good, you know? Yeah. And considering the majority of women on some level have had some disordered eating and their past. Yeah, you know, like, I can relate to that being the motivation for me years ago, which is never going to stick is not, yes, good for you, you know, versus getting to the place of like, Oh, I’m tuned into my body. And I’ve learned in this process that that just doesn’t make me feel good, you know, and, yeah, I’m not going to be 100%. And never choose it necessarily. But more and more each time, and it just becomes easier with time to sugar is a good example for me is I don’t have those intense sugar cravings in the way that I used to, you know, because of that process, it all comes back to your relationship to self and self love. And so when you start to reconnect with yourself, and this is Christine, this is kind of like the trauma work that you talk about, that’s so important, with hormone balance. Because when you start to come back and reconnect with yourself and realize all the ways you’ve been taught to disconnect from yourself, maybe it was a trauma response, maybe it was preserving right self preservation, it was a coping mechanism at a time in your life. But where am I not loving or being kind to myself with my with what I’m putting in my body with how I’m treating my body, how I’m talking to myself. And when you can learn to really talk to yourself, the way you would talk to a child or a friend, then you start to realize every single choice about food and movement can simply come from a place of love, self love. How can I love myself with food today? How can I love myself with movement. And that means you get to decide, there might be a time when sugar or whatever it is, is a form of self love, and not because you’re using it as an emotional coping mechanism. But because in that moment, you’re choosing to have some of it just because out of joy out of life celebration, what a celebration. Yeah. And so you’re exactly right. All comes back to relationship to yourself. Yeah, yeah. And that’s where this work is. So healing, because, like you said, so many of us, we a lot of us without even realizing it probably have experienced some form of disordered eating. Mm hmm. Sadly, it’s I mean, it’s hard to get through our culture and yes, in it without that happening. You know, we’re even looking at our bodies and seeing our bodies as body dysmorphia talking to ourselves. I mean, Christine Garvin 28:38
right. I know that I’ve experienced that in the past. Brooke Ansley 28:42
As as an athlete, I felt very disconnected from my body. I thought it made me tough to push past the pain. Right. Right. So I didn’t feel pain in my body for a long time. Because you’re taught that, you know, I mean, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so it’s such a healing process and, and unwinding, I think, that so many of us have to go through. And, yes, definitely working with the trauma that can be underlying that we don’t even realize that it’s like kicking everything up, you know, and keeping us in the sort of high cortisol state, which, as we know, you know, will impact our sex hormones. So that’s where we got where we got to go in first. Yeah. So can you actually explain the process of hypnotherapy? For those that have never experienced it? How to work through it? Yeah. So in a one on one setting? Yeah. So in a one on one setting, usually what we’ll do is we’ll have at least about 30 minutes of conversation, because what I’m doing is I’m listening to your language. What are the words you’re using? How are you what are the triggers for you, depending on whatever topic it is, and how are you talking about it? Because we’re essentially working with suggestibility we’re trying to create change in your life. belief system. So and you are most suggestible to yourself, right. So we listen for what has worked for you, and what language and what imagery. So and then we actually get to the hypnosis part is only 2025 minutes, but we walk you into that state that Jacuzzi for the brain where the the jacuzzi for the room. And then we use imagery to create a new outcome. And now here’s where I want to take it back to like what you talked about with like the brain signaling to the adrenals to release cortisol. So imagery is incredibly powerful, the brain doesn’t really know the difference between a memory or a thought or a visualization and an experience. Now a physical experience is going to be more intense because you’re actually in it. So, but a memory or a thought of a past experience actually changes the body. That’s the mind body connection. And what you what when you talk about the brain telling the adrenals to release cortisol, if you have a stressful thought you think about something that happened in the past that was stressful or traumatic, that signals to the body to release stress hormone. Yeah, just that thought. So what is that doing for your body? Now what we do in hypnosis is we, we quiet the critical mind? Because the critical mind might say, no, no, I know where I’ve been. I know who I am. And I know this one trigger causes me stress. Right? Right. But if we can quiet down that voice, and then create a state of calm, a you’re you’re cultivating positive emotions, positive hormones in the body. Yep, absolutely. You’re teaching the nervous system, the body, how to experience that you’re going to that calm gym, right? It’s really healthy for you in that moment, but then you’re also making it easier to access later on. And then we create imagery around a different outcome. And so with stress, for example, if there’s a certain trigger, you can actually first we just tap you into a calming safe place. What