Ep 126: Wisdom From A Hypnotherapist

11 May

By Charlotte Cummings | Feel Better Podcast

When You Look Fine on the Outside but Feel Overwhelmed Beneath the Surface

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that many women carry quietly.

You’re functioning.
You’re capable.
You’re getting things done.

The lunches are packed. The emails are answered. The dishwasher is stacked with Olympic-level efficiency. You’re showing up at work, keeping the family moving, managing the mental load, and trying to stay on top of everyone’s needs.

And yet underneath it all, your nervous system feels like it’s permanently bracing.

In a recent episode of the Feel Better Podcast, I sat down with hypnotherapist and nervous system practitioner Bec to unpack what’s really happening beneath the surface for so many women — particularly those who are high-functioning, high-capacity, and deeply used to holding it all together.

What unfolded was one of the most honest conversations about stress, safety, motherhood, burnout, and self-trust that I’ve had in a long time.

We Don’t Just Wear Clothes Each Morning — We Wear Yesterday’s Nervous System

One of the most powerful ideas Bec shared was this:

“When we wake up in the morning, we don’t just dress ourselves with clothes. We dress ourselves with the familiar thoughts and feelings of yesterday.”

That stopped me in my tracks.

Because many women aren’t consciously choosing stress, anxiety, hypervigilance, or overwhelm. These states have simply become familiar. Habitual. Automatic.

The nervous system learns patterns.

If your body has spent years anticipating pressure, managing unpredictability, people-pleasing, or staying “on”, then calm can actually feel unfamiliar — even unsafe.

And that’s where so many women find themselves:

functioning well externally
disconnected internally
running on autopilot
unable to fully rest
unsure what feeling genuinely “good” even looks like anymore

Understanding the Nervous System Changes Everything

Bec spoke beautifully about how understanding our nervous system responses can create compassion rather than shame.

Because so many of the behaviours women criticise themselves for are actually adaptive survival responses.

The “Fawn” Response

Many women are familiar with fight, flight, or freeze.

But fewer recognise fawning — the response Bec sees constantly in women.

Fawning looks like:

scanning the room for everyone else’s mood
prioritising everyone else’s comfort
abandoning your own needs
over-functioning for others
struggling to disappoint people
feeling responsible for keeping everyone happy

It often develops in environments where unpredictability, tension, or emotional instability taught us that staying safe meant staying agreeable.

And over time, women can lose connection with themselves entirely.

Functional Freeze: The Exhaustion No One Sees

Another concept we explored was functional freeze.

This is the woman who:

gets through the workday
keeps everything moving
appears capable
ticks all the boxes

…but collapses internally the moment she stops.

Scrolling on the couch.
Unable to make simple decisions.
Feeling emotionally flat or overwhelmed by tiny tasks.
Staring into space after a shower because her nervous system has simply run out of capacity.

Many women don’t realise this is a nervous system state — not laziness, weakness, or failure.

“Do You Feel Safe Within Yourself?”

For many listeners, this may have been the biggest question of the episode.

Not:

Are you safe externally?
Is your life functioning?
Are you coping?

But:

Do you actually feel safe within yourself?

For women who have spent years overriding their bodies, dismissing their emotions, or pushing through exhaustion, this can feel like an entirely new concept.

And often, the answer isn’t immediately obvious.

Because disconnection can become normal.

As Bec said, many women are living as “disconnected zombies” — caffeinated, cortisol-fuelled, constantly moving, but profoundly disconnected from their own bodies and needs.

So What Helps?

The conversation wasn’t about “fixing” women.

It was about helping women reconnect with themselves.

Some of the most practical nervous system tools we discussed included:

1. Awareness First

You cannot change what you cannot recognise.

Simply noticing:

“I’m rushing”
“I’m bracing”
“I’m scanning everyone else”
“I don’t actually feel calm”

…is a powerful first step.

2. Interrupt the Stress Pattern

Bec described noticing herself unloading the dishwasher “like an Olympian” when stressed.

That awareness creates an interruption.

An interruption might look like:

slowing your pace intentionally
taking one longer exhale
stepping outside
moving your body
changing sensory input

Not because everything is magically fixed — but because the nervous system needs interruption before it can regulate.

3. Use the Body to Heal the Body

One of my favourite moments in the conversation was when Bec spoke about taking a heels dance class as nervous system support.

Not as performance.
Not as productivity.
But as embodiment.

Joy. Expression. Play. Movement. Freedom.

So many women are trying to think their way into wellness while remaining deeply disconnected from their bodies.

But healing often requires:

movement
pleasure
creativity
sensory safety
imagination
rest
play

4. Rehearse Better Possibilities

Many women are already highly skilled at imagination — just not in ways that support them.

We rehearse worst-case scenarios constantly.

The invitation is to start imagining safety, calm, connection, possibility, and ease with the same intensity.

Because the nervous system responds not only to reality, but also to vividly imagined experiences.

Maybe Feeling Better Starts Smaller Than You Think

Not with a complete life overhaul.

But with:

slowing down while stacking the dishwasher
noticing your body
taking a deeper breath
finding moments of pleasure again
reconnecting with creativity
allowing yourself to stop performing wellness and actually experience safety

The truth is, many women have become extraordinarily good at surviving.

This conversation was a reminder that survival is not the same thing as feeling safe, connected, or truly alive.

And perhaps the work now is not becoming someone entirely new — but gently returning to yourself.

