Exploring Possibilities and Performance
00:00:00
Speaker
It really made the difference to have someone kind of say, okay, there are things out there that you don't even know of and that you don't even know are possible. And so that's where I've spent kind of the joy of my career is playing in that zone of, I don't think you know what's possible.
00:00:17
Speaker
And let's actually look at your body like it's a Ferrari rather than a Ford F-150. Like you think it's a Ford F-150, you've been treating it that way, but let's see what this sucker can do. Let's actually take it out on the Autobahn, right? Let's actually optimize your entire mind, body and spirit. So yes, we can do genetic testing. Yes, we can do some of the functional medicine testing, which tells us about the hormones and what's happening cellularly and dial that in so you can get optimum performance. But
00:00:46
Speaker
If your mindset is off, it's not going to matter. That mindset is critical.
00:00:54
Speaker
And I would say it is the most important thing for health. You want to transform yourself and improve your life. You long to help people. You wish to become healthier, happier, and more successful.
Introduction to Dr. Valerie Frank and Hypnosis
00:01:08
Speaker
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.
00:01:21
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.
00:01:34
Speaker
Many incredibly skilled and knowledgeable health professionals struggle with getting clients to take action on their advice. In this episode, you will discover how adding hypnosis skills to your practice can help you help your clients release emotional blocks to their success. Teach your clients how to have the mindset that helps them build healthier habits into their lives
00:01:55
Speaker
and take care of yourself better so you have more to give. Dr. Valerie Frank is joining us. She is a naturopathic doctor and hypnotist. For over 22 years, she has been helping people become healthier. Early in her career, she discovered that hypnosis helps her clients develop the mindset that helps them embrace her recommendations for a better lifestyle. Dr. Val is also the co-host for the radio show, Create Your Holistic Lifestyle.
00:02:22
Speaker
Hello, everybody. I'm Robbie Spear-Miller, your host for the Hypnosis Show podcast. And today we are welcoming Dr. Val Frank. She's going to share with us how she uses hypnosis and her skills and knowledge as a naturopath to help people achieve what they want in their life, be healthy, have the energy to do the things they want to do.
00:02:45
Speaker
And a lot of the time people as they are going through life and they have various stresses or things going on find that life can bog them down or they don't realize what's possible. And so going to see a naturopath like Dr. Val could really open up possibilities.
00:03:03
Speaker
So why don't you start by sharing with us what your story is? Like, how did you become a naturopath? I know you're also trained in hypnosis, so talk a little bit about that as well so we just know what this is all about for you.
Dr. Frank's Journey into Naturopathy
00:03:20
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for having me here. And I appreciate all your listeners being here as well. And I want to start out by saying life is always a surprising journey because I started out my journey doing an undergraduate degree in nutrition at the University of Guelph and actually thought I was going to go into animal nutrition. And then I was applying for a master's and PhD in nutrition.
00:03:46
Speaker
And I have this undergraduate degree in nutritional sciences and I get sick. And so I went to my medical doctor. My medical doctor did every test under the sun. And she was lovely. She was the top of her field. She was great. She did everything she knew how to do. And all of my tests came back normal.
00:04:05
Speaker
So she said to me at the time, okay, you're healthy, you're normal, this is just stress, go home and sleep some more. And I thought, okay, at this point, I was sleeping 10, 12 hours, I'd be up for an hour, I'd be exhausted, I'd have to go back to bed. I'm like, you cannot live like that. That's not productive. It's also called a coma if you sleep more than that. I can't do it.
00:04:29
Speaker
So my medical doctor in the medical community didn't have any answers for me. So my aunt said to me, well, why don't you go and see a naturopath? Here's my naturopath. And I thought, sure, why not? I have nothing else to lose. I don't know what they do, but I'll show up. So I go to see my naturopath. And my naturopath looks at what I'm eating. And he said, this is your diet.
00:04:48
Speaker
And I thought, it can't be. I'm a nutritionist. I know everything. Because you know how you are when you first graduate. You think you know everything at that stage of life. And the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. So at that point in time, I was just proven wrong. I didn't know what was going on. It turned out to be food sensitivities.
Challenges and Discoveries in Practice
00:05:07
Speaker
I did some testing. I found out what foods my body was reacting to. And as soon as I took out those foods, my health turned around like that.
