What One Hypnotherapists Experience Can Teach Us About Being A Better Parent

In this blog I am going to share with you what hypnotizing hundreds of people has taught me, and how these insights can yield a more connected relationship with your child.

Not only that, but these insights will be great for any parent who wants to raise happy children who grow up self-reliant, resilient, and confident.

These insights came to me from directly experiencing hypnotherapy as a client and then transitioning into actually using it to help people overcome emotional and behavioral issues.

And although these may be simple insights, the impact they have on the quality of your child’s life and your intimate connection with them is profound.

With that said, let me take you back to the first time I was ever hypnotized.

An Interesting Solution To A Common Problem

People are typically shocked to hear that I used to struggle with speaking up and using my voice knowing how much I talk and use my voice now, especially through speaking on stages.

But at one point I had so much fear around speaking that I’d get anxious at the thought of having to read out loud in class, ask questions or do anything that involved being the center of attention.

And when I became an entrepreneur with dreams of speaking on stage, I knew I had to get over this fear.

So I did what any crazy entrepreneur would do, hire a hypnotist.

I did a lot of research on it already and followed a famous hypnotist by the name of Marshall Sylver, but I had never taken the time to do it.

But again, I had arrived at a point where I was ready to be confident with using my voice, and I was willing to do anything to experience that.

Hiring a hypnotist didn’t seem like a too far-out idea.

And I’m glad I did because this is how my session went.

“Something Is Wrong With Me.”

Although it seems odd to some people, my entire experience took place over the phone.

I put my headphones on while the hypnotist took the time to explain to me that he would be taking me to find the “root cause” of my anxiety around speaking so we could “let it go.”

I didn’t really know what that meant but I laid my head back, closed my eyes, and began following the voice of the hypnotist.

Within 15 minutes or so I found myself reliving a memory of myself when I was 5 years old.

I was sitting at a cafeteria table. I had just finished my lunch and my juice, and I happened to want another juice that day.

So, I raised my hand and waved my teacher down. As soon as she walked up to me I asked her a question.

“Can I have some more juice? I’m thirsty.”

Nothing was out of the ordinary about this question, but the only thing was that I had two major speech impediments.

I couldn’t pronounce my “S’s’ and “R’s” properly.

Now look back and read that question and you can see why this was a verbal challenge to a young boy who couldn’t pronounce his “S’s” and “R’s” correctly.

Needless to say, I sounded a bit “odd.”

As soon as I asked the question, a kid sitting across from me began laughing and pointing me out for sounding “funny.”

Within seconds, every other kid at the table was laughing and mocking me because my “thirsty” sounded like “thusty” instead.

As I sat there watching everybody laugh at me, I decided to tell myself five words that would stick to me like glue.

“Something is wrong with me.”

I thought that because I couldn’t speak like everybody else it must have meant that there had to be something inherently wrong with me.

This made me want to not use my voice as much because I was afraid of not being accepted or loved by other people.

I felt too different, and I thought that if I kept my mouth shut not many people would see that there was something wrong with me.

And then here I was at 21 years old, scared sh*tless at the thought of using my voice.

Do you see now why I was so scared of speaking now?

It wasn’t because I had an inherent fear, that I wasn’t good enough or that there was something actually wrong with me.

It was because I believed that there was something wrong with me, and this belief became a core lens I began perceiving myself and my abilities through.

A Career Change That Changed The Trajectory Of My Life

Within weeks of the session, I started a podcast that is now a top 5% global podcast today and began a speaking career, impacting countless people with my words.

So I guess you can say that it worked?

After I realized I was no longer fearful of speaking up and actually being myself, I became obsessed with helping other people experience the same thing.

So I sought to become a hypnotherapist myself.

Little did I know this would be the decision that opened my world up to a reality that was unseen before.

What Hypnotizing Hundreds Of People Taught Me About Emotional & Behavioral Issues

After getting a certification, I started helping people overcome problems like anxiety, depression, fears, and compulsive behaviors.

In doing so, I began noticing some interesting insights into why humans do what they do and feel how they feel on a moment-to-moment basis.

