A Personal Note from Orion

It’s so easy to get trapped in your same old habits – even the ones that are self destructing and do not serve you. Everything from mindlessly munching on junk food to overspending, bad habits tend to stick around and often seem impossible to break. 

They seem that way, because our minds are conditioned to think that. But guess what? You can re-program yourself to break free from these habits and reprogram yourself. Start believing that you can achieve your goals instead of being hindered by a deep rooted fear that seems to block your way forward. 

My guest today, Rene Brent, is a certified clinical hypnotherapist and a bestselling author. She is passionate about using the power of the deep inner mind to release mental block and help women reach their personal and professional goals. Tune in to start reprogramming your own mind for success!

About Today’s Show

Welcome to Stellar Life Podcast. I’m so happy that you’re here listening, and I appreciate you, and you know what I really appreciate? And something that just made me feel really happy, and warm, and fuzzy from the inside? I got a new review for Stellar Life Podcast, it’s a 5-star review by Kat from the UK. Thank you so much and it says, “This is such an uplifting and inspiring thing to listen to. I feel like I’m learning so much about growing and positivity from listening to Orion, especially her voice, it’s so beautiful and soothing.” Thank you. “The episode Anxiety to Nirvana was mind blowing for me and I feel like I’ve had so many breakthroughs listening to this. Thank you.” Thank you Kat, I really appreciate you. Thank you for giving me that review because doing a podcast is hard. It’s not as easy. There’s a lot that goes into the production, a lot like financially, it’s expensive, and it’s time consuming, and it’s more of a labor of love. In order for me to feel really inspired to move forward, I need you, I need you to review the podcast. I love it when you send me emails, I love it when you contact me. by the way, if you want to contact me about coaching, and you like some of the things that I say in the podcast and you think, “Wow, I resonate with Orion and I think that she can help me.” then take action now, go to orionsmethod.com and contact me please, no obligation, we’re going to have a quick chat and see if we are a good fit for each other, and if I can help you breakthrough whatever you need to, I’ll be happy to. Me, myself, I have coaches as well and I would never be where I am today without my coaches, without people that guided me in the right direction, without my mentors. If you need somebody to be there for you and you think that I am the right fit for you, go to orionsmethod.com and contact me, and I would love to talk to you because you’re awesome. If you’re listening to this, you are awesome. My guest today, super special, she does something that I love actually playing with, with my clients, and help them a lot, I call it guided meditation which is basically based in hypnosis, and new linguistic programming, and helping people break their own patterns and we program their mind for success. My guest is Rene Brent. She’s a certified clinical hypnotherapist and number one international best seller author of the book How Big Is Your But. International speaker and on the faculty of the Institute of Interpersonal Hypnotherapy. Rene used to be a nurse in the ER and she helps her clients use the power of the deep inner mind to release blocks and reach personal and professional goals. She is passionate about teaching people how to practice happiness and how to become a happiness hunter. I really loved talking to her, I really felt like she was super smart, and super experienced, and she knew what she was talking about, and on top of that, she was really down to earth and a very sweet person. I personally really enjoyed this interview and I’m sure that you will too. Now, without further ado, on to the show. Hello Rene and welcome to Stellar Life Podcast. Welcome.

Thank you, I’m so happy to be here.

Thank you so much. Why don’t we start by you just sharing a little bit about yourself from your perspective?

It’s interesting, people’s personal perspective is always different than someone who can be right next to them on the entire journey. My perspective is such an interesting way to put that, my perspective is that, I grew up in Illinois and I was from a divorced mom who was an alcoholic, and I spent a lot of my years in the closet just telling myself, “It’s okay, it’s not you, it’s them.” I always understood that I need to get past the chaos, until I was much older, I didn’t understand where that strength came from, or that insight, but it helped me understand that I just had to move through this, somehow, this was my journey. I found my way into nursing. I became a nurse in 1989, and I love nursing. I did ICU, I did ER. When I was learning how to be a nurse, it was like I was relearning it. It was so natural for me, and I was a fantastic nurse, trauma nurse, and I got married along the way. I have three beautiful children, I understood that a lot of the pain that I had had from my childhood, I had masked with other things, I put this Band-Aid of success, and community involvement, and nursing, and parenting, and travel, and success in those ways, and I got divorced with 20-year marriage and all those Band-Aids kind of went away. I was left feeling very raw, and open, and confused about who I was, what I wanted to do, and along the way, I found hypnotherapy, and it helped me understand that my pain that I was feeling was so overwhelming not only because it was from a divorce of a 20-year marriage in the circumstances, but it was also because it unmasked a lot of the pain that I was holding from my childhood. When I healed those wounds of unwanted, unlovable, not good enough, when I healed those wounds from that little girl within, then the divorce came much easier. Now that I look back all of that with wisdom, I know everything that I went through in my life, all the challenges got me to do exactly what I’m doing right now, is being a hypnotherapist to help people understand how to go within, and find that practice of happiness within. I look back with euphemism and gratitude honestly, because if not for all of those things, I wouldn’t be where I’m sitting today, in a beautiful, loving, open relationship, beautiful career, grown children that are so amazing. I really stand in joy, at I don’t mean to sound like a Facebook meme, but I really just sit everyday in such gratitude for where I’m at.

