Welcome to the National Council For Hypnotherapy Podcast, where we dive into the fascinating world of hypnosis, lifting the lid on hypnotherapy, sharing insights and tips for change as we chat. So sit back, relax, and enjoy all the wonderful possibilities of hypnotherapy. My name is Tracey Grist, and I will be your host today. Hello, here today with Cathy Simmonds. She's trainer and mentor to therapists and healers alike. Welcome, Cathy. Lovely to have you here today.

Lovely to be here. Thank you.

Brilliant. So, Cathy, I know you from the world of hypnotherapy. How did you, what was your journey into hypnotherapy? What, why did you choose to go the hypnotherapy route?

Possibly a similar route to many people. I stopped smoking with hypnotherapy. Yeah. But it wasn't as straightforward as, you know, I'd like to say, yes, I walked in to see a hypnotherapist and I never smoked again. It wasn't like that. I saw, I think, 3 or 4 different hypnotherapists. The first one, I had to run out of his room and around the corner so that he couldn't see me light up. That's how bad it was.

But when I finally went, thankfully, back of my mind, I'd already, I already knew somehow that hypnotherapy was gonna be the answer. Okay. So I didn't give up on hypnotherapy as a thing. Yeah. I didn't know much about it. And finally, I I saw someone November 29, 2005, by the way.

Oh, brilliant.

Yeah. Well, I walked out there and I knew that I would never smoke again.

Okay.

I knew as I walked out of there. And that got my little engineer's mind going, oh, how does that work? And I wanted to know what was the difference between that one and the others. And that's what led me, before I knew I'd signed up to training and that, and the rest is history, really. And I'm so glad I did. So that's what got me in. So powerful.

Yeah. So, so why, why, what did you conclude? Why that last therapist, hypnotherapist?

Well, I knew nothing about it at the time, but the the one that worked understood me. They understood what smoking was to me. The very first person I saw sat me in a corner of the room, made me close my eyes and, you know, focus on something, and then proceeded to read out a script Okay. Yeah. To me because I cheated and opened my eyes up a bit. That time. But the, the one I went to see, the final one, he asked so many questions and you knew he was completely tailored to me. And that, I think, is the big difference.

Yeah.

The really big difference. There was generic, and there was someone finally understanding that we are all different, and we all do our issues differently. Yeah. And that, I think, was the main thing.

I think that's ultimately what you pay for, isn't it? When you go and see a therapist, you're paying for that bespoke therapy. Yeah. Yeah. So what so so then you went down a little, well, how does this work? What happened?

What happened? Well, I trained with the Quest Institute, based in London at the time, although I think they're, they do it off online now, which is amazing. But in those days, that wasn't the thing. And it was a 10 months, the initial course was 10 months of total eye opening kind of wowness, really. It's the only way I could describe it because Yeah. I like I like to know how things work under the bonnet. Right? Yeah. And the training was very much about how things work under the bonnet and understanding the principles, which is a big thing for me, understand the principles of what's going on and why you use certain things. So it isn't formulaic.

It's it's very much tailored, as I say. So, and all sorts of things opened up. The fact that you could use it for physical issues, predictions, which, you know, because my smoking was, for all sorts of things that you didn't even know were issues.

Oh, look at all issues. Yeah. Yeah.

That's absolutely, totally mind blown by the whole thing. And, yes, that took me a little bit because I was working in the city at the time, working investment banking.

IT. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Not as interesting as it therapy. I promise you. So and I started to realize, because we had this thing when, you you do this major training every month, and then you're doing the work in between, And you go along to each training, then you know you're gonna be trying things out. So you've got to bring with you all your issues. So, obviously, towards the end of the course, you're thinking, do I have any left? Well, I I mean, there was yeah. Not quite, but, yeah, if only. But but this was amazing because I was taking some of the issues that I had, I didn't realize were issues.

That's what I was talking about. Didn't realize it was a thing that had had an answer from my corporate job. And I was bringing them into the therapy to, to get help for effectively. And one of them was, I was doing a negotiation with a big software company. And something about those meetings, I would walk into those meetings and feel small. Okay. Yeah. I'm quite, I can, I can talk for England? So I'm not normally shy in these places.

I was pretty senior in the organization. Yeah, I took trainings, I took, I did presentations, I had no issues with any of that. And yet this particular meeting, I went in there and I could not speak. I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I could not run the meeting. I couldn't, you know, I was I was closed down by everybody else, and I couldn't understand it. Very, very contextual. So I took it into the training we were doing the following weekend.

One session with I mean, I was I was learning. The people I was working with were learning. And then, obviously, we had, experienced therapists guiding us at the time when we did it. The following week, you can guess how this is going to go, can't you? I had another meeting and I totally and utterly nailed it. And it was specific around negotiations.

