and reviewed by STUDENTS ADVICE About a year ago, after a synchronistic meeting, I was introduced to “hypno-coach” (hypnotherapist/life coach) Grace Smith. I had always been fascinated by hypnosis and its potential, however, I was never really certain how it worked, or if it could work for me. Being interested in past lives, but not having a solid opinion on the matter, getting a past life regression (in particular) was something I had always dreamed of experiencing.
One day, Grace was visiting my town, and we opted to swap services; I read her tarot in exchange for a “Soulkey” hypnosis session. As Grace states:
Soulkey therapy was developed by a friend and mentor of mine, Martin Peterson. There are very few certified practitioners around the world and I am proud to count myself among them, along with the honor of having been appointed director of Soulkey, USA. Soulkey therapy is a way of accessing a heightened level of “inner knowing” and shared, seemingly universal, allegory.
What this means is that, often times, clients with diverse backgrounds and very little in common on the surface, share deeply similar experiences during their Soulkey sessions, without having any prior knowledge of what to expect. For examples, clients regularly describe the “room” in which the Soulkey session takes place (as imagined in the mind), and their descriptive terms can sometimes be identical. I purposefully do not describe what the “room” “looks like” prior to the session for this reason; it never ceases to amaze me how many of clients all seem to “go to” the same exact “room” as soon as the process begins.
During Soulkey, deep healing and transformation is made possible through the use of hypnosis. While a belief in past lives is not required for Soulkey to be effective, many clients experience what has been described as past life experiences, life between life experiences, even future life experiences.
Whether this is “accurate” in the sense that the client is actually re-living a prior incarnation is irrelevant as clients who believe the process is “real” and those who believe it is a fictional “story” experience, from the results we have documented thus far, equivalent levels of lasting healing after the session. It appears as though the subconscious mind cares not what the religious beliefs, or lack thereof, of the client are.
So far it seems that simply closing one’s eyes, relaxing deeply, and being guided through the process of “imagining” healing on the “soul level” has deeply profound effects, for everyone.
Anxious, but equally excited, I readied myself for the session with an open mind, allowing for any outcome. To my surprise, hypnosis seemed to be very similar to a type of meditation, with the hypnotist acting as the guide who unlocks deeper levels of information within your subconscious through suggestion. Hypnosis allowed me to “time travel” to my past, to get a better understanding of my present situation. While I was somewhat lucid, I mostly felt as though I had been guided into a dream, but in a gentle, familiar, and extremely non-abrasive way… again, very similar to meditation.
After my experience, what I have come to find out is that meditation, and hypnosis, while admittedly different, are both cut from the same cloth, in that they both serve as modalities to help you remember who you really are and let go of that which no longer serves you.
According to Grace:
While there are many forms of meditation, perhaps the most popular iteration is one in which the meditator closes their eyes, focuses on their breathing and becomes aware of their thoughts so as to detach from them.
Hypnosis has as many different definitions as there are practitioners, usually some combination of, “a deeply relaxed and highly focused state which bypasses the critical factor of the mind.” For simplicity’s sake, I describe hypnosis as “meditation with a goal.”
By relaxing the body through progressive relaxation, counting backwards, imagery of safe places, and countless other techniques, the hypnosis client becomes highly suggestible as she reaches a state we call “somnambulism.” This is a state of deep theta brain wave relaxation and, without fail, every one of my clients who was a meditator exclaims after their first session “Wow! Hypnosis feels just like a really deep state of meditation.” Hypnosis is not a black out state, it isn’t sleep, and amnesia is not required for the session to be effective.
In fact, hypnosis is no different in feeling than that of a deep state of meditation, however, it is easier for most to reach this state through hypnosis than through the practice of mindfulness. The guided nature of the session gives support to the clients’ intentions to relax and enter into a safe place where lasting transformation is possible.
Essentially, meditation and hypnosis are limbs from the same ancient tree with her roots deep into the collective subconscious, and while their techniques and perceived benefits may differ slightly, the outcome on the whole is largely the same; distancing oneself from the limitations of the ego and accessing our truly limitless nature.
To synthesize the experience of remembering through hypnosis and meditation, Grace and I co-created the guided hypnotic meditation below, which allows you to unlock the ancient wisdom of our past that is within all of us, ready to be accessed, as we are ready.
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