It’s interesting, people’s personal perspective is always different than someone who can be right next to them on the entire journey. Share on X

That’s beautiful. What was your experience with hypnotherapy the first time you had that experience?

It’s very interesting, the first time I’d had it, and I have forgotten about it for many years was I had two children, my daughters were 18.5 months apart, very easy for me to get pregnant with them, and I knew that there was a third child waiting for me, but I wasn’t able to get pregnant for about a 1.5 years. I was struggling, and I was upset, and I was confused about my body, and my ex husband sent me away to a spot in Miami, I live in Orlando, and there was a hypnotherapist there. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew my husband was paying for it, so let’s go for it. I had a couple of sessions. The first session, this hypnotherapist, I wish I knew his name, I would love to connect with him, and tell him how he’s helped me so much in my life and my journey. He helped me understand that the mind will never become something you disagree with, and at that moment and that time, I didn’t think I would be as good a mom to my third child as I was to my two children, my first two daughters. We cleared that, we did some imaging, I did two sessions with him, and I got pregnant the next month with my son. He’s now 21, so I understood the power of hypnotherapy and I wanted to help people the way he helped me.

Wow. What does it mean? The mind will never become something you disagree with.

If I believe that I wasn’t going to be a good mom, I wasn’t going to allow myself to be a mom to a third child. The mind and the body are so connected. A lot of research coming out proving that neuroplasticity, epigenetics, a lot of research about how trauma affects our body and our mind. If you believe that you are not good enough to become a success, then you will sabotage yourself every day. The mind will not let you become something that you think that you are not. If you believe that you’re worthless, then that’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to keep creating the same scenarios around that.

That’s why some people create an alter ego, because it’s easy easier to be identified with something that is beyond them and connect with that. It’s almost like a bridge between the person they are and the person they want to be and they have to go round because it’s so hard to actually believe that they are strong, powerful, good enough, etcetera. They create this alter ego identity and a lot of people do that, including speakers, including pop stars, rock stars, NFL players. For example, Beyonce, she’s got Sasha Fierce—and she taps into that personality to get on stage because maybe in her own life, she doesn’t feel like she can handle this amount of energy just being on stage, being there.

Absolutely, I call that, “I’m living on the outside.” When your identity comes from the outside, a job, a scenario, how many clients have you got a speaking gig, how your book is doing, how your career is doing, what car you have in the driveway, what home you have. If you live on the outside, and that could even be doing acts of kindness for people. If you’re always taking care of everyone on the outside, that is another alter ego. I am the giver, because if you’re on the outside, Orion, guess where you’re not? Which is on the inside, and this is where the pain, and the history, and the emotion, and the authenticity, that’s where that lives. Many people do not want to go inside there. I often tell people as hypnotherapist, I’m a professional garage door opener, it’s like we put everything that we don’t want to look at into the garage, and some people forget how to go inside. I help them open the garage, and they go in, and in hypnotherapy, the person goes in and I just hold the flashlight, and you decide what you want to keep, what you want to throw away, what you want to fix, and what you want to reorganize, and when you do that, then you can just pull the car and you can go into your garage anytime you want. Healing, happiness, success, ease of mind and body, health, does not come on the outside when you’re living on the outside, it really comes from the inside. That’s what it meant for my divorce. Everything was on the outside for me, and it went away, and then I had to look within, and that’s where the true joy really showed up for me.

I love the whole idea of hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming, breaking patterns and all that, why do you think it works so well?

I wrote the book How Big Is Your But because I really wanted to help people understand we’re not taught how to do this, we’re not taught how to go within, and we need to learn to go within, that’s where the supercomputer is, your subconscious mind holds 95% of everything you’ve experienced or experiencing. It’s important to go in and tap into that amazing computer, that amazing strength from within, and we’re not taught how to do it, we run with it on the outside. NLP, hypnotherapy, it teaches us to go within, it teaches this technique. It connects to memories. For neuro-linguistic program basically what that does is, we store information through sight, through sound, we’re always imprinting especially younger than 10. When we’re younger than 10, everything that’s said or done to us is encoded as truth because our conscious and subconscious mind is wide open. We’re meant to imprint, so we’re imprinting and printing, it leaves us with certain beliefs about ourselves. That’s why, if you want to make changes, if you want to disconnect from the old thoughts and patterns, you must go within to where they’re stored, which is the subconscious mind, that’s why they work.

