Taming the Inner Critic: Rewiring Self-Esteem, Resilience, and Presence as a Mom With Georgia Foster
October 6, 2025 • 34 mins
Episode Highlights With Georgia
- What the inner critic is and how it has gotten out of hand in the modern world
- Self esteem is something we are not born with, we have to develop it
- The inner critic creates detachment and feelings of not being good enough
- Our children pick up on the energy of our inner critic
- Everyone’s inner critic is saying similar things and it doesn’t go away but we can learn to tame it
- The pleaser personalities and why this is more common in women and moms
- How these can lead to the tough inner question of who am I?
- Keep an emotional diary of what your inner critic is saying and write the opposite
- How we can pass these skills on to our kids and why starting earlier is better
- What hypnosis is and how she uses it to help people
- How to use self hypnosis to help address some of these core beliefs
- Why hypnosis is so effective and how to learn self hypnosis
- When you are in hypnosis, your brain really thinks you are there in that experience so it is a very powerful tool
- With hypnosis, you don’t have to go back into the memory or the past to heal
- Georgia's website - use code Katie001 for 25% off all progams (limited time!)
- Follow Georgia on Facebook, Instagram, and X.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welk on to My Body's podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
This podcast is brought to you by Element and this
is a company you might have heard me talk about before,
and I really love their products because proper hydration leads
to better sleep, it sharpens focus, it improves energy, and
so much more. M Hydration is not about just drinking water,
because being optimally hydrated a state called U hydration, is
(00:25):
about optimizing your body's fluid ratios. And this fluid balance
depends on many factors, including the intake and excretion of electrolytes,
which many people don't get. The right amounts of electrolytes
are charged minerals that conduct electricity to power your nervous system.
I talk a lot about nervous system on this podcast.
They also regulate hydration status by balancing fluids inside and
(00:46):
outside of ourselves. Element was created with the science backed
electrolyte ratio of one hundred milligrams of sodium, two hundred
milligrams of potassium, and sixty milligrams of magnesium with no sugar.
Since electrolytes are a key component of hydration, here's what happens.
When we get our electrolytes dialed in, we have more
steady energy, improved cognitive function, suffer fewer headaches and muscle cramps.
(01:07):
We can perform better for longer and especially the support
fasting or low carb diet because when we stop eating carbs,
like during a fast, the absence of insulin allows the
kidneys to release sodium. So replacing that loss sodium with
electrolytes can help you feel good on the fast. Since
Element is zero sugar, it also doesn't break up fast.
Electrolytes are also important for maintaining blood pressure, regulating digestion,
(01:29):
and proper fluid balance, keeping skin hydrated, which is a
big one that I feel like often gets missed, and
so much more. I feel like proper electrolytes is a
missing piece for a lot of people. And I love
Elements new canned drinks which are sparkling water with all
the same ratios of minerals I just talked about, and
they are delicious. You can check it out and learn
(01:49):
more at drink Element dot com, slash wellness Mama. That's
dri nk l mnt dot com slash wellness Mama, and
at that link you will receive a free sample path
with any order. Hello and welcome to the Wanness Maama podcast.
I'm Katie from waldesmama dot com and I am here
today with Georgia Foster to talk about taming the inner critic,
(02:13):
rewiring our self esteem, for more resilience at presence as
a mom and if you're not familiar with Georgia, she
is incredible. Georgia Foster is a clinical hypnotherapist and a
voice dialogue trainer. She has noticed the go to expert
in the UK and Australia for food and alcohol issues
as well as inner critic, at people, pleaser and some
things that felt especially relevant to me. She has written
(02:36):
many books and developed a number of online self health
programs about self esteem, anxiety, emotional overeating and emotional drinking.
And we touch on some of those topics today and
especially about the inner critic piece and about how we
can actually develop self esteem. She says we're not born
with that, we must develop it and so much more,
(02:57):
and she gives some very practical tools that you can
use start today. So let's jump in. Georgio welcome, Thank
you so much for being here today from the other
side of the world. This is amazing. We get to
chat literally across the planet.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I know, well, thank you for having me. I'm very existed.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I am also very excited, and the topics we're going
to get to dive into today, I feel are especially
relevant to our listeners, many of whom are parents and
especially moms, and I feel like anytime we help moms,
we of course send ripples throughout the whole family and
impact future generations as well, which is one of the
reasons I even started Wallness Mama to begin with, and
when I came across your work, I felt like it
(03:32):
was so resonant and so impactful and couldn't wait to
share it with the Wellness Mama audience in this first
episode together. I really want to go deep on the
topic of taming the inner critic, because that seems like
something all of us can really have experienced at some
point in our life or still experience or have some
kind of struggle with, and that can get seemingly passed
(03:52):
on to our kids as we experience it. So I
know this is kind of a broad topic, but maybe
can you walk us into the topic of the inner
critic to begin with, and maybe talk a little bit
about self esteem as the foundation for resilience. I know
there's a lot that goes under this topic.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, well, the inner critic. I'm trying this amazing psychology,
and the psychology is that were all met up with
many parts or sub personalities. And what's really interesting is, well,
when I discovered that my inner critic had been running
my shop, took me a while to figure it out.
But what's it really interesting now being trained in this
particular theory is the inner critic originally was there to
(04:31):
protect us when we lived in caves and there were
bears around the corner kind of thing. But now life
has gotten the way, and obviously mom's in particular. You know,
I always say that self esteem is something we're not
born with. We need to learn it. It's like a language,
it's an emotional language we need to learn. And I
know personally being a mom, and also the impact of
(04:53):
clients and people who I've worked with through my programs
is that the inner critic is the part that creates anxiety,
some questioning, retreating, not feeling good enough, and it actually
causes a lot more damage than we often think. Because
I said to people, if you could hear what you
(05:13):
were saying on the inside, if people could hear what
you were really saying to yourself. You wouldn't treat your
worst enemy like that. And the thing about the inner critic,
it can creep up with us when we're feeling vulnerable,
when we're feeling tired or sick, or when we're just
feeling overwhelmed. It can creep in and say, you're not coping.
Look at the moment of the school gates. They're so
(05:35):
slim and fit, and you know, all of those things
that make us feel incredibly vulnerable. And when that actually
happens is the anocritic. Because it's part of the fear
based part of the brain. We then produce stressed chemicals
quartos on adrenaline and can cause anxiety, It can cause depression,
(05:55):
It can cause as I said, retreating and not feeling
good enough can cause a lot of as you said,
that domino effect that energetically, our children pick up on
that and our language starts to be, oh, well, they
think this about me or they think that about me.
And you know, the irony is that everybody's in a
critic is saying similar things, right, but we're not kind
(06:19):
of voicing it. So I truly believe that the innocritic
is it's unfortunately the voice that we have to learn
to manage it doesn't go away, but we can learn
to tame it, as you said, and taming it is
really the key to that. Obviously, I'm qualified hypnotherapist, and
(06:40):
I find it's a very quick effective tool at training
the deeper part of the mind to tune out of negativity.
But more importantly is the inner critic is the part
within all of us that will sabotage it will cause
us a lot of propaganda in our head and will
(07:01):
stop us from achieving things that we really want to achieve.