does that feel like? If you’re not used to calming and getting still? What does that even feel like? Right? Let’s just start there, right? And then we start getting you, you start, we create an anchor, so you can access that state. And then with repetition, you listen to that I record the hypnosis and you listen to your audio recording regularly, you tap into that space regularly, you’re going to the calm gym regularly. And then the next session, you come in and we bring up the trigger with depending on what it is, I mean, if it’s if it’s an intense trauma, we don’t go back to trauma necessarily. There’s different ways to work with trauma. But if it’s like, every time, I don’t know get Okay, for example, getting on the 405 I live in California, it’s a it’s a very scary what causes me anxiety, right? So we bring that up visualizations, we get you into a calm state, and we bring up a visualization of that trigger while you’re in the calm state. And we move you back and forth between feeling the arousal and feeling calm, okay. And so you start to realize that your brain is controlling all of this. And that’s like a desensitization process. But there’s, there’s a lot of different angles, I mean, and the other thing I want to throw out here is that we didn’t really talk about a lot of these belief systems get solidified when we’re little because prior to the age of eight, we don’t have a critical filter. Right? Right. So we established these identities who we are where we’ve been what, you know, how do we relate to sugar? You know, at a very young age, a lot of us are taught to that sugar is a reward sugar is the friend that’s always there for you. Yeah, Christine Garvin 33:42
it’s a calming thing. It’s those things. Yeah, Brooke Ansley 33:45
it’s a pacifier at all. Don’t cry, honey, have a cupcake. You’re so Christine Garvin 33:50
lucky. Even you had the dentist and you did get a lollipop Brooke Ansley 33:55
in your life are here for the purpose of not having that much sugar. Yeah. So we start. So we’ve learned all that stuff at a young age. And then that becomes our belief system and our filter by which we view the world and our filter of our behavior. Christine Garvin 34:11
Mm hmm. It’s interesting. I didn’t even realize that it’s eight H A, when you start to get that critical. Mind and then your, the frontal lobe doesn’t even ride around until like our 20s. Right? Yeah, something like that. So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s amazing. It makes sense why so many of us are walking around, wounded. You know what I’m saying? Brooke Ansley 34:35
There’s a child within us. Yeah. And if you take it back, when I, I do a lot of inner child work as part of my course, that’s what I teach inner child work is integral to shifting your relationship to food and self and exercise and all these things. Because if it’s working with the self, yes, essentially, there’s a child within all of us. It’s the child that’s triggered. Yeah, yeah. It’s a child that didn’t get what they needed. Emotional. lay in that moment. And I love that you called it trauma with a big T. But then there’s we all experienced trauma, right? All of us, if you’re human, you’ve had, you’ve had some form of trauma, and it might not have been life threatening. But when you were six years old, it could have felt like that. And so emotionally, it didn’t get a need met at a certain time that can imprint and so with inner child work, we go back and we feel that we we reparent, we, when we do this in hypnosis with a critical mind, relax, we go back, we talked to that inner girl, and we play with her, and we tell her how much we love her, and how proud of her we are, and any other words that she needs to hear. And it’s Christine Garvin 35:41
just like crying listening to it. Oh, you know, I mean, I think that that is something that so many of us miss out on is that that inner child work, you know, and how important it really is, to even our hormones. Now, you know, again, these things that got sort of stuck in your system, at that age, actually, literally impact your hormones now and can be I’ve seen clients that have done all the quote unquote, right things, eat the right foods, take the right supplements, you know, do the yoga, all of that, and things aren’t getting better. And it’s because of that trauma that’s in there. You know, one the voice, Unknown Speaker 36:23
usually the critical voice is the voice of someone else. We’ve picked up certain phrases, things that and it doesn’t mean that someone actually said it to us, we could have watched the way that mom talked to herself about food, right grandma or body that her body? Yep, we internalize that. Or it could be a coach or a dance teacher, right? Some somebody said something to us as as a child or as a young human, and we internalize it, and we repeat it. And that self talk is, at its most basic level, self talk is also a habit. Or you’re talking to yourself as a habit. And one way of really shifting that internal self talk is through an inner child work in its imagery that changes the brain that affects the body. Yeah. So and we do that in hypnosis, and then it becomes a practice of tapping in your integral. What does my integral need today? How I love this around the holidays? I really use this with my students and Happy Body blueprint asking yourself this week around holidays, asking yourself every single morning, what does my inner girl need today? Because if I can fill up my own cup Emotionally, I am way more available for my family 100%. Yeah. Does she need a little time to herself? Does she need a 20 minute walk? Does she need some play to dance and enjoy? Like dance around with your kids and enjoy the holidays? Right? What does she need? And can you carve something out just a little bit of time for her every day during the holidays to check in? Because that’s emotional housekeeping you’re doing internally, that’s going to help you when it comes time to making choices about foods stress, lowering stress in the body, choosing foods that are nourishing to you right, choosing to take time for movement. Yeah, Christine Garvin 38:12