How deep does somebody need to go? Because if you just go with mainstream psychology, it looks like people are going on sessions, endless sessions for years and years on end, nothing changes. They keep analyzing the past, keep opening the same wound. Yes, maybe there is a little bit of progress but according to research that I saw, and in my own experience with my own clients and creating breakthroughs too for my clients, the whole idea of hypnosis and breaking patterns, it works really fast. How do how do you think it works? How does it work?

I’m so glad you asked that question because it’s really important to understand this. The conscious mind is 5%, it’s really about 5%, there some that should say 5% to 10%, I really believe it’s 5% just from my work and my experience. It could be very strong, we analyze everything, the conscious mind judges and analyzes, it sorts through things, “No, you can’t be upset about that, that happened 30 years ago, that happened 10 years ago, get over it already.” This is the conscious mind, and that is a beta wave length. I’ve been a nurse for almost 30 years, and I’ve been an RN for almost 30 years, so I really approach this from a science perspective. When you understand what’s actually happening with your body, then you will understand the logic of this. When you’re in a beta wavelength or when you’re stressed during a high beta wavelength, that’s the conscious mind. No new information is coming, you are surviving, you’re just existing, and I have to tell you most people do that. They get up every day, put their feet on the floor and they insert the same thing over and over groundhog’s day, and that is because they’re in a beta wavelength of the conscious mind. Therapists often done that. I’ve done therapy, and my psychologist said, “Thank you Rene for bringing it all up, wrapping it up in a bow and hand it to me, but change doesn’t happen that way.” You must get into that subconscious mind. This is the boss, this is what’s holding your information. If you’re not in there doing the work there, you’re in the passenger seat, you’re not in the driver’s seat. Hypnosis meditation takes you into what’s called an alpha brainwave. This is where change happens, this is where the subconscious mind open. Now you’ve entered the supercomputer. Beta is a little bit deeper, and delta it’s just sleep which is below that. Every night, I ask people, I love doing this when I speak, I ask people, “Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in hypnosis.” Maybe a quarter of the crowd will raise their hand, and I go and say, “Guess what? You’ve all been in hypnosis and you do it every night when you go to sleep and every morning when you wake up. You go through the alpha and beta brainwave into delta, the sleep, and now you’re in a programmable state.” That’s where change happens. This is when you’re in the computer. It’s very important, Dr. Joe Dispenza wrote a book called Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself, which states––which I love it, because therapy happens again and again, and if you’re lucky, if you have a good therapist, it’ll drop down in the subconscious mind, and you’ll make real changes. In hypnosis, NLP, these things where your pattern interrupt, where you brain hack, that’s when you’re in the subconscious mind, and it all goes right there, and that’s why I love doing the work. I get a front row seat everyday to people really going within, trusting themselves, and making real change.

Can you share a story from a client, something that surprised even you.

This is very interesting, we’re talking about adults here, but I want to tell you a story recently about a 9-year-old who had talked about imprinting. She, for six months kept getting stung by bees. They were going up her shirt, down her dress, and she was getting stung, and it hurt her. Well guess what, the mind will say, “Nope, pain, not good, we have to protect from this,” so guess what she developed, a fear and a phobia, I do a lot of fear, and phobia, and anxiety work, because there’s usually a first time imprinting of this danger, because the mind goes on hyper alert. She wouldn’t go outside, nine years old, moving into 10 years old, would not go outside. Her mom had to take her from school, and home school her. Her mom had to quit her career, and home school her. They tried everything. They tried therapy, they tried this, they tried medicine, they tried acupuncture, nothing was working. She came in, in hypnosis children are always open, they’re so amazing to work with, and we reversed some NLP work, and did some hypnosis of confidence, and we started reversing it, and she left there about an hour and a half later, and she went out the front door, normally she wouldn’t that. She did great. That helped her for about three weeks, she was less afraid, she would get out of the car and walk into a building without as much drama, but she still wouldn’t go outside and play. She came in again. Most of my clients need three to five session, then we did some more work, some more confident work, some more hypnotherapy, talk to the part of her, the subconscious part of her that was afraid, and we did some reversal work. She did amazing and then better, I saw her for three sessions and her mom just sent me a video last week, it almost made me cry. She was on a field trip with friends. She does home schooling, and she was smiling, and she was waving to me, and thanking me on this video, and it was so beautiful because this kid basically has taken back her life, and has learned this lesson and done some work. This is the power of hypnotherapy. I have had people who’ve been afraid of frogs, or flying for years, 20 years, and it just amps up. If you do go within and figure out the cause, release, do some subconscious programming, then it’ll start shifting and people can gain their life back.