And that little bit of inspirational motivation that we might
have to do something really good for ourselves can be
squashed in an instant by that in a critic, and
then we think, oh, we're not good enough, I can't
do this. But in actual fact, the part that had
that inspiration, the part that was really really motivated to
(07:25):
do something, whether it's going on a course or it's
deciding to say no to people. Because there are other
friends of the inner critic that if we've got time,
I'd like to share with you too, But the inner
critic is the main culprit. And you know the ultimate
goal is to have that beautiful charismatic person that really
(07:47):
wants to come out, but because of a time, repeatedly
of negative thoughts, and we start to think that's our
normal thinking, but it's actually not at all.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
That makes so much sense, and it almost seems like,
so you mentioned self esteem, you're not born with it.
We have to develop it. And it seems like we
probably also sort of developed this inner critic through life
experiences and probably childhood experiences. I'd love for you to
go deeper and explain kind of the friends of the
inner critic that you mentioned, because I would guess these
will feel very relevant to people listening as well, and
then from there maybe delve into as kind of a counterpoint,
(08:20):
how do we nurture our own self esteem or kind
of whatever. The antidote to the critic would be.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yes, So we have the pleaser personality, and this is
the part that likes to look after everybody else and
is very much the nurturer. I'm not saying it's necessarily
a mum trait, but it is more common I find
in women than within men. But you know, men have
it and it's a very beautiful quality to have. So
(08:47):
what's interesting about the pleaser The innocritic loves somebody who
you know, the inner critic will say, you should have
done this, for this personal why didn't you do this?
And it makes us around us so ragged And look,
being a mum, you put your kids first, right, so
that okay, put that one aside. Maybe there is time
that you should say no to your children, of course,
(09:10):
But ultimately, the pleasers deepest fear is not being liked
or loved, and they're worried about rejection the whole time,
so they tend to, you know, they would tend to
over commit, can often feel that, you know, they have
this sense of I've got to do more, and then
what they can do I know before we cover this
(09:30):
a little bit later as well, but they tend to
retreat into they can retreat into food and alcohol as
a way to take time out because they can't find
a way to nurture without feeling guilty. So once the
door's closed, the kid's gone to bed, they maybe, you know,
open up the cookie packet or open up that bottle
of wine and say I've done everything for everybody else,
(09:54):
now it's my time for me. And the issue with
Lisa is they're beautiful people that all they're loving, they're
very caring, so people are very drawn to them. But
the downside of being a strong pleaser, you can also
attract bullies, and bullies can be narcissistic in nature, critical, judgmental,
(10:17):
and pleasers really feel they want to fix everybody right.
They want to be this free therapist. I mean, I'm
a pleaser by nature, but you know, I've had to
really tame my pleaser because and obviously from a perspective
of when I became, you know, especialist in this area,
it was one thing I really had to monitor. And
(10:38):
I think that the word no is really important, but
we're too skeped often to say it. But when you
say no, people know exactly what you stand. Whereas you know,
often if you're pleased, you might procrastinate and kind of
try and avoid it, but really having your voice is
really important. And I think as well with the please
(11:01):
because they want to be liked and loved, they're always
kind of like if you put a pleaser in a party,
they'll make sure the person in the corner, if not
talking to anybody, has no one to talk to. So
it's really lovely to have that personality trade, but it
can get you into some tricky situations when you know
it's time to actually now hang on a minute, like, no,
(11:23):
I'm not going to do that, you know. And that
could be whether it's a partner or a child, could
be a colleague or a friend. And I've had many
many clients. I used to have a clinic in London
for twenty three years. I'm Australian that I lived in
London for twenty three years and it was extraordinary when
I learned this particular technique and work with people. How
(11:47):
beautiful the skill of the pleaser starting to nurture themselves
and being a little bit more discerning about how they
want to spend their time, who they want to spend
their time with, and when it's time to retreat. So
that's one of the personality traits. And the inner critic
and the pleaser get together and they confesster and make
(12:08):
people feel that there is really something wrong with them.
We're in actual fact. When you start to train your
mind to be more discerning, then you can start to
recognize when you want to do all those things or not.
But there's another part that is called the perfectionist, and
it's the all or nothing type personality trade and the
(12:32):
perfectionist is the part that it's really good at doing
things one hundred percent, whether it's going to the gym,
whether it's going on a diet, whether it's you know,
going to get a degree in something. It's a fantastic
personality to have, like the pleaser. But because it's all
or nothing, what can actually happen is that when somebody
(12:55):
tries to achieve something that don't achieve it, they feel
that they've failed. Often they will get depressed, they get angry,
and it comes down to also eating and drinking. They're
either on a diet or over eating or over drinking.
So really what I'm saying is the perfections is great
(13:16):
because it achieves a lot, But the problem is that
sometimes they get exhausted from prying to achieve so much,
and they can get into high levels of anxiety, retreating, suppression.
But under that is really about you know, it's a
bit like the story. But with the holiday, you want
this perfect holiday, right, and you have it all planned
(13:37):
and you think, I want everything to go exactly as
it is, But actually when the holiday doesn't go to plan,
You've always got some funny story to tell, right that
you share through families or whatever, and something good comes
out of that, right And I always said it perfection
is you know, just because you weren't perfect in that
situation doesn't mean you weren't amazing. And I think that
a lot of people high spectations, as you said before,
(14:00):
or from family members, of trying to be the best
you know and trying to be seen as the person
who is excelling and a high achiever can cause a
lot of self esteem issues deep down that can really
cause a question who am I? Because if you're driven
to please others, if you're driven to be perfect, then
(14:23):
who are you like? And so that's why we talk
about that arithmatic, authentic self that I like to train
somebody into experience, because charisma isn't about being the slimmest,
the richest, the smartest, the funniest. It's actually about having
a beautiful sense of being humble and grounded and of
(14:44):
course being funny, but knowing when to be vulnerable and
so that people can really warm to you, but also
know when you need to be shielded and guarded so
you can continue to protect yourself. And all of these
things can happen when you train your mind to tune
out of the inner critic. It buys you on the
bumb like at will now and again. But learning to
(15:06):
know the signs are really important, and one of the
easiest ways to do that is to start to keep
an emotional diary and write down what your in a
critic is saying, you know, I'm not good enough, and
then writing down the opposite so that you can start
to because they're really lovely saying that. One of my
(15:28):
colleagues in one of my clinics in London said to
me once we were talking about the inner critic, and
he said to me, you know, what's really interesting about
the inner critic is that the mind listens the mind
here is what you say. And I'm like, I know that,
but I walked on and I thought, well, he's absolutely right,
because what we don't really think about is even though
(15:49):
it's silent to the outside world, but what we hear
is real inside and so that negative propaganda that we
start to believe to be true. The goal is but
not to be a self fulfilling prophecy, you know, And
that's really important because I feel extremely passionate about the
(16:12):
fact that what you think is not you. It's a habit,
and it's a habit you can unlearn. And self esteem
is I think is paramount when it comes to and
we all wanted children to have self esteem, don't we
mean that's the biggest goal for me for my kids, right,
So I taught them very early in their life about
(16:33):
the grumpy monkey and the happy heart. That was how
I translated into childhood conversations and then went she went
into some schools to talk about it. And for me,
if we can start early, the better, right. So I
hope that can be a value to you know, some
moms out there who want to start looking at the
(16:55):
children and they're in a dialogue quite because it starts
around about the age of seven. An equittics starts to
really develop around about seven, it's a good time to
start doing some mind positive thinking training with children.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That makes sense. The age wise is I'm thinking back
of all of my kids at different ages, and it
seems like in those early few years they're just pure
like imagination, and their confidence is through the roof and
like they're living in almost like a magical world. And
it does seem like around six, seven, eight, somewhere in there,
they start to like become more aware of what is
going on around them and what other people think, and
then maybe that like internalizes into that critic that And
(17:31):
I loved your explanation as you were saying that I can,
like I've said before, I'm a recovering people pleaser. I'm
not recovered yet, but I've definitely made progress because I
used to be. It sounds like like you a very
extreme version of that. And like you said, the downside
is you eventually can burn out by trying to keep
everyone else happy all the time but ignoring yourself. And
when you're a giver, you can often attract takers. And
(17:53):
that was for me. It came to a kind of
an inflection point when I got so exhausted that I
simply couldn't keep pleasing people, please everyone else at the
expense of myself anymore. And I slowly had to learn
have a little bit of balance there. And I also
resonated with that kind of ingrained perfectionist tendency and even
in adulthood, learning that I tend to not want to
do things I'm not already good at because of that
perfectionist tendency. And so I've learned with myself to sort
(18:17):
of gamify that or to make it like having kind
of fun ways to push my comfort zone, since I'm
aware that that's something I don't naturally want to do typically.
