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70. J. Robert Parker - Rewiring the Mind Through Hypnosis
49 Plays6 months ago
In this week's episode we welcome J. Robert Parker to the show. J is a hypnotherapist, dedicated to healing individuals THROUGH hypnosis of conditions and challenges ranging from trauma, kicking bad bad habits, to improving their golf swing by exploring the capabilities of the deep mind. Central to his practice is the de-stigmatization of hypnosis, portraying it as a credible avenue for both scientific and spiritual healing. J is an author and certified practicing clinician, who has a very thoughtful and nuanced approach to the philosophy of mind, offering a deeply thoughtful and multifaceted perspective to this conversation.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pursuit of Infinity, a podcast where we journey into the intricate landscapes of human consciousness, delving deep into the mesmerizing realms of psychedelics and more. In this week's episode, we welcome J. Robert Parker to the show.
00:00:15
Speaker
Jay is a hypnotherapist dedicated to healing individuals through hypnosis of conditions and challenges ranging from trauma, kicking bad habits to improving their golf swing by exploring the capabilities of the deep mind.
00:00:30
Speaker
Central to his practice is the destigmatization of hypnosis, portraying it as a credible avenue for both scientific and spiritual healing.
Podcast Promotion
00:00:40
Speaker
Jay is an author and certified practicing clinician who has a very thoughtful and nuanced approach to his philosophy of mind, offering a deeply thoughtful and multifaceted perspective to this conversation.
00:00:53
Speaker
But before we get to it, as always, you can visit our website, PursuitofInfinity.com, where you can not only listen to the pod through our integrated media player, but find all the places you can follow us as well. If you enjoyed the podcast, please consider a sub, a five-star rating, or even a review, as these things play a crucial role in extending the reach of our discussions as widely as possible.
00:01:16
Speaker
If you're an avid listener and you want to show us some extra support, you can head over to Patreon.com slash Pursuit of Infinity and become a patron. You get some great stuff in return, so head on over there for the details. Give us a follow on Instagram, we're at Pursuit of Infinity Pod to keep up with news, episode drops and memes, and also just general musings.
00:01:38
Speaker
Also below, you'll find a link to our YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash at pursuit of infinity. All of our episodes are always posted there in video format, as well as an array of shorts that we have been putting together on a regular basis. Now with all of that out of the way, thank you so much for listening and I hope you enjoy this week's discussion.
Hypnosis vs. Hypnotherapy
00:02:12
Speaker
Hey everyone. Welcome to Pursuit of Infinity. I'm your host, Josh. And today I'm joined by Jay Robert Parker. Thank you so much for joining me today, man. Thanks for having me on. Pleasure to be here. So Jay, you are a certified hypnotherapist or a hypnotist? Hypnotherapist. So what's the difference between the two? So...
00:02:35
Speaker
Here's the example I like to give. So let's take smoking cessation. For example, if you go to a hypnotist for smoking cessation, they're going to give you little tips, little tricks. They're going to give you suggestions to be able to help you quit. And generally, that's a temporary solution.
00:02:58
Speaker
Whereas a hypnotherapist is going to find out the reasons that you smoke to begin with. They're going to look for your existing subconscious associations and work to resolve those things. So basically, a hypnotherapist is exactly what it sounds like.
00:03:16
Speaker
You get a mix between a hypnotist and a therapist that a lot of the things that you will talk about with like a normal talk therapist, those are addressed on a more subconscious level. Those are your root core associations are what is worked with.
00:03:39
Speaker
That is how you change, essentially, because everything in life is association or learned behavior. As I'm a big fan of saying, it's all in your head. That's actually the title of the book that I wrote. And what I mean when I say that is that's all you'll ever be, is in your head.
Jay's Background and Clientele
00:04:04
Speaker
You cannot know what it is like to experience as another person. And another person will never know what it's like to experience as you. And with that in mind, since everything is in your head, your perceptions, your memories, all of these things, it's also where the solution lies. And speaking for myself, I was somebody that struggled a lot.
00:04:33
Speaker
with the way that I thought, the way that I learned, the way that I perceived, because we kind of all do, because we only ever know ourselves. We think all of our problems are unique, and we think we are the only ones that suffer from them.
00:04:50
Speaker
And using hypnotherapy, finally being able to understand the way I think, which is a lot of what I do. It's what I tell people in consultation. I'm kind of, I show you how your mind works. I teach you how to speak and interpret the language of your subconscious, things like that. So that is kind of the long answer of what the difference between a hypnotist and a hypnotherapist is.
00:05:20
Speaker
I see if anybody's watching on the video, there's a whole bunch of credentials behind you, a bunch of certificates. So where were you trained and what were you trained in exactly? The big one behind me is my diploma. I have a postgraduate degree from HMI College of Hypnotherapy and Clinical Hypnotherapy. And the interesting thing about hypnotherapists is we are, in a way, a bit of a
00:05:50
Speaker
I don't know how to put this unpredictable profession because you will find people calling themselves a hypnotherapist that took a weekend class. Whereas what my diploma represents is about 800 hours of kind of
00:06:10
Speaker
different areas of training. I was not simply trained in how to hypnotize somebody. It's because like I like I'm a fan of asking, okay, what do you do once you've hypnotized somebody? Yeah, anyway, I could teach anyone listening right now how to put somebody into trance in about 20 minutes.
00:06:28
Speaker
But what do you do? What do you do once you have access to that part of somebody's mind? How do you speak to that? What do you need to be cautious of? How do you affect true, progressive change?
Scientific Explanation of Hypnosis
00:06:44
Speaker
And that's what all of that learning that stands behind me is for, is
00:06:50
Speaker
all of the areas that I'm able to work with, all the experience that I was able to gain, because it was more than just education. There were internships, there were observed sessions. It's always interesting to me at this point, looking back at my education, because
00:07:14
Speaker
Full disclosure, I got ADHD real bad, and it was very difficult to make it through that class sometimes. And as it always is, as anyone with ADHD knows,
00:07:29
Speaker
But at the end of it, I realized why I did it. Because I have so many tools. I have so much knowledge that I can use to help people. So I'm very proud of that certificate because I worked pretty hard for it. And I got it with honors. So that's always a fancy little thing.