That’s beautiful. For people who don’t know what it is, what is a pattern interrupt?

This is very interesting, I use the science of something called neuroplasticity.

Okay, what is neuroplasticity?

Neuroplasticity is the way that our neurons connect how we fire them together. We almost lay down a path. I just helped a woman who was afraid of flying, and then the Southwest accident happened recently here and then that was it. She was supposed to take a romantic getaway to London with her husband and she was going to cancel. She came in, but she’s been like that for 12 years, something happened 12 years ago. Every time she thinks about being afraid, your neurons hold on to that and they almost lay down a brick path. Every time she goes down that fear model of that, it just gets stronger, the path gets longer, it’s almost like a path in the woods that people keep walking in. It’s just the path of least resistance, you see it and the and the mind goes there. Neuroplasticity talks about the way that that programs, how you fire it, you wire it. Pattern interrupt, there’s another path of calm, of ease, trusting yourself to handle whatever comes your way. That’s another path, but it’s not as well worn. Pattern interrupt is when you feel yourself going down this path, you interrupt it, you brain hack it, you do some technique that I teach my clients and you go to another path. Research shows literally, you can change your brain, you can change the way you wire the neurons in your brain in three to four weeks, but we’re not taught how to do it, and we don’t know the techniques to be able to do it. That’s what I love teaching my clients, it’s ways to pattern interrupt. One of them really is when you feel something called the felt sense. When you get stressed or when you get worried, or something is a no for you, where do you feel that in your body? Somewhere between your chin usually in your waist. Where do you feel it?

Research shows literally, you can change your brain, you can change the way you wire the neurons in your brain in three to four weeks. Share on X

Between my breasts.

Your sternum.

My sternum, yes.

Does it feel tight, does it feel heavy usually?

It tightens up.

This is something called the felt sense. Feeling the sensation of an emotion, energy in motion because, every thought that we have sends a chemical reaction and we feel that in our body. Your body is your emotional GPS, it’s the subconscious mind’s way to communicate with you. That feeling in your sternum right there is your subconscious mind saying, “Hey Orion, something is happening. You need to put some attention here.” We don’t know how to manage that. Most of us push it down and ignore it. Then the subconscious starts to whisper and it gets louder, and louder, then it starts screaming at us with some kind of intensity, or illness something like this. I teach people, when you feel that felt sense in your chest, some people it’s in their stomach, they feel tightness, they feel nausea, when you start to pay attention to that, then it can release, and you can pattern interrupt. When you start going down that pathway, you take a big breath in, I teach people how to breathe all the time because when we’re in fear, or we’re in worry, we suppress our breath and try to suppress our emotion through not breathing. Big breathes in and out. Don’t do this while you’re driving. If you feel that feeling in your chest, or you feel it in your stomach, all you do is put your hand there, take a breath in, and you are more than welcome to teach this to your clients, Orion, as they just note the sensation, not where it comes from, why it’s there, what’s going on in their outside life, I want people to just pay attention to the sensation, the felt sense. Now, as they do that, this sounds really corny but it’s so powerful, just send that sensation love and acceptance. You’re not accepting anything except that feeling that you’re feeling right there. It’s pretty amazing because what happens is, it will release it, it will let go, because the subconscious mind only wants you to pay attention. If you’re not paying attention, it gets louder and louder. If you feel that tension in your chest, in your stomach, wherever you feel it, shoulders, put your hand where it is, take a big breath in, exhale, and then send that sensation love and acceptance, if it moves, follow it, and do that again, and you will release, in that way, you’re pattern interrupting.

That’s interesting. I did a program in Seattle, it’s called 40 years of Zen, and it’s a super high end program mostly for executives, and it was, I think only five of us in this really amazing house that looks like Dr. X House for the Gifted, and we took brain supplements all day long. We had a neurofeedback sessions where we were connected, we were sitting on this very comfortable antigravity sofas, and we were connected to neurofeedback where they measured our brainwaves, and while we were doing that and listening to the neurofeedback which is a sound that rewards the brain every time you’re in alpha brainwaves. We did alpha brain waves training and then went into, I think it was gamma, just to train your mind to get into alpha brainwaves, and while I was doing that, I was doing a lot of processes about my past. I had a very difficult childhood, and processing stuff, and remembering in that alpha state, remembering stuff that I forgot for years, or I didn’t even know it happened, and processing them. It was very helpful, it was almost like self hypnosis and then doing all kinds of processes to change that story that I was telling myself as a child and as an adult. Even remembering parts of my childhood in a different way. That was just a great exercise. For example, I had this kid, when I was young, we were very poor. I bought this unicorn toothbrush as a birthday gift for one of the girls in my class and I remember, sitting around the table with many little girls, and they were opening the presents, and I was super excited about giving her that toothbrush because I couldn’t afford it, for me it was a big deal, and then she opened the gift, and she was like, “What is that? A toothbrush?” She was laughing at me. Since then, the belief that I adopted for myself is that my gifts are never good enough. I’m a big giver, and I always give people nice stuff, gift is my love language, this is how I show my love and I never and just buy one gift, it always needs to be three or four. I always forget the gifts that I gave people, they remind me. The way I changed it in my mind while I was on that chair in alpha state, I saw myself holding a big stuffed unicorn with a real big diamond necklace on it, and I arrived to the birthday party like that, and she saw it, and she’s like, “Oh my god, what a beautiful gift.” I just looked at her, and I was like, “I’m not giving it to you.” I turned around. That was  I think one of the ways somebody who’s listening can process things, going back, remembering a story, and then just making up a whole different story while you’re in this calm meditative state, because your brain cannot see the difference isn’t it?