This podcast is brought to you by Element, and this
is a company you might have heard me talk about before,
and I really love their products because proper hydration leads
to better sleep, It sharpens focus, and improves energy and
(18:39):
so much more. But hydration is not about just drinking water,
because being optimally hydrated a state called you. Hydration is
about optimizing your body's fluid ratios, and this fluid balance
depends on many factors, including the intake and excretion of electrolytes,
which many people don't get. The right amounts of electrolytes
are charged minerals that conduct electricity to power your nervous system.
(19:03):
I talk a lot about nervous system on this podcast.
They also regulate hydration status by balancing fluids inside and
outside of ourselves. Element was created with the science backed
electrolyte ratio of one hundred milligrams of sodium, two hundred
milligrams of potassium, and sixty milligrams of magnesium with no sugar.
Since electrolytes are a key component of hydration. Here's what happens.
When we get our electrolytes dialed in. We have more
(19:25):
steady energy, improved cognitive function, suffer fewer headaches and muscle cramps.
We can perform better for longer and especially the support
fasting or a low carb diet because when we stop
eating carbs, like during fast the absence of insulin allows
the kidneys to release sodium to Replacing that loss sodium
with electrolytes can help you feel good on the fast.
Since Element is zero sugar, it also doesn't break up fast.
(19:48):
Electrolytes are also important for maintaining blood pressure, regulating digestion,
and proper fluid balance, keeping skin hydrated, which is a
big one that I feel like often gets missed, and
so much more. I feel like proper electrolytes is a
missing piece for a lot of people. And I love
Elements new canned drinks which are sparkling water with all
the same ratios of minerals I just talked about, and
(20:09):
they are delicious. You can check it out and learn
more at drink Element dot com, slash wellness Mama. That's
dri nk l mnt dot com, slash wellness Mama and
at that link you will receive a free sample pack
with any order. And I love that you explain these
kind of archetypes of what's within us so well. And
(20:30):
I love that tip about an emotional diary and writing
the opposite as well to kind of like retrain. It
seems like retraining our inner dialogue is such a powerful
tool first with like tune in, but once we can
start to retrain that it can become such an ally.
And you mentioned that you are a hypnotherapist. I would
love to delve into this because I've got to do
a few hypnotherapy sessions before and I found them deeply,
(20:50):
deeply impactful. So I would love for you to explain
for anyone who's not familiar what that is and how
you work with people. And then I believe you also
help people do something called self hip, which is a
new concept for a lot of people. So walk us
into the world of hypnosis.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah. Look, I discovered hypnosis. I had the privilege of
training with these Union psychologists in California before I became
a hypnotherapist, and I realized then that my inner critic
had been driving my life. And then I went to
London and my family British so I could live there
(21:26):
with a visa, etc. And I stoned across this training
program about clinical hypnosis, so I got all that's interesting.
And when I went into this experience of hypnosis, of
training with the college and then I went on to
lecture in hypnosis with the universities, and the one thing
(21:46):
I discovered with the hypnosis was that it was a
really good quick way to train the emotional part of
the mind. And I was so shocked that that for me,
it was so quick and effective. And I'm not saying
that people shouldn't do any sort of talking therapy. I
(22:06):
think it's a really important therapy. But what is really
good with hypnosis, and this is neuroscience based. Now there
is so much, so much research out there now about hypnosis.
But what's really interesting about this particular form, this modality
of therapy is that we're talking about the brain has
(22:27):
neural pathways and the ones that you could imagine. It's
like you want to make a change consciousness. Say right
on a Monday today to day, I'm going to lose
weight today, I'm going to be better to myself today.
I'm going to do this today, I'm going to whatever
do that, and by midday two o'clock in the afternoon
that those great plans have gone out the door, and
(22:47):
that frustration that you know, what's wrong with me? People say,
George don't have any willpower? I like, actually, willpower does
not exist. What really is going on is the deeper
part of your mind, which manages your emotional life, runs
the show. So your conscious wishes says on a Monday morning,
I want to do this, I want to do that,
And then the stresses and the strains of the daily
(23:09):
life come along, come along, and all of a sudden
you think I'm going to have to cove it and
have that chocolate. I'm going to have to whatever. And
it might feel like yourself sabotaging yourself. But the irony
is the mind is very lazy, and what it does
it will retreat, default to what emotions you experience in
(23:32):
the past. It will say, well, the last time you
felt stressed, he felt anxious or lonely or bored or overwhelmed,
what did you do, Ah, Let's get some chocolate. Okay,
let's get angry, or let's be fearful, And so it
will automatically go into that zone, not because that person
(23:53):
is lazy, but the brain needs to learn new coping
strategies and say unfortunately. But I say fortunately is the
conscious mind's not clever. So if you're working with the
conscious mind to create a change, it's going to be
very difficult because the deeper part of the mind will
always override those wishes. So what's beautiful about hypnosis like
(24:18):
twenty five minutes or less? What is magical about when
your eyes are closed, you naturally go into an altered state. Now,
hypnosis is the same as meditation, it's the same brain
wave activity. But the neuroscientists have studied people in hypnosis
what they call brain training. And what is interesting When
(24:40):
you pair or match or marry certain emotions that are
highly positively charged with a new imagining a new experience
and imagining new outcome, and you repeat that, and you
rehearse that over and over again, your mind sees that
as real. Now this may seem pocus pocus, but there
(25:03):
is so much research. And what more importantly is the
facts are there that the quickest way to change a
habit is to communicate with a deeper part of your mind,
and hypnosis is such a really relaxing way to do it.
