A Personal Note From Orion
Radiant beings! Welcome to another episode of the Stellar Life podcast as we embark on an extraordinary journey of hypnosis with Mike Mandel.
Mike is a true renaissance man in the world of hypnosis. From training police officers and performing riveting stage shows to developing cutting-edge methods used by therapists worldwide, his decades of experience are simply unparalleled. A forensic hypnotist, NLP master practitioner and renowned trainer based in Las Vegas and Toronto, Mike has been immersed in the art of trance since first discovering his gift at just 12 years old in 1965.
In this captivating conversation, you’ll gain invaluable insights into harnessing the transformative potential of suggestion and emotion and reconnecting with your inner child’s boundless creativity. Mike’s warm wisdom and heartwarming personal stories will guide you in shedding limiting beliefs, reigniting your passions, and approaching each day with a profound sense of presence and gratitude. Whether you’re seeking to overcome long-standing fears, reignite your zest for life, or simply live from a more empowered state of conscious awareness, this episode is overflowing with invaluable tools to help you metamorphose into your highest self.
My dazzling friends, I cannot recommend this episode enough! As always, I’m tremendously grateful that you’re here and honored to be a part of your journey towards radical self-actualization. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the show!
In This Episode
- [02:20] – Orion interviews Mike Mandel, a hypnotist with over 50 years of experience. Mike shares what sparked his interest in hypnosis.
- [07:49] – Mike and Orion discuss the use of hypnosis for personal growth and healing. They both discuss their ability to communicate with animals, with Mike describing his tapping modalities.
- [15:32] – Mike argues that anyone can be hypnotized, regardless of their mental health or past experiences.
- [20:47] – Mike explains embedded commands in NLP, citing examples of how they can influence people’s thoughts and behaviors.
- [31:02] – Orion and Mike talk about long-lasting relationships, with Mike sharing his father’s advice on communication and conflict resolution.
- [32:33] – Mike tackles the fact that men are more likely to experience physical harm from anger than women and provides insight from Griffin and Terrell’s Human Givens theory.
- [43:50] – Mike offers tips for living a stellar life.
About Today’s Show
Hi Mike. Welcome to the Stellar Life podcast. It’s a pleasure having you here.
It’s wonderful to be here, Orion. I’ve been looking forward to this.
Before we begin, can you share a little bit about what intrigued you about hypnosis and your teaching today?
Well, it’s a crazy thing. I’m useless at a lot of things. If I have to swim about 100 feet, I’ll probably drown. You put a screwdriver in my hand, and I can take my head off with it. I’m not mechanically inclined. I’m useless at math. I’m good at language and language figures. I’m so willing to get gnosis. At age twelve in 1965, I discovered I had hypnotic abilities, and I’ve been doing this ever since.
Tell me more about how you discover something like that at age twelve.
That’s an interesting question. It was funny because I had next-door neighbors. I lived in Toronto next to an animal hospital. I hung out with the kids, Max and Wayne, whose father was a vet tech and lived in the apartment above the animal hospital. They had a deck up there and a picnic table. We came to Canada from England when I was a boy, and my father was concerned I was watching too much television because it was North American TV. We had Buffalo, Rochester, and New, and Eight.
He said, “I want you to read more,” he took me to a bookstore and said, “Any book you want, you can have.” The first one I saw was The Key to Hypnotism by Walter Gibson. I said, “I want this book.” I learned it, memorized it, went out searching for someone to hypnotize. Max and Wayne are next door. I was twelve, Wayne was maybe ten, and Max was nine. I went over and said, “Can I hypnotize you guys?” They don’t know what I’m talking about. To Max, it was a big joke. But Wayne was an amazing subject.
Power is so great it can only be used for good or evil, but I use it for good.
On my very first attempt, Orion he went into such a deep trance that his hand became cataleptic. It was floating in the air. I stuck a hat pin right through the flesh of his finger, right up the other side, and blood running down. He was just looking at it. No pain, no nothing. I was amazed at how well this worked. His parents didn’t think it was as amazing as I did. I was ordered to stop. Dad started it.
I just found out I had weird abilities. I could get my two friends irritated with each other, start wrestling on someone’s lawn on the way home, and get all dirty. I just had a way of influencing people. When I was 21, I went to see a show, The Amazing Kreskin. He did his mentalism hypnosis suggestion show in Toronto at Minkler Auditorium. I went with a friend of mine who was an agent, and this is November ‘74. I came home and thought about it, and I told him the next day, “I think I can duplicate just about everything I saw on that show.” He went, “What? Well, come into the agency and show us.” I did, and they booked me. I flew out to Edmonton and did a TV show. I was a telephone operator at the time, working with 150 women, which was awesome because some of them were really hot, and I was the only guy.