Listen to the full episode: Feel Better Podcast — Guest Episode with Bec

So here you are Bec as a highly recommended guest because one of your besties has been on this podcast before, Amelia, and she said you really need to talk to Bec.
What I loved though was I did a bit of a deep dive into who you are and how you work and particularly wanted to invite you to have this conversation on the podcast today to speak into understanding the nervous system and to really help the listeners to have more of an appreciation of the place of their nervous system and feeling good in their lives. And you're a bit of a pro in that space. So I can't wait to hear what you've got to share today.
Thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
I'm super excited to be here actually. It's great. How cool.
And we'll get to share who you are with the rest of the world. So we're going to do a little bit of a warm up kind of quick fire to get to know you. Tell me what is your favorite place in your house? My favorite place in my house would be my bedroom because it's like a sanctuary and how we painted it and everything was very like tranquil and if you've ever heard of the fox linen.
Yes. Delicious. So good.
And so like earthy tones. I just love my bedroom. Your own little restful sanctuary.
Yeah. How good. What is your hot drink order? Oh, this is a funny answer.
So we've got this really cute wee hump that we go to on ferry means and I always get a almond milk cappuccino with added mushrooms. Mushrooms? Yeah. Talk to me about mushrooms.
Like medicinal mushrooms. Like as in lion's mane or reishi or something like that. So they have all different ones that you can kind of add in.
I don't know. It just makes it a little bit more special. So cool.
And you just decide what you want. Yeah. How good.
Love it. Yeah. What do you admire in your daughter? This is such a great question.
I really admire her creativity. So she is a phenomenal poet. Unbelievable at her writing.
Wow. She's actually part of this creative youth writing group. Wow.
And she's just really amazing at stringing words together. Oh. Yeah.
It's really phenomenal to watch. And she's very musical, very creative, loves singing. So, yeah, I love that creativity within her.
I see a lot of my dad in her. How special. If you were organizing a morning off for another mum, what would you line up? This is a brilliant question as well, because it would be dependent upon their season, right? In terms of, you know, where are they at? And that would kind of distinguish to how I would plan it.
Because that for some might be, okay, let's get outside of Christchurch. Let's take off into nature somewhere and do some kind of hike. Or it could be more about wanting to have, like, a good quality chat over brunch and go to the hot holes or something.
So it would be – it's funny, I almost think, like, am I designing that day for myself? Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like one or the other would be, yeah, especially for my close connection. Nice.
Yes. What was the last thing you read? The Seven Sisters. Oh.
Novel? Cool. Yeah. So I am not a novel reader.
Yeah. Okay. I'm learning to be a novel reader.
Yeah. Okay. I love this for you.
Usually I am all about, like, mind-body connection books and work-related books. And I really needed to get into that more creative way of being, which is part of my role and job. So, yeah, I started reading The Seven Sisters.
And I read the first one in, like, nine days. Wow. Yeah.
So, yeah. How cool. Yeah, very cool.
I feel like that is a thing, the move between actually using your reading time, not just for professional learning, but for creativity, sparking, for enjoyment. Yeah. You revisit words, like, that you learned years ago, and you're like, oh, yeah.
Nondulant. Yeah. I never used that word.
It's such a brilliant word. So good. And your poet daughter will love that.
Yeah. She is funny because actually recently a book she was reading, she is a big reader, and she yelled out to me. I was in the kitchen, and she was in the bedroom reading, and she's like, mum, the word nonchalance in this book.
It's just everywhere now. I love that. So good.
So tell me about your backstory. Tell me who you are. Backstory.
Yes. Well, in terms of, like, how I landed in hypnotherapy, or just my backstory. Because the first thing I think is, like, okay, well, I grew up in the back blocks of Waimo.
Oh, wow. Yeah. So Christchurch born.
Yeah. Moved down south when I was young, so 20 months old, and lived on a really big farm down there. And, yeah, I did some schooling there, but I did move around a lot.
I moved from Waimete to Invercargill, back to Timaru, back to Christchurch. So I see myself as a very adaptive person because I had to be as well. There's a part of me that had to learn to adapt, but that's quite a brilliant skill to have as well.
So, yeah, that would be my backstory. And, yeah, I mean, in terms of moving into where I landed, yeah, I had some unique experiences when I was young. So those unique experiences, you know, shape us in some way.
Any tribulations, tests, adversities, challenges that we move through in life, I think can actually lead to our greatest evolution. Yeah, great. Now, I know that there will be people listening who go, what is hypnotherapy? And maybe like for entertainment, I went to a hypnotherapist show one time, but why are people doing hypnotherapy now? What is the benefit of it? Can you explain to us how it works? So hypnotherapy is the therapeutic application of hypnosis.
And if we consider hypnosis, sometimes it's good to almost consider meditation and hypnosis, because most people kind of have a rough idea of what meditation is. Yeah. And that's more about having just a lovely, calming, relaxing experience.
Hypnosis, however, is all about creating a purpose on purpose. So for a purpose on purpose to lead us into the direction we want to go. So it's very goal orientated.
It's very much about getting some kind of result in your life. Yeah. And we work with the subconscious mind rather than the conscious mind.
Okay. And how I explain it is like an iceberg. You've got your conscious mind on the top of the surface of the ocean.
Yeah. And that is kind of controlling about five to 10% of our day to day behaviors and things that we do. So it's analytical, it's logical, it's short term memory, it's willpower.
So sometimes we're, like, wanting to create a change. New Year's is always a good time. Want to get fit.
Want to join the gym. Want to whatever it might be. You know, all these different things.
And we last about three weeks at it. We do really good for those first three weeks, and we fall off the old bandwagon. And that's because there's often a deeper program underneath the surface that's running in the subconscious mind that we're not so aware of.
So hypnosis, you could think of, like, a submarine, and you're dropping it underneath the water with a zoom lens camera attached to it. And you're zooming in on anything that's perhaps limiting that. So limiting belief patterns.