00:07:55
Speaker
Amazing. So what do people generally come to you for? Do they come to you with specific things they want to get over, whether they be mental or are there physical things people come to you for? Like what's the gamut here? Wide, very, very wide. It's one of the things I like the most about my work, because I, shocking, I tend to get bored very easy.
00:08:19
Speaker
And on any given day, I might start my day helping someone improve their golf game. And then my next client will be helping somebody stop smoking or lose weight. And then my next client will be a veteran dealing with PTSD. And it is just, I always struggle when somebody asks me, well, what do you work with? Because my instinct is just to save people.
00:08:49
Speaker
because I have truly worked with so much. And some things that I work with for things like physical pain, psychological erectile dysfunction, those are things that I need referral paperwork from a licensed medical professional to work with, but that is not difficult to obtain.
00:09:10
Speaker
Many medical professionals know the benefits of hypnotherapy, and I am very clear with my education and experience. And so I'm very quick to get a referral from a medical professional.
Free Will and Hypnosis
00:09:24
Speaker
And so I'm trying to think of a way to kind of compartmentalize this for your audience.
00:09:32
Speaker
I work basically with habits, be it eating, smoking, procrastination, whatever have you. I work on growth, moving forward with your life, overcoming blocks that have been put in place, be it in your mind or otherwise.
00:09:56
Speaker
I've worked with some bits of pain and helping people function with illness. I've worked with quite a few stroke patients, helping them with their doctors to get some of their function back. Trying to think what else is a big one.
00:10:18
Speaker
I find myself working with a lot of people from the tech industry, though that's not really a specialty necessarily. It is kind of the type of person that is attracted to working with me. Because one of the fascinating things I got to see go on with myself included is when I was in school,
00:10:37
Speaker
All of us had the thing we wanted to specialize in. We were gonna do smoking secession. We were gonna do trauma. We all had what we were going to do and not a single one of us did that. Because it's not about what you want to do. It is about who comes to you.
00:10:59
Speaker
And like I've told many of my less experienced peers, you will notice that there is a certain type of person who seeks you out. And for me, that is a very logical person. That is people that don't traditionally seek out hypnotherapy because a lot of hypnotherapists take a bit of a metaphysical approach to things.
00:11:25
Speaker
And I don't do that. My practice is very, very rooted in science, research, and tangible results. And I feel like I am able to speak to that type of person, the very logical-minded person, very effectively, where a lot of hypnotists and hypnotherapists cannot.
00:11:51
Speaker
And so that's, I guess that worked out being my niche in a way. There's just a certain type of person. That's not to say that's all
Hypnosis in Media and Advertising
00:11:58
Speaker
of my clients, but I do notice a pattern.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, there seems to be like this kind of new age movement toward things like hypnotherapy, psychedelics, shamanism, and, you know, crystal healing and all that kind of thing. And it's very, very popular to angle your business practice toward that. So I do respect you for not doing that. Thank you. It's important that these things, although they may be esoteric and mystical in nature, or can be viewed that way, it's very important that we represent them in a scientific way.
00:12:32
Speaker
So can you go into sort of like the science behind the mechanism at which like these things, these types of things like hypnotism can heal such a wide variety of ailments? So this is both a fascinating and a tricky one because to give a concrete answer to this, we would first have to answer the question of what is consciousness?
00:12:56
Speaker
Oh, we don't got that answer. We're nowhere close to that answer. That's my favorite question. Oh, yeah. I've spent many, many hours, especially since doing what I do, just contemplating the nature of our mind, why we think, how we think, all those things.
00:13:12
Speaker
give you kind of the basic explanation of the mechanics of hypnosis. So first of all, there's different brain patterns, as I'm sure that you know. Alpha is relaxation, beta is attentiveness, delta is sleep, et cetera. Well, we have a brainwave pattern called theta. Theta pops up in very strange places in deep meditation, in prayer, during times of extreme focus,
00:13:41
Speaker
And its purpose is not as clear cut as the other patterns because the other patterns have distinct times that they pop up purposes for which they pop up. So we have this theta state that is
00:13:59
Speaker
As I described to many of my technically inclined clientele, it is kind of like accessing your root shell, accessing that system underneath the system that's telling everything how to go. And the way I explain this is your mind is kind of partitioned into different areas.
00:14:23
Speaker
And at the very bottom level of this is what's referred to as your primitive mind, your lizard brain, fight, flight, freeze, that whole thing.
00:14:33
Speaker
And above that, making up between 80 to 90% of what your mind is, is your subconscious mind, that which lies below the subconscious mind. And this is in charge of memories, emotion, automatic function, regulation, all of the things which you are not consciously controlled.
00:14:59
Speaker
You can't. Well, you can kind of, but on a day to day, not a thing.
00:15:05
Speaker
And above that, you have the conscious mind, which is about 10 to 20%. If you've ever heard that BS statistic that we only use 10% of our brain, that's what it means. It's only 10% or 20% give or take, depending on who you're getting your data from. Again, this is just theoretical. We don't know what consciousness is. Can't reiterate that enough. But that little fraction is your conscious mind. It's here right now listening to me. And that is in charge of very little.
00:15:35
Speaker
It's in charge of logic, willpower, decision making. That's it. And it is fed the conditions for all of those things by the subconscious mind, which doesn't talk to it really. Because between the conscious and subconscious mind is something that is referred to as the critical filter or the gatekeeper. Critical filters is what hypnotherapists call it gatekeeper is its psychotherapeutic term. And
00:16:04
Speaker
What this is, it's kind of what it sounds like. It's the filter, it's the screen that exists between the conscious world and your subconscious mind. It is what prevents external stimuli from going straight to your subconscious.
