HM299 How do I know Hypnosis is Working?

Patience and diligent tracking are essential in the hypnosis and therapy process. Understand why it's crucial to allow a few weeks to see real progress and the benefits of scheduling follow-up sessions for continued support and strategies.

Dr. Liz also provides practical tips for those practicing self-hypnosis at home, recommending tools like the Habit app to monitor and evaluate your journey. This episode is your guide to achieving successful outcomes and personal growth through structured and consistent tracking in the hypnosis process.

About Dr. Liz

Support the podcast by joining my Patreon at https://patreon.com/HypnotizeMewithDrLiz

Winner of numerous awards including Top 100 Moms in Business, Dr. Liz provides psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and hypnosis to people wanting a fast, easy way to transform all around the world. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and has special certification in Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. Specialty areas include Anxiety, Insomnia, and Deeper Emotional Healing.

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Listened to in over 140 countries, Hypnotize Me is the podcast about hypnosis, transformation, and healing. Certified hypnotherapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Dr. Liz Bonet, discusses hypnosis and interviews professionals doing transformational work

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone.
Dr Liz here, I hope that you're having a
wonderful day.
I certainly am.
I thought I would do an episode about how
do you know this is working.
This is often a question I get regarding
hypnosis how do I know it's working?
And I would say that we use all kinds of
measures to see if it's working.

(00:22):
If you're coming in for a particular
problem, we are tracking what that problem
is.
I mean, obviously, if you come in to stop
smoking or vaping I do a lot of that work
then you stop smoking and vaping.
That's how you know it's working.
That may take a couple of sessions, but you
stop doing it.
You stop doing the behavior.

(00:44):
Let's say you're coming in to lose weight.
You're actually losing weight.
That's how we know it's working.
For insomnia, we're tracking your sleep.
I want you to do that temporarily, while
you're in treatment.
We don't want people tracking their sleep
forever.
But we're tracking your sleep.
We're seeing are you waking up less?
Are you falling asleep easier?
Are you staying asleep longer?

(01:06):
So we're tracking that stuff.
Now, when it's something that feels more
emotional, like you're coming in to heal
trauma or a deeper belief, when I'm doing
the work, we're actually measuring how you
feel about that trauma.
I actually have you rate it, or those
beliefs that are going on.

(01:28):
We're writing that out at the beginning.
I do an assessment process and then you're
rating them as we go along and when
something feels done to you, it's a felt
sense of done.
So we're rating that.
I usually have people rate it zero to five.
This feels complete.
And people absolutely come up with a rating.

(01:49):
No, that needs more work.
Yes, that feels complete.
It's at a three.
It needs a little bit more work.
It's at a five.
It's done.
It feels done.
Like I don't even know why I wrote that
statement.
Is that kind of done?
Let me give you an example of that.
These are some of my own why questions that

(02:09):
I wrote before I had the process called
core healing, which is a hypnosis process.
Why do I feel so hopeless?
Why do I feel so helpless a lot of the time?
Why do I worry about money so much and
never feel like I have enough?
Why do I have low energy?
So these were back in 2018.

(02:32):
We're in 2024 right now.
I mean I'd written like 20 of them or
something.
That's just a sample of those, but what my
hypnotherapist did is she had me rate those
as we went.
So when I did the technique, I did a
weekend of sessions that started on a
Friday afternoon and lasted until Sunday

(02:55):
about I don't know one or two or so and
then I drove home because I lived about
four or five hours from her, maybe three
and a half, four, I don't know.
It takes me a long time to drive places
like longer than most people, I don't know
why.
So I drove up for the weekend and then we
did another weekend two or three weeks

(03:18):
later and when I went back she had me rate
the change.
I do the same thing in my practice.
After we do that core healing session where
we're looking at the beliefs and we're
healing the beliefs, we're seeing where did
they come from and healing them.

(03:38):
Then the person goes away for a week to 10
days, sometimes two weeks depending on our
schedules, and then when they come back we
rate them.
We say, oh great, how does this feel to you?
And I let's say why do I have such low
energy?
And the person will say that feels complete
five.
I don't feel like I have low energy anymore,
like I'm ready to go and I get out of bed

(04:00):
in the morning.
Or they'll say it's like a three or four.
I think it still needs a little bit more
work.
For me it was a chronic problem, which is
why it was on my list of things to ask, and
it was related to my thyroid.
But sometimes low energy is emotional
process going on.
Sometimes it's when someone's trying to

(04:20):
process a big transition.
That happens too, and honestly, I was
processing a big transition.
I went to see her after once again dating a
psychopath and I thought I never want to do
this again, ever.
This needs to be done.
I need to heal some beliefs around this and
about who I am and what I deserve in life.

(04:43):
And it did it.
The technique did it the core healing
technique and I can attest that my current
husband is not a psychopath, not even close.
He's so kind and generous and he's a good
person and has good values and is honest
and treats me well.

(05:03):
He has his faults too, but they do not fall
in the psychopath realm.
They're more like hey, you're slacking on
the dishes kind of faults.
So after the second weekend we did more
work on the things that needed attention
and then after that, I think, I checked in
with her by phone after that.

