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Ep. 34: Stop Smoking With Hypnosis
232 Plays3 years ago
Stopping smoking can be surprisingly easy with hypnosis. When you quit smoking with hypnosis, you also learn how to manage stress, boredom and other states of mind in healthy ways.
In this episode you will learn:
- About what it’s like to stop smoking with hypnosis.
- What to look for when choosing a stop smoking hypnosis program.
- How hypnosis can help you make stopping smoking easy for yourself.
Brenda Ford quit smoking with hypnosis last year. Since then she has become a hypnotist and a wonderful role model to her stop smoking hypnosis clients. She is the Director of Kitchener Hypnosis, where people come to stop smoking, lose weight and manage stress. You can get in touch with Brenda at https://www.kitchenerhypnosis.com.
You can learn more about how hypnosis training can help you stop smoking, lose weight, get your goals, and help others with hypnosis at https://www.hypnosistrainingcanada.com.
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Transcript
Mindset and Life Changes
00:00:00
Speaker
It's doable. It's doable. It can be enjoyable. It can be easy if you want it to be. But if you want to make it hard and difficult, then it's going to be hard and difficult. I choose enjoyable and doable.
00:00:15
Speaker
You want to transform yourself and improve your life.
Hypnosis as a Life-Changing Tool
00:00:19
Speaker
You long to help people. You wish to become healthier, happier, and more successful. This show is your opportunity to learn how to use hypnosis to make your life better. Each week, hypnotist Robbie Spear Miller interviews people who have already changed their lives in amazing ways with hypnosis.
00:00:39
Speaker
These models can help you discover your path to making the most of your life. If you want to learn how hypnosis can help you reach your goals, this show is for you.
00:00:52
Speaker
Hello, everybody.
Brenda Ford's Journey to Quit Smoking
00:00:53
Speaker
I'm Robbie Spear-Miller, your host for the Hypnosis Show podcast. And today we're having a special guest who's here to share with you what it's like to stop smoking with hypnosis. So we're welcoming Brenda Ford and she is a hypnotist. She owns Kitchener Hypnosis. And so she's going to share with us her experience. Welcome, Brenda.
00:01:14
Speaker
Thank you, Robbie. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Yeah, it's great to have you here. So I've had a request, somebody who listens to the podcast knows quite a few people who are interested in stopping smoking, but they're not quite sure what to expect if they were to stop smoking with hypnosis. And so I thought it would be great for you to share your experience so that people who are interested in stopping smoking can see what's possible with hypnosis. So it would be great if you could start by sharing your experience with them.
00:01:44
Speaker
Excellent. Thank you, Robbie. So about a year ago, I looked into using hypnosis for, um, quit smoking as my aunt had done it many years ago. So I went online and looked down someone and made an appointment. It was one session and I'm like, great. So I made the appointment and I went to that one session. That one session was an hour long and really, um,
00:02:09
Speaker
I didn't know what to expect from it because I didn't know hypnosis. I knew hypnosis in a different form. And the experience was good. It was two days, two days. It was, I quit smoking for doing that. And I, um, yeah, went back to smoking. And, um, so
00:02:30
Speaker
Like, okay, I think it was a couple months later, I think it was that I reached out to you and asked you about quitting smoking and I have COPD, I wanted to quit smoking and reach out to you and
00:02:47
Speaker
quit smoking. I actually just quit smoking and it was a different kind of experience because it wasn't one session. I had that support there and it wasn't one session that I felt so much pressure that it was, because on one session I felt so much pressure that, okay, it's going to work, it's going to work, it's going to work. But it didn't, like it was, I put too much pressure on myself.
00:03:11
Speaker
That's what it was. Yeah. So let's give a little perspective on this because here at Burlington Hypnosis, we've helped thousands and thousands of people and many of them have come to stop smoking. And so I've seen a lot of people go through this process. And with stopping smoking, there are many times where people can quit with one session, but we never offer single session programs here because we've seen how it's very important for people to have that feedback over time.
00:03:38
Speaker
So they can stop smoking quickly because we don't need cigarettes to live. We're not born with the need to light sticks on fire and stick them in our mouths. So it can be really quick and easy to let go of with hypnosis. And then once people go back into their everyday lives, they need other ways to cope.
Managing Stress and Health with Hypnosis
00:03:56
Speaker
So what was it that you were using smoking for?
00:04:01
Speaker
I was using smoking for stress. So at the time I was, I was under a lot of stress. It was like my, it was my blankie. If I was a baby, right? It was my comfort blanket. It was there for stress. It was there for boredom. It was there, it was a habit, right? And it was just there. It didn't need to be there, but it was there. It was accessible, right?
00:04:29
Speaker
So having it there for, there's other ways to, I learned that there's other ways to have other things be.