00:16:19
Speaker
in my job as a hypnotherapist is to first remove that barrier so that I am able to speak directly to the subconscious mind and be able to do so in a way that it both understands and begins to make that incremental change towards the desired results. And when I say that it understands, what I mean by that is that the subconscious mind doesn't speak
00:16:47
Speaker
words, language, necessarily. Words mean associations to your subconscious mind. Apple doesn't mean Apple. Apple means everything you think about an apple. It means the taste, the way it looks, memories associated with an apple. And so because of that,
00:17:07
Speaker
much of hypnosis in speaking to somebody in hypnosis is done with imagery. It's done with metaphor, things like that, because that is the language of the subconscious mind. We've all had dreams. We all know how weird that is. That's a good example of the way your subconscious mind interprets and speaks. It might not be a logical thing, but
00:17:34
Speaker
It is in the subconscious's own unique perception because that's what it associates with that. That's what that means to it. Does that make sense? Wow. Interesting. So does that sort of work with, I know this is probably a question you get all the time and it's a question that I see everywhere, but is this has something to do with free will and our lack of free will in a way?
00:18:04
Speaker
Oh, no one's asked me that question in a while. Here's the interesting thing that I've come to conclude. We do not have free will, but we can choose to. That is the first free will choice we can make. And that is in a way, what I do is I help you exercise that free will, because
00:18:28
Speaker
Let's say you want to quit smoking. The simple fact that you cannot means you do not have free will in that. You are being controlled by an external thing. However,
00:18:42
Speaker
You can make the choice that you no longer wish to do that. And I can help you get to that point, thus allowing you to have made that free choice, free of your subconscious associations, free of those limiting thoughts. That was something I thought about a while.
00:19:02
Speaker
when I first started, because there's a lot of weird implications when it comes to associations and things like that, that really point to not a lot of freedom of choice necessarily when it comes to how we act and react to things, that it is not necessarily predetermined, but in a way predefined based upon our experience and associations. Well,
00:19:31
Speaker
Through hypnosis, you can choose your reaction to those associations. You can choose the way that you process that information. And most importantly, you can realize that is a choice. So many things in life are choices we didn't know we made. And realizing that,
00:19:59
Speaker
comes with realizing that you can make another choice, that it's not always the one option. You can choose to do, choose to feel, choose to think however you want. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the best way, the logical way, or the productive way, but you can make that choice. And knowing that, accepting that, and most importantly seeing the results of doing that work is
00:20:28
Speaker
life-changing, realizing that we have this ability. I love my work because of it, because I see this change every day, because I can make this change in myself. It is fascinating to me. It's why I love
00:20:47
Speaker
getting on with interviews, talking about what I do, helping clear up misconceptions about what I do because there are a lot of misconceptions about what I do. You talk about hypnosis to anyone and they think it's all just swinging pocket watches and clucking like chickens and that's not a thing.
00:21:12
Speaker
Trust me, I'm used to it. So as I understand, you can't actually, another misconception people have, like you can't actually make someone do something they don't have the motivation, will, or intention to do, right? Correct. Absolutely correct. Um, so for example, if I had somebody in trance, this is part of the tricky bit of it. And I say something.
00:21:37
Speaker
that goes against their worldview
Self-Improvement through Hypnosis
00:21:40
Speaker
or is too far from what their subconscious considers acceptable, snap right out of trance. That's all that happens. It's like waking up from a dream. It just snaps you out of it. One of my favorite things to say as an example of what's going on is hypnosis is not mind control. Hypnosis is gaining control over your own mind.
00:22:06
Speaker
And that is truly what it is. And of course, stage hypnosis always comes up.
00:22:16
Speaker
And full disclosure, I hate stage hypnosis. I think it is something that should not exist. Sorry if anyone's listening right now that loves that. To me, as a clinical hypnotherapist, someone on stage doing all of that is the ethical equivalent of somebody taking the case off of an MRI and letting everyone ooh and aah at the way that the magnets spin around on stage.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yes, stage hypnosis is in a way real hypnosis, but there's also more to it than that. First of all, like you said, you have to want to do something essentially. And anyone that gets on stage for a stage show like that wants to be on stage. They want to perform.
00:23:10
Speaker
and they'll generally go along with it because there's a weird phenomenon that exists in the human mind called social pain. You ever heard that?
00:23:21
Speaker
It is not sure I've heard the phrase. Can you explain it? Yeah, it's this concept. It's not even concept. We've seen this on brain scans. We experience social pain, rejection, awkwardness, ostracization in the exact same way and place that we feel physical pain. Something can literally be so awkward. It hurts. And so think about it. Let's say you're up on a stage in front of 500 people.
00:23:51
Speaker
And I tell you, when I snap my fingers, you're going to cluck like a chicken. Two choices you can make. You can either play along, get the laughs, get the attention and sit back down, or you can not. And now all of a sudden you have 500 people staring at you, wondering what you're doing, wondering why you're just standing there and what's going on. And now it's awkward.
00:24:22
Speaker
And most people choose just to play along because the threat is pain in a way. Anyone that's ever been mortified, embarrassed,
00:24:36
Speaker
whatever have you knows that hurts. It doesn't hurt like cutting your hand. That is pain, though. That is real, actual physical discomfort. And we'll do anything to avoid pain. So I don't have the most love for stage hypnotist. I love stage magicians and mentalists and all that stuff. But stage hypnotism is
00:25:07
Speaker
Is this an example of sort of how hypnosis can go wrong or can go toward like a darker side? Oh, no, that's media and advertising. That's that's the dark side of hypnosis. It's not stage work. It's it's advertisement. It's it's not to go one way or another politically. It's a politician speaking. It is the news. It is any attempt to influence you on your day to day life.
00:25:37
Speaker
And that's not to get too far into some weird topics, but that's one of the first things I noticed as I began to get my training is noticing examples of what's called hypnotic modalities in day-to-day life and making those correlations. And it's something that I teach my clients about because it's one of those things that's important to me that people will be aware of.
00:26:06
Speaker
It's gonna be the nerdiest thing I think I've ever seen. I've never said in an interview. Have you ever played Warhammer 40,000? Have you ever heard of that? I haven't. I haven't played it, but I've heard of it. Okay. I'm a big Warhammer nerd for anyone listening. And there is a quote from Warhammer that I love in these instances. And that is, an open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.