Because as you are experiencing, you know, people say, sleep
on the problem, the arts will come to in the morning.
That's exactly what it's about. You know, My programs was about,
(25:28):
you know, emotional eating or drinking less or anxiety. Is
that the mind at that point in time genuinely thinks
that over consumption or anxiety or panic attacks is the
coping strategy. But it's only because that's what it's familiar with.
So hypnosis can train the mind to tune out of
(25:51):
that and tune into you know, it's like going to
the same train station every day and expecting to see
something different. It's about changing the train trucks and allowing
the mind to go to another neural pathway that in fact,
the sages and meditators of the world, you know, and
they've studied the brain. When people are anxious and they
(26:13):
go to the fear based part of the brain, which
is the amygdala, which is to the back of the ears.
But when you're in a calm space, you go to
the prefrontal cortex, which is in the middle of the forehead. Now,
the sages and the meditators used to call that, they
call it the third eye, and people used to you know,
pull it. So that's as crazy, but in actual fact,
(26:35):
now there's absolute evidence that when neuroscience studied the brain
and people are in that magical, calm, beautiful space, this
part of the brain lights up. So in hypnosis, we're
literally training the mind that you out of the amygdala
and to come into here, and it's very quick, it's
(26:55):
very effective.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, is so fascinating to me. And obviously you have
a tremendous amount of experience with this. The limited experience
that I've had with hypnosis, I also felt like it
was dramatically effective compared to talk therapy, and I later learned,
especially if you've had like severe trauma, it can often
like talk therapy can be ineffective or sometimes even counterproductive
at first if you're like if your subconscious is actually
(27:18):
still trying to protect memories. And that was my experience
as well, and I found like hypnosis was fascinating for me.
When I did it with practitioners, I would even say
things about the roots of things that as they came
out of my mouth, I was like, oh, wow, that's
where that comes from, Like I never connected that, and
it was amazing how dramatic and how impactful that was
for me. And I love this concept that you teach
(27:38):
on self hypnosis because I also know not all of
us can work all the time with hypnotherapists, though that
would be amazing if we could. But I love how
you make this tangible and available, and especially for moms
and stay at home moms. I feel like this is
really an impactful tool that you help so many people with.
And I'll put your linked in the show notes, of course,
but can you speak a little bit to the resources
that you have available and the ones you would recommend,
(27:59):
starting with especially for people who are maybe resonating with
the things we've talked about related to the enner critic
or the people pleaser, or that guilt complex of trying
to be a perfect mom or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Sure, when I trained in the hip therapy and the
union psychology together, I realized that there was a way
to move on quite quickly and train people to have
a healthier inner dialogue. And there are a number of
ways to do that. The first thing is, you know,
in terms of tools and techniques, Well, actually, how it
(28:31):
happened was I had quite a lot of people, had
a few I had a clinic in the Financial District
of London, and a lot of people from the big
banks were coming to see me, and a lot of
them are big party people and big drinkers, and they
didn't want to quit drinking. And I'm like, well, I'm
an Aussie. We like our drink, right, I like my
shaden may. I don't want to quit my sharden may.
I know a lot of people do want to quit,
(28:53):
but you know, I really believe that a lot of
people are emotioning conditioned drinkers. They're not alcoholics, they're not
park benches, fully functioning people in society. And so I
started to get a reputation for helping people drink less
alcohol and had quite a lot of meta coverage in
the UK and it became a big passion of mine.
(29:15):
But it really came off the back of people coming
to see me about the relationship with food. I have
a program called seven days to drink less than I
have in more intensive training, the boot Camp program six weeks,
and then I have this program, a new program called
the Pajama Diet, which really came out of all the
lockdowns when people really trapped and couldn't exercise and were
(29:38):
emotionally over eating and over drinking. And I had a
lot of people who were saying to me, Georgia, you know,
everything I've done going out the window, what can I do?
So because what's really interesting they've done. There's been a
lot of research on muscle development, and your brain can
literally because when you're in hypnosis, your brain really thinks
(29:59):
you're that right, So you can train your muscles to
be fitter or stronger. But more importantly in terms of
weight loss, well, the Weightless Mind is a really good
program to talk about in a critic and the please
and the perfectionist. But emotional overeating is a conditioned response.
Overdrinking is a conditioned response. And I always say it's
(30:22):
the thinking before the eating and drinking that's the problem.
Because nobody wants to overeat, nobody wants to overdrink, nobody
wants to have panic attacks. I've got a great program
called Emotional Resilience Training for those that really feel that
their negative state and they're in a dialogue really does
hold them. You know, I know a lot of moms
(30:44):
over the years that I've worked with in my clinic,
and it's just shocking how they treat themselves. And anxiety
is rife and I had this really interesting this client.
He has to come to me from New York and
she used to come and see when she came to
London on business, and she said, I've decided, Georgie. The
difference between America and Britain is in Britain there's a
(31:06):
pub on every corner in Britain, there's in an America
there's a pharmacy on every corner. And I think that
you know, we all have a we all understand a
lot of people may be medicated, and not saying go
off your medication, but a lot of how we feel
is driven by that. In a critic and hypnosis can
really very quickly train the mind to move out of
(31:29):
that negative state. And emotional resilience takes practice, right, it's
not something that you once again you're born with a
little bit of courage is important as well, of course,
but I just think that everybody has incredible resources and
who you are when you're in your negative state is
(31:50):
not real. It's a thought. It connects to a feeling
and then produces the chemicals. But that's not set in
ste That's what's good about at it, you know, and
that's saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks
is completely unfounded when it comes to hypnosis because it's
and I think that this question does come up a lot.
(32:11):
So I just wanted to talk about this that people say,
going to hypnosis, am I going to aggress to whatever
when it happened? And you touched on that before getting
about the fact that you know, I mean some people.
I am trained in regression, but I'm very much a
progressive therapist in my style of work because like the
nearest scientists say is your brain is malleable, pliable to change.
(32:34):
It just needs the right messages. So if you feel
that something happened in your past that is really holding
you back, you don't have to go back there to heal.
That's what's really important. You train your mind to move on,
to let go of the energy of it, because it's
the energy that's holding you back, whether it's fear of flying,
(32:58):
whether it's you know, so people say to me, you
know your job. I don't have a fear of spiders,
but my mother does. We do mimic a lot of
our parents' behaviors. It's a really good way of saying
that's not me, this is who I am, and I'm
going to start to learn to do something differently. But
(33:18):
like all things, it takes practice. And that's what the
hypnosis is all about. It's really about connecting to the
deeper part of your mind, and the deeper part of
mine loves change. It just needs to know what to do.
It just needs to be guided, and hypnosis is a
great tool for that.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah, I feel like this is so fascinating, and I'll
make sure I link to your website and that you've
even shared a really generous discount for everybody listening. I'll
put that in the show notes at wellnessmama dot com.