You know how to influence them. Have you ever used your power for naughty things?
Power is so great it can only be used for good or evil, but I use it for good. Anyway, I watched that TV show, and I loved it. I’d never done anything like that. I quit my job, and fortunately, I was living at home with my parents, or I would have starved to death. But gradually, they started getting me gigs, and I wound up doing about 5000 hypnosis shows in Canada, the US, Britain, Australia, and the Caribbean. Hypnosis became my life, teaching it, which I love most. I retired six years ago, and after 43 years on the road and now teaching, I retired from the stage six years ago. Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy is everything we love.
I love teaching with my company and turning ordinary people and psychiatrists, psychologists, dentists, and doctors into phenomenal general practitioner hypnotists so they can get rid of phobias, anxieties, pain management, and all sorts of wonderful things and make the world a better place.
Making people afraid and anxious makes them more suggestible.
You make the world a better place, which is awesome. But when you look at things that have happened in the last few years in the world and are happening today, especially in universities, do you see hypnotic techniques and language being used by governments and media to influence crowds?
Exactly. You’re absolutely on with that. Edward Bernays was the founder of most of the influencing in advertising, and identical techniques are used by nefarious governments worldwide, not anyone in particular. Governments know that making people afraid and anxious makes them more suggestible. The critical faculty that protects you and filters out information becomes porous, and semi-permeable information starts to get in and control anyone. All you have to do is set up a Hegelian debate, create a problem, get everybody terrified, and then say, “Here’s the solution,” this is the solution you wanted to implement right from the beginning. Everyone says, “Give us a solution.” They beg for it, and you get what you want. Governments worldwide do this. They keep people off balance and afraid. They divide left and right, male and female, gay and straight, black and white. Unfortunately, governments divide because they keep us fighting, and that serves their purposes.
Is there anything specific you saw, like a technique or something beyond scaring people, like language and body language, which one can detect when they’re watching the news?
Yes, there are all sorts of things like that. In fact, it amazes me how much of this Orion is used daily, and people do not seem to have the skills to detect it, even when it’s obvious. I’ll give you an example. Years ago, my wife and I were in line at the bank in downtown Toronto, and I saw a poster framed for the bank’s services. It said, “Listen to this. This is so hypnotic.” It was, “Borrow to get ahead so you don’t fall behind.” Isn’t borrowing going further into debt? Isn’t going further into debt falling behind at anyone’s estimation? You see a lot of this sort of thing.
Years ago, there was a painkilling drug, etc., an over-the-counter drug, like aspirin, and they said, “Excedrin, proven to be more effective than aspirin for pain other than headache. So next time you have a headache, get Excedrin.” It doesn’t make logical sense, but people need to stop and engage their critical faculty, the part of their mind that evaluates these things, because it’s too easy to slip by.
Yes, I see it. Then, I studied NLP, and I do hypnosis myself, and I really love it. I know that I can always get better and learn more. When I do hypnosis, I have the tools, and they’re amazing, and I cannot do it without them. Something energetic is also happening, like a portal or an opening or a bubble created between me and my client, and stuff comes through me to help them.
Well, everyone has a worldview, right? We all have a worldview of life, where it’s going, why we’re here, and all the components stabilized by our beliefs and perceptual filters. I see what you’re saying in a slightly different way. It creates a psychodynamic loop between me and the client or subject. I reinforce that loop through body language shifts breathing shifts, offering back their language and intensifying the hypnotic loop. We begin almost a dance, a psychological dance. That enables me to act intuitively because I’m picking up their unconscious cues, the subtle shifts in their body language, the micro expressions and things that enable me to do work very quickly and cleanly. We’re talking about the same thing, just in slightly different words.
Similar. I also feel like there is a psychodynamic between me and God’s creation. I think there is more. A lot of energetics is coming through, but that’s just me.
No, but that’s interesting. I understand what you’re saying because one of the things I do is practice qigong and a few other things from Chinese medicine. The energetic system is no doubt a real thing. I’ve seen it work with my cat. I’m a cat person. I’m an allure file. I’ve had a lot of cats, mostly Bengal cats, and now I’ve got an Egyptian male. But one of them went to the vet, and when he came back, he smelled different, and his brother didn’t like him. “You’re not him. You look like him, but you’re not.” His brother freaked out. This went on for over a month. He’d come into the room, and the cat would hiss and want to attack him. My wife got so upset. She said, “He hates his brother now. It’s so sad.”