00:26:34
Speaker
And what that means is when you do not know that there is an active attempt to influence your thoughts, there's no attempt to guard. There's no attempt to look out for it. There is only being influenced by it. And the second you're aware of that, of its existence,
00:26:56
Speaker
you become less susceptible to it. And it's important that I make people aware of that. It's important that I let people know that, yes, that is actually a thing because the best defense against that, like many other things, just knowledge, just knowing that it's happening. And if you could know that it's happening, you can take the first steps to not let it get to you.
00:27:24
Speaker
And every now and again, when I'm watching YouTube or whatever, I'll see an ad pop up. I can't think of one offhand right now that's really bad about it. But I'll just think, oh, wow. Y'all had a hypnotist working for you. Y'all had had somebody that understands what's being done.
Existentialism and Coping with Life
00:27:45
Speaker
And the fascinating thing is that's not new. Have you ever heard the name Edward Bernays?
00:27:54
Speaker
I never have. Most people haven't. Edward Bernays wrote the book on propaganda. Literally, he wrote a book called Propaganda. Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud's nephew and he was the first person to create public relations.
00:28:17
Speaker
And his work consists of using his uncle's knowledge of the subconscious mind to sell it to governments and corporations for advertising and media purposes. And the frightening thing about this, this isn't even conspiratorial. You can go look up the man himself. He died years back. Talk about it. Talk about how he influences the way that the people think.
00:28:48
Speaker
And he's the reason you know Sigmund Freud's name, because it was a mutual exchange.
00:28:55
Speaker
Freud gave Bernays the information that he needed to create this system that he was making to sell. Bernays, in exchange, used that information, that reach that he was able to exercise and made his weird cigar smoking sex obsessed cocaine adult uncle famous even today, a hundred years later. And
00:29:24
Speaker
That is absolutely still at play. So I recommend anyone listening. If you, if you want a weird read, a little bit of a boring read, go buy a couple of Edward Bernays books and some things will start to kind of fall in line that are a little weird. And I'm not, I don't, I'm not going to go so far as to say what they're trying to push or anything like that. Cause mostly it's just selling you stuff.
00:29:50
Speaker
But it's knowing that. It's knowing that I'm not just some random guy telling you these things. This is history. This is in black and white. This is stuff that is freely available to read about. Because I remember my mentor.
00:30:10
Speaker
I sat down and talked with him and I started talking about, oh man, I've noticed all this stuff on TV. I notice all this stuff on the news and it's just, it's using the laws of hypnosis. That's the first thing he asks. You ever read anything by Edward Bernays? And that's kind of what started that little journey, basically.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I went to college for advertising. So I understand like the mechanism that people use and all of the implementation of psychology, hypnosis, all those types of things. You know, it reminds me of have you ever seen that movie They Live with Roddy Piper? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The glasses. I have a shirt somewhere that glasses. He looks at like the sign.
00:30:59
Speaker
I have a shirt somewhere that's got the newscasters that says, watch TV on it. But yeah. It's beautiful. That is such a great representation. It really is. And it's exaggerated and it's funny and all of that, but it is a great metaphor because that really is what it's like because these things that I talk about, these efforts to manipulate people
00:31:28
Speaker
It's not subliminal. It's not well hidden. It's not this dark secret. It is right there, out in the public, out in the open. People just don't know. And I have some odd theories because, first of all, before you spoke to me, and I don't know about this, but before you knew anything, what did you think about hypnosis?
00:31:56
Speaker
just all bullshit, all swinging pocket watches, all mentalism and mind control. And you don't think that's intentional. You don't think that is an effort to discredit the same techniques and modalities that they use every single day. And I really think that's why to this day, hypnosis is given
00:32:20
Speaker
at best a mockable representation in the media, and at worst an outright terrifying one. Because they're using those principles, they're using those tools. And anyone who has an observational mind can spend a day learning about hypnosis and realize, this all sounds familiar. This all sounds like things I have encountered before.
00:32:49
Speaker
And that's not generally what you want to happen. And if you ever want something to not be taken seriously, you make it mockable. You make it towards viewed as mind control and same as cheap parlor tricks and magic. And the reality of it, when you start reading the clinical research, when you start reading some of the scientific discoveries we've been making recently because we have the tools to do so,
00:33:19
Speaker
start seeing a very
Self-Awareness and Growth
00:33:20
Speaker
different picture of what hypnosis actually is. Because ultimately, hypnosis is part of being human. It is something that every human being walks the earth, experiences, and can both do to others and have done to them. One of the best things I was ever told, and it's my smart-ass answer to what is hypnosis, is hypnosis is simply just advanced communication.
00:33:49
Speaker
Because what else can it be? I don't have a superpower. I'm not doing anything to you. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. I'm a guide. And with that in mind, what is that but advanced communication? Because that's all that brings it about is words, communication. It's not magic. It's not me shooting you with some hypno-ray. It is just...
00:34:18
Speaker
communication. Hypnosis is part of human communication. It's part of the human cycle. You are in trance a minimum of twice a day, 30 minutes before you go to sleep, 30 minutes after you wake up. You are in the theta state. You are suggestible. That's why I always suggest that
00:34:38
Speaker
You always reflect on the good of your day at night, and you always use the morning as that chance to kind of hype yourself up, to give yourself that positive framework for the day. Because think about a day that you've woken up and you've told yourself, today's going to suck. That day sucked, didn't it? It was a bad day, no matter what happened.
00:35:02
Speaker
every time every time every time think of the opposite those times you've woken up and you felt good you felt ready to take on the day the exact opposite it doesn't matter what happens to you in that day that day still good and that all comes down
00:35:17
Speaker
to the suggestions that you gave yourself that morning, because when you woke up, your subconscious was listening. And when you told your subconscious, today's gonna blow, it said, okay, it will. And it did everything it could to change your perception, to make it see every bad part of that day. And that's just the way the mind works. This just goes to show the true power of the mind.