Perhaps there's any past traumas that have happened. You know, emotions that haven't been perhaps dealt with. We start to actually reshape them and very much kind of interconnected with brain retraining and neuroplasticity.
So, yeah. In a nutshell, right? Yeah. So what drew you to working in that way with people? I believe that it feels like I've been doing this for lifetimes.
And I believe that I have been having the breadcrumbs my entire life. I mean, since I was really little. And it was a pivotal or a catalyst moment, which was through the death of my dad and the birth of my daughter.
Yeah. So my dad passed on the 23rd of December, 2016. And I found out I was pregnant with my daughter on the 27th of December, 2016, which was coincidentally my 27th birthday.
Wow. All the numbers. It was a real crossover.
Even to the time that dad died and my daughter was born. Wow. She was born on the 23rd of August.
So she was born at 114. Dad passed at 114. Yeah.
Some really unusual kind of serendipity type things. So, yeah. That was the catalyst moment.
I was terrified about birth because of the conditioning of other people. And it would be short-sighted to say that birth can't come with unpredictions or an unpredictive nature. It can.
But I was just riddled with anxiety and didn't realize I'd been living with high-functioning anxiety my whole life. And my nervous system just revving. So this was like the Catalina wine mixer to absolutely transform my life from something, you know, it was just, it was incredible.
It was so life affirming that birthing experience to be like, wow. I love that. You know, like I can, I've had this incredible experience.
I can support and help other people. So that's where it all started. And then I just built upon that and clinical hypnotherapy then decided to train as a trainer.
So I teach hypnotherapy and trained in fertility and postpartum. And I'm also looking at an integrative medical paper at the moment as well. Yeah.
Amazing. I feel like we need to stay and hang out in the great birth experience section of this conversation because I had three great births. Amazing.
Absolutely found my sport giving birth. Loved it. Nailed it.
Never had been good at anything physical until I gave birth to, you know, nine, two nine pound babies and a 10 pound baby at home. And I think that we really can find birthing a redefining experience. Like you said, that can show us our power and be something that, that really helps to set us up for a different relationship with ourselves.
Yeah. What do you think it was that like when you approached your birth, for instance, or birth, what do you think it was that kind of like made it amazing? I think that there were lots of layers of, I know how to do this and I can trust my body to do this. I can trust my body.
Yeah. That trust is so important. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's a privilege to be able to trust your body. I know that there is a lot wrapped up in that from so many different perspectives, but that can be a real redefining moment for women.
As it sounds like it was for us. Yeah. Amazing.
Okay. So one of the things that I think is kind of interesting about the world of therapy is that for many years, there's been this real focus on our emotions, this real focus on our mind, on cognitions. And now there's a real area of interest around our body, around our nervous system and understanding the place of that.
I know that's a real passion for you. Talk to me about why you're such an advocate for understanding our nervous system. I believe that when we understand the functionality of the nervous system and the responses within us, it begins to shape a little bit of choice.
And it's not to say that those particular responses aren't somewhat. You could say sometimes it feels like they're out of our control, but when they come to our conscious awareness and we understand the fight mechanism and the flight and the freeze, functional freeze, or phone response and the difference between what people see to what we're experiencing starts to shape a little bit of compassion, not just towards ourselves, but gives us the ability to feel more compassionate towards other people. So I think there's a real important part for my job when I'm working with people, even a client today, where we had a really good conversation about the nervous system and perhaps what response they're experiencing so that we can start to redefine that.
And it's not about, you know, I'm really mindful of using the word change or we're not fixing anything. Those, those responses are really important, right? When we're under a threat or in danger, we want, we want some cortisol and some adrenaline to pump, right? So we can get out of there. But the thing is, is that we don't, the mind doesn't know the difference between real or vividly imagined.
So that's where we can start to, our thoughts can start to trigger that physiology or physiological response of that stress. So, and we've got actually so much control over that. Once we start to understand and have some tools to be able to kind of redefine it and reshape it and rediscover our capacity or build our window of tolerance.
I'm sure that that's been thrown around lots, right? Yeah. So I reckon that there'll be some people starting to Google when you say words like fawn and functional freeze, let's backtrack on those terms and help people understand what that means. Yeah.
So a fawn response is something that I see a lot, especially in women and a fawn response is really about pleasing and appeasing other people. So to give you an example, somebody might walk into a room and it's got a room full of people and they feel on edge with moody people immediately. So they're constantly scanning, right? Scanning people to kind of suss them out.
What can I do to keep you happy? Often somebody in a fawn response starts to abandon their own needs and they're very much about showing up for other people. So they're all about serving others and meeting other people's needs. Yeah.
But in that they lose themselves, right? Their identity starts to kind of waver because they're not meeting their own needs and it's that self abandonment a lot of the time. Yeah. And it can lead to things like resentment and burnout.
And often it can be so lodged within unpredictable behaviors in early life. So if you lived with anyone where you were tiptoeing around on eggshells, you start to kind of very much learn this adaptive behavior. What can I do to make you happy? Because that's how that survival mechanism, right? Like how that's how I'm going to navigate life by making you happy.
Yeah. And I can hear people saying, hang on a minute. I thought it was all about fight, fight, freeze.
Now there's another term. I know. It gets quite complex, doesn't it? And then the functional phrase where it's like.
It's a little bit of a mixture of sympathetic energy. Yeah. And then that kind of dorsal shutdown energy.
Yeah. So where we can very much function through the day. Yeah.