00:04:37
Speaker
and deal with your stress and deal with boredom and deal with if you had a drink, you didn't need a cigarette. If you're having a social drink with somebody, you didn't need a cigarette. You didn't need a cigarette after a meal or things like that. Or while you're driving a car, there's other things to do. And it took up so much of my time. So it was like, okay, I timed myself one day. It was like almost seven minutes to smoke one cigarette.
00:05:07
Speaker
And it was like, that's seven minutes. I could have been doing something else with my life than sitting there scrolling on my phone and having a cigarette. So I needed, it was a waste of time. Yeah. So there you were. You had COPD, you have young children, right? And I have grandchildren. Yeah. So wasting all this time and money on smoking.
00:05:33
Speaker
Finding it hard to breathe and you're really young to have to imagine in 10 years or 20 years if you were to keep going down that path. Oh, I would it would be it would be awful because I was already on to inhalers. When once a day and then the other one was only use when needed.
00:05:51
Speaker
So it could have been like that, like running around, I ended up having a puppy at the time too. I got a puppy. So to chase a puppy, chase grandkids, chase my other kids, it was like, I was losing my breath so quickly, right? So it's like, it's that wake up call that ding, ding, right? Like you need to do something. You're 43 years old. You have young family and you're losing your breath already. So at 53, I could end up being on oxygen.
00:06:17
Speaker
carrying an oxygen tank with me at 53. It's not worth it. It's not worth it to always have to carry that around and just to have the pressure on your chest. Even I was having it, like if I got a cold or something, having that pressure on my chest that I couldn't catch my breath, it was like, oh my goodness, okay, is this my time? Well, I didn't want it to be my time, right? So I had to smarten up myself too.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah. And so at the time, even though you were in all this pain, and that's a pretty scary thing to go through, you didn't believe you could handle life without smoking. You thought you needed no smoking. And so you felt helpless about it.
00:07:01
Speaker
I did, I felt like my hands were tied, like that it was my only leverage that it was like, like I said, there was no way, I didn't know anything else. I've been smoking since I've been 13, 14 years old.
00:07:16
Speaker
and to smoke and it wasn't that, oh, I just take a cigarette from my parents. It was I take lots of cigarettes from my parents or I'd have the money and get my older, get older friends to buy them or something like that. There was always a way like to get a smoke. It was always continuous.
00:07:35
Speaker
So even in high school, the cigarettes were there. It was just, it never stopped. And that's all I knew. My parents smoked and that's all I knew. And it had to stop somewhere. It had to stop and break that chain. So I didn't pass that chain along to my kids.
00:07:56
Speaker
getting my younger kids, my grandkids, so they didn't see me. Yeah, they see me smoking, but I wanted them to see the new me and that anything is possible and anyone can change, especially someone like me that's been smoking since I've been 13 and now I'm 43. Well, it was been 42 that I quit, so.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you see how you were, you hypnotized yourself into believing that the only way you could cope with stress or boredom was to smoke cigarettes. With hypnosis, you discovered through experience that you had other ways.
The Role of Multiple Hypnosis Sessions
00:08:33
Speaker
Yes, there was other ways. There was two times that I had like a cigarette and I'm like, it's like, no, I have to get back on this track. I am not falling off this track.
00:08:43
Speaker
And I got myself back on with the trainings and the support that I've had from you and that learning the different techniques with NLP and hypnosis combined, it was like, I got back on the right track just like that. Like it was so much easier as to oppose if you fall off that track, you can always fall back into the habit, right? So easy to fall back into a habit, but it was so easy to get back on track.
00:09:13
Speaker
So easy. Yeah. And you knew it was possible because you saw so many people before you had done it and you had the support and feedback. And this is why when we do programs, we always do at least three sessions for our clients, even if they stop after their first session, which does happen quite a bit, that they have those extra two sessions for feedback and accountability to follow through.
00:09:37
Speaker
and learning new ways of coping with life and proving to themselves they can do it and that support system to make sure that happens and that's a very key thing to make this a long-term change for yourself.
Life Improvements After Quitting Smoking
00:09:50
Speaker
Using hypnosis also worked with my train of thought too with the smoking and other aspects too because I was worried about withdrawal.
00:10:02
Speaker
I was worried about sleepless nights. I was worried about, okay, what am I going to do when I have that coffee in the morning, right? But hypnosis helped me with all that as well. My trainer thought that it reprogrammed me, basically. Yeah. If you worry about all those things, you'll have those things, right? You'll create them for yourself. And so you learned how to use your mind to focus on what you actually want and to make it easy for yourself.
00:10:32
Speaker
Do you really need it or is it a want? And is it a good want or a bad want? Is it a healthy choice or a non-healthy choice? And what does it taste like? Do you really want to lick an ashtray? I went through all of that too, right?