00:35:49
Speaker
And you can do this to yourself, right? You can, you can perform hypnosis on yourself, right? So what are some of the utilities that you've found in doing it to yourself? Um, I still use self-hypnosis sometimes, uh, focus. If there's a task you particularly want to focus on, if there is like, uh,
00:36:11
Speaker
like motivation for a day. Think of any suggestion that you want to give yourself, because that's what we're really talking about with hypnosis, is suggestion, allowing the subconscious mind to accept certain things. And so, a lot of my work teaching people self-hypnosis, I do a lot of work with athletes that use a lot of self-hypnosis to get into a certain mindset before they perform. And that's,
00:36:41
Speaker
That's its best use, I find. That's what I use it for. Getting into the mindset of what you're trying to do. If you're trying to perform, getting into that mindset. If you're trying to relax, getting into that mindset. It is the version of you that will work best for that situation.
00:37:01
Speaker
and willfully making the choice to present that version of yourself. Again, exercising that free will, not to roll the dice, but to make the determination, this part of me comes forward. And self-hypnosis is something that
00:37:20
Speaker
Inevitably, I teach all of my clients because my work with somebody is more than the hour a week or so that we spend together. I want you doing more than just that. And self-hypnosis is part of that.
00:37:37
Speaker
And kind of naturally, once I've worked with somebody long enough and they've become familiar enough with the hypnotic state, because it's a skill like any other, it is easier for them to get to that point. And I prefer self-hypnosis over many other things because I can't meditate. Again, crippling ADHD. But I can self-hypnotize because it only takes a couple of minutes.
00:38:04
Speaker
It's a very brief thing. It's very relaxing, very centering. And generally it is a skill I think everyone should have because we should all learn how to slow our mind down for a moment to choose how we want to look at something or to at least reset and get a better perspective.
Metaphysical Influences on Hypnotherapy
00:38:29
Speaker
because you know how anytime you have a hard decision, it's always sleep on it, that kind of thing. You can get the same effect by going into trance. It's the same thing. I don't recommend it for all major decisions, but if there's a decision you're struggling with that you need to make, self-hypnosis, always the best one. I'm a firm believer that the subconscious mind knows
00:38:54
Speaker
it not in any weird, mystical way, but the subconscious mind in its perception and awareness is so much further superior to the conscious mind. The subconscious can make connections that the conscious mind never can. And so it is as close to a human being can be the part of you that's perfect.
00:39:19
Speaker
Because it's not doing anything it isn't designed to do. It is doing everything quickly and precisely. And just because it might be something that you don't want it to do, it's still following its directives. It is, in a weird way, the greatest part of us. Because it is what controls our heartbeat, our thoughts, our emotions, our memories. It is us, essentially, more than our conscious mind.
00:39:49
Speaker
And it's the part of us really familiar with. It is the part of us that is a stranger to most of us. And it's also the most important part of your mind. That's why my work is so important, I feel, because we spend, at least speaking for myself, much of our lives
00:40:10
Speaker
strangers to the majority of what's going on in our mind, unable to understand it, unable to speak to it, just simply saying it is what it is and moving on. And that's just the nature of it, but it doesn't have to be that way. And to me, it's weird because we're taught how to use our brain, kind of.
00:40:34
Speaker
Mostly, some of us, but we're never taught how to use our mind. We're never taught what the subconscious is, what it's capable of, what it can give you, how it can sabotage you. All of these things, it's just a
00:40:51
Speaker
a monster that lives in everyone's head that is kind of spoken of in hushed tones. And that's it. But it is a part of you. It is you more than the conscious you is. And learning that, learning who that you is, learning how it processes, how it thinks, how it behaves, how it sees,
00:41:15
Speaker
It changes your world. It gives you new eyes to see out of. It's fascinating, really, because it is truly new eyes. It lets you see
00:41:27
Speaker
basic things through a completely different lens and it gives you an understanding of yourself and through that of others that I've not really experienced before Because that's the trick if you want to be able to understand other people There's only one person you have to be able to understand and it's you because that's the only person you will ever understand
00:41:54
Speaker
I rifle around people's heads for a living, and I still don't understand other people. I understand how to talk to that part of their mind. I understand how to achieve the results those people want, but I will never, ever, ever, ever know what it's like to be you. You will never know what it's like to be me, and that's fine. And when you accept that and you understand that,
00:42:23
Speaker
It makes it easier when you understand that through understanding yourself and how you think and why you think and what impacts you and doesn't.
00:42:33
Speaker
You can use that to sympathize with others, because there is no such thing as understanding. That's not something we can do. You can't understand someone else. You can use your own experiences to sympathize, but you won't understand. And that's the best we can do. And when you know that's the best you can do, you give so much more autonomy to other people.
00:43:00
Speaker
of rather than trying to project ourselves onto everyone, which of course we're going to do because we're the only person that we know. You can accept that autonomy. You can accept that difference because you can see how they got there. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it because that's not your place to understand it. Just to accept.
Jay's Book and Personal Empowerment
00:43:24
Speaker
That's beautiful, man. It really is. I love it. You've really eloquently described that. Thank you. And what it seems to me is there's like this common thread between all consciousness work and that's the ability to feel and live in a way that is compassionate. And, you know, the way that I use the research of consciousness and the way that I like to explore that realm is through psychedelics.
00:43:53
Speaker
Do you have any viewpoints or any sort of similarities between hypnosis and psychedelics? Because this seems to, it feels like you're describing exactly the lessons that I've learned from taking psychedelics. Essentially, yeah. They are both psychoactive experiences.
00:44:14
Speaker
Some people in hypnosis are capable of extreme, vivid visualization. I'm not, but I have encountered it before. And they are very closely related. I am a big proponent of psychedelic medicine and research.
00:44:36
Speaker
And, uh, I actually have a peer specifically I could possibly send your way to talk about this exact thing because she uses psychedelics in her work. And I would love that. They are to me, just a, a synthetic window. Basically. I have never worked with somebody on that, but.
00:45:00
Speaker
there is no reason why you cannot because it is all accessing that same part of the mind. And specifically with psychedelics, it is allowing us to do the same thing that allows hypnosis to be so effective. And that's just changing your perspective. It's stunning.
00:45:28
Speaker
how much just stepping out of yourself to look at things from a different angle can do. And there's so many ways we can do that. And I've caught flack about it because people are like, oh, you would you endorse psychedelics? I thought you were a professional. What it means to be human goes hand in hand with psychedelics, with taking things to expand our mind and consciousness.