And I know we're going to get to do a
second episode and to go even deeper on the topic
of especially related to emotional eating and or emotional drinking
and how those can show up, especially for moms. But
for this episode, thank you so much for your time.
(33:56):
I love hypnosis as a tool, I love your approach
to this, and I'm so grateful for your time today.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Thank you much appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
And thank you for listening. And I hope you will
join me again on the next episode of the Wellness
Wama podcast. If you're enjoying these interviews, would you please
take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes.
For me, doing this helps more people to find the podcast,
which means even more moms and families can benefit from
the information. I really appreciate your time and thanks as
(34:24):
always for listening.
Welk on to My Body's podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
This podcast is brought to you by Element and this
is a company you might have heard me talk about before,
and I really love their products because proper hydration leads
to better sleep, it sharpens focus, it improves energy, and
so much more. M Hydration is not about just drinking water,
because being optimally hydrated a state called U hydration, is
(00:25):
about optimizing your body's fluid ratios. And this fluid balance
depends on many factors, including the intake and excretion of electrolytes,
which many people don't get. The right amounts of electrolytes
are charged minerals that conduct electricity to power your nervous system.
I talk a lot about nervous system on this podcast.
They also regulate hydration status by balancing fluids inside and
(00:46):
outside of ourselves. Element was created with the science backed
electrolyte ratio of one hundred milligrams of sodium, two hundred
milligrams of potassium, and sixty milligrams of magnesium with no sugar.
Since electrolytes are a key component of hydration, here's what happens.
When we get our electrolytes dialed in, we have more
steady energy, improved cognitive function, suffer fewer headaches and muscle cramps.
(01:07):
We can perform better for longer and especially the support
fasting or low carb diet because when we stop eating carbs,
like during a fast, the absence of insulin allows the
kidneys to release sodium. So replacing that loss sodium with
electrolytes can help you feel good on the fast. Since
Element is zero sugar, it also doesn't break up fast.
Electrolytes are also important for maintaining blood pressure, regulating digestion,
(01:29):
and proper fluid balance, keeping skin hydrated, which is a
big one that I feel like often gets missed, and
so much more. I feel like proper electrolytes is a
missing piece for a lot of people. And I love
Elements new canned drinks which are sparkling water with all
the same ratios of minerals I just talked about, and
they are delicious. You can check it out and learn
(01:49):
more at drink Element dot com, slash wellness Mama. That's
dri nk l mnt dot com slash wellness Mama, and
at that link you will receive a free sample path
with any order. Hello and welcome to the Wanness Maama podcast.
I'm Katie from waldesmama dot com and I am here
today with Georgia Foster to talk about taming the inner critic,
(02:13):
rewiring our self esteem, for more resilience at presence as
a mom and if you're not familiar with Georgia, she
is incredible. Georgia Foster is a clinical hypnotherapist and a
voice dialogue trainer. She has noticed the go to expert
in the UK and Australia for food and alcohol issues
as well as inner critic, at people, pleaser and some
things that felt especially relevant to me. She has written
(02:36):
many books and developed a number of online self health
programs about self esteem, anxiety, emotional overeating and emotional drinking.
And we touch on some of those topics today and
especially about the inner critic piece and about how we
can actually develop self esteem. She says we're not born
with that, we must develop it and so much more,
(02:57):
and she gives some very practical tools that you can
use start today. So let's jump in. Georgio welcome, Thank
you so much for being here today from the other
side of the world. This is amazing. We get to
chat literally across the planet.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I know, well, thank you for having me. I'm very existed.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I am also very excited, and the topics we're going
to get to dive into today, I feel are especially
relevant to our listeners, many of whom are parents and
especially moms, and I feel like anytime we help moms,
we of course send ripples throughout the whole family and
impact future generations as well, which is one of the
reasons I even started Wallness Mama to begin with, and
when I came across your work, I felt like it
(03:32):
was so resonant and so impactful and couldn't wait to
share it with the Wellness Mama audience in this first
episode together. I really want to go deep on the
topic of taming the inner critic, because that seems like
something all of us can really have experienced at some
point in our life or still experience or have some
kind of struggle with, and that can get seemingly passed
(03:52):
on to our kids as we experience it. So I
know this is kind of a broad topic, but maybe
can you walk us into the topic of the inner
critic to begin with, and maybe talk a little bit
about self esteem as the foundation for resilience. I know
there's a lot that goes under this topic.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, well, the inner critic. I'm trying this amazing psychology,
and the psychology is that were all met up with
many parts or sub personalities. And what's really interesting is, well,
when I discovered that my inner critic had been running
my shop, took me a while to figure it out.
But what's it really interesting now being trained in this
particular theory is the inner critic originally was there to
(04:31):
protect us when we lived in caves and there were
bears around the corner kind of thing. But now life
has gotten the way, and obviously mom's in particular. You know,
I always say that self esteem is something we're not
born with. We need to learn it. It's like a language,
it's an emotional language we need to learn. And I
know personally being a mom, and also the impact of
(04:53):
clients and people who I've worked with through my programs
is that the inner critic is the part that creates anxiety,
some questioning, retreating, not feeling good enough, and it actually
causes a lot more damage than we often think. Because
I said to people, if you could hear what you
(05:13):
were saying on the inside, if people could hear what
you were really saying to yourself. You wouldn't treat your
worst enemy like that. And the thing about the inner critic,
it can creep up with us when we're feeling vulnerable,
when we're feeling tired or sick, or when we're just
feeling overwhelmed. It can creep in and say, you're not coping.
Look at the moment of the school gates. They're so
(05:35):
slim and fit, and you know, all of those things
that make us feel incredibly vulnerable. And when that actually
happens is the anocritic. Because it's part of the fear
based part of the brain. We then produce stressed chemicals
quartos on adrenaline and can cause anxiety, It can cause depression,
(05:55):
It can cause as I said, retreating and not feeling
good enough can cause a lot of as you said,
that domino effect that energetically, our children pick up on
that and our language starts to be, oh, well, they
think this about me or they think that about me.
And you know, the irony is that everybody's in a
critic is saying similar things, right, but we're not kind
(06:19):
of voicing it. So I truly believe that the innocritic
is it's unfortunately the voice that we have to learn
to manage it doesn't go away, but we can learn
to tame it, as you said, and taming it is
really the key to that. Obviously, I'm qualified hypnotherapist, and
(06:40):
I find it's a very quick effective tool at training
the deeper part of the mind to tune out of negativity.
But more importantly is the inner critic is the part
within all of us that will sabotage it will cause
us a lot of propaganda in our head and will
(07:01):
stop us from achieving things that we really want to achieve.
And that little bit of inspirational motivation that we might
have to do something really good for ourselves can be
squashed in an instant by that in a critic, and
then we think, oh, we're not good enough, I can't
do this. But in actual fact, the part that had
that inspiration, the part that was really really motivated to
(07:25):
do something, whether it's going on a course or it's
deciding to say no to people. Because there are other
friends of the inner critic that if we've got time,
I'd like to share with you too, But the inner
critic is the main culprit. And you know the ultimate
goal is to have that beautiful charismatic person that really
(07:47):
wants to come out, but because of a time, repeatedly
of negative thoughts, and we start to think that's our
normal thinking, but it's actually not at all.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
That makes so much sense, and it almost seems like,
so you mentioned self esteem, you're not born with it.