Right, the mind doesn’t know the difference between real or imagined. If I was working with you, I would take you to that story for sure, and I want to suggest something to you. We take it personally and it becomes and I am story. Was it I am not a good gift giver or I am not good enough? Gifts can be the way that we make up for the first personal belief. It usually turns into and I am. If I ask you this question, if you close your eyes just for a minute, take a breath in, and I want you to think about that story of that little girl who showed up so proud of her toothbrush, and you could see the face of that little girl and she’s laughing at you, finish the sentence, that left me believing that I am…

Not good enough.

It’s an I am not good enough. All of the gifts in the world are not going to change that belief of I am not good enough. We carry those beliefs from those events in our childhood in our subconscious mind, that’s why you have to go into the alpha brainwaves, so you can get that key to that supercomputer so you can start changing the scenario, the belief. Everything that is done to you now filters through I am not good enough, and it distorts who we are. Someone who believes, let’s say, they’ve had an experience from their childhood, you can be imprinted as an adult if it’s something really strong. A lot of our imprints come from under the age of 10. If somebody believe they were ugly and someone said your eyes are so beautiful, it distorts through the ugly filter, through the belief system, and they may hear, they’re only saying that because the rest of me is hideous. It changes, yes, that’s why the most important question you can ask someone when they’re reacting to something and you don’t understand why, I ask them, “What did you hear me say?” Or if you’re reacting to something someone said, and it hurts you so deeply, tell them, “This is what I heard you say,” because I can guarantee you that most of the time, you’re not hearing the intention of what the person said. We’re hearing the distortion in our own mind. You had this distortion, I am not good enough based on that little girl, and now to make up for that and make sure that never happens again, because we will protect that in all costs, you became an incredible gift giver. It’s so beautiful that you went to this place and this beautiful home, it sounds like experience…

It wasn’t easy, and I feel the need to go back there and do more work, it’s almost like an onion. I went so deep and I’m like, “Oh.”

When you get to that little child, people can do that, they can close their eyes after they’re done. All hypnosis is self hypnosis, I just help people guide through a certain protocol because the intention is not just to gain awareness of the experience because that’s just tourism, what you want to do is really help that child with understanding, with love, forgiveness, acceptance, and if that person, if you know that that little girl, maybe after we’re done with this conversation, you can go into an alpha brainwave, just take some breaths, it’s not hard to get into, and talk to that little girl, and let her know because she was left with I am not good enough. Make sure that you tell her you are good enough, you’re perfect the way you are. Your gift was amazing, and help her understand that with love and forgiveness, and now you’ve changed the echo because everything we’re hearing as adults that’s stopping us, the most common thing people tell me is, I feel stuck, unhappy, and I don’t know why. We don’t know why because we bury it so far, but I guarantee you, it’s because you’re on this tethered to these events, to these false beliefs, and you’re hearing an echo, and it’s distorting your ability to move forward.

Do you feel like you solved all your echoes? You eliminated all of them?

Well no, I don’t think we ever do. I think that I have done a lot of my own personal work, and I am so thankful for that, I really am, it’s amazing, and it helps me a lot, but whenever I have a button that gets pushed, I see it as an opportunity, “Didn’t know that was there.” I think that we put this beautiful little covering over our events, our bubble, but I think sometimes things can push it, and if they pushes it too deep, then you have a sore spot. I think it’s an opportunity, I really do, that I need a little bit more work on that. I don’t mind it when I get upset about something. I have techniques, I pattern interrupt, I meditate daily so I can gain awareness and clear things as they come through. If people aren’t meditating, if they aren’t going into the alpha brainwave, I want to encourage them to do that. You can do that guided or not, guided, there are a couple of apps that I really like which is Headspace, it is a free app which has guided, and then Insight Timer is a little bit more freestyle where you have more time to just be in that beautiful altered brainwave. Either check one of those two out, I think that would be great. if you want to start going into that computer, touching the subconscious mind, and the mind won’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go, it’s not like you’re going to drop into your most traumatic memories, it doesn’t happen that way. It takes some time, you have to trust yourself. I don’t push people into memories they don’t want to get into, the mind won’t do it. It’ll take you right out of the state of hypnosis, so just trust yourself and begin to experience that, and real awareness, and wisdom, and what I call practicing happy really shows up.