Tick box, get everything done, go to work, get the kids off, whatnot. And then you get home and it's just like you're on the couch. You might zone out.
You might space out or become space. You might notice you're just sitting around in your towel after a shower. Yeah.
Staring outside, scrolling your phone. Everything's quite overwhelming. Even just the thought of making a simple decision.
Yeah. Can just send our nervous system. Yeah.
So that's where that capacity has really become like quite short. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I think these terms are really helpful for people to understand how they respond in certain situations. Yeah. Yeah.
And the phone response. How common is that in your work with women? Very common. I see it all the time.
And I have such a diverse range of age groups that I work with. I do see it a lot more so with women that are perhaps, I've got quite a large group of women that I'm working with at the moment that are perhaps 50 plus. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's generational as well. And that people pleasing that having, you know, a lot of life that's behind them that has been for the purpose of serving others.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's sometimes about rediscovering self.
Yeah. And, and creating an identity to move forward with that feels congruent and that you can get excited about as well. Yeah.
How do women come to this point of recognizing that they need to live differently? What do you see there? Because we do that, right? Like we, we don't, our lives aren't fine. And then we go, I really need to deal with my phone responses. Or I'm really noticing.
I think really it's when you go through a specific life event, right? You think about becoming a mother. Yeah. And you go through that phase of life, which is a recalibration where it's a transitional point.
A lot of stuff that hasn't been dealt with under the surface can suddenly just be there. And you're like, whoa. Yeah.
I don't, where did that come from? Yeah. I didn't know that I had all this kind of stuff lurking around. So often transitional points.
Yeah. And yeah. Yeah.
Often when people go through big, yeah. Big life events of some sort, or maybe even relationship breakdowns or necessarily moving into motherhood. It could be something else.
Yeah. Postpartum perimenopause. We're speaking about woman.
Yeah, precisely. Yeah. Yeah.
And you know, I think one of the really interesting things for women is that we often have challenges around showing up for ourselves and making space for ourselves and our own growth. What's your view on that? And what do you see around that in the women that come to you? Yeah. That's a really great question as well.
I think that there's an importance to kind of be able to somehow it's, it's probably quite individual for one. Yeah. Because what I, what my mind is starting to take me to is like limiting belief patterns, right? Like what's, what's underneath the surface again, to what we, if you think about gardening, right.
Or waiting a garden, sometimes we've got to get like rid of the cobwebs, get rid of the weeds or whatever, to be able to refresh the garden, to flourish it, et cetera. So I think sometimes it can be also considering where are those limitations that are showing up so that we can reshape them, rewire them, reprogram them so that we can actually move forward. Yeah.
Yeah. Talk to me about your own experience of motherhood and what you have found you've had to reshape for yourself. Can we go there? Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. No, I'm an open book. I'm an open book.
So I, I actually transitioned into motherhood really easily, which shocked people because I was the first person or first woman out of my group or group of friends at the time to have a baby, which, yeah, I was 26 when I was pregnant, 27 when I had Bella. And I hadn't ever held a baby. Wow.
So like I hadn't really been, and I was the youngest of, I've got three older brothers. So I hadn't had siblings, even close in age. My youngest brother is 13 years older than me.
So I, yeah, I guess that it was, it was interesting to see how well I transitioned into that role and I loved it. And then I got to, it must've been about 18 months old. And that's where I would say that I started to struggle.
Yeah. Yeah. Very much.
So there was, yeah. I mean, postpartum and we're forever postpartum and I have to quote Julia Wilkinson for that. Because she says we're forever postpartum.
And I've always remembered her saying that, but I started to really struggle with my mental health at that time. Very much so like anxiety probably felt very overwhelmed. Felt like a, I think we don't talk about rage enough.
It was definitely a hot topic for me. Yeah. A huge, huge amount of internal rage.
Yeah. I was incredibly, I was incredibly blissed because my mom actually, the reason this comes up is because my mom has had some changes recently that have happened in her health. She took a year off work to support me and help me.
Yeah. That was pretty incredible. And then she retired, but yeah, it was just, I'm so pleased to have her as a mom because yeah, she, I mean my husband's incredible.
Don't get me wrong. He's fantastic. But yeah, mum was just such a rock through that time.
And showed up. Yeah. Yeah.
Wow. Look amazing. I don't know what I expected to have tears today.
I know I'm just a wee softy. Yes. I love it.
I love it. But I think that, you know how interesting, it will be so interesting for people to perceive you today. Yeah.
As this soft, lovely together person and here you are talking about your experience of rage. Yeah. A hundred percent.
Yeah. I mean, even, you know, in terms of the nervous system and everything like right now, if I'm really honest and, and I very much kind of thought about this coming up as, you know, speaking about safety for the nervous system, I've been moving through doing some dysregulation and, and some not feeling so safe in my nervous system in the last year after mum's Alzheimer's diagnosis. So, you know, and I want to be honest about that because all the thing is, is that in a therapeutic role, we're still human.
Yeah. We're still going to have things that rock us. We're still going to have those tests, those challenges.
And sometimes we're going to feel like we're falling apart. Right. But the good thing is, is that, you know, you think about something falling apart with what the ability to be able to build it back together.
It just might take a little bit of time. So it's going to look different for everyone to how we kind of do that too. Absolutely.
I think so often we forget that sense that actually how much. And how much more of a state would I have been if I didn't have the skills that I have, like, you know, we, we can feel like we're experiencing less safety than we're used to, but we're still actually holding ourselves pretty well. Yeah.