We have to develop it. And it seems like we
probably also sort of developed this inner critic through life
experiences and probably childhood experiences. I'd love for you to
go deeper and explain kind of the friends of the
inner critic that you mentioned, because I would guess these
will feel very relevant to people listening as well, and
then from there maybe delve into as kind of a counterpoint,
(08:20):
how do we nurture our own self esteem or kind
of whatever. The antidote to the critic would be.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yes, So we have the pleaser personality, and this is
the part that likes to look after everybody else and
is very much the nurturer. I'm not saying it's necessarily
a mum trait, but it is more common I find
in women than within men. But you know, men have
it and it's a very beautiful quality to have. So
(08:47):
what's interesting about the pleaser The innocritic loves somebody who
you know, the inner critic will say, you should have
done this, for this personal why didn't you do this?
And it makes us around us so ragged And look,
being a mum, you put your kids first, right, so
that okay, put that one aside. Maybe there is time
that you should say no to your children, of course,
(09:10):
But ultimately, the pleasers deepest fear is not being liked
or loved, and they're worried about rejection the whole time,
so they tend to, you know, they would tend to
over commit, can often feel that, you know, they have
this sense of I've got to do more, and then
what they can do I know before we cover this
(09:30):
a little bit later as well, but they tend to
retreat into they can retreat into food and alcohol as
a way to take time out because they can't find
a way to nurture without feeling guilty. So once the
door's closed, the kid's gone to bed, they maybe, you know,
open up the cookie packet or open up that bottle
of wine and say I've done everything for everybody else,
(09:54):
now it's my time for me. And the issue with
Lisa is they're beautiful people that all they're loving, they're
very caring, so people are very drawn to them. But
the downside of being a strong pleaser, you can also
attract bullies, and bullies can be narcissistic in nature, critical, judgmental,
(10:17):
and pleasers really feel they want to fix everybody right.
They want to be this free therapist. I mean, I'm
a pleaser by nature, but you know, I've had to
really tame my pleaser because and obviously from a perspective
of when I became, you know, especialist in this area,
it was one thing I really had to monitor. And
(10:38):
I think that the word no is really important, but
we're too skeped often to say it. But when you
say no, people know exactly what you stand. Whereas you know,
often if you're pleased, you might procrastinate and kind of
try and avoid it, but really having your voice is
really important. And I think as well with the please
(11:01):
because they want to be liked and loved, they're always
kind of like if you put a pleaser in a party,
they'll make sure the person in the corner, if not
talking to anybody, has no one to talk to. So
it's really lovely to have that personality trade, but it
can get you into some tricky situations when you know
it's time to actually now hang on a minute, like, no,
(11:23):
I'm not going to do that, you know. And that
could be whether it's a partner or a child, could
be a colleague or a friend. And I've had many
many clients. I used to have a clinic in London
for twenty three years. I'm Australian that I lived in
London for twenty three years and it was extraordinary when
I learned this particular technique and work with people. How
(11:47):
beautiful the skill of the pleaser starting to nurture themselves
and being a little bit more discerning about how they
want to spend their time, who they want to spend
their time with, and when it's time to retreat. So
that's one of the personality traits. And the inner critic
and the pleaser get together and they confesster and make
(12:08):
people feel that there is really something wrong with them.
We're in actual fact. When you start to train your
mind to be more discerning, then you can start to
recognize when you want to do all those things or not.
But there's another part that is called the perfectionist, and
it's the all or nothing type personality trade and the
(12:32):
perfectionist is the part that it's really good at doing
things one hundred percent, whether it's going to the gym,
whether it's going on a diet, whether it's you know,
going to get a degree in something. It's a fantastic
personality to have, like the pleaser. But because it's all
or nothing, what can actually happen is that when somebody
(12:55):
tries to achieve something that don't achieve it, they feel
that they've failed. Often they will get depressed, they get angry,
and it comes down to also eating and drinking. They're
either on a diet or over eating or over drinking.
So really what I'm saying is the perfections is great
(13:16):
because it achieves a lot, But the problem is that
sometimes they get exhausted from prying to achieve so much,
and they can get into high levels of anxiety, retreating, suppression.
But under that is really about you know, it's a
bit like the story. But with the holiday, you want
this perfect holiday, right, and you have it all planned
(13:37):
and you think, I want everything to go exactly as
it is, But actually when the holiday doesn't go to plan,
You've always got some funny story to tell, right that
you share through families or whatever, and something good comes
out of that, right And I always said it perfection
is you know, just because you weren't perfect in that
situation doesn't mean you weren't amazing. And I think that
a lot of people high spectations, as you said before,
(14:00):
or from family members, of trying to be the best
you know and trying to be seen as the person
who is excelling and a high achiever can cause a
lot of self esteem issues deep down that can really
cause a question who am I? Because if you're driven
to please others, if you're driven to be perfect, then
(14:23):
who are you like? And so that's why we talk
about that arithmatic, authentic self that I like to train
somebody into experience, because charisma isn't about being the slimmest,
the richest, the smartest, the funniest. It's actually about having
a beautiful sense of being humble and grounded and of
(14:44):
course being funny, but knowing when to be vulnerable and
so that people can really warm to you, but also
know when you need to be shielded and guarded so
you can continue to protect yourself. And all of these
things can happen when you train your mind to tune
out of the inner critic. It buys you on the
bumb like at will now and again. But learning to
(15:06):
know the signs are really important, and one of the
easiest ways to do that is to start to keep
an emotional diary and write down what your in a
critic is saying, you know, I'm not good enough, and
then writing down the opposite so that you can start
to because they're really lovely saying that. One of my
(15:28):
colleagues in one of my clinics in London said to
me once we were talking about the inner critic, and
he said to me, you know, what's really interesting about
the inner critic is that the mind listens the mind
here is what you say. And I'm like, I know that,
but I walked on and I thought, well, he's absolutely right,
because what we don't really think about is even though
(15:49):
it's silent to the outside world, but what we hear
is real inside and so that negative propaganda that we
start to believe to be true. The goal is but
not to be a self fulfilling prophecy, you know, And
that's really important because I feel extremely passionate about the
(16:12):
fact that what you think is not you. It's a habit,
and it's a habit you can unlearn. And self esteem
is I think is paramount when it comes to and
we all wanted children to have self esteem, don't we
mean that's the biggest goal for me for my kids, right,
So I taught them very early in their life about
(16:33):
the grumpy monkey and the happy heart. That was how
I translated into childhood conversations and then went she went
into some schools to talk about it. And for me,
if we can start early, the better, right. So I
hope that can be a value to you know, some
moms out there who want to start looking at the
(16:55):
children and they're in a dialogue quite because it starts
around about the age of seven. An equittics starts to
really develop around about seven, it's a good time to
start doing some mind positive thinking training with children.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That makes sense. The age wise is I'm thinking back
of all of my kids at different ages, and it
seems like in those early few years they're just pure
like imagination, and their confidence is through the roof and
like they're living in almost like a magical world. And
it does seem like around six, seven, eight, somewhere in there,
they start to like become more aware of what is
going on around them and what other people think, and
then maybe that like internalizes into that critic that And
(17:31):
I loved your explanation as you were saying that I can,
like I've said before, I'm a recovering people pleaser. I'm
not recovered yet, but I've definitely made progress because I
used to be. It sounds like like you a very
extreme version of that. And like you said, the downside
is you eventually can burn out by trying to keep
everyone else happy all the time but ignoring yourself. And
when you're a giver, you can often attract takers. And
(17:53):
that was for me. It came to a kind of
an inflection point when I got so exhausted that I
simply couldn't keep pleasing people, please everyone else at the
expense of myself anymore. And I slowly had to learn
have a little bit of balance there. And I also
resonated with that kind of ingrained perfectionist tendency and even
in adulthood, learning that I tend to not want to
do things I'm not already good at because of that
perfectionist tendency. And so I've learned with myself to sort
(18:17):
of gamify that or to make it like having kind
of fun ways to push my comfort zone, since I'm
aware that that's something I don't naturally want to do typically.