I was downstairs with the cat and remotely did some tapping modalities. I was tapping on myself, looking at him. I did a surrogate tapping. I was saying, “I love my brother. My brother’s my best friend. He’s not a problem anymore. He smells normal again.” I did about three rounds of tapping. The cat’s ignoring me. We have to remember this has gone on for at least a month. About ten minutes later, I ended it by saying, “I’m Mike again. I’m me again. I’m not the cat.” Another ten minutes later, Roger, the other cat, came downstairs, and his brother turned and saw him. He went over to him for the first time and started washing his face. I can’t explain this stuff. But an energetic exchange takes place.
We need to look after our inner children and reconnect with them. Share on XI have had my fair share of animal communication. There was a little blue crab once outside our door because I live in Florida, and there is a season when they all come out. The little poor animal was so scared, and its claws were up in the air for half an hour. I said, “Oh, my goodness, he’s so scared.” I eventually came to him and said, “Listen, we don’t eat blue crabs. Don’t worry, you’re completely safe. We are not going to hurt you.” I just looked at him, and I think I even spoke it out loud. Then, you immediately see his claws going down in slow motion as I talk to him.
That’s just lovely. You’re clearly an animal person.
I love animals.
That makes you go even higher in my estimate. I love all animals. Here in Toronto, I’ve got about twelve squirrels. We get raccoons, possums, foxes, and skunks. They all come through the yard.
It’s the same here. We have a possum in our backyard. Possums are very sweet animals, and they’re safer than people think.
They’re actually quite the cleanup crew. They don’t cause a problem. They clean up all the garbage and everything, so you have to love them. You interacted with that crab, and I totally hear you. I’ve used a lot of different tapping modalities over the years. I did FasterEFT, Be Set Free Fast, Touch and Breathe, and Tapas Acupressure Technique. My own particular one is a six-step one. When you’re working in your office or something, and the neighbor’s dog is in the yard barking and won’t stop, I’ve tapped for that, saying, “It’s time to stop barking now. You don’t need to bark anymore.” Then, the dog suddenly stops.
That’s phenomenal.
You can get anything you want out of life if you help enough other people get what they want. – Zig Ziglar
That’s fascinating. It ties in with hypnosis because I teach my six-step tapping to my students. So it’s the top of the head, center of the forehead, outer corner of the eye, under the eye, and edge of the collarbone. Squeeze, breathe. Say, awesome. Relax.
Why squeeze and breathe?
Because this hits, one of my students, Tom, was a Chinese doctor and a Chinese medicine practitioner.
I like the way you did it. You did it like, “Squeeze, squeeze.”
Take a deep breath—exhale. There are at least three meridians run through here. This hits all of them at the same time. We can tap, but I just find that more elegant. But I was doing all the complex tapping and happy birthday for those six spots, and I found they were not needed. It’s way easier. This is how weird this gets.
We’re sort of off-topic, but I think it’s worth saying I am fascinated with the ravens and crows—Corvus corax and Corvus brachiorhynchus. I love them, and they like me. I was up in Northern Ontario, so my Thunder Bay or something, Lake Superior, was cold and dark, and late in the afternoon, it started to snow. I was looking from my hotel window. I had a lecture that night at Lakehead University. I saw a flock of ravens, about 40 of them, flying in a circle in the air, in the snow about 200 yards away.
People with normal mental health can be hypnotized.
I watched them and started tapping and saying, “Ravens, ravens. I love ravens.” As I tapped, one broke out from the group and started circling. So I kept doing it. I swear to you, Orion, this raven flew 200 meters to my hotel window. It was mind-blowing. I don’t get it. But we are all connected. We are all connected in some way.
I absolutely agree with that. I want to go back to hypnosis. Do you think everyone can get hypnotized?
That’s a very good question. People with normal mental health can be hypnotized. Of these old scales, only 20% are good subjects, and 10% can’t be hit. Those are nonsensical scales. We even disagreed with Dr. Spiegel from Stanford University, who is a great clinician and researcher, and I have so much respect for him. But he said a thing that we just don’t accept. He said that hypnotizability doesn’t change over time. So if you check someone’s hypnotizability using one of these ridiculous scales and then say they score six out of ten, and you go back 25 years later, they’ll still score a six out of ten.