00:05:15
Speaker
And it was such a powerful paradigm shift and mind shift. And so I had this realization that, okay, naturopaths have secret knowledge. Like my medical doctor is top of her field. She didn't know this. I just did four years of an undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph, a fantastic, a phenomenal, one of the best, I will actually say the best university for nutrition in
00:05:39
Speaker
Canada for sure absolutely loved their programming. This was great programming. No one had ever taught me this. So I was like, okay, there's a whole field of study. There's a whole field of knowledge that's out there that I know nothing about. So that was how I got hooked. I'm like, you guys have secret knowledge. I want to know what you know.
00:05:59
Speaker
And it started to become a play. And so then from there, I got out into practice. And one of the things that happened after I graduated, and I did my undergraduate degree here at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in Toronto, which I went to teach at again, because I love it so much. But so shout out to the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine.
00:06:21
Speaker
And so with respect to when I got out into practice, I started to have these amazing protocols for my patients and such a passion for them. And I was like, oh, I want you to experience what I experienced, how powerful nutrition is and how powerful natural medicine can be. And the miracles that you can see happen in terms of healing for your body, things that you never even thought possible, how good your body could feel. If you just would do this,
00:06:49
Speaker
And I would put together all these elaborate protocols. I'd spend all this time and I just have all this hope like you're going to feel great. It's going to be amazing. And so many of them couldn't do it.
00:07:00
Speaker
And then I was like, okay, what's going on here? I need to figure out some tools for how do I help you?
Holistic Health: Emotional and Spiritual Perspectives
00:07:06
Speaker
And then so from there, I started actually looking at the whole mind body spirit connection. I started to see that a lot of the disease, a lot of the processes that we call disease within the body actually start on an emotional level or if you want to take it even further on a spiritual level, well before they hit physical.
00:07:26
Speaker
And so at that point in time, that was my next step, finding out how do I get my patients to be more successful? Yes, they've got these protocols. How do I get them to implement it in their lifestyle? And so that's where hypnosis came in. And then looking at the emotions that caused the disease
00:07:45
Speaker
In terms of hypnosis, it's so powerful for being able to go in and reprogram trauma, reprogram behaviors. So it's not just, you know, the hypnosis wasn't about, okay, I'm just going to tell someone, don't eat the chippies. You guys who know about hypnosis know it's not like that anyways.
00:08:07
Speaker
But to be able to go in and have a conversation with the unconscious mind and say, why are you holding on to this behavior? And what do you need to know in order for us to change and shift that? Where's the healing coming in? When you shift that, that's when my patient success went to the next level.
00:08:24
Speaker
And then I still loved learning. So I went on to do extra studies and I learned about yoga and I learned about nutrition from a yoga perspective. And then I went to China and studied extra at a teaching hospital in China. So I updated my acupuncture and Asian medicine skills and learned about nutrition from that perspective. So I've got that whole 360 mind body spirit, but from the perspective of nutrition, a whole 360 perspective of nutrition from there.
00:08:52
Speaker
And then I decided that I wanted to teach because of course, once you learn a certain amount and you're like, okay, I see how this all fits together. But the journey with hypnosis was really about recognizing and seeing within my patients that the reason why they were getting sick
00:09:09
Speaker
was more about the emotional aspect and more about what the unconscious mind was bringing in as a healing journey and a healing lesson than it was just something physical. Right. So as a naturopath, adding hypnosis to your skill set really helps you have the people actually do the recommendations, because it's true. We all know not to eat the chips. We all know it's better to eat a salad than chocolate cake. We all know we shouldn't leave our bodies.
00:09:39
Speaker
But how do we clear the way to allow people to want to do it and experience the benefits and make it part of their lifestyle? And so that's a really important piece because otherwise you could give them all the best recommendations and it doesn't matter because if they're not able to do it realistically in their life, then it doesn't actually help them.
00:10:01
Speaker
You know, and I was I was very fortunate that I figured that out fairly early on in my practice within like the first one to two years of my practice. Because I've spoken to a lot of naturopaths who have been out for some time, and they hit a wall. And they're just like, Oh, I don't know what's what's happening. You know, if my patients would just listen to me, and I'm like, well, it might be that simple for you.
00:10:24
Speaker
but it's not for them and you have to meet them where they're at. It really made the difference to have someone kind of say, okay, there are things out there that you don't even know of and that you don't even know are possible. And so that's where I've spent kind of the joy of my career is playing in that zone of, I don't think you know what's possible.