Yeah. I think it's so important for women to have that ability to be honest with other people, but there is this piece that we struggle with around honesty with ourselves. Hey, and being able to say, I'm looking at what I'm doing and I'm not saying for, I'm pleasing people too much.
I'm actually, it looks like this at work and then I'm showing up at home feeling like a zombie. Yeah. How hard is it for women to be honest about where they're at with themselves? I would say that sometimes there are some blind spots that are going on.
We all have them, right? We all have different blind spots where we're not. So we are, so we might be in that autopilot mode where we don't even necessarily know that we're in that space of meeting other people's needs and doing everything for other people and. Kind of.
Yeah. And so it's really important to be able to have that, like I say on that autopilot, to be able to recognize that. And sometimes that's where, you know, when we're working with somebody.
There's the ability to be able to kind of pinpoint that and, and discover it or. Have those open conversations with somebody that you do feel safe with. To be like, Hey, have you thought about this perspective? Have you thought that maybe this is going on for you? What do you think about this? Yeah.
And, and asking the questions, you know, not necessarily saying that that's, that's the. That's right. but asking the question whether there is something deeper that's presented, yeah.
So I want to take a step back because this question around do you feel safe within yourself? I know that there will be people listening to this who that's a really new question for them and being able to ask how safe do I feel within myself is, whoa, a massive question and a pretty brave one to ask. What do you think the responses are that can come up for people around that, around not feeling safe and what that might look like? I would say that from a work perspective, if I consider people that I work with, we have to start to dig down to discover their relationship with trust, self-trust, body trust. Yeah.
And so often I would say that sometimes that might be wavering and I really do relate to this right now. Yeah. And so being able to develop a stronger sense of trust to be able to develop that safety as well because I think if you just ask somebody, you know, how safe are you feeling? Yeah.
Yeah, pretty safe, but it wouldn't, it's, consciously they might not be able to really necessarily connect with that question or, you know, answer the question. And also we have to consider how much people are disconnected to their bodies. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. The word disconnected was just sitting with me there.
Like the phrase actually, to be really honest, that was coming to mind was disconnected zombies. And I think that for a lot of women, they are so busy, they are so out of relationship with themselves. They're so on autopilot, caffeinated, medicated, cortisol fueled.
Yeah. Like running through their own lives. Yeah, for sure.
And I know that there will be people listening to this who are going tick, tick, tick, that actually feels like me. What are the first steps that you take if you start to recognize that actually you're not feeling safe? The first step is that awareness. I mean, brilliant.
Like, that's amazing. Just to have that courage to actually be aware of it. Yeah.
I would, as a step, consider what are the things that create pleasure in your life? Yeah. What things light you up? Yeah. Like what are your creative outlets? Yeah.
Yeah. I recently took a heels class. Yeah.
A dancing heels class I did. How cool. I know.
I know. Are there videos? Not of me. But there is actually, I'll show you after this.
It was amazing. It's all about feminine empowerment. It's about letting go.
It's about expression, freedom, being able to get in your body and start to understand the body and feel safe within the body. And you've got to use the body to heal the body. Right? There's a real importance around that.
We can't always logically talk ourselves out of something or into something, whatever way it goes. So, yeah, my answer would be, you know, what brings you pleasure? What brings you light in us? What brings you childlike play or fun? Yeah. Because if we were to close our eyes down at the moment and you were to go back to a time and space where you just felt free or fun or whatever that might be, you might go back to a time when you were young.
You might go back to a time playing with your kid and bring that energy into the here and the now so we can start to embody that and feel that in the body. So cool. Yeah.
That would be kind of a suggestion. Yeah. I mean, there's many different things.
Yeah. I wonder whether for so many women they don't know what good really looks like for their own lives in terms of what it looks like to feel safe, to have days that do include joy and feeling connected to yourself and those sorts of things. Do you see women who are in that space? Yes.
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And, you know, something I often say to clients is that when we wake up in the morning, we don't just dress ourselves with clothes.
Yeah. We dress ourselves with the familiar thoughts and feelings of yesterday. So if a feeling starts to become very habitual, right, we start to look for it unconsciously.
So if we're, you know, waking up in the morning and it's kind of like, oh, is that anxiety that I've been wearing? Oh, now, now I feel good to go for the day. And, you know, that's that, you know, it's obviously working in that way to protect us and help us in some way and meeting some kind of unconscious need, perhaps. Yeah.
But it's become a little bit outdated and unresourceful. So it's starting to kind of understand those patterns to know that we actually kind of reach for those familiarities of yesterday. And we strengthen those neural networks every time we kind of think the same thought or feel the same feeling.
So we have to start to. And like I said before, we don't know the difference between real or vividly imagined. If we started just using our imaginations like a child and started imagining like something wonderful, like a beautiful, like we could go just do a beautiful sanctuary in our mind's eye.
Like, let's go to Italy. I don't know. Like, let's go to Tuscany.
Beautiful. Amazing. And let's just imagine that space somewhere there.
See what we see, hear what we hear, feel what we feel and start to connect them with a feeling of comfort. What would that be like? Yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, we can play with those concepts to start to actually build all of those lovely feelings in the body. Yeah. Yeah.
And feel that more often. Yes. With my clients before the summer holidays last year, I set them, most of them, a challenge around finding a time within the summer that they felt really deeply relaxed.