You know for somebody who’s an alpha type like me, “I’m going to go to my most traumatic memory because I want to go all out” And I recommend not doing it. I start with something small, working on minor annoyances and then go deeper and deeper. Some people like me would go to their most traumatic memory and be like, “Okay this is what needs to be solved, and we’re going to go there, and we’re going to go deep,” and then if it’s too much too fast, it can be very difficult.

It can be. I get people who call me everyday who say, “I know there’s something there and I think I’m ready to go for it.” Then you have a professional help you with this really incredible protocol, or someone who can help guide you. You don’t want anyone to lead you, you want someone to follow you through it because you don’t want anyone to insert their own experience or their own opinions about it. Hypnotherapy should never tell you how to feel or think, they should only help you guide through your own experiences, and your experience of the world, and create what you want your happiness. You should never allow someone to tell you how to think or feel.

Amen for that.

But sometimes, people are ready to go, and again, the mind won’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go. You’re not going to do that anyway and you’re the only one that can get yourself into that alpha brainwave. All hypnosis is self hypnosis.

How can one do self hypnosis on their own? What can be a good exercise? You gave us the exercise of feeling––let me see if I got it correctly, something happens in the body, you locate this sensation where it is, and you focus on that instead of avoiding it, and you send it love, and you feel it until it dissipates, is that correct?

Absolutely. It’s emotion that’s causing the sensation, so when you allow the sensation, you’re actually allowing the emotion. When you’re trying to push down emotion and put it behind you, it’s growing, and it’s growing, and it’s getting louder. You think you’ve turned it off, but you turned down the volume, but it’s still running in the background for sure in the subconscious mind.

It’s not going to be expressed verbally or as an emotion that can be expressed in the body as a disease.

For sure. As a nurse and a clinical hypnotherapist, I do a lot of body work, chronic pain, I’m an addiction specialist so I help people release discomfort. Many of them start with some kind of pain which I call discomfort, I would encourage everyone to release the word pain, or anxiety, or depression, release those words, and call it what it is, you’re either afraid, you’re either angry, you’re those things, but you have to call the emotion what it is. I would release labels, absolutely they’re not allowed in my office. Anger is just a prickly box, and what’s inside there is usually something we’re trying to avoid feeling, which is hurt or sadness. Just look at it and call it what it is. Depression is usually anger, hurt, sadness turned inwards, call it what it is, and anxiety is fear. It’s fear of emotions, it’s fear of feeling, it’s fear of looking stupid, it is fear based. Anxiety is a symptom of fear, call it what it is. Say, “I’m afraid right now.” It will help your subconscious mind begin to release it, and get you to what’s causing it, and stopping the echo.

Release the word pain, or anxiety, or depression, release those words, and call it what it is, you’re either afraid, you’re either angry, you’re those things, but you have to call the emotion what it is. Share on X

It seems like people so often say, “I’m so stressed.” Stress is an okay word to say, you can say I’m stressed and still look cool, but it looks like more and more people are so freaking stressed, that means they’re so afraid. Are we as a society much more fear based than in the past?

Yes, we definitely are. I have six or seven-year-olds who come into my office experiencing anxiety and stress. Take a look at what’s causing the stress. I also like to get rid of the word stress, call it what it is, “I am afraid, I am sad,” because stress is really a made up word, it’s the reaction of something that’s coming up in your life and how you’re responding to it. Stress isn’t an emotion. Look at what the emotion is behind the word stress and it will help your subconscious mind grab a hold of it and release it, because you can’t let it go unless you are aware. You asked about a technique, like I said, every night when you go to sleep, you’re going into hypnosis programmable state, and every morning when you wake up. One tip I really like to give clients is, every morning, before you open your eyes, when your arms are heavy, when you’re relaxed, you’re in a hypnotic state, that’s what hypnosis feels like. It doesn’t put you to sleep, it wakes you up to your truth. When you’re moving from that morning, I set my alarm 10 minutes before, and snooze, and then I program my day. I want to see how my day is going. So if you have a speech, if you want to see two new clients that day, whatever it is, before you even open your eyes, see it happening, see the positive emotion, excitement, happiness, joy, contentment, whatever it is, see that happening. If you’re trying to release, wait, see yourself bypassing any sugar moving towards healthy, really enjoying that fruit or a vegetable, whatever it is, see it happening because as you do, you’re preprogramming it, the mind doesn’t know the difference between real or imagined. If you’ve already seen it, your mind is saying, “Oh yeah, this is when we bypass this and we go get a really beautiful salad,” or, “This is when our boss comes up to us and makes a thing, and we hear it completely different today.” That when you program, so that’s a beautiful way to start doing your own self hypnosis, is in the morning before you even open your eyes.

