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.