So maybe they were floating in water, maybe they were walking in the bush, maybe they were on a sun lounger somewhere or, you know, really like lying on the couch and absorbing the laughter of their family or somewhere that felt really deeply relaxing. And I was encouraging them to grab that moment and to be able to kind of preserve that for themselves as a meditation through this year that they could transport themselves back to within their minds to be able to experience on that sensory level again. And that is something that I've got those places that I can take myself to, that I can feel I have the benefits of that holiday all over again because I can go there.
And I feel like this, like finding your own place that you can return to is such a gift for us that we just don't understand enough. Yeah. A hundred percent.
Yeah. I mean, that's like a safe place visualization. Yeah.
Hypnotherapist. Yeah. Yeah.
But that's the power of the imagination, like, you know, and it's, you know, logic gets us from A to B, but imagination takes us anywhere. Yeah. So cool.
We need to use more of our imagination, that playful kind of energy. Yeah. Yeah.
So let's think about someone who's listening to this going, oh, that sounds really interesting. What do I do to bring my imagination forward to benefit me in my life now? What advice have you got around that? In terms of how to learn? Yeah. Yeah.
And it is sometimes a relearning, isn't it? We're imagining all the time, for one. And it's, I guess it comes back to that space of awareness. So what are we imagining? Because often when I'm working with people, we're imagining worst case scenarios.
Yeah. Right. We get really good at that.
And we build like a big narrative or a chapter book. Right. We want to get really good at rehearsing or imagining best case scenarios.
So really, we're just doing things the other way around. Yeah. And the first thing we need to kind of consider is an interruption.
How do we interrupt that? Because when we're in those spaces of perhaps getting on that thought train, that's those almost like threat-like thoughts, we tend to activate that fight or flight mechanism in the nervous system. And we want a little bit of an interruption with the breath is a good place to start. Breathing, for one, and out of our nose, that exhale being a little longer, starts to actually bring us back online, starts to connect them with the lower lobes of the lungs that connect them with the parasympathetic part of the nervous system, rest and digest.
Rest and digest being, you know, that place where we have our endorphins and those wonderful hormones. And that's when we can start to come back to that center and then be like, okay, what do I want to imagine here? Imagine if everything was going really well. What would that look like? What would that feel like? What sounds would I hear? What music might be playing? Yeah.
So cool. If you were feeling really stressed out, what would you do? Great question. Because sometimes when we're feeling really stressed out, maybe we've got that kind of more flight energy going, I think of walking through the supermarket like a bat out of hell.
Yeah. Stuff's happening. Getting it done.
And we're very much in that overwhelm. Sometimes we need to perhaps burn off a little bit of energy first. Like let's get the body moving.
Like what's a form of exercise that you love? It might be just getting out in nature. We're innately drawn to nature. So perhaps getting out by the ocean, getting out into the hills, whatever it might be that you enjoy or discovering what that person enjoys.
And, yeah, being able to kind of move the body first. Maybe that's dance. Maybe it's a heels class.
I don't know. Because if we're really kind of in that stress state where it's like that heat up energy and we need to actually get moving, perhaps telling somebody to take some breaths and to close their eyes and imagine a great scenario isn't necessarily going to meet them or land that well. How do I get this energy out of my body? I find such a good question.
I bought myself from Kmart a little rebounder trampoline. Oh, cool. And I bought it home in the box and my husband was sitting on the couch and I kind of like I waited for the kids to be in bed.
I needed him to help me set it up and, you know, get the tools out to make it work. And I arrived and said, look, you're going to laugh at me, but, you know, here is this little mini trampoline. And he's like, we've got a trampoline that's outside.
I'm like, this is like a me thing that anytime I can like take five minutes to go and do this little thing. I'm not doing any like set routines on that. I'm not watching videos.
I'm not lifting weights. I'm not doing anything. I'm just using it as a like go and bounce in the garage moment.
Yeah. It's an interruption, right? Like even for a couple of minutes. Yeah.
Like just being able to interrupt that pattern that's playing out. Yeah. Yeah.
That's awesome. I really wanted to try that. Yeah.
$79 it came out, I think. Well, yeah. Anyway, so we've done the interrupting.
Then what are we doing to resolve the stress? So if we create an interruption, then we need to create a resource, right? So we might create an anchor from there. Yeah. So how do we anchor it? And people are like, what are anchors? Yeah.
What does that mean? Yeah. We can create anchors where it might be like we could anchor something to the breath, for instance. You know, that's kind of innate.
That's easy. We might anchor it to a smell. So sometimes we could take an essential oil because it smells evocative.
Neurologically, it's the fastest way to create a stimulus, to be like when this, then that. Like if I said to you, you know, imagine freshly cut grass, you might go back to a time, the first time that you like, you know, had that experience of laying on the lawn when you were a kid or something, making daisy chains. Yeah.
So, yeah, being able to anchor that interruption, that response, that state change to actually an anchor. Yeah. So it's like when this, then that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Wow. Cool. Yeah.
I feel like people get the scent thing quite wrong. Like my clients with anxiety who are then like, okay, lavender oil and now actually anxiety is welded to lavender oil, not calm. Yeah.
Yeah. I feel like people have massively misunderstood the use of anchoring sense. Yes.
And inadvertently given themselves some anchors there that are the wrong way around. Have you ever seen that? No, I haven't. But yeah, I haven't actually even considered that, but that's a really good consideration.
I'm like, okay, let's go and find a more obscure scene. Because the chances are that you've perhaps used this at a time that you haven't been feeling great and we needing to anchor you to something else. Get a grounding oil.
Right. Like, I don't know. Orange something.
Yeah. Yeah. Something really like, I feel like those earthy tones just really, you smell them and you're like, Oh yeah.
So we're giving ourselves that transition, that bit of movement. We're introducing an anchor. What's after that.
Yeah. What's after that. Practicing it.
Yeah. Yeah. Practicing it.