But that, to me, proves nothing because hypnosis is a learning state. When I teach the architecture of hypnosis, a five-day intensive in Toronto, on day one, many of the people have zero experience. When we do get our psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors, I like the blank slate people, the tabula rasa. I don’t have to reteach them stuff they’ve learned poorly. We get a lot of hypnosis. Trainers come in because we correct their technique. On the first day, people have no experience. By Friday, everyone in that class is an excellent subject. We just teach them how to be good subjects. It’s a myth that you can’t be a good subject. People think it’s something that you’re doing to them. But if they learn to follow the steps, anyone can experience a good trance.
That’s amazing. I’m more inclined to believe what you’re saying because we’re completely different people every day. I’m a different person every hour. We shift and change. We open. We experience joy. We experience trauma. We experience so many things, and we’re very different. Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re probably right.”
People respond unconsciously to suggestions, so we need to be mindful of how we label others. Share on XYou’re right. That’s a great quote. I didn’t know it was him, but it’s an excellent quote. I’ve used that one a lot. Do you know my favorite quote right now? When I did the keynote at Hypnothoughts Live, the biggest hypnosis conference in the world in Las Vegas, they asked me to present to all my peers, and I gave this quote, and so many people liked it. Zig Ziglar, the motivational speaker, said this. I love it, and I’ve proven it true in my life, and I’m sure you have, too. “You can get anything you want out of life if you help enough other people get what they want.” So call it karma, providence, the Tao—it comes back. If we just keep giving and helping. You can’t outgive people. It comes back incredibly. It’s just a wonderful thing.
I agree. I actually heard it from Tony Robbins, who studied with Zig Ziglar.
I didn’t know he studied with him. That’s great. I love Tony Robbins. I’m intrigued.
That’s how he started. That’s how he learned everything. He became his apprentice.
Amazing piece of knowledge I did not have.
I can’t believe it. I shared something you don’t know. That’s awesome.
There are many spaces in this head.
My relative went to a hypnotherapist online, and she decided that she could not get hypnotized online. She’s got a fear of flying now. I want to offer her my services just to help her out. I don’t know how to approach this because she’s so determined that she cannot get it. I do my sessions via Zoom. She is like, “I cannot be hypnotized via Zoom.” But from my experience, a lot of people got great breakthroughs. Everyone gets breakthroughs through the sessions, and it doesn’t matter. What do you think about in-person versus online and its effectiveness?
If we just keep giving and helping, you can’t outgive people. It comes back incredibly.
I don’t do therapy anymore; I just teach. But I would rather have it in person because I can pick up more subtle nonverbal cues because I see their whole body. If somebody starts tapping their foot every time they talk about their spouse, I wonder why. So I can calibrate better when I can see the entire person. But when someone would say to me, “Well, I can’t be hypnotized on Zoom, or I can’t be hypnotized to a deep level, I would say, “Who hypnotized you to believe that? How did you come to believe that?’”
Here are the two Jedi questions I use all the time. (1) How did you come to believe that? (2) How do you know it’s true? Just keep asking. Gil Boyne was an amazing hypnotherapist back in the sixties and seventies. I’ve seen him work with clients on video, and he’d get someone who was absolutely convinced they could not go into a deep trance. He’d say, “Just answer this. Complete this sentence.” If I go into a deep trance, and the person says, “I will lose control.”
He said, “Okay, now another one. If I go into a deep trance, I might embarrass myself.” “Give me another one.” They just keep doing it, and they drain all of their resistance. He says, “Are you ready to go into a deep trance?” And bang, they’re gone.
This is so interesting. I was always curious about what makes us work and how to influence people. I used to be a personal trainer, but I read a lot about NLP and was really into it. I used to stretch my clients and kind of like using some embedded commands while stretching them, and they’re in a very relaxed state and telling them a lot of good things about themselves. The people I did this to excelled very rapidly in their training in their bodies and embedded commands.
Your embedded commands would do the trick. I’m an NLP trainer. I trained with John Grinder. The embedded commands are one of the most neglected things in hypnosis, and they’re immensely powerful and easy to use.
Always keep the communication lines open no matter how much you fight; insist on communicating with your loved ones.
Can we dive into embedded commands and how to use them in anything you want? What is an embedded command for somebody who doesn’t know? How can they use it?
You can have an embedded command, statement, or suggestion. All of these commands are sentence fragments that are standalone commands. If you mark them analogically by saying them slightly differently, pausing just before them or touching the person as you say them, it marks it. It has to be subtle enough that the conscious mind does not notice it but obvious enough that the unconscious does see it. It’s the simplest thing, you can say. When you sit there, I think you’ll find it really easy to fall into a trance. There’s the embedded command: fall into a trance. It’s marked subtly enough, which will start the work already.