00:10:45
Speaker
And let's actually look at your body like it's a Ferrari rather than a Ford F-150. Like you think it's a Ford F-150, you've been treating it that way, but let's see what this sucker can do. Let's actually take it out on the Autobahn, right? Let's actually optimize your entire mind, body and spirit. So yes, we can do genetic testing. Yes, we can do some of the functional medicine testing, which tells us about the hormones and what's happening cellularly and dial that in so you can get optimum performance. But,
Mindset, Performance, and Financial Gains
00:11:14
Speaker
If your mindset is off, it's not going to matter. That mindset is critical. And I would say it is the most important thing for health. I hear all the time, your health is your wealth. And people probably hear this too. Your health is your wealth. And we kind of say, oh yeah, if we're sick, we can't buy it back. No.
00:11:35
Speaker
I had a patient who she actually works with women to help them excel in their careers and she helped shift their mindset. She does a lot of coaching. She doesn't do hypnosis. I'll have to talk to her about that. But what she does with these women is helps them achieve their goals through their mindset. Well, her and I started working together to improve her health.
00:11:55
Speaker
And as we did, she was wearing one of those aura rings, right? One of those rings that measures her sleep index, her heart rate variability, all these parameters of what's happening in the body. And we started working with that. And as we actually started changing her health and improving her heart rate, her income went up. So yes, if you're not physically feeling well, it impacts the mindset.
00:12:20
Speaker
But I love working with women of my age range who are having hormonal imbalances, right? Who have that high performance lifestyle, go, go, go, go, go. And when you actually get into those ranges, the hormones can affect the mindset and the mindset can affect the hormones. So so intimately connected. And so as we work at the mindset, you'll actually see the hormones balancing out too.
00:12:47
Speaker
and you'll see performance and income increase dramatically. It's amazing to see. Yeah, or even simply quality of life, because not everybody's going for that. But we all would like our lives to be better and feel good. And if you're exhausted or out of energy, or you're not feeling well, it has a huge impact no matter what you do with your life.
00:13:10
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And that quality of life is the only reason to get that energy up or even for the finances, because you can have all the money in the world. But if you're miserable, it doesn't. That's right. But you really you really want it for that quality of life. So I met a woman the other day through actually through mutual friend of ours. But when I met this woman, you know, I just loved her because I said to her, like, you are the type of woman who likes to suck the juice out of the orange of life. Right. And she started laughing. I'm like, but that's how we should all be.
00:13:40
Speaker
And why would you settle for anything less? And again, that starts getting into that mindset. It's because we're told we are. It's because we have these stories. We can't do that. Who are we to feel good and powerful and beautiful? And who are we to think, oh, you know, I can have this amazing lifestyle.
00:13:58
Speaker
Or people think it's either or. Either I do all the things I love to do, or I take care of my body, right? Oh, sure, if I want to lose weight or be fit or have energy, I have to give up everything I love. And so they come with that attitude. So everybody who's coming to see you, I'm sure, genuinely wants to change. I mean, they're bothering me to come see you.
00:14:20
Speaker
And so it's really helping them get their mind in the right place so they can actually embrace it in their life and see it's all one. It's not this or that. Well, absolutely. And I think, and we see it in mindset all the time with how fast people quote unquote age. And so you'll see people will look a certain way and they'll get us to a certain point in life and that a very specific age, whatever age they've decided is old, they'll suddenly get old.
00:14:47
Speaker
they'll stop moving. Maybe they'll start developing gray hairs. And I keep telling my patients all the time, like, listen, when you're in your 50, 60, 70s, you should feel as good and energetic and healthy and be as fit as you were in your 20s and 30s.
00:15:03
Speaker
So I am, I live that. And that's what I love to do. That's what I love to teach people and show people. Because so many people think, oh, I have patients who are in their 30s or 40s. And they're like, oh, I'm getting this ache or pain, or I'm gaining weight. And oh, but I'm slowing down a little. But oh, I'm just getting old. I'm like, no. You're not allowed to call yourself old. Once you get to like 80,
00:15:30
Speaker
You can then start saying, I'm getting up. Maybe. Maybe. But even then, you shouldn't feel like, quote unquote, old. So I think really that mindset is critical for what you can achieve and what you can't and the enjoyment that you get out of life. And I think for most people, they've never even discovered what's possible for them.
00:15:54
Speaker
Yeah, great. So what advice would you give to other naturopaths who might be struggling with getting their clients to follow through on the wonderful recommendations they're giving them?