Not by reading about it, but by diving into the minds of real people who were having real trouble in the real world.

And in order to share these insights with you, it’s important that I first give you an inside look into how a session actually looked by sharing a story of one of my clients who overcame paralyzing anxiety and self-worth issues.

He struggled with growing his business for years because he had a constant feeling that nobody would want to pay for his services.

So he never made real attempts to get new clients and keep them, let alone charge a fee that would allow him to live full-time with his business.

So I decided to take him through a process I created after working with a handful of techniques.

During the session, I got him into a trance-like state so he could more easily communicate with his subconscious mind to find the root cause of his fears.

Within minutes, he found himself in a core memory.

He was 7 years old and had just finished baseball practice, and was waiting for his mom to pick him up.

And as he sat there, he waited and waited while he watched every kid get picked up by their parents.

After twenty minutes or so, he was the last kid there and was waiting with the coach for his mom to get there.

In this moment he did what I had done in the memory I shared with you earlier, and it’s something we all do…

… Make the outside event mean something.

And in this case, he made it mean, “I must not be important to my mom if she forgot about me.”

Although she was running late because she had to stay late for work, he didn’t know that and came to his own conclusion instead. A conclusion that his mom did not find him important.

Was this true? No. But he thought it was.

This belief that he was not important became a core belief, and this belief made him feel like he wasn’t important, which caused him to act like he wasn’t important.

So he held himself back. He didn’t reach out to people. He didn’t set boundaries with clients. He didn’t speak up and share his business.

Why? Because he felt unimportant. So, what’s the point?

That story he created at 7 years old stuck with him for over three decades and influenced his anxiety and insecurities around growing his business.

It was like that little 7-year-old boy in him was making the decisions still.

And this here isn’t an isolated case.

The Truth About Why Kids Grow Up To Be Insecure, Anxious, And Depressed Adults

After working with hundreds of people with these kinds of emotional and behavioral issues I noticed a common occurrence.

In every single case, my clients would go back to a memory of an event that occurred between the ages of 3 and 12 years old.

An event that they experienced that made them believe and feel that they were unworthy, unloved, too different, and like a burden.

Whether a client wanted to overcome anxiety, insecurities, or addictions — the psychological root causes were consistent.

A core belief that made them believe that they weren’t good enough, unworthy, unloved, too different, and like a burden.

These beliefs then created emotional experiences that correlated with them, which drove behaviors that correlated with the emotions, and those actions create like results.

All of this reinforced the initial belief created.

Beliefs first. Feelings second. Actions third. And results last.

Do you see how this works?

The root cause of all emotional experiences, good or bad, comes from a core belief that exists within the emotional part of our brain, the subconscious.

After seeing the pattern I began to realize the possibility of these problems being prevented entirely:

Empower children every single day through our communication.

Here’s what I mean.

A Bottom-Up Approach To Changing The Lives Of Our Children For The Better

If you look back at the story of my client who believed he wasn’t important because one day his mom picked him up late for practice, you’ll see how our communication can absolutely change a child’s life.

When my client was picked up for baseball practice that day, he got in the car and stayed quiet because he was upset.

And instead of his mom explaining to him why she was late she just didn’t mention it, making the boy feel even less important.

But all of this could have been prevented if the mother simply took the time to say, “Thanks for being patient sweetheart, I got stuck at work today, sorry that I missed practice. I’ll be there next time because it’s important to me, but for now, can you tell me how practice went?”

This could have caused the little boy to realize, “Oh, mom was just late, it had nothing to do with me being important or not. She still loves me.”

This slight shift in communication would have shifted the way he communicated with himself.

Because we learn how to communicate with ourselves based on how we see others communicate with themselves and how they communicate with us.

If she would’ve taken the time to say that she was only late because of work and showed that she valued him through her asking how practice was she would’ve changed this boy’s communication with himself.

It would have gone from “I am not important” to “I am important.”

This small shift would’ve changed the trajectory of this boy’s life.

If somebody would have told me that my speech impediments weren’t a “flaw,” but rather a unique strength, it would have given me the confidence to use my voice and never feared it in the first place.