I love all that we actually have. These are hypnotic language cards. This is the first iteration. We are now on 2.0, which is blue instead of red. These are hypnotic powers in a box. This teaches embedded command. You can get them for free on our website. You just pay for shipping; we sold thousands of these worldwide. They’re an actual deck of cards. But they all have embedded commands and different hypnotic things you can use because what that does is it shows people the quality of our training, what we have. People often go on to get some of our training and try it, and they see that our stuff is good and dependable. Then we wind up with more people. I think we’ve got 3000 online students right now.
You can try it for free for four days—you don’t even have to put your credit card on it. I signed up yesterday, and now I regret it. I’ll probably join your program. What an amazing system.
Like just opt. It’s a real blessing.
You can have an embedded command, statement, or suggestion. All of these commands are sentence fragments that are standalone commands.
It shows me that you’re very congruent in your teaching because you just said a few sentences ago that the more you give, the more people you help, the more you get back. This is a beautiful way to help people. Some people cannot afford even the $67 a month or those cards, and you’re really helping people. You send so many blessings, and everything comes back. This is amazing.
It’s a wonderful thing. I almost feel guilty because it makes me feel so good helping people. That’s why I’m doing it. We’re doing it for selfish reasons because it makes me really happy. We just set up a scholarship at my high school in Toronto, where I attended from 1966 onwards. It’s a performing arts school and a visual arts school. We’ve set up a Mike Mandel Performing Arts Award every year for the next 20 years; it’ll be in my estate and will be going to some kid who does not have any advantages but someone who’s showing the talent and they’ll get a substantial financial prize that they can use to maybe get into the performing arts, which I think is a lovely thing. It was my wife’s idea; she’s a huge on giving. We give to owl sanctuaries and cat rescues, and my favorite is every Christmas, we buy Christmas dinner for a couple of hundred homeless people in Toronto. They get the full Christmas dinner of turkey and dessert and everything. I feel guilty because that makes me feel so good about being able to do it. I don’t need anything. I’ve had a good life. I’ve got everything I want.
I can’t play any more guitars than I have, and my health is just good; I’ve got my cat and my wife, and it’s time to give back. It really is a wonderful thing. That’s one of the reasons we never say no to podcasts now. If I can agree with the person, at least in some area of overlap, we have something to talk about.
You’ll have to come back.
You’re such a go-getter. I know you’re all about achieving, helping people and being positive, and I love that. It’s fantastic.
Thank you. We have another thing in common. I used to play guitar in high school.
Nice.
Now I have long nails, and I kind of like, “It’s either the guitar or my nails.”
I’ve only got the long nails in my right hand for the guitar.
But now I like my nails.
The Key to Hypnotism by Walter Brown Gibson
Check this out. Here’s my AC/DC tattoo. I’ve got an AC/DC guitar, one of the Angus Young SGs with the lightning bolts. It’s just fantastic.
I love it.
I’m like a kid.
In high school, I used to hang out with the boys. I was the only girl in a group of, I think, twelve boys. I was like a tomboy. There wasn’t anything sexual. Some are really good guitar players, and they like heavy metal, like Metallica and Megadeth.
I grew up, and that’s my Led Zeppelin one. That’s why Jerry’s Picks led Zelda.
Yeah. I remember going to my neighbor’s room. He played Led Zeppelin and had the Led Zeppelin on the wall. It was pretty cool. I grew up listening to some heavy metal and had many faces in my life; I feel like a shapeshifter.
When we realized that, it was a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with being that. It’s a really powerful thing. The ego state—the subpersonality when I’m playing with my Egyptian male cat is not the someone that I want executive. When I’m teaching jiu-jitsu, it’s not going to be appropriate. I taught all the Ontario Provincial Police instructors hand-to-hand combat. It was fun. I went there, we got the biggest guy in the room and made him scream and cry and then everybody pays attention all day.
I studied a bit of MMA and Aikido and tried jiu-jitsu. The lady I would spar with had long nails, and I returned home with scratches, and I was like, “Oh, that’s not good. I don’t like that.” So, MMA and Aikido were my thing for a while.
That’s cool. I also did Aikido in Toronto with Obata sensei. Yeah.
Interesting.
What is it about? This is the one we do. This is actually true. It’s a British Jiu-Jitsu. Yukiotani and Taranaki were two Japanese who came to Britain around 1900 to give demonstrations. My sensei, Bill Underwood, was only five foot two. He studied with them and was a natural prodigy, even at five foot two. He was on The Tonight Show, and it was just amazing. So, I was his only instructee when he died. We took it back to England and taught it there. The difference is that because it’s a military-based system, we don’t wear pajamas. We wear steel-toed boots, and we carry blades.