Okay.

The crazy thing is that once I left that job, they're inviting me back as, as a contractor to run, specifically to run a negotiation with another software company.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, going into my own specific examples, but that's when I started to realise how powerful this is And that the impact it's gonna make on everyday people like me, in everyday jobs that didn't even realize there was a problem. I knew there was a problem, but I didn't realize it was something that I could do anything about.

Yeah. I think that's the difference, isn't it? We don't know that we can do stuff about it. And I think learning that, oh, I can actually change this, or I can actually feel centered and safe when the environment's difficult. All of those things that hypnosis Hypnotherapy can work with. But I think, in some ways, it gets a bad, a bad press with phobias. And actually, it's way more complicated than that when you drill down the surface of what's going on.

So,

what the transition to corporate genius into

Corporate genius.

Right. They're a mentor. So did you then go into practice? Did you think, oh my god, this is so good. I'm gonna do this?

Yeah, basically. I did it in parallel. So, I found a room I could rent in the city so I could see city professionals in the evenings. And with those sort of things, with confidence issues, with public speaking, And I grew my experience and my love of it from there. But, of course, the thing that really that that really I really wanted to help with was drug use and addiction because there was so much of that in the city. Yeah. It wasn't always frowned on either in the banks, I'm afraid to

say. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I say, I, thankfully, I think things are different now. But when I was there, you know, it was almost the norm. Yeah.

Part of it is a social commodity, isn't it, of going for Thursday night drinks and getting wasted and that networking difference as well. Yeah.

So the idea that it had such an impact on because I, I, you know, my smoking was definitely an addiction. The idea that that you could say, yes, it's all willpower. I can just stop. And and then you try and then this happened, and you feel, oh, it's a physical thing and all this is happening. The fact that, you know, in one go, that can go just made me think, I wanna bring this back in. So I started learning everything I could about addiction, really studying it, studying the neuroscience so that we could understand what's going on under the bonnet. Yeah. So that we can use the therapy tools and the hypnotherapy tools that we've been given to really focus in and and find, you know, hone in on on exactly the issues that go on in addiction.

So I I then started to specialize in that, which was so fulfilling.

Yeah. Yeah. And if if there's anyone listening who's who's got some addictive tendencies or are feeling a bit lost to the addiction, what what would you recommend? Are there any top tips that people can do while they're listening? Or or what would you say?

NCH, so much.

I'll just put you on the spot there. No. That's that's Pure. No. No.

No. That's absolutely fine. The the one thing I would say, which makes massive difference to everyone I've had a conversation with when they're phoning up saying, can you help me? Because, obviously, you're feeling vulnerable when you're saying that because and I've been there. Right? I I understand that. You are you are feeling vulnerable. You've gotta know you're safe with someone you're speaking to, And you know, who who will understand that. But it's not your fault. This is the thing I really want to get across.

It is not your fault. And having studied it, you begin to realize that this isn't a lack of willpower. This isn't, I've got an addictive personality. This is the brain working the way it's designed to do. So what it's doing is addiction is hijacking the normal systems in your in your in your brain or, you know, in your mind, which motivate you for survival, you know, to eat, to keep sleep, and to keep safe, and to procreate. It's the same, exactly the same mechanism that motivates us really, really strongly to do that. But the the external substances fool the brain into thinking they are essential for life. So the first thing I would say to anyone that has been experiencing this is, it is not your fault.

It's your brain working the way it's supposed to be. And the good news is that because because of that, we do have ways to deprogram, not reprogram, deprogram our minds in a very safe and gentle way so that the brain no longer believes that that substance is essential for life. It can be done.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's that's the main thing. And so many of of my clients when we're on the phone before they before they agree or decide to to come see me or whatever would would suddenly go, oh, it's not my fault.

Yeah.

And that in itself can be so, so powerful. It isn't because society thinks it is. Society makes us think that we're some sort of, you know, evil person with some dreadful thing that you should just stop.

Yeah. It's that, isn't it? And I think that just knowing that you're ready to come and make a change and knowing that actually it's something that's got hold of you, that you're ready to escape from, rather than it's something that induces shame or guilt into. A really important So so

you're locked into either. You're NCH, you know, this is something you have I heard this from somebody as well. I was told that once you have that nicotine addiction, you'll always think it. You know, even if you start with hypnotherapy, you're always gonna be wanting 1. Let me tell you, this is not true. It is not true.

It's 2,005. Yes. That's brilliant. It's brilliant. So do you still deal with addiction NCH, or has your pathway changed?