Role of Naturopaths: Guides, Not Saviors
00:16:07
Speaker
Well, I mean, first of all, I would say you need to take care of your own mindset first, right? For us, if we're not in the right mindset and we're not in the right headspace, it's not going to matter. And that mindset is we're here to serve. So I call myself, I'm just a naturopathic Sherpa.
00:16:25
Speaker
That's it. I'm here to be a guide. I'm not here to tell you what you should or shouldn't be doing, unless it's from the perspective of, hey, these are the health goals you have. This is the health that's possible. Here's what you need to do to achieve it. But beyond that, if you don't do it, it's your body, it's your rules, and I'm going to hold your hand, and we're going to walk slowly, and I'm going to give you the resources, and we're going to go at your pace, right? But if we're coming from the mindset like I was before, which is just like,
00:16:54
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to heal you. I'm going to save you. Right. That's not a good headspace. That doesn't serve the patient. And also right now, you know, with everything that's been going on in the world, you know, with covid and the lockdowns and in and out and now the war and everything, you know, there's so many people who are stressed beyond what is usual or typical.
00:17:16
Speaker
And so there's a lot of lack of resilience in people out there. So the first thing that we have to do is get our mindset clear and make sure that when we come into our office and we're with a patient, that we don't have any of that going on. And as a naturopath, it's an any healer.
00:17:32
Speaker
And in any healing profession, whether you're a medical doctor or chiropractor or a hypnotist or whoever you are, it's easy for us to get caregiver burnout. So you have to be continuously doing something to regenerate yourself. Because if you don't do your own healing work, if you're not constantly kind of bringing up that all of that trauma for yourself, you're going to burn out, you're going to crash, you're going to leave your profession.
00:17:58
Speaker
because you're not good to anybody if you go down. Right. And it's also really hard to be focused on the client if you're in pain. The way you're looking at things isn't the way the client needs. So when we do hypnosis training, we do require all of our students to use what they're learning on themselves and to get feedback and change themselves and embrace us as a way of life.
00:18:20
Speaker
And so that's really
Enhancing Practice with Hypnosis Training
00:18:23
Speaker
important. And I can see where for other people in the helping professions, they might not have been exposed to this possibility. Like you talked about showing people what's possible. Well, if you've never experienced it, you don't know. And I know that was true for me when I first discovered hypnosis. I had no idea, right? I come from a medical, like traditional medical family.
00:18:44
Speaker
very conservative, very academic in a very traditional science-y kind of way. And when I first discovered hypnosis, I was like, wow, and it opened this world to me that I didn't even know existed. And I'm sure many people who are naturopaths or chiropractors or in those helping fields may come with that attitude because to do the kind of schooling it takes to get where you are, you've got to be very academic.
00:19:08
Speaker
very driven that way, right? There's a certain way of processing information or interacting with life that they're teaching you in school. And the attitude or focus that you need when you're practicing professionally is very different from what it took to be studying in school. So there's a big shift that needs to happen for people there.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah, and I don't know in your school if you have this saying that you tell your students, I'm assuming you do, but I was told by my professors, when you get into clinic, the people who show up, they're healing you as much as you're healing them. In fact, they're more there. You attract who you need to heal.
00:19:50
Speaker
So the people who like, if you're having challenging patients, challenging clients, you need to say, okay, this, everybody who sits in front of me is actually a mirror for me and how would I want to be treated? And so starting with that is absolutely critical because you're always going to have people come in who have different types of health concerns and different emotional concerns are going to come up.
00:20:16
Speaker
There's going to be times where you are going to be triggered, and they're here to help you heal. So we actually try to get ahead of the curve with that. It happens, of course, right? We're all human. But what we do is we actually, as hypnosis trainers, are giving the students feedback ahead of time because we can see what they need to heal up.
00:20:37
Speaker
And that way they can be in a better place for it already when they're seeing their clients. And then when they're seeing clients, things do come up and they need feedback, and that happens. But we're really wanting to, as much as possible, help them mature and clean things up and be in a really good place, especially at least when they're with clients. So they can learn how to be in a resourceful, useful state of mind for the client, even if there are all kinds of other things going on in their life.
Mentorship and Building Patient Relationships
00:21:04
Speaker
right? That we can choose to be in that resource state no matter what. That is a really important skill as well because life is life. It's not all going to be perfect. There'll be ups and downs even for us helping people, right? The helping professionals where we're also humans.