I love that.
When we're emotional, the critical faculty opens wide and we give in to suggestions and labels—it’s a hypnotic thing. Share on XIt’s just to save your life. I love the jujutsu base, but it is military. Would you say that if James Bond were real, this would be the system you would use? I can see you doing MMA. I really can.
In my journey, I went into an abusive relationship, and I got hurt physically, and that’s where I ended it. I said to myself, “Nobody ever is going to hurt me again.” That’s what gave me the right attitude. That is what made me study martial arts. But then I got so tough, like a guy, and I forgot about what it is to be a woman or to be in my body as a woman. And then, I went through a whole new journey of connecting to my femininity. I loved that dance between masculine and feminine. And being strong in both, not just one or the other.
Totally. Now, that’s interesting because you went through that bad experience. That’s how I got into martial arts because I was a very small, smart kid, but very little when we came from England, and I was bullied, just terribly beaten up so many times and bullied by a teacher who almost gave me a nervous breakdown. I skipped grade four. I went from grade three to grade five, and then I put in a mixed five class, expecting to work at the grade six level. I was in grade three the year before, and it was too hard. The teacher was really harsh and really militaristic, and he hated me. I got yanked out of his class.
But I remember saying this as a very little boy, beaten up all the time, “One day, I’m going to get so smart and tough that nobody’s going to dominate me ever again.” And it happened.
I love that the worst times in our lives are our greatest gifts. It’s just like a gift with a bow on the bottom. You can’t open it. A few years later or even a decade later, you look back and say that was actually because if you didn’t have that bully, you wouldn’t be the person that you are today. People would never get their Christmas meal.
Most men intuitively try to disengage so they can get the stress chemicals out of their system.
Well, we might have done that anyway. I’ve got such a loving wife. We’ve been married for 41 years or something. I still call her my first wife just to keep her on her toes.
So, what’s the secret to long-lasting relationships that are loving and connected?
My father gave me the secret. He gave me two rules for life. One is about public restrooms. He said, “Go when you can, not when you have to. If there’s a restroom, use it.” That served me well because I’ve been on planes with bad turbulence, and people can’t get out of their seats. I’m going, I’m okay, I already went.”
Now the other one he gave me is even more important. This has been a real thing for me. I was actually the relationship communications coach on CBC television for two seasons, bringing the NLP skills in. But I gave the thing my dad taught me. He said, “Always keep the communication lines open no matter how much you fight and insist on still communicating.” As an NLP practitioner, you’re always communicating anyway. But I’m talking about communicating intentionally, not shutting that door, not doing the silent treatment, not ghosting somebody. Keep the communication lines open. Good relationships take work. But guess what? It’s worth it.
Yes. My husband is wonderful, and our relationship had a lot of turbulence. Sometimes, I give him the silent treatment because it makes me feel stronger and more important. But eventually, we talked. We always talk.
That’s fairly good.
The core intention is to go back to love.
Communicate intentionally. Do not use silent treatment; keep the communication lines open.
Absolutely. But women need to understand something about men. This comes from Griffin and Tyrrell, a human givens theory from Cambridge, England. Two psychologists said women misunderstand something. They get into an argument with a guy, and he gets up and goes out of the room or something. They said what you have to understand is men are far more likely to have a heart attack or stroke from anger than women are. We intuitively try to disengage to get the stress chemicals and the cortisol out of our system. So, men have to be allowed to calm down and then regain. But they’re not dissing you by walking away. It’s self-preservation.
I’m the one who’s walking away.
What I’m saying is that if a man does it, that’s the reason why. It’s so he doesn’t have a freaking heart attack.
Maybe I do it because I also need time to calm down. I’m a very passionate person with a quick temper, and sometimes, I need to walk away to just breathe.
What’s your national heritage?
I’m Israeli.
Oh, how cool is that? I’ve got some Hebrew. I can speak some Hebrew. It’s a beautiful language, actually.
I bless my son with this blessing every Friday night; it is beautiful.
The Lord bless you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you.
It’s like God bless you, light your way, and care for you.
Even the verse says, “May he lift his countenance upon you.”
Are you my relative? We have a lot in common.
That verse is so beautiful because it means a loving father holding the baby, smiling, lifting up his countenance upon you.
Mandela is a Jewish name, and I’m a Celtic, Anglo-Scottish Presbyterian.
Embedded commands are one of the most neglected things in hypnosis, and they are immensely powerful. Share on XHow do you know the blessings? How do you, and why would you learn that?
I love language. I’ve got some Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Greek, but my French is my best. Because people think I’m Jewish, we get invited to so many seders. It’s a beautiful language.