00:45:57
Speaker
It is one of the oldest parts of being human. Simple as that. I love Paul's statements. I'm sure you know who that is, the guy with the mushroom hat. He's one of the most valuable human beings alive to me right now.
00:46:17
Speaker
He, I've heard him talk about psychedelic experience and Alan Watts particularly talk about psychedelic experience. And many of those things that they talk about considering the viewpoints that they talk about achieving are many of the same viewpoints that I try to show my clients. I've heard Alan Watts talk about
00:46:43
Speaker
taking psychedelics and regressing the childhood and feeling like a child again and understanding the perception of a child. And that's one of the main things that I do. That's one of the things that I consider so valuable is remembering not the memories of your childhood. That's whatever, but that mindset of what it was like to think as a child.
00:47:11
Speaker
I couldn't help as I listened to many of these people see these similarities and it's all kind of the same thing. It is all attempts to understand some of the vast scope of things we have no clue about because we like to think that we understand a lot because we have toys and we do have some amazing magical toys.
00:47:42
Speaker
Like I said at the beginning, we don't even know what it means to be us.
Meaning, Change, and Growth
00:47:47
Speaker
We don't know what it means to be human. We don't know why we think. We don't know anything, essentially. We don't even know why we laugh. And that, to me, is fascinating because we'll never have that information because humanity's been around for, I don't know, let's say 60,000 years as we know it.
00:48:11
Speaker
We've recorded 5,000 of that. So we don't know what it means to be human. We don't know what we've known. We don't know what we've learned. We'll never know that. We'll never know our old songs. We'll never know our old languages. And I think that that lack of history is part of what we struggle with so much. Because one of the things I'm big about
00:48:41
Speaker
Because every hypnotherapist worth their time has a philosophical core, I guess it would be, that which informs the work that you do. And for me, that's existentialism.
00:48:57
Speaker
And one of existentialism's prime areas of analysis is meaning. Why? Why are we doing this? Why are we here? Because one of the part parts about being human is there is no universal answer to that. There is no universal purpose. There is no universal perception. We're all just out here figuring that out ourselves.
00:49:27
Speaker
And what the trick is, what the answer is, is you make that meaning. You find that meaning. It's not something inherent. It's not something that's just there. It's something that you get to create. It's just yet another choice that you get to make. And if your meaning of life is you just want to be lazy and experience as much relaxation as you can,
00:49:53
Speaker
Cool. Do it up. If you want to learn as much as you can in the time you have, go do it. Whatever allows you to wake up excited to have woken up again. That's all that matters.
00:50:10
Speaker
and that you find that answer not in anything external, not in someone else or something else, that you find that, that that answer is yours. And when you can find that answer or even begin walking in the direction of that answer, some real things begin to change. That's when your perspective begins to change. And I,
00:50:40
Speaker
A lot of my life, I'm 40 now, been very nihilistic. And existentialism is kind of the happy version of nihilism. Because nihilism says that nothing means anything. So screw it. Why try? Existentialism says nothing means anything and that's hilarious. And
00:51:05
Speaker
It's better that we laugh and have fun with it because life's absurd.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:51:12
Speaker
No matter what your view is, no matter what your background is, life's absurd and none of us get out of here alive. And when you can accept that absurdity, not as struggling against life, just as the absurdity of life, just the weird things that happen.
00:51:35
Speaker
It allows you to take a control that you didn't really have previously. And instead of living in that fear, instead of living in that anxiety, like I did much of my life, you create your meaning, you create your purpose.
00:51:57
Speaker
That whole be careful looking into the void because it might look back at you. One of the things they don't say is you can just laugh. It's funny. It's perfectly acceptable to just laugh. And when you can laugh again, something that we don't even know why it exists. One of my favorite thought experiments to give people is let's say an alien lands in front of you right now. Tell them what laughter is.
00:52:26
Speaker
Explain that to them. What is that noise that just came out of your mouth? I don't know how to explain that, why it exists, why we do it, but it's a very powerful thing. And when we can laugh, we don't feel fear. When we can laugh, we don't feel embarrassed. Laughter wipes our slate clean. So I'll joke around a lot in session. I'll joke around at hypnosis.
00:52:56
Speaker
Because that, even though it's so just kind of banal, part of being human, is one of our most powerful tools. Laughter does physiologically some of the strangest things to our mind and body. It heals us, makes us better. And so,
00:53:19
Speaker
That's why I took that perspective because life is scary and absurd and just not very comfortable. And you have a choice. You can be miserable about it. You can live in fear. You can dread everything. Or you can realize that this is just the ride and laugh about it and have fun and have fun wherever you can and however you can.
00:53:49
Speaker
And it's all a choice. If there's anything anyone listening gets from all of my rantings and ramblings, it's you always have a choice in how you want to feel and how you want to think. No, you don't have a choice with many of your external circumstances, but you do have a choice with your internal ones.
00:54:09
Speaker
And if that choice is something that you're having a hard time with, that's why I exist. That's why I'm here. That's why I do what I do to help you get to that point that you want to get to.
00:54:23
Speaker
Yeah, man, it's life is it's a dance, you know, it's a game. It's a it's a session of Warhammer, you know, you get to decide what you want to do. Yeah. And, you know, what you were just speaking on really does remind me and bring up like this cosmic giggle concept. You know, there's like a there's a trickster archetype that permeates all of reality, it seems. And when you start to delve into these altered states of consciousness,
00:54:52
Speaker
It's very apparent, especially in psychedelics. You know, it can quite literally wink at you, you know, give you a little fuck you and and say, you know, don't take yourself so seriously, you know. Yeah. And it really teaches you this humility that is based in humor, because this thing, it really is just funny. The whole thing we're doing here. Yeah. No, it's hilarious. I I'm not an exceptionally religious person, but I've always loved this story in Buddhism.