00:21:20
Speaker
So we need to really cultivate that capacity and that resourcefulness in ourselves. So it's very valuable to have somebody who's mentoring you through this so that they can show you, they're holding the mirror up to you and showing you where you need to grow and being willing to participate in that. Because some people really want to bury their head in the sand and they're like, I'm too busy or it's uncomfortable to deal with whatever's happening, right? Or whatever.
00:21:46
Speaker
or I know it all. That was me when I first graduated. No, you don't. There's always something more to learn. So you have to keep that humility as well. And I love what you say about mentors. You absolutely need a mentor. You need someone who can hold your feet to the fire and hold up that mirror and say, no, no, you need to look. You don't want to see this. But no matter how many years you've been in practice, like again, I said, I've been in practice for 22 years.
00:22:13
Speaker
I still have my stuff to clear. Like, there's always something new coming up. Yeah, and embracing that. So there's also the difference between knowing in your head and really knowing, right? Like something in your body and spiritually. And when somebody has been very highly trained academically, they really do think that the rational knowing is all there is.
00:22:35
Speaker
And then they're in real life. And when push comes to shove, well, it can be different. So you want to be honoring the fact that the only proof, when I have a student who says, oh, I know that already, I only believe them when I see them actually doing it in real life.
00:22:53
Speaker
them simply saying, you know, it doesn't mean a thing. And so we're looking for them to show and prove that they really get it. And then, you know, there are ups and downs, sometimes where we're in a really good group, and then something happens, we might regress back to some old behaviors, because that's what happens under stress. So having that support system in places is a really big deal. It helps a lot a lot a lot.
00:23:18
Speaker
It's huge, and then you can come from an authentic place, and then you can apply those techniques to your patients. Then you can say, okay, yes, I've got this hypnosis training, so now I can help you, but I can be there with compassion because I remember what that feels like.
00:23:35
Speaker
and it makes all the difference in the world. Your patients aren't perfect, you're not gonna be perfect, but it's about the joy of that journey together and that exploration. And when you can meet someone where they're at for who they are in space and time on all levels, on that mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical level, when you can combine that all, patients feel so held.
00:24:01
Speaker
And it doesn't matter whether they get results instantaneously or whether they have to build up to the results that they want. What matters is the relationship that they have with you. And they feel so supported and so secure. And then you can just hold their hand and walk them through the process. And that's how your patients will thrive. Well, they'll get really good results because they'll feel so loved and connected.
00:24:28
Speaker
But then your practice will build so fast because you're not worried about the money coming in. You just focused on who can I be? How can I serve this patient for who they are in space and time the best that I possibly can? How can I love them the most in this moment? And then that they'll reward you back just by referring because that will take you from good to great.
00:24:54
Speaker
All right. So share with people how they can contact you if they're interested in doing a fireside chat or they want to find out more. How did they get in touch with you? Absolutely. Well, they can go to my website, drvalfrank.com. So D-R-V-A-L-F-R-A-N-C.com. Or they can call my office at 416-901-3881.
00:25:27
Speaker
or they can reach my executive assistant Chloe at info at drvalfrank.com. That's info at drvalfrank.com. That's info at drvalfrank.com.
00:25:41
Speaker
Great, yeah. And for any naturopaths or other people out there who realize that hypnosis training would really compliment all the great things you already do, you can go to hypnosistrainingcanada.com to find out more about how hypnosis can help. We've got lots of free resources there, lots of information about training. And if you're ready to have the live experience, you can set up a time for a free consultation with me so we can see what your goals are and if this is a good fit for you.
00:26:09
Speaker
Thank you so much. And I would recommend any naturopath contact you. It's been so critical in my success in my career. Awesome. Great. Well, thanks for sharing all this, Val. I think it really gives people a nice rounded view of what does it really take to optimize your health and get your goals?
00:26:27
Speaker
and being willing to go in and do it. And it really is a choice. Do you want to live a really high quality of life or do you want to just get by? Like, I love your example with the Ferrari and the Ford F-150, right? Like, who do you want to be? And it's a choice. And if you do want to be the Ferrari, there are resources out there to help you. So that's awesome. I love that. Great. So thanks, Mal, and we'll talk to you later. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Bye.
00:26:57
Speaker
Join us next time to get some great tips from Dr. Val on how to realistically lose weight and build a healthy lifestyle you can live with. To find out more about how hypnosis can help you or what it takes to become a professional hypnotist, visit HypnosisTrainingCanada.com.
00:27:15
Speaker
Remember to click the button to subscribe, share the podcast with a friend, and please 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.