00:10:53
Speaker
So you see through this experience, you were able to actually be real with yourself about what really matters to you and what it really was like to smoke, because you glorified it into this thing that it really wasn't. And my clothes smell better. I can taste food more. Like when I'm sick, like I had a cold a few weeks ago, normally my taste would have been totally gone.
00:11:24
Speaker
I could still taste food, not being a smoker, right? It was a totally different cold than I've ever had over the years. It wasn't as harsh, I guess you could say, because when you're smoking and you have a cold, you still want to have that cigarette, no matter how sore your throat is, right? Or how bad your cough is. I don't know why I even put myself through that, because my cold was so much easier. I actually liked my cold. I was like, yay!
00:11:55
Speaker
So you didn't even realize how much damage was happening because to you it was just normal to have that kind of cold. But it's like to have a cold. Right? And my nose doesn't run in the morning anymore. My nose used to run all the time in the morning when I first woke up. And it's a common side effect of being a smoker. And it doesn't do that anymore. And I'm like, yes, I love it. I don't have to have a runny nose in the morning.
00:12:24
Speaker
A lot's changed. My hair smells better, my clothes smell better, my car smells better. I can actually go outside in the spring and smell the roses in the summer and smell the roses instead of putting my nose right into it and being like, I don't smell that. So it affects you in a lot of ways. Smoking, that's the best thing is that me quitting smoking was the best thing because I can enjoy the things in life that I actually missed out on.
00:12:52
Speaker
because all I knew was smoking. And now being 43 years old, I can enjoy the things in life that I, yeah, I can wish that I knew about it then, but you can't go back. You can never pedal backwards, right? Only move forwards. And now I'm just going to embrace everything. All the new things and all the new smells and new tastes, everything. Do you find you have more energy now? Oh, a lot more.
00:13:19
Speaker
A lot more. So it's like I wake up in the morning and I'm not so lethargic because I've actually had a steady night sleep through and because I've slept through the night instead of waking up coughing and all that stuff. And more energy. Yeah, I feel that I can actually like even the circulation, my feet were always cold and my hands were always cold. They're now warm. So even my blood circulation is a lot better too.
00:13:49
Speaker
Amazing the things that happen when you don't poison yourself at regular intervals for throughout the day. If I only knew this. And how much money do you figure you've saved in the past year? Well, I bought a clinic. Picked off my car. That's good. How much did you used to smoke before?
00:14:20
Speaker
Almost a pack a day. Okay. So typically a pack a day is around 15 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. So if you smoke a pack a day, that ups to around five, 6,000 bucks a year. So that's probably the amount you've saved so far. Yes. That's a good job. That's a pat on the back right there. It's like 50,000 bucks. Right, right there. And what could you do with that? If we think about it, it's like,
00:14:49
Speaker
Okay, there's so much more. Now I want to put the pool up in my backyard. I want to do renovations in my kitchen. So there's things I want to do and I don't have to worry about
00:15:03
Speaker
Doing them, like, yes, the extra money's there. I'll be able to breathe better to help with the renovations. I'll have more energy to do the renovations. Like, there's so many much more things that it's more beneficial to me to not smoke as to oppose the smoking, right? And especially doing menos, like, to have the dust go into your lungs and stuff like that. Well, you know what? I don't have any irritation there.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yeah.
Brenda's New Career in Hypnosis
00:15:35
Speaker
So now as you own a hypnosis clinic and you're helping other people, you know what it's like to change. And we do require all of our students at Hypnosis Training Canada to change something about themselves. For you, the first thing was becoming a non-smoker. And I know we've helped you with lots of other things since then.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yes. But do you see how valuable and important it is as a hypnotist to have changed yourself that way? Because you know what does it really mean to change what hypnosis? And it's so much easier to help clients because you can step into their shoes easier. You know what it really takes. You're accountable for changing yourself so you know how to do what you're asking your clients to do. So talk a little bit about that.
00:16:22
Speaker
I can relate a lot better. I can peddle them to hear a little bit of my story of how I went from smoker to non-smoker. I can relate with them.
00:16:39
Speaker
just step into their shoes and be on the same level. I guess you could say be on the same level as that. I said, yeah, I've heard that excuse. I used that one, by the way. You know, it's the same way. It's like, yeah, you don't have to tell me twice I've been there, you know? And just telling them that it's doable. It's doable. It can be enjoyable.
00:17:07
Speaker
It can be easy if you want it to be. But if you want to make it hard and difficult, then it's going to be hard and difficult. I choose enjoyable and doable.