00:55:22
Speaker
that was about how when the Buddha achieved nirvana, the first thing he did was laugh hysterically. And that means whatever the secret to the universe is, whatever the answer is, it's dumb as shit. And it just makes you laugh. And realizing that the secret that exists is just funny, why are you taking this seriously? If at the end of the day,
00:55:53
Speaker
The answer is going to make you laugh. Why not start laughing now? Why not get ready for that? Why not take life as that experience? It's not to say treat everything as a joke, but laugh. Always laugh. I have laughed in some of the grimmest, strangest, darkest situations. I used to be a medic. We all develop gallows humor. But
00:56:20
Speaker
That is laughter is so much more than weird noises that come out of our mouth. I can't really explain what it is and what it does, but there is so many fantastic physiological and chemical things that happen whenever you let yourself laugh. You literally heal yourself when you laugh.
00:56:44
Speaker
And the exact opposite of that, stress, cortisol will kill you faster than anything else. And knowing that is something that kind of keeps my attitude calm. Cause you have a choice. You can either get stressed out and let that cortisol just corrode away at your health and kill you early, or you can laugh and have fun with it. And yeah, you might get hit by a bus.
00:57:13
Speaker
But she'll be laughing when that bus hit you. That's all that matters. Because you don't know. You can't really predict anything. You can only experience. And given the choice, do you want your experience to be something you can laugh and have fun with? Or do you want it just to be a miserable drudge? So I spent 30 years of my life with it as a miserable drudge. And it wasn't fun.
00:57:37
Speaker
And I chose not to let the second half of my life be that and to make the choice of a different perspective. And full disclosure, some of that got there through psychedelics, through the things I was able to perceive and the connections I was able to make. And it all comes down to none of us know a damn thing about what's going on.
00:58:04
Speaker
You are the only one who's gonna find your answers. No one's gonna be able to tell you the answers. You have to find them. You have to find them, be open to them, be open to changing them. And that's it. It's a journey. You change along a journey. One of the funniest things that someone can tell you from your past is, man, you've changed a lot since high school. Why the fuck didn't you?
00:58:34
Speaker
Like saying that implies you didn't. Like that's what you're supposed to do. And so just always remember that you are always supposed to be changing. You are always supposed to be different. So you have a different opinion than you had 10 years ago. Good. That means you're listening.
00:58:55
Speaker
that means you're reading, it means you're gathering information. So it's all just being open to it, learning how to listen to your own mind. Because you're subconscious, as I've said, very smart. It is in a weird way, both the most insane genius part of you and an idiot child. It is both of those things at the same time.
00:59:22
Speaker
And learning what that thing is, is to change everything, absolutely everything. Because we've spent all of our lives just ignoring us, what actually makes us human. Because we think it's, it's the part of us that's here right now looking and speaking and
00:59:44
Speaker
It's not as such a small thing of what it means to be you, of what it means to be me, because you are your memories, your feelings, all of these things that all exist in your subconscious mind.
01:00:03
Speaker
Yeah. And it seems that unfortunately, you know, we're sort of growing in a culture that doesn't really help us to understand that. That's why we need people like you. That's why we need psychedelics and hypnosis, because these are tools to help show us who we really are.
01:00:18
Speaker
Exactly. And that's the thing. They're all tools. They aren't the answer. They aren't the be all end all. All of these things are tools, things to help you understand, things to help you find comfort, find answers, find healing, whatever it is that you need. It's it lies beyond the the mundane, the everyday what is right in front of you. And
01:00:48
Speaker
there are many ways to get there to that, basically that programming state of your mind, to be able to communicate and understand yourself. And before I got really involved with hypnosis and hypnotherapy, I realized that I didn't know anything about myself. I didn't know why I was the way I was, why I thought the way I thought, any of that.
01:01:15
Speaker
It's just not something we generally give much thought. And once I finally did make that examination, which was sometimes painful, but once I did make that examination, things got easier. Things made more sense. I was able to both work with myself better and show myself sympathy.
01:01:40
Speaker
And that's a big one because we really don't show ourselves much sympathy classically. We will other people and then turn around and be incredibly hard on ourselves. It's just showing yourself that same understanding, that same love that you would someone you cared about. And it's shocking how many times we don't treat ourselves with that consideration. I didn't.
01:02:07
Speaker
until I realized that you really should and Once you do that Everything changes because once you change the way you talk about and think about yourself Changes the way you talk about and think about everyone else do because according to your mind everyone else is just clones of you running around because that's the only thing we understand so
01:02:33
Speaker
That's how we gain that understanding, just through doing our own work, through understanding ourselves. And it's way easier than trying to understand someone else, that's for sure.
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, why not approach it from a position of compassion, both for yourself and for others? Because if you're just going to see others as a reflection of yourself, if you have compassion for yourself, you can have compassion for every one and everything around you. That's the idea. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm shooting for is that, that reflected compassion, I guess. Love it. Love it.
01:03:12
Speaker
And you know, it's, it's funny, you know, in the beginning of the, of this conversation, you know, you mentioned the, and we both had talked about the importance of science, but it seems like you are quite a metaphysical man. And it seems like a lot of the things you've been into have changed the way you thought about metaphysics. So what are some of the, if there are any philosophies, maybe ancient traditions, anything like that, that have inspired you along the way, metaphysically?
01:03:43
Speaker
I mean, I'm a big fan of stoicism. I have Aurelius's bust hanging out behind me. So I have a weird 50-50 when it comes to ancient philosophy. I take equal measure from Marcus Aurelius as I do Diogenes.
01:04:10
Speaker
And I feel like that understanding really defines kind of how I think, because I hold both of those things in my mind, both this intense, I was going to say stoicism, but no shit, just bearing in pride and dignity mixed with it. Fuck it. It's all good. Just go hang out.
01:04:39
Speaker
go pluck a chicken or something, make someone look like an idiot. And it's, I guess it's that dichotomy that makes me, me, that it's both of those things kind of existing in themselves at the same time. And there's some philosophers I kind of like.
01:05:04
Speaker
I'd like Nietzsche more if he wasn't such a sad boy, but man, he was such a sad boy. He made some good points, but let me calm down. I'm a big fan of a man named Albert Camus, who is one of his fathers of existentialism. And he was one of the ones that basically said,
01:05:32
Speaker
You can have a choice. I think he said you have three choices when it comes to facing reality. You can either check out, you can turn to something external, or you make your own. And the one healthy choice you can make is to make your own, to define yourself, to define your own meaning. And that meant a lot.