That’s beautiful. I want to talk a little bit about your book. How can we kick our big but? What is our big but?

All right, the but is the block which is, I want to write this book, but I want to become an international bestseller book, but I want to find a new career, but I want to release weight, this are the blocks that we have. Something the clients can do, and I wrote this because when I started my practice, wise, beautiful, incredible people would be in my office and they would say, “I really want to do this Rene but…” and I understood that was a subconscious block. Buts live on the inside, so you’ve got to go on the inside which is you got to go in that altered brainwaves, and figure it out. A good way to start awareness is write, when you get home and people are listening, not driving, again, I always have to warn people because a lot of people listen to podcasts on their car. Write down the goals that you want, or some dreams you had, bucket list things, and just write them down. Allow your mind to just let it flow, and then I want you to read the first one and write the word but, then read it again. “I want to get a new career, but I am not smart enough.” Sometimes that can show up, I am not capable. That is a false belief, it’s blocking you. Unless you’re aware of what’s blocking you, what the but is, then you can’t change it. start that, write what you want, put the B-U-T behind it and then hear what your mind tells you, because the subconscious mind’s always trying to talk to you and if you listen, you can gain wisdom, and you can make real changes in your life.

That’s a really clever exercise, I love it.

This is why I wrote the book How Big Is Your But. Each chapter has a really practical simple technique to be able to start doing this work. I want people to start understanding it’s not that difficult for them to gain the awareness to make changes. Each chapter has a beautiful exercise for people to start gaining awareness that are meant for them. There’s blank pages for them to go again, and again, and gain awareness, and see how things have changed for them.

What were your big buts?

I was afraid of living big. I was always a giver. I was taking care of other people. I was afraid of going within and finding that internal success and playing big. I always took care of everyone else and not myself. I became very comfortable understanding that, you can’t pour from an empty cup. I started taking care of myself, understood it was okay for me to find the success that I’ve—I wrote this international bestselling book, that’s been a process for me, and also financial abundance, knowing that I was worthy of having and receiving that, and that was something I struggle with even today a little bit. I love the work that I do. Charging when I need to charge, charging to speak, those type of thing. I work on that still today.

What created the breakthroughs for you? What are some stepping stones or aha moments?

It’s very interesting, a lot of the work that I’ve done in hypnotherapy and breath work is really going within and finding that little girl, and taking her out of the echo, taking her out of the closet so to speak, she was hiding there for a long time. It was safer not to be seen. When I understood that it was safer, that it wasn’t me the adult who was afraid to play big, to be expansive, to find the success, it was the little girl who wasn’t safe to come out of the closet and be seen, and be in the middle of all that. When I did my inner work, I helped her understand that she was amazing, and good enough, and safe. Anyone who’s had fear in their life, I would suggest you really incorporate and tell your inner child that she or he is safe, that really helps, I do it. Even if I’m working on something and feeling a little uncomfortable in a day and I don’t know what it is, I’ll close my eyes, go within and tell myself I’m safe. It really helps. When I got her out of the echo, it really changed for me. Now, it’s my passion. I’m writing my second book called What Has Worry Done For You Lately, stop worrying about worrying, and I know people are laughing when they hear that, and they’re like, “Let me know when you get that book wrote.” I’m finishing that up because it’s such a problem with my clients of worry. It steals from you, worry is such a thief. Just allow it to stop taking from you. I stopped worrying as well, I was a worrier.

Then you went from a worrier to a warrior.

Yes, I am. I am a princess warrior for sure.

I want to talk to you about increasing confidence. I guess it makes sense to me that you can do it by talking to your inner child as well. What are some other tips to increasing confidence and to allow yourself to be seen?