(05:24):
Actually, this is before people really
started using Zoom.
So we checked in by phone after that, but I
felt like I was complete for the vast
majority of my questions.
So that's one way to do it.
You rate it.
So it depends what we're doing with some of
the more spiritual techniques, like past
life regression, bqh, which is beyond

(05:47):
quantum healing, which we're going into the
future and asking spiritual guides for
guidance or advice or answers to questions,
then it gets a little more fuzzy.
I mean, if you got an answer to a question,
that's not fuzzy, that's clear.
Did hypnosis work for you?
Yes, it did.

(06:07):
Now, what you choose to do with that answer
is a whole different thing.
But did it work for you?
Yes, but often it is a felt sense in the
body of freedom, energy lifting out of
depression, feeling happier, more energetic,
feeling healed, able to move forward in
your life.
I remember working with someone where she

(06:29):
said she didn't tell anybody she was doing
this because she worked in the medical
profession and sometimes it seems a little
bit woo-woo to medical professionals and
she said she kept getting comments from
co-workers like something's different about
you.
You seem much calmer, you're not like
flying off the handle anymore, like what
did you do, and so she knew that it had

(06:53):
quote unquote worked for her or was working
for her.
So sometimes it's something like that where
people are noticing a difference around you,
even though you haven't told them anything
about what you're doing.
Now I will say there is sometimes an effect
where hypnosis works down the road or you
have to give it time to work so you don't

(07:16):
immediately know.
So here's an example for you.
I was like leaking.
I'm a woman, 54.
I was leaking urine sometimes and this is
disturbing to most women.
It's not something we enjoy, it's
embarrassing.
But it seemed like it was getting worse for
me and there was one night where, if I had

(07:36):
had a jacket, I would have tied it around
my waist, but I didn't have a jacket and
apparently it didn't show anyway.
But I thought, oh my God, like I've got to
go home now.
I was out um at dinner with my husband and
it was just so embarrassing and I thought
why didn't I put a pad on or something like
that, although apparently you're not
supposed to do that, because it programs
your mind to release even more like crazy.

(07:59):
But anyway, I had met the hypnotherapist a
couple of years back at a hypnosis
conference and she had said that she saw
someone for this exact problem Hers was way
worse than mine and that it cured it for
her.
I always remembered that I kept her name
and so when this happened, I scheduled a

(08:22):
sessions with her and we did, I think, two
or three sessions.
Not a whole lot of sessions on it, but we
did two or three sessions.
We came up with a statement for me as well
of I am dry and comfortable and fully in
control.
So we did a couple of sessions and the
result wasn't immediate.

(08:43):
I saw a reduction, but it wasn't completely
gone.
This was only like two or three weeks.
So I knew I need to give it some time and
either keep listening to the hypnosis file
or keep saying my statement.
Just give it some time.
So I knew that because I do hypnosis.
So that's what I did and it got less and
less over time and then I just sort of

(09:05):
forgot about it.
Honestly, I didn't keep reading the
statement obsessively or anything like that.
I I just sort of forgot about it.
And then, about five or six months later, I
realized I had not leaked.
I cannot remember the last time I leaked
urine, like it was gone.
I am dry and comfortable, even when I'm
sneezing.
Okay, that's when it would happen.

(09:27):
Mostly for me is during sneezes.
So I was like this worked, hypnosis worked.
It worked over the long term for me.
So that's an example of something that may
not work immediately, but you see the
effects later and for me, I trust that
that's going to happen.

(09:48):
I understand that sometimes people have
problems trusting that it's going to happen
or sometimes they want to keep going with
the hypnosis process or therapy process,
wanting immediate results for something
that may take a while, and often I'll
recommend that they give it a couple of
weeks, like give it a couple of weeks and

(10:09):
check in with me and if you need another
session, we'll schedule one.
Sometimes we'll go ahead and schedule if
they want support in between or they want
to try different techniques.
Hypnosis can be extremely relaxing, nice,
wonderful, floaty, so they like that and

(10:29):
they like giving that time and attention
for themselves.
So they want to schedule sessions to not
just feel good but to talk some things
through, gather some additional strategies.
Sometimes I'm a place to talk about things
that they can't talk about anywhere else in
their life.
They don't have supportive friends or

(10:49):
family to talk about something that they
want to talk about.
So that's part of it too.
It's part of being a therapist, really.
If you're doing hypnosis on your own at
home, start your own tracking.
There's all kinds of trackers you can use
that are free or low cost, and you can
always track on paper.
But my favorite one is called Habit

(11:11):
H-A-B-I-T and it's this little pink app
that has a white circle with a check mark
in it and I think it was like $2.99 or
something forever like as a one-time cost.
That's my favorite habit tracker because
you can customize it a lot.
So track it on your own if you're doing it
at home, to see is this getting better,

(11:33):
this working?
Is hypnosis helping?
All right, everyone.
I hope you are healthy and safe peace.