00:17:21
Speaker
So, and I let them know. Yeah, and you can say that totally congruently because you've experienced it yourself and you know what it's like and you can spot it when people are making excuses because you know you used to and you know it doesn't have to be that way. And so this is so important to know. So for our listeners, if you are considering becoming a hypnotist, know that part of that experience is going to be you growing through something yourself. It could be to stop smoking, it could be losing weight.
00:17:49
Speaker
It can be managing stress better or improving your relationships. Some people have a fear of public speaking, they want to get over. There are lots of different things you can change. Going through that process is really, really key for you to be the kind of hypnotist you need to be for your clients.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yes. And so one thing that you know for sure, Brenda, is that you're never going to leave your clients hanging because you know what it was like when you went to that first hypnotist and there was really no hope for you after that first session. Yes, it was it was hard with that one session, Robbie, it was hard to believe that I
00:18:27
Speaker
One session sounded too good to be true, and I should have stuck to that in my head when it was one session could be too good to be true, how that goes, you know? So meeting you, and it was as simple as scrolling online and looking, and meeting you and having those sessions, taking the courses that I needed to take to become the better person that I am today was so well worth it.
00:18:51
Speaker
so well worth it. There has been no flaws. There's been like, it's just, it's nothing been but capital gain for me. Like I've gained and gained and gained. There's, I haven't peddled back nothing. So it's, it's just, something sounds like it's too good to be true. Usually it's too good to be true. And I wish I would have stuck to that. Right? And it was, yeah, it was just,
00:19:17
Speaker
Lesson learned. Yeah.
Screening Potential Clients for Hypnosis
00:19:19
Speaker
And so around that, you know, when we have clients come to see us or students who come to train here, we always screen them. So we offer a free screening that takes usually around 30 to 40 minutes. And at that time, we're evaluating the person's situation.
00:19:34
Speaker
to see if we can accept them as a client and see if it's a good fit for them. And that's super important because it helps people know, is it a good fit? Is that the right place for them? Also to be knowing what to expect. And your expectations are important because if your reality isn't match your expectations,
00:19:55
Speaker
It can really sabotage things, which is something that happened to you. It can take away people's belief that this is possible, even though the only thing that needed to happen was you needed some follow-up feedback so you could integrate it in your life.
00:20:11
Speaker
That's exactly it. And so when we screen students, it's the same thing. What we're looking for is this a good fit for you? Because when we accept people here as students or clients, we want to feel like we can see that you're able to participate in a way that's going to help you. That's really what we're looking for when we screen people.
00:20:32
Speaker
And if you are able to participate that way, then you can have this as a wonderful opportunity to grow and change and possibly help other people, which is, you know, Brenda, you're a great example of taking advantage of that opportunity.
Reflections on Career Shift to Hypnosis
00:20:47
Speaker
I've always been a person that's wanted to help people. So even in past careers, so this was, like I said, it's all been a win-win.
00:20:57
Speaker
from a job that I didn't really like anymore, that I still help people at, to owning a clinic that I'm helping people at that's easier on me, to breathing better, quitting smoking being more healthy inside and out. It's been nothing but a win-win. Congratulations, and thank you for sharing this with other people. It's going to help them a lot. Tell people where they can reach you if they want help with stopping smoking or other things.
00:21:27
Speaker
Oh, excellent.
Resources and Contact Information
00:21:29
Speaker
You can reach me at KitchenerHypnosis.com as our website. And our phone number is 226-641-0645. You can fill out an intake form or even call the number, the clinic number, and we'll be happy to help you.
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah, and for those interested in hypnosis training, you can go to hypnosistrainingcanada.com. We have lots of free resources there for you to learn more about the training opportunities and what it's like to be a hypnotist or how to change yourself with hypnosis. And if you're ready to participate in live training, you can feel free to set up a free consultation with me so we can see if this is a good fit for you.
00:22:09
Speaker
Excellent. So thanks so much, Brenda. This was a lot of fun. Thank you. It was. Yeah. Yeah, you'll help a lot of people this way. And I look forward to seeing you grow your clinic more and more and helping tons of people. Perfect. Thank you very much, Robbie. You have a wonderful day. You too.
00:22:27
Speaker
If you are already having success as a coach, hypnotist, therapist, manager, or people, or simply as a human being, sometimes you feel like you shouldn't need more feedback, even though deep down, you know you can benefit. On our next podcast, you will learn how a very successful corporate coach grew in amazing ways through hypnosis training.
00:22:48
Speaker
Remember to click the button to subscribe, share the podcast with our friends, and we would love for you to leave us a review so you can help others benefit from the podcast too. Until next time. You've been listening to The Hypnosis Show with Robbie Spear Miller. Tune in next time to learn more about how you can change your life with hypnosis. And if you are interested in learning more about training opportunities, go to hypnosistrainingcanada.com and schedule a free consultation.