01:06:01
Speaker
thinking about that because i was somebody that i've always kind of run against social norms and cultural norms and i've always been a little bit on the outside of things and i struggled with that a bit over the years because anyone does in that position and realizing that that doesn't matter that all that matters is
01:06:30
Speaker
I create a perception. I create a system that I'm comfortable with. Because at the end of the day, all that matters is you are comfortable with yourself. And once you can become comfortable with yourself, you'll actually start liking yourself. And that was the big thing that changed for me, is realizing one day that, man, if I met me, I would actually admire me, that I consider
01:07:00
Speaker
who I've become to be good, to be better than what I was. And that was a very powerful moment for me when I realized that because that's growth, that's moving past what you were, moving past the way you think and the way you processed before and accepting new things. So it was neat.
01:07:28
Speaker
Yeah, I love it, man. It's all about, you know, this continuous transformation, you know, the stagnation that a lot of people feel, I think is an indication to them, you know, to start to do something to change yourself in some way, you know, because a lot of times that stagnation leads to some sort of depression.
01:07:46
Speaker
Absolutely. And change is scary. The human mind is literally wired against change. We don't want to do it for psychological reasons, for physiological reasons. Change is hard. And so that's why we'll stay where we are. It doesn't matter if we know that change will improve our circumstances a hundredfold. We don't want it. We don't want that change. And there's
01:08:15
Speaker
many reasons for that that unfortunately we don't have time to get into but it is rooted in your psychology this desire to to remain it's actually part of the reason i i wrote the book that i wrote which i'll get into in a minute but is to give people that understanding of this is the way your mind works if you don't want to change that's okay that's normal this is what you need to do to kind of work with that
01:08:46
Speaker
And I realized that, because I do a lot of talks, I do a lot of interviews, and I have very rarely had the time, I don't think I could be given the time really, to say everything that I want to be able to teach people. Because there is so much about this that I want to be able to make common knowledge, because I really do truly feel like the things that I know about the mind and about hypnosis need to be common knowledge.
01:09:15
Speaker
And because of that, I wrote a book. As I said, it's called All in Your Head. My camera's backwards. That's neat. But I sell this book on my website. My website is twinravens.org. It allows anyone to purchase my book, to listen to my past interviews, to contact me if they want a consultation or if you just have any questions.
01:09:44
Speaker
But if somebody was curious or intrigued by anything that I spoke about today, it's in the book. It's all my collection of thoughts on all of these concepts around the subconscious, as well as exercises to practically begin putting these things into motion, into practice. It's not about just telling you
01:10:12
Speaker
This is how you set good goals, but walking you through, okay, now let's set a goal for you, actually doing the thing rather than just telling you about it, because that's the way I learn. I'm not going to learn just from a book.
01:10:29
Speaker
just from being being read to, I'm going to learn from being led into the experience, given instructions, and then being shown an exercise. Okay, now try this and see the results, because those apparent results
01:10:47
Speaker
Well, what made me so passionate about this? That's why I love doing this because you see results, you see change, you know why you're doing it incrementally, in large steps, however it comes, you know exactly why you're doing it. And so for my clients, for myself, for
01:11:09
Speaker
the people that hear my interviews, I put all that together into a book. Like I said, it's available on my website. It's also available from Amazon Books. There's hardcover, softcover, ebook, all of that. And one day I will get around to actually recording the audio book version.
01:11:32
Speaker
I've had people offer to do that for me, which my only response is, why would I do that? I make my money by my voice. Why would I want you to read my book? But yeah. Yeah. It drives me nuts when I download an audio book and somebody else reads it, especially if the author has a great voice. I want to hear it from them for sure.
01:11:53
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely. I have I have a few Neil Gaiman books on audiobook specifically because that because Neil Gaiman has a wonderful storyteller's voice and reads his books far better than than I can read them. And so I've, I've always considered like,
01:12:17
Speaker
doing something with book recording or something like that. And I figured what better place to start than with my own work. So that's kind of the plan whenever I do manage to get to that.
01:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, man. Well, I gotta say, my friend, this has been a very awesome conversation. I really, really appreciate your insight. And I want to thank you for all the work that you do. And thank you for coming on the show today. And if you wouldn't mind just sharing everything that you want to plug for everybody, places they can find you all that.
01:12:51
Speaker
Absolutely. And I will send you the link so you can include this with it. But again, my website is www.twinravens.org. That will allow you to purchase my book, that will allow you to contact me to set up a consultation if that's something you want to discuss. My consultation is free of charge. It's just 15 minutes for us to chat and go over everything.
01:13:20
Speaker
and kind of let you just kind of know more of what I'm about. And if anyone wants to reach out to me directly, you're welcome to at jparker at twinravens.org. And otherwise, I am freely available on, I'd say most social media, but
01:13:41
Speaker
We'll say Facebook. I don't use Twitter. But there are many, many ways to get a hold of me. I keep a very open door. I love answering people's questions. I love bringing people into more understanding about what I do. So if anyone listening right now has any questions at all,
01:14:03
Speaker
Don't ever hesitate to reach out to me. I will, the first chance I get, answer in as much detail as I can possibly muster. You have my word on that. It's my, as I refer to it, my metaphorical open door policies.
01:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, man. And I will say that from having a conversation with you, from listening to you on other podcasts, I have such a deep respect for hypnosis. Wonderful. I have a deeper understanding than I ever thought I had. Because as you said before, I mean, the cultural stigma that's attached to it is ridiculous. It's comical.
01:14:42
Speaker
A lot. And that's wonderful to hear. That means the purpose for why I'm doing these things for men. That's all I want to do is change some people's perspective on something very human, something that we all experience. And through that, hopefully point some people in a direction to allow them to begin to grow, to change, to change their perspective. So, wonderful.
01:15:12
Speaker
Thank you very much for having me on. It was wonderful conversation. Thanks again, man, for coming on. I really appreciate you. Absolutely, bud.