We want to be able to practice that, that state change, that, that anchor. So very much it's, you know, if we've got the anchor on boards that smell like some kind of lovely, you know, grounding smell that we've anchored it into with an essential oil. It means that when we kind of maybe put that on a tissue, we can smell it, take a few deep breaths and be able to go back into that state of like calm or whatever it might be.
You know, it might not be calm. It might be, you might be wanting to anchor like a citrus smell to make you feel energized. Yeah.
Yeah. Play. We can play around with those concepts.
Yeah. But often we. Yeah.
It's sometimes we need to go to somebody to kind of learn the process. So that we feel kind of like, oh yeah, cool. I've got, I understand that.
That's good. Yeah. Let's try that out.
Yeah. Yeah. Talk me through what you do when you're stressed.
Yeah. Great idea. So I just run around like an absolute headless chicken.
Sometimes. So something that I've actually recognized in myself in recent times is that when I am doing a bit of dysregulation and I say doing dysregulation because I'm actually kind of just associating and creating a bit of space from it by changing the language. Love it.
And I think about stacking the dishwasher or unstacking it. Like rapid pace. Like I am an Olympian.
Yeah. Doing that. I'm like, why am I doing this at rapid speed? Like where have I got to be? Yeah.
Right. So the first thing that awareness interruption to be like, okay, it's absolutely fine to slow down right now. And so sometimes it's a little bit of a self-coaching pace to talk myself through slowing down and being able to actually do that process and check in with my body just for a moment, just kind of stand there and be like, okay, let's see how the body feels and then carry on.
So again, I'm kind of creating a bit of a interruption with what I'm, what I was doing to what I want to do. Yeah. Yeah.
So that would be definitely one thing that I would do in terms of managing stress. I'm a real, I'm a real fame for exercise. So I do a lot of strength training and resistant training.
I am a very, I love reformer Pilates. So I do a mixture of that, which I find both of those are really great for stress dependent upon the state that I might've been in or what type of stress I might be experiencing and dance. So this new space of exploring this heel stance and embodiment and things.
So those would be my main go-tos and then along with being able to utilize some, when I say self-hypnosis yeah, self-hypnosis templates, let's call them that. So they're kind of quite quick. Yeah.
Yeah. They're not, you don't, you get in, get out, get in, do the thing and get out. Okay.
There are people saying, what's that? And how do I do that? Yeah. There's a process of kind of learning at first. So it was kind of like a 10 to 15 minute learning process where I would take somebody through a little bit of like a self-hypnosis template.
And then, then we would have a practice part of it. So with the practice part of it, yeah, it might take 10, 15 minutes to learn. But then once you've got it down pack, it's like a two to three minute process to actually rehearse.
Yeah. So when we wake up in the morning, something to mention when we wake up in the morning, when we go to sleep in the morning, we change brainwave activity. So we've got like beta, alpha, theta, delta.
Theta is a hypnotic meditative state where the, where the subconscious mind is really open and receptive to receiving new, new ways of being new ideas, suggestions, just knowing that means we can, we can create anything from the state, right? Because our subconscious mind begins to actually take those suggestions on as like reality. So this is where we can start to implant bits and pieces as we're taking ourselves through this process. It's a couple of minutes first thing in the morning or evening, like mental rehearsal to how we want to show off the day.
Yeah. Now I'm not going to say that it's always going to work, right? Because there's going to be things that kind of, you know, you think about having a tennis ball or somebody like a million tennis balls and it's like, I'm going to be able to dodge a whole heap, but they might not be able to dodge all of them. Yeah.
Yeah. But we're starting to build that bandwidth, that capacity, that window of tolerance. Yeah.
Yeah. Cool. So somebody could learn a little technique, a template, a way of opening their mind to another reality.
Yeah. And we're going to do a little one of those today. Why not? How exciting.
Okay. Let's stay in our conversation. We're going to add a bonus to this episode that people can listen to a little piece of self hypnosis that they can practice and continue.
In fact, I'm changing it to what I, what I just thought about. I'm going to change it. Amazing.
Do that. I've got a few more questions for you. Things that I want to touch on today around.
You know, one of the things that I saw and some of your content that I love that I feel some women need to hear about is, you know, if they're like me, children of the eighties and nineties, we watched our mothers dieting. We saw what diet culture did. You know, we grew up then as teens and young adults learning about calories, calories, calories and weight watches and that whole world.
And now one of the things we know is really important about food is that it's actually a signal to our nervous system of whether we're safe or not, whether we've got enough of it or not the right kind of food or not for us. Whether we are tolerating processed foods or not. And the message that you have put out there around, you know, food is a signal to our nervous system.
I think is so powerful. And I want to make a bit of space for you to talk about that. What's your own journey being there? Oh, it's such a brilliant question in so many ways, because I feel like there's a few things I can build into this question.
Yeah. Even around exercise as well. Yeah.
And so exercise and food. If I share a little bit about my own journey, you know, through my twenties, it was all I always about aesthetics, the bikini body, whatever that is. Yeah.
You know, and looking a certain way and, you know, being a certain shape and all of these things and so much pressure and perfection. Myself to look a certain way at the mercy of other people's echos when I grow up. Right.
So it's like those echos run a real risk of embedding on our nervous system until we start to recognize them and know, hold on. That's the truth. That's not.
With. If we talk to say exercise first and then food. I've redefined my relationship with exercise to be very much about function.
Yeah. What is going to get me to my eighties and my nineties so that I can be this. Powerful amazing mother.
Yeah. Right. Like how do I do that? I want to look after my bone health, my cardiovascular health, my, you know, my, my physique in a way that where I build it to be strong.
Yeah. Not necessarily for aesthetics. Yeah.
And my grandkids aren't going to care about how early my time. Yeah, exactly. Like, like let's be able to get like, let's be able to hike.