This podcast is brought to you by Element, and this
is a company you might have heard me talk about before,
and I really love their products because proper hydration leads
to better sleep, It sharpens focus, and improves energy and
(18:39):
so much more. But hydration is not about just drinking water,
because being optimally hydrated a state called you. Hydration is
about optimizing your body's fluid ratios, and this fluid balance
depends on many factors, including the intake and excretion of electrolytes,
which many people don't get. The right amounts of electrolytes
are charged minerals that conduct electricity to power your nervous system.
(19:03):
I talk a lot about nervous system on this podcast.
They also regulate hydration status by balancing fluids inside and
outside of ourselves. Element was created with the science backed
electrolyte ratio of one hundred milligrams of sodium, two hundred
milligrams of potassium, and sixty milligrams of magnesium with no sugar.
Since electrolytes are a key component of hydration. Here's what happens.
When we get our electrolytes dialed in. We have more
(19:25):
steady energy, improved cognitive function, suffer fewer headaches and muscle cramps.
We can perform better for longer and especially the support
fasting or a low carb diet because when we stop
eating carbs, like during fast the absence of insulin allows
the kidneys to release sodium to Replacing that loss sodium
with electrolytes can help you feel good on the fast.
Since Element is zero sugar, it also doesn't break up fast.
(19:48):
Electrolytes are also important for maintaining blood pressure, regulating digestion,
and proper fluid balance, keeping skin hydrated, which is a
big one that I feel like often gets missed, and
so much more. I feel like proper electrolytes is a
missing piece for a lot of people. And I love
Elements new canned drinks which are sparkling water with all
the same ratios of minerals I just talked about, and
(20:09):
they are delicious. You can check it out and learn
more at drink Element dot com, slash wellness Mama. That's
dri nk l mnt dot com, slash wellness Mama and
at that link you will receive a free sample pack
with any order. And I love that you explain these
kind of archetypes of what's within us so well. And
(20:30):
I love that tip about an emotional diary and writing
the opposite as well to kind of like retrain. It
seems like retraining our inner dialogue is such a powerful
tool first with like tune in, but once we can
start to retrain that it can become such an ally.
And you mentioned that you are a hypnotherapist. I would
love to delve into this because I've got to do
a few hypnotherapy sessions before and I found them deeply,
(20:50):
deeply impactful. So I would love for you to explain
for anyone who's not familiar what that is and how
you work with people. And then I believe you also
help people do something called self hip, which is a
new concept for a lot of people. So walk us
into the world of hypnosis.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah. Look, I discovered hypnosis. I had the privilege of
training with these Union psychologists in California before I became
a hypnotherapist, and I realized then that my inner critic
had been driving my life. And then I went to
London and my family British so I could live there
(21:26):
with a visa, etc. And I stoned across this training
program about clinical hypnosis, so I got all that's interesting.
And when I went into this experience of hypnosis, of
training with the college and then I went on to
lecture in hypnosis with the universities, and the one thing
(21:46):
I discovered with the hypnosis was that it was a
really good quick way to train the emotional part of
the mind. And I was so shocked that that for me,
it was so quick and effective. And I'm not saying
that people shouldn't do any sort of talking therapy. I
(22:06):
think it's a really important therapy. But what is really
good with hypnosis, and this is neuroscience based. Now there
is so much, so much research out there now about hypnosis.
But what's really interesting about this particular form, this modality
of therapy is that we're talking about the brain has
(22:27):
neural pathways and the ones that you could imagine. It's
like you want to make a change consciousness. Say right
on a Monday today to day, I'm going to lose
weight today, I'm going to be better to myself today.
I'm going to do this today, I'm going to whatever
do that, and by midday two o'clock in the afternoon
that those great plans have gone out the door, and
(22:47):
that frustration that you know, what's wrong with me? People say,
George don't have any willpower? I like, actually, willpower does
not exist. What really is going on is the deeper
part of your mind, which manages your emotional life, runs
the show. So your conscious wishes says on a Monday morning,
I want to do this, I want to do that,
And then the stresses and the strains of the daily
(23:09):
life come along, come along, and all of a sudden
you think I'm going to have to cove it and
have that chocolate. I'm going to have to whatever. And
it might feel like yourself sabotaging yourself. But the irony
is the mind is very lazy, and what it does
it will retreat, default to what emotions you experience in
(23:32):
the past. It will say, well, the last time you
felt stressed, he felt anxious or lonely or bored or overwhelmed,
what did you do, Ah, Let's get some chocolate. Okay,
let's get angry, or let's be fearful, And so it
will automatically go into that zone, not because that person
(23:53):
is lazy, but the brain needs to learn new coping
strategies and say unfortunately. But I say fortunately is the
conscious mind's not clever. So if you're working with the
conscious mind to create a change, it's going to be
very difficult because the deeper part of the mind will
always override those wishes. So what's beautiful about hypnosis like
(24:18):
twenty five minutes or less? What is magical about when
your eyes are closed, you naturally go into an altered state. Now,
hypnosis is the same as meditation, it's the same brain
wave activity. But the neuroscientists have studied people in hypnosis
what they call brain training. And what is interesting When
(24:40):
you pair or match or marry certain emotions that are
highly positively charged with a new imagining a new experience
and imagining new outcome, and you repeat that, and you
rehearse that over and over again, your mind sees that
as real. Now this may seem pocus pocus, but there
(25:03):
is so much research. And what more importantly is the
facts are there that the quickest way to change a
habit is to communicate with a deeper part of your mind,
and hypnosis is such a really relaxing way to do it.
Because as you are experiencing, you know, people say, sleep
on the problem, the arts will come to in the morning.
That's exactly what it's about. You know, My programs was about,
(25:28):
you know, emotional eating or drinking less or anxiety. Is
that the mind at that point in time genuinely thinks
that over consumption or anxiety or panic attacks is the
coping strategy. But it's only because that's what it's familiar with.