Seders are long, which depends on the family that hosts it and the food. It can be a really pleasurable experience or a very long-drawn experience.
The longest we were at was 11. My wife and I said, “I go to bed at 10.”
That’s very cool. I didn’t know Mandel was a Jewish name, but now I do.
It’s actually German for almond.
Almond—you’re my almond.
Apparently, that’s just so good. Do you agree this is a simple name? I know it’s backward in the picture, but people would get it wrong. It would amaze me how they can misspell something so easy. I got a fan letter in the seventies when I did a show somewhere to Vince, not even Mike, “Vince Mansell.”
I thought, “Well, it’s the intention that matters.”
The intention was nice.
When you label your kids, label them with positive things because people tend to live up to labels. That’s such a hypnotic thing.
In Judaism, they say that if you want to perform a mitzvah, which means a good deed, you really have the desire but don’t have the means. You’re like, “I wish I could do that. I wish I could help.” In this way, even that intention is getting you the rewards and just having.
Yes, Hashem knows what it is.
Even having that beautiful intention is sometimes good enough. And, of course, you have to be good.
Hashem doesn’t make any mistakes.
That’s amazing. I’m so impressed with you. I want to go back to hypnosis. You studied stage hypnosis for a very long time. What did you learn about humanity? What are some takeaways from doing so many years of stage hypnosis?
Everybody’s suggestible, and people respond to suggestions unconsciously. That’s why we must be very careful how we label people, especially as my friend Freddy Jacquin, an excellent hypnotherapist and trainer, says: create an emotion. Give a suggestion. When we’re emotional, the critical faculty opens wide. Things get in. And when people label their kids, let’s label them with positive things because people tend to live up to labels. That’s such a hypnotic thing.
If I say to someone, “I know you’re the kind of person who likes to be generous.” People will live up to that because they want to be seen as that. But if someone says to their kid, “You’re stupid. You’ll never learn.” People think they’ll take one kid in the family and scapegoat them. I’ve seen it so often; you can scar them for life with this kind of thing.
How much easier it is to be kind and give people suggestions. I would never say, “Oh, you’re a beautiful and super smart young girl, too. Let’s hit all the buttons, right?
I love that.
Make sure a person you’re interacting with is fed with positive stuff.
Let’s make sure the person is fed the positive stuff. And that was a blessing for me, Orion, because my mother and father, like I said, came from England and had a good home. We had a good family of one sister, seven years older than me, and ate meals together. We talked openly about things. That was a gift they gave me that just goes on giving, having what I guess I would call a loving, normal family. I realized so many people don’t have that. So, can we do anything to give back to other people? I’m not sure what I’m trying to say there, but I think.
You’re trying to say that parents, people, and teachers should be mindful of their words because words are powerful. If you believe in the Bible, God created the world with the word. They’re like spells. You can influence, especially a small mind, when you’re saying the wrong things. Now, I have a four-and-a-half-year-old who is amazing. I make a lot of mistakes, unlike everybody. My intention is always to empower him. Somebody told him not to say he’s smart because he will live up to those expectations.
“When he makes mistakes, he will feel bad and never want to make mistakes.” I don’t agree with that. I always tell him, “You’re smart, you’re capable, you can do it.” When he falls asleep, I will be there and whisper in his ear, “I love you. You’re powerful, you’re strong, you’re safe.”
When you do that, you pour love into his life, and it returns. That’s just a wonderful thing. You said he’s four.
He’s four and a half. Gosh, time flies like that.
It does. Let me tell you something cool. We talked about being young in 1957, my fourth birthday in England. We went to my aunt’s house for Christmas, like a birthday lunch. We had never had a birthday celebration. So we went on the Manchester, double-decker English bus—my mom, dad, sister and me. It was a rainy afternoon, which I loved. I’m never happier than when it’s pouring rain. We had lunch, and they gave us a box of black magic chocolates, an expensive luxury. We didn’t have any money. And they gave me some toy soldiers made of cardboard. It was so exciting. We had a cake. And then someone I don’t know gave me a teddy bear. It might have been my aunt. I sat with this bear on my lap, eating chocolates and drinking tea.
Recognize that every day above ground is a plus.
Four-year-old boy. I was the happiest boy in the world. And I told this bear I loved him, and his name was Teddy. And then we went home. We had to go home. The party ended. We’re back on the bus, and it’s raining on the upper deck. Then we rush off the bus with umbrellas, sweaters, coats, and stuff and get 100 feet down the road. I realized I left my bear on the bus. And I can remember being terrified and grief-stricken. My mom and dad were great. My dad phoned the Manchester bus company. They tried to track him down. They never found my bear; I buried that pain for 30 years.