yep, you got to fill yourself up. This is what, you know, I know, we hear this message a lot these days. But I feel like it needs to be said again and again. Because it is once you fill yourself up that you be cannot only be there for everyone else, you know. Yeah, I mean, with boundaries, of course you have we can’t constantly give. But so many of you know, women that I know, have gotten into that, particularly around the holidays falling into eating these different foods, because they’re just stressed out and they don’t think about it. Right? It’s yeah, it’s there. Everywhere. And so yeah, like we’ve just here it is, you know, and, and I mean, I get it, it’s not easy. We live in times where it’s just all of these processed foods are so easily available all the time, especially with the holidays. But of course, if you’re internally stressed, that you’re just going to kind of fall into that old pattern, Brooke Ansley 39:08
right? And if you’re looking for an outlet from this, yes, that wine is what you’ve used as the outlet. It’s the vacation from whatever’s happening in your present moments. But if you’re practicing every day getting in touch with what do I need? Oh, I need a little a moment of calm. Yeah, yeah, you can find that in other ways. And then you can make the choice about the glass of wine or about the from a place of groundedness calm nervous system conscious choice. Christine Garvin 39:35
Yes, absolutely. And I think this is so important to for this you know, thing that sort of happened in the past 10 years or so, where especially towards mothers right, the whole like wine o’clock and and you know, I need my glass of wine or two at the end of the day to unwind and, and how that became such a part of our culture and normalized and you know, I see now so many Do women saying, Wait? Is this really good for me? You know, is this? Is this working to support me in myself to support me as a parent? Maybe not, you know? And again, it’s because it can be so easy to fall into that trap of just doing that right unconsciously, you know, versus what do I really need in order to truly feel my own? Yes. I hate to I try not to say this word because I can’t really say it well, but coffers, right? Yeah, in order to always like do it. Like it’s coppers or something to fill our cup up. And then you can make the decisions from that place. It doesn’t mean that you’re never going to drink wine again. Yeah, it just means that you’re making it from like you said, this like conscious place, Brooke Ansley 40:46
right? And when we’re holistically nourished, emotionally, and physically, then food and wine, all those things become secondary. They become choices that you make, as opposed to coping mechanisms. Yes. And it’s really important like that we don’t, it’s this fine line between not shaming ourselves for having something right. It’s about noticing that we’re turning to someone getting really honest of like, okay, I’m actually using that as a treatment and not a treat. Christine Garvin 41:17
Oh, that’s a really good way of putting it. Yeah. Brooke Ansley 41:20
Right. And when you are noticing it without shame, it’s just data. Okay. Yeah. And becoming more conscious. What is it that I’m missing? What Am I really hungry for? Christine Garvin 41:30
Right, right. And I, you know, thinking of meditation, I’m sure the same is true for hypnotherapy is it helps you to sort of look at it from an outside perspective a little bit more rather than being so in it and getting into a shame spiral. Right? Yes, you start to recognize the sort of different aspects of yourself, and that you don’t have to be in the, you know, sort of triggered place. This is all Yeah, maybe bad kind of a thing. And so supports that too. And that’s because Brooke Ansley 42:01
the critical mind is relaxed. The critical mind is not as active. Yeah, it’s that critical voice is the one that tells you, how dare you, right? What were you thinking? Right, right. And so when we get into when we start practicing meditation, hypnosis regularly, we start to that we just relate to that voice differently. We can slow that voice down a little bit, we can ask, is it true? Is it helpful? Is this thought helping me right now? Yeah. And choosing not to entertain the ones that aren’t helping us move forward? Yeah. Christine Garvin 42:35
Yeah, it just makes me feel like really thinking back again and again to that inner child and how much love she needs, right. And yet, so many women don’t have time to focus on because they’re all the things. Brooke Ansley 42:50
I you know, I laugh because I have a lot of clients that come to me, and they say, I’ll joke. This is one client, who’s she’s said, It’s fine if I share her story, so I’ll share it. When she came to me about health and wellness. She was like, I have this thing with scones. Like I can’t stop eating scones. And there’s so many of them. And I mean, too many and I don’t understand. And we had our last session together recently. And she said, I realized now this has nothing to do with the scope. Christine Garvin 43:18
Yeah, and you’re like, that’s a great real. Yeah. And they made right, Brooke Ansley 43:22