Yeah. That's what I want to be able to do. And lift a baby.
Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
So I'm redefining the relationship around that instead of kind of over exercising and training for, you know, the purpose of looking a certain way. Yeah. Food would tie into that.
I, I believe that I've probably only in the last few years identified that at a certain time in my life through my twenties or yeah. Early twenties. I had.
A little bit of dysfunctional eating. Yeah. Dysfunctional.
I mean, by not in a way where I wasn't eating or was eating, you know, over eating or anything like that. It was more around. Being obsessed with ingredients.
Being obsessed with like. Yeah. And you're looking at every type of ingredient and almost creating a fear response.
Because the thing is, is that if we think that something's going to be bad for us, we're going to start to ingest that chemistry and already being that sympathetic part of the nervous system. Yeah. Whereas if we kind of just consider like this is fueling me, you know, this is, this is fuel right now, even if it's not perhaps the best choice, it's the best choice I can make in the moment.
Yeah. Especially if we're busy mothers or whatever the case might be. Yeah.
But for the, I mean, for the most part, how I look at things and it's quite funny. And to the, you know, the first thing I think about in the morning. Probably the one thing I do think about is how do I build this nutrient dense plate to be able to signal safety to my nervous system? Yeah.
Now I must quote Amelia Stafford. Yeah. Shout out to Amelia because she very much taught me about this type of side of things.
And so being able to add in some more protein or add in some more fiber, add in carbohydrates for, you know, energy and, and you know, fats to support our hormones and all that type of thing so that we're actually seeing ourselves off in the best respect for the day in order to be able to signal back to our nervous system that we're safe. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So that, that would be kind of, yeah, my journey with it. And I would say that so many people would, you know, have had, when I say similar journey, some kind of journey when it comes to food or exercise and, and diet culture.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
I feel like that piece around food and your relationship with your body and how that relates to all of the rest of you, like we're becoming in this stage of life. I think with all of the information we've got, we're actually having this opportunity to become so much more holistic between what's happening in our mind, what's happening in our bodies. What are we feeling ourselves with? How are we moving? What are we thinking? How are we feeling that? It's a real opportunity for things to come together while we've got, you know, all of this knowledge on the table and these different perspectives.
I feel like we may be. I have done some of the catch up from the overly cognitive or overly emotional therapy traditions as they've been. And now the body's into the chat, the nervous systems into the chat and okay, here we go.
And now able to bring some things together. How cool. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. I love that word opportunity, right? Yeah. Yeah.
I think it's such a powerful word to utilize to be able to build kind of the best life for ourselves with some knowledge and things. Yeah. In terms of considering.
Yeah. Just an educational base. Yeah.
Yeah. More and more education available, which is brilliant as long as we, I guess use it to our advantage. Amazing.
So I know one of the things that is a real area of interest for you as around chronic pain and chronic health issues. Can you tell us what you see from women that you meet who are experiencing chronic pain and chronic health issues? emotional journey through those things. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I won't say that as a blanket role.
Yeah. But I would say for 95. And seeing of my clients.
So, you know, so often for women recognizing that the big emotional events they've experienced through their lives have actually been traumatic for them and are shaping them now, are shaping their relationships with themselves and their bodies. That's a really big deal for women to recognize. What do you see there? That's actually a really great question, a really great statement, because yes, so often they might not perhaps they might be learning about the mind body connection as well and beginning to actually understand that these events that have taken place are actually connected to what they're experiencing now, like whether that be something that's autoimmune, whether that be chronic pain that they're experiencing and how they can be quite interlinked.
Or perhaps they, you know, have been living in that freeze response as well. All that form of response will be some kind of, you know, they might be doing a little bit of dysregulation to some extent. And it's happened for a really long time to how that kind of plays out or pans out, but can often be connected to those events from a long time ago.
Yeah. Yeah. And for people to recognize that there are some dots to join around their experience of pain or chronic health issues.
How often do you see resistance from people around joining those dots? I am often the last puzzle piece. So people are at that point where they're quite open. Yeah.
Unless they've been sent to me by somebody. Yeah. Then it's different.
But if they have, if yeah, if they've been kind of dealing with whatever they've been dealing with for a really long time, they come to me a little bit more. I feel open centered or open hearted to be like, OK, I want to understand, you know, myself a little bit more like, let's look to the subconscious mind. Is that influencing what's happening? Yeah.
So I would say that people are often quite open rather than resistant. Yeah. Yeah.
Or they might have. I get quite a lot of referrals from functional doctors. And so they've already been working with somebody functionally.
And then they've been like, hey, like maybe work with Bix because she addresses some of the stress side of things and some of the things under the patterns underneath the surface that you might not be so aware of. So, yeah, I think when you get it from maybe somebody you've been having great success with as well. It's like, OK, yeah, I'll try that out and see how I go.
Yeah. Amazing. Yeah.
Oh, OK. I know that there are people who are going to be listening to this today, going away with some real wisdom around how they care for themselves and some things that they might try and do differently, some things they might add, some ways of showing up for themselves or making space for caring for themselves and their nervous systems differently. So thank you so much for joining me.
So welcome. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
I've loved it. So good. You can come back again.

Charlotte Cummings