My pathway has very much changed, although I do I do train other therapists in that. But it is still close to my heart.

Yeah.

But because I've got a little engineer's mind, I do love to understand how things are working. And I've moved more into the world of business trying to understand, again, probably from from my practice not working as nicely as I'd like to, I need to, need to understand how is this all working? Where's all this marketing stuff? I just want to do therapy. This is all marketing and business stuff that we have to do as well. So in exactly the same way, I wanted to understand how it all worked. And in doing so, I got very much involved in the business and marketing world. And from the therapy perspective, I then started helping people on their own entrepreneurial journey, coming up with those same sort of gremlins Yeah. That I was in the corporate world. And I'm finding that people, especially with their own business, they get to a certain level and there's something which is stopping them going higher.

Yeah.

And it, you know, it may just be fear of the unknown, but it may be genuine, you know, issues around, I'll be too visible. I'll be too vulnerable. Yeah. You know? I don't want to become that person that no one likes. I all this stuff that goes on in our minds program.

Disability is scary these these days, particularly with social media. Yes. That underpinning is fear, it feels NCH, of, you know, there's no room to change your mind over time. There's no room to have a different opinion to you, although science does it all the time. There's no room to have a different opinion later on. And I think that sorry. I've just went into a rivalry. No.

Carry on, Kathy.

No. No. That you're absolutely right. I I I I see that. I see that. And it is scary because you put yourself out there, especially if it is if you're working for yourself and you're the only one, as most therapists are when they first start out. But also people other, you know, coaches and other people in in in business for themselves, you you feel like you're suddenly exposed in a brand new way. The struggles are different from in the corporate world.

The challenges are different. You've got to start asking for money, you know, and that freaks out a lot of people as well who, I mean, therapists generally, and certainly in my experience, are very, very lovely people. They genuinely care.

Yeah.

And so it is more of a struggle for a therapist to ask for money than it may be for someone else. And it's the same in for many heart centered business owners. Because there's all this stuff around money, all the things that we don't know are being again, it's this programming, isn't it? It's, it's like as a as a hypnotherapist, we don't necessarily put people into trance. We often take them out of trance, out of the trance that they are in when they're doing their issue. And you don't realize how much what people say to you over the years has gone in and has become a real truth in your mind. You know? If I talk about money, then people won't like me. If I ask for too much, then I'm greedy. I don't wanna be rich because all rich people are blah blah blah.

You know, money is the root of all the all this stuff is in there. And, again, we don't necessarily know it's a problem. We just don't understand why we can't ask for money.

But also, you know, as a therapist, I think you don't know how much change people go through. You can see with your client sessions, you can see them change, but you don't know how deep that changes. And and so that relationship difference, it isn't an item. I haven't made you something that costs x, y, zed. Yeah. You work together to produce result within you. Yeah. There isn't like, well, this is this is what we've done.

Mhmm. Difficult, I think.

It is. You're not selling widgets. You're yeah. Yeah. It is a hard one, but so I've moved very much into supporting therapists and other health centered business owners to get over those humps and those gremlins because, you know, we need more of the good stuff out there. Yeah. But there are, I mean, not there there are types of therapy and types of there are people out there demanding large amounts of money for things that aren't actually that good. So we need to get good therapy and good help out there to people people who need it, who need it.

And that's the that's the difficulty that I find with social The people who are great at marketing market, whereas your good therapists are seeing clients, yeah, not putting their thoughts on Insta or, or however which way, there isn't that time to market. And actually, it's really important to have a plan and have a strategy. It is. Yeah. And so then you can bring all of your acumen together then to work with clients and or therapists, healers. You know, when you're looking, my son's my son's gone into painting over lockdown, and I'm thinking, he needs this. He needs to have a marketer. You know? It it's it can translate to all different arenas.

It really can. The reason I focus mainly on the therapist is because it's something I've I've I know. Yeah. And I had to go through that struggle myself when I wanted to specialize in addiction. I realised that it wasn't simply a question of handing leaflets out and giving people business cards at networking meetings. Yeah. And, and so I did the same as I normally do with these things. And I kind of reverse engineered what we needed to do.

So yes, my focus is now on very much helping therapists with their business to get more of the good, good people out there. Like, exactly like we're talking about with the smoking, each of our therapy clients is unique, and that's what makes a difference. It's the same with a business owner. We do our stuff differently. We are in flow in different ways. So, you know, to have a marketing strategy that come or someone come along and say, right, you must do this. You must do you know, you must have a funnel that looks like this. It's gonna work for some people, but it's not gonna work for everyone.

So in the same way as we're taught with, with therapy, it's about understanding the principles behind it, understand the frameworks behind that, and know how to tailor that to an individual, in the easiest, simplest way possible. So you can get on to do with what they're really good at.