This can all happen with the power of consciously empowering your children through the way that you communicate with them through words and actions.

A Simple But Profound Solution

With the stories I shared about my client and myself earlier, it is clear that certain events can make a child feel unloved, unwanted, and like they don’t belong.

And it’s clear that these beliefs can stick with us indefinitely until we become aware of them and release them.

These little moments are more impactful than we think because they lead to the way we respond to life.

If a child does not feel accepted, loved, worthy, or feel like there is something wrong with them, they will produce a lot of stress chemicals inside of their body which can have detrimental effects over time, and of course, negatively affect the quality of their life. The solution to this is simple and clear-cut:

Communicate to them through words and actions that they are more than enough, loved, and worthy just as they are. Often. Especially in moments of irritation. I’m not a parent, but I’ve been around enough children in my life to know that sometimes they may push the wrong buttons on the wrong days and it may make you snap and do or say something that you don’t really mean. Maybe you had a bad day at work and your kid asks “Why?” just a little bit too much and you turn around and yell “Be quiet, mommy is driving!”

If you leave it at that, they can easily interpret that event as, “Being myself makes people angry.”

This could be resolved by simply communicating after the fact, “I’m sorry honey, I’m not mad at you and you’re not bothering me, I just had a bad day at work. I love you and your voice.”

A simple statement like this can, or suggestion can be taken in and accepted by the child instead. Those extra few sentences could change the trajectory of a kid’s future. Communicate love, worthiness, and acceptance often. Not just through words, but through actions more importantly.

Now, communicating in this way isn’t going to be the only thing I want you to take away from this.

There is one more important insight I gained into human behavior and emotional experiences.

Normalize Your Children’s Emotions

I noticed another common pattern behind these issues.

And that was the fear of expressing emotions due to the fear of being criticized, judged, or punished.

In a lot of my sessions with clients, they went back to memories where they were punished, laughed at, and criticized for feeling certain ways.

For example, one of my clients cried because she was left alone at home and cried because she felt scared, and instead of being comforted, she was met with “Go to your room. You’re not supposed to cry for such little things.”

This made her fear crying because in her mind it led to punishment. So she invariably gained the belief, “Feelings are bad,” which caused her to not want to express them.

When this happens we cause energy “blocks” in our nervous system that then dysregulated our emotions and disrupt their natural flow — leading to anxiety, depression, addictions, and other compulsive behaviors.

You can prevent this by communicating to your children that all feelings are okay and that they are safe to be themselves.

Then actually create the environment, or as I like to say, be the environment for them to express their emotions

Let them open up around you and ask them questions that get them to talk about their emotions (See this article to learn how to create a safe space for your kids to open up.)

It’s also important that you do not minimize or deny any of your child’s feelings in such a way that can lead to them feeling shameful of who they are and begin suppressing those parts of themselves and continue doing so as they grow older.

Help them understand that the human experience contains the entire emotional experience that comes with it too.

Normalize them feeling okay for feeling what they feel.

Let them speak up more.

Let them use their voices.

Let them play and be silly.

Let them be themselves.

Allow them to follow their natural curiosities and discover their own unique talents and gifts.

When they discover them, encourage the to use them more often than not.

Allowing curiosity is a critical piece to this as well.

Let them explore for the sake of exploring. It’s in our DNA to explore.

In Conclusion

Our children’s behaviors and emotions are not accidents, they are byproducts of core beliefs they adopt as they experience life.

Many of our beliefs are picked up from our relationship with our parents and how they communicate with us (through words and actions).

Unfortunately, a lot of these beliefs are picked up unconsciously. Therefore by consciously choosing to empower your children with conscious communication, you can change everything for them.

And this is why I created Zamio, to teach parents how to communicate with their children in a way that enriches their life and strengthens their connection while simultaneously teaching the children how to communicate with themselves in an empowering way.

This way they can grow up to be happy, confident, and emotionally fulfilled.

Who would’ve known that hypnotizing people would’ve created such a passion for helping children?

Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?

Let me know in the comments below what your biggest takeaway was from this 👇