My wife knew my whole story. She knows everything about me. Her birthday is Christmas day, so Christmas is a big deal in this house. We opened all her presents, and then she said, “I think there’s another one there.” Behind this piece of furniture is a parcel. It says, “To Mike from Santa Claus,” I opened it, and it was a teddy bear. I hugged that bear, and that four-year-old little boy in that ego state became executive. I was wailing, and I processed all that. All that sadness and grief came out, and my life changed from that moment. I became a softer person. I became a kinder person. I said this at Hypnothoughts Live when I gave the keynote. I’m a 71-year-old one-year-old man, and that bear sleeps in my bed with me every night.
This is Teddy Ryan. When I go to bed at night, I hug that bear, and all my problems and fears disappear. That four-year-old little boy becomes executive again, and he feels safe, loved and comforted. We have our inner children, and we need to look after them and reconnect with them. I tell my students to find toys they had when they were kids.
Find your favorite book, song, or comic book and read it again. Then, let that inner child wake up because there’s so much creativity and joy in there.
Wow. Unbelievable. That was an amazing story. Thank you for sharing it and for joining Teddy with us. Before we say goodbye for now, and I would love you to come back on the show, what are your top tips for living a stellar life? Where can people find you?
It’s Mike Mandel Hypnosis. We’re all over the web. We’re all over YouTube. We’ve got hundreds and hundreds of videos out there. We give tons of stuff away because we think it’s a good idea.
Remember to use things and love people, not use people and love things.
Top things: Recognize that every day above ground is a plus. There’s always something wonderful behind the worst problems. As you said earlier, those can turn into some of our greatest strengths if we process them properly. Another thing is not letting the sun go down on our anger. Shlomo said that if it wasn’t him, it should have been the whole idea that by 11 PM, I stop arguing. If I’m arguing with anyone, I will not take an argument to bed with me. Pray that you sleep well. Don’t take stuff to bed. The third one will be to remember to use things and love people, not use people and love things. Hold on to the world with a light grip and be free to let it go.
I feel inspired.
My mom was 53 when she died of cancer. My dad was 57. My wife’s parents died in their 50s, so we don’t have any longevity. I’m 71, and I’m freaking loving life, and I’m still here. I always said I wanted to be young and wild rather than middle-aged and rich and then old and annoy people by pretending to be deaf. That’s the way I’m working on.
That’s beautiful. Thank you for everything you shared.
My pleasure.
Thank you for being such a beautiful light in the world.
Oh, back at you, young lady. Shalom to you.
I honor and appreciate you. Thank you.
I honor and appreciate you, too. We will meet again.
We will meet again, hopefully in person one day.
I hope so.
Listeners remember that every day is a blessing. Do not take an argument to bed with you. Use things, love people, and have a stellar life. This is Orion until next time.
Your Checklist of Actions to Take
{✓}Practice hypnosis techniques and have an open mindset so you can become an excellent hypnotic subject over time.
{✓}Use embedded commands and subtle language patterns to influence people positively. This bypasses the conscious mind’s resistance and seeds positive ideas into the unconscious.
{✓}Create an emotion first, then give a suggestion when people are more suggestible. Strong emotions like fear, love, or excitement open up the critical faculty, making the unconscious mind more receptive to suggestions and change.
{✓}Label people, especially children, with positive and empowering words. Praise effort, talents and virtues, not just looks.
{✓}Find and reconnect with toys, books, or songs from your childhood to tap into your inner creativity and joy.
{✓}Adopt a personal rule to resolve disagreements before bedtime so you can relax into sleep with a clear mind.
Use things, but love people. Don’t prioritize material possessions over human connections. Don’t let the pursuit of objects distract you from cherishing your human bonds.
{✓}Hold onto the world with a light grip, and be free to let go of attachments. Don’t cling tightly to desires, expectations or material attachments, as this leads to suffering.
{✓}Recognize that there’s always something wonderful behind your worst problems. With the right mindset and perspective, what seems like a curse can transform into an immense blessing.
{✓}Learn hypnosis and gain confidence fast with Mike Mandel Hypnosis. Visit his website to explore his products, live events, and resources.
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About Mike Mandel
Mike Mandel is a police trainer, forensic hypnotist, stage performer, NLP trainer, and hypnosis trainer. He has been practicing hypnosis since 1965 and professionally since 1975. He created methods used by therapists worldwide and offers training in Las Vegas and Toronto as well as online.
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