yeah, it’s everything else. It’s being completely detached from allowing yourself to feel certain things, processing emotions, taking care of yourself talking kindly to yourself. And after even just one session of realizing our relationship to sugar, subconsciously, that shifted, that was enough for her. She came into session to like, I bought a scone and then I didn’t eat it. It was the weirdest thing. And it just I just didn’t want I don’t know what happened. Right? Yeah. It works. Right? Because it’s a very simple shift. Yeah, yeah. Right. And then when we start meeting our emotional needs internally, food doesn’t become the the answer. Christine Garvin 44:00
anymore. Yeah, anymore. Yeah. So it’s so interesting, because I can think of one of my clients, you know, who certainly there’s a lot of trauma in her background, but really, you know, when she gets into a state around, just things coming up for her, she will always focus on her weight as the issue, you know, and I’m always trying to let her know, it’s all of these other things. Yeah. And she, she gets that that is still sort of working on that. Yeah, you know, because we can just so easily fall back into write that. If I can just get my weight under control. Right, then everything will be perfect. You know, Brooke Ansley 44:38
right. Yeah. And it’s so interesting how, like, there’s so much emphasis put on weight, like when you go to the doctor’s office, and they weigh you right away, and it’s like, Well, I haven’t stepped on a scale in two years. Yeah. And that’s something that I encourage Yeah, because what happens this is we’re coming it’s coming back to motivation. We we want to engage in the daily things the schedule that keeps us nervous. so unhealthy. And so you could be doing all the right things. And then you step on a scale and you see even a number that you your critical mind. Yeah. Believe attaches to Yeah, yeah. Isn’t right isn’t good, right. And immediately you feel less motivated, you stopped doing all of the things that were healthy, you start shaming yourself. Right. All the things that that keep you stuck. Yeah. And so that’s, that’s part of the reason. Like, I don’t look at a scale because, and I realized that it is very deeply ingrained, and some people might still that might motivate them. And if that mode, you know, if it motivates you, okay, fine. But I would pay close attention to how much that’s impacting your daily behaviors? Christine Garvin 45:44
Absolutely. Because, you know, the thing is that I see with most of my clients, when they do have that scale, I don’t want to call it an addiction, but it’s hard for them to get rid of scale is that, like you just said, either, it will make you feel horrible, because you don’t like the number or it’ll make you feel really good, because you like that number today. But then two weeks down the road, if you get a number that is higher than that last time, then you feel even worse, right? So it just, it’s this constant like resetting in the negative aspects of it. So yeah, you know, and it’s, I mean, it really gives us such little information that we need to know. Brooke Ansley 46:26
Yeah, and motive, right, exactly. And motivation really comes down to like feeling good in your body. And that’s where we come back to like connecting to the body, the goal is to feel good every single day. So like, ultimately, we all think we want to lose weight, we all think we want to fit into our skinny jeans, or whatever it is right. But really, what we want is the joy and the lightness and the good feeling that comes along with that definition that that imagery that we’ve attached to it. So we can practice today, feeling good in our bodies, we’ve already reached our outcome. Yeah. And then what happens is when you’re practicing every day, or you’re in hypnosis, practicing feeling good, feeling lighter, the imagery of your outcome, right? When you’re practicing those emotions, you’re training the body and the nervous system to move out of the homeostasis it’s been in, and to get to the next level. So that’s where it comes back to imagery and emotion. Yeah, yeah. And anything that makes you feel like crap about the good behaviors is not helping you. Get rid of it. Yeah. It’s, it’s about feeling good. You’re allowed to feel good right now. That’s another thing I see a lot. I try to remind my clients 10% More good feelings in your day. Christine Garvin 47:46
Yes, absolutely. Because we don’t want to be living this life. Just for some day feeling better, right? It’s like you can start now it doesn’t have to, it’s not going to necessarily be the whole shebang all at once. But you start to build that and that’s what’s sustainable over Brooke Ansley 48:02
time. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So Christine Garvin 48:05
this is such an amazing conversation that you brought together so many good points that I think people will really appreciate and understand. So thank you for giving people now how they can work with you. Brooke Ansley 48:17
Yeah, so I actually I have a free training at Happy Body blueprint.com Or you can find me on Instagram, Brooke ends Lee wellness and drop me a message. Just follow me. Let me know you’re here. Let me know you listen to this podcast. Yeah. And yeah, we can go from there. If you’re interested in one on one hypnotherapy. Instagram is great. It’s easy to remember my handle, I think that Christine Garvin 48:40
then my email. So we’ll have the all of the links in the show notes too. So people can go directly there too. So. Well, thank you so much for being here with us today. Brooke Ansley 48:51
Thank you for having me. Christine Garvin 48:52
It’s been so good. Yeah. All right, you guys. I will see you next week. Transcribed by https://otter.ai |