So hypnosis can train the mind to tune out of
(25:51):
that and tune into you know, it's like going to
the same train station every day and expecting to see
something different. It's about changing the train trucks and allowing
the mind to go to another neural pathway that in fact,
the sages and meditators of the world, you know, and
they've studied the brain. When people are anxious and they
(26:13):
go to the fear based part of the brain, which
is the amygdala, which is to the back of the ears.
But when you're in a calm space, you go to
the prefrontal cortex, which is in the middle of the forehead. Now,
the sages and the meditators used to call that, they
call it the third eye, and people used to you know,
pull it. So that's as crazy, but in actual fact,
(26:35):
now there's absolute evidence that when neuroscience studied the brain
and people are in that magical, calm, beautiful space, this
part of the brain lights up. So in hypnosis, we're
literally training the mind that you out of the amygdala
and to come into here, and it's very quick, it's
(26:55):
very effective.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, is so fascinating to me. And obviously you have
a tremendous amount of experience with this. The limited experience
that I've had with hypnosis, I also felt like it
was dramatically effective compared to talk therapy, and I later learned,
especially if you've had like severe trauma, it can often
like talk therapy can be ineffective or sometimes even counterproductive
at first if you're like if your subconscious is actually
(27:18):
still trying to protect memories. And that was my experience
as well, and I found like hypnosis was fascinating for me.
When I did it with practitioners, I would even say
things about the roots of things that as they came
out of my mouth, I was like, oh, wow, that's
where that comes from, Like I never connected that, and
it was amazing how dramatic and how impactful that was
for me. And I love this concept that you teach
(27:38):
on self hypnosis because I also know not all of
us can work all the time with hypnotherapists, though that
would be amazing if we could. But I love how
you make this tangible and available, and especially for moms
and stay at home moms. I feel like this is
really an impactful tool that you help so many people with.
And I'll put your linked in the show notes, of course,
but can you speak a little bit to the resources
that you have available and the ones you would recommend,
(27:59):
starting with especially for people who are maybe resonating with
the things we've talked about related to the enner critic
or the people pleaser, or that guilt complex of trying
to be a perfect mom or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Sure, when I trained in the hip therapy and the
union psychology together, I realized that there was a way
to move on quite quickly and train people to have
a healthier inner dialogue. And there are a number of
ways to do that. The first thing is, you know,
in terms of tools and techniques, Well, actually, how it
(28:31):
happened was I had quite a lot of people, had
a few I had a clinic in the Financial District
of London, and a lot of people from the big
banks were coming to see me, and a lot of
them are big party people and big drinkers, and they
didn't want to quit drinking. And I'm like, well, I'm
an Aussie. We like our drink, right, I like my
shaden may. I don't want to quit my sharden may.
I know a lot of people do want to quit,
(28:53):
but you know, I really believe that a lot of
people are emotioning conditioned drinkers. They're not alcoholics, they're not
park benches, fully functioning people in society. And so I
started to get a reputation for helping people drink less
alcohol and had quite a lot of meta coverage in
the UK and it became a big passion of mine.
(29:15):
But it really came off the back of people coming
to see me about the relationship with food. I have
a program called seven days to drink less than I
have in more intensive training, the boot Camp program six weeks,
and then I have this program, a new program called
the Pajama Diet, which really came out of all the
lockdowns when people really trapped and couldn't exercise and were
(29:38):
emotionally over eating and over drinking. And I had a
lot of people who were saying to me, Georgia, you know,
everything I've done going out the window, what can I do?
So because what's really interesting they've done. There's been a
lot of research on muscle development, and your brain can
literally because when you're in hypnosis, your brain really thinks
(29:59):
you're that right, So you can train your muscles to
be fitter or stronger. But more importantly in terms of
weight loss, well, the Weightless Mind is a really good
program to talk about in a critic and the please
and the perfectionist. But emotional overeating is a conditioned response.
Overdrinking is a conditioned response. And I always say it's
(30:22):
the thinking before the eating and drinking that's the problem.
Because nobody wants to overeat, nobody wants to overdrink, nobody
wants to have panic attacks. I've got a great program
called Emotional Resilience Training for those that really feel that
their negative state and they're in a dialogue really does
hold them. You know, I know a lot of moms
(30:44):
over the years that I've worked with in my clinic,
and it's just shocking how they treat themselves. And anxiety
is rife and I had this really interesting this client.
He has to come to me from New York and
she used to come and see when she came to
London on business, and she said, I've decided, Georgie. The
difference between America and Britain is in Britain there's a
(31:06):
pub on every corner in Britain, there's in an America
there's a pharmacy on every corner. And I think that
you know, we all have a we all understand a
lot of people may be medicated, and not saying go
off your medication, but a lot of how we feel
is driven by that. In a critic and hypnosis can
really very quickly train the mind to move out of
(31:29):
that negative state. And emotional resilience takes practice, right, it's
not something that you once again you're born with a
little bit of courage is important as well, of course,
but I just think that everybody has incredible resources and
who you are when you're in your negative state is
(31:50):
not real. It's a thought. It connects to a feeling
and then produces the chemicals. But that's not set in
ste That's what's good about at it, you know, and
that's saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks
is completely unfounded when it comes to hypnosis because it's
and I think that this question does come up a lot.
(32:11):
So I just wanted to talk about this that people say,
going to hypnosis, am I going to aggress to whatever
when it happened? And you touched on that before getting
about the fact that you know, I mean some people.
I am trained in regression, but I'm very much a
progressive therapist in my style of work because like the
nearest scientists say is your brain is malleable, pliable to change.
(32:34):
It just needs the right messages. So if you feel
that something happened in your past that is really holding
you back, you don't have to go back there to heal.
That's what's really important. You train your mind to move on,
to let go of the energy of it, because it's
the energy that's holding you back, whether it's fear of flying,
(32:58):
whether it's you know, so people say to me, you
know your job. I don't have a fear of spiders,
but my mother does. We do mimic a lot of
our parents' behaviors. It's a really good way of saying
that's not me, this is who I am, and I'm
going to start to learn to do something differently. But
(33:18):
like all things, it takes practice. And that's what the
hypnosis is all about. It's really about connecting to the
deeper part of your mind, and the deeper part of
mine loves change. It just needs to know what to do.
It just needs to be guided, and hypnosis is a
great tool for that.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah, I feel like this is so fascinating, and I'll
make sure I link to your website and that you've
even shared a really generous discount for everybody listening. I'll
put that in the show notes at wellnessmama dot com.
And I know we're going to get to do a
second episode and to go even deeper on the topic
of especially related to emotional eating and or emotional drinking
and how those can show up, especially for moms. But
for this episode, thank you so much for your time.
(33:56):
I love hypnosis as a tool, I love your approach
to this, and I'm so grateful for your time today.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Thank you much appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
And thank you for listening. And I hope you will
join me again on the next episode of the Wellness
Wama podcast. If you're enjoying these interviews, would you please
take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes.
For me, doing this helps more people to find the podcast,
which means even more moms and families can benefit from
the information. I really appreciate your time and thanks as
(34:24):
always for listening.
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