Yeah. So if if you could give a top tip there, where would where would somebody begin in looking at how they address their business or what what lies I know. Sorry. That's a really big question, isn't it?

It is, isn't it? How long have you got? Or maybe 3. Yeah, I would say what's important, and the reason that most things aren't working, when people come along and say, my business isn't working, or my marketing isn't working. And I'll say, what are you doing for marketing? And they'll say, I have a blog. Okay. Where does that fit in your strategy? That is the strategy. So the key, I would believe, I believe is having a strategy that works for you. And that means understanding steps that a a client would take. Say you are a therapist, what steps would the client take from never having heard of you through to having heard of you and then getting in your world so they can get to know you better through to taking the step to doing whatever that thing is to then move to work with you.

And it's understanding all those stages, which will be different Yeah. For different people. And then how can you what can you do in your marketing strategy to move people along that pathway, if you like, in a gentle way. Yeah. So that that would be isn't the question of just, oh, let's try social media. Yeah. Where does social media fit in that? Bear in mind that that I mean, with smoking, when I was a smoking addiction specialist, it was quite e must've a lot easier for me because the clients were actively searching for help. Yeah.

They get to the stage where they go, I just can't do this anymore. So they Google it. You just need to be there for when they Google you. So there were steps. That's not enough. There were steps. So they Google. I come up.

And if you geographically based as well, that was easier because people would search stop smoking London. And I would come up with 3 or 4 of me on the first page normally for that. Then they need to feel safe enough to take the next step. So you go onto the website because that's what they found. Make sure that the steps the next step for them is really clear. Not, oh, this is all about me and we'll have a look over here and read this thing. And it was a question of what's the clear step. So right at the front, it was, here's your 5 steps to smoking freedom.

Yeah. 1, the cuckoo. Blah, blah, blah. So you take them through. How what makes them safe, feel safe to talk to you? Because, you know, especially these days, people don't want to be given you know, don't want to be put under pressure for these sort of things.

No. All sold to.

No. Find out for my newsletter. Yeah.

Like all of that stuff. I feel that when, when people are searching with anxiety, and I know I have in the past looked for a practitioner, you don't want to be sold to. You want you want to make a safe transition. And if you've got that anxiety, and you've got a clear pathway to reaching out, I think it's really important. I don't

want to

hold true. I don't think it's the right environment to be sold to. I want to be understood. And and maybe that's speaking as a somebody who would go to therapy, but also a therapist. It's not a space for sales.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I also believe that first conversation is step step part of the transformation they're going through. So even if they don't work with you, you have opened their minds. They've they've, they've been thinking around the thing. They realize it's not their fault. It's all these things. And they're one step closer to getting the help they need, and even if it's not with you.

Yeah. But, you know, with other people that being found isn't, isn't gonna work because you might be doing something, You might specialize in an area where people don't know that's helpful. So that's a different thing. You've got to be visible in front of people when they're not looking for you. So then you'd have a different strategy.

Yeah. And I think it's like, like you were saying about your corporate experiences. I work with a lot of people who are in a corporate environment because I'm in London, and so, you know, naturally and organically. And people don't realize, I'm not saying it's it was the same for you, but people don't realize that there's upward bullying going on.

Oh goodness.

All of this of other stuff that we don't know. Oh, actually, I am being bullied. I just haven't realized it because I've come from a different, difficult family environment. I'm used to being called names, or I'm used to. And also, we don't there's a sort of shame with bullying upwardly. And all of those things that we don't think, we just think there's something wrong with us and not wrong with the environment. Yeah. So bring being a voice for all of these things, I think, is really important and understanding that if there is discomfort, it might actually not be you, and it might be the environment and realizing that.

Very, very important

time. I'm so passionate about that. And I think Yeah. So so sorry. Coming back to a point. So how much have you loved your journey? Like,

oh, on a scale of 1 to 10, 13, 14. Who knew there was work like this out there?

Yeah. It's amazing.

I'm not saying it's always easy, but who knew that the the fulfillment and satisfaction that you get from seeing the transformation of whether it's a business client or a therapy client. And you're not doing it. They're doing it.

Yeah.

And being part of their journey is just so ridiculously fulfilling. It's, it's just amazing. Love it.

It's a real honor, isn't it? Well, I'm going to wrap up. Thank, thank you very much for giving us your time.

It's still a complete pleasure. Thank you.

Aww, thank you very much, Cathy. Lovely. And I'll put the links on with the video. So if anyone's watching, just scroll down below and the links will all be there for her to reach out to Cathy.

Lovely. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you, Tracy. Bye bye.