It’s very interesting, you have to do your inner work. I live in Florida, and in the summers in Florida, if anyone’s been here, every afternoon, you’re going to get dark sky that comes through and there’s going to be storms. Just turn your head and there’s a beautiful sky. I really teach people, you can look at the clouds all day long and talk about how it’s going to affect your day, but it may not be coming, you’re waiting for three or four hours, and you’re really missing out on so much. Just turn your head, look at the sunshine, and enjoy your day, and trust that you can handle, that you’ll know what to do when the storm comes in. I teach people first off for confidence is, choose which part of the sky you’re looking at. I guarantee you, there is something positive in what’s happening. You get on the scale and you put on four pounds after a cruise, but guess what, you didn’t put on 10. You look at the brighter sky, did you have a good time? Did you really enjoy yourself? Whatever it is, you leave a networking meeting, and you made 10 contacts, but you remember the two people who you felt like you didn’t say the right thing, my goodness, you’re looking at the dark part of the sky. Look at all the people that you connected with. Change the scenario in your mind, be very careful about how you’re talking to yourself. I also have a chapter in the book called on Cracking The Ego Code, where I teach people how to argue for their truth, and release the inner critic part which is the inner critic. Now, release it. If you have someone who’s beating yourself up internally, man, it’s hard to get past that. Pay attention to what part of the sky yours is and start arguing for your truth. Release the inner critic that comes from within.

What was it? Arguing for your ego?

For your truth. Breaking The Ego Code is the chapter of the book where I have some exercises there about how to start arguing for that, when people ask yourself when they hear something asked, is it true? Ask yourself, is that true, and they’ll say, “Yeah it’s true,” is it absolutely true? And they go, “No,” because there are no absolutes. When you start arguing for your truth, is it true or is it absolutely true, then you’ll understand that it’s really not true, it’s something that you create in your own mind. Start paying attention to that, bring the awareness and argue for your truth, and change what part of the sky you’re looking at.

Yeah, it sounds like the five questions from Byron Katie.

Yeah, it’s very similar.

What would life be like if you didn’t have this thought in your mind, yeah, those really powerful questions.

Yeah. Before you answer any of those, you take a big breath and you close your eyes, you just drop in, and it’s not that hard to go into alpha brainwave, that’s when you open up the gate to the subconscious mind. Try to do these exercises not so much consciously, but really drop into a more relaxed state. It’s going to be amazing, the answers that you get when you do that.

Yeah, because you don’t want to get the answers from your conscious mind, you want to get the answers from the 95% of the subconscious mind.

Yes.

What are your three top tips to living a stellar life?

Gain awareness. A way to gain awareness is spending sometime in that alpha or theta brainwave and doing self hypnosis, or doing guided meditation, whatever it is, but get out of your own way, and spend some time in that subconscious state. The second one I would say would be, take care of your body which is not, “Oh, eat raw vegan,” it’s, Come on people, let’s drink some more water, you can do that.” Most people live in dehydrated state, you cannot make changes if your body is fighting and stressed. You’re going to feel stressed emotionally if you’re stressed physically. Research shows that one of the easiest way to do that is to increase your water, just increase your fluids, that’s it. Just make a plan of doing that. There are incredible pictures of people who’ve just change only an amount of water and in 30 days, the changes physically, their skin, and everything, but also emotionally, and sleep is part of that. I have a whole chapter on sleep. If your listeners go to practicehappynow.com, they can download a free sleep meditation and a higher self meditation, those are incredible. Hypnosis takes you right into a natural state of sleep. You must sleep, and you must drink a lot of fluids, you don’t have to go off sugar, but definitely decrease the amount of sugar that you have, which is really a poison. that would be spend more time in an altered brainwave, take care of your physical body, and the third one is, this sounds really contrite, I have a whole chapter, don’t forget to have fun. We all have an inner child. If you learn to have fun, your inner child will settle down and let you be an adult. Make a pact with the inner child. I will plan fun, I plan something every six to eight weeks, Orion, just so I know that I have something that makes my inner child like, “Yeah, we have some fun plan ahead.” If you do that, then you can make a pact, listen, we have some fun plan, we’re going to do this, but right now, I need you to let me be an adult and let me be that stellar self. I’m going to make an adult decision here and I promise you that we’re going to have some fun.

When was the last time you had real fun?

I just got off a cruise yesterday. I plan something, it was my birthday, I turned 55. This year it’s a beautiful number, it’s about rebirth, and it’s about restarting, and I’m taking this opportunity to do Project 55, which I take 55 days back to back and I’m doing different challenges for myself this year.

I want to hear about that. We should have you talking about that.

About Project 55 absolutely. Yes, we can plan that, and I can tell you the differences, the changes I made this year.

I just rode camels near the pyramids in Giza two days ago.

When you get giddy, and you’re excited, all that beautiful chemistry counteracts any stress, any negativity that you’re experiencing, it can. We must in all of it, find some kind of laughter, or find, and satisfy your ego state of inner child, and she or he will settle down and let you be an adult.

People who want to work with you, how can they find you?

Certainly, all my scheduling is at renebrenthypnosis.com. I do free 15-minute consultation so anyone can go to renebrenthypnosis.com, I’m assuming that you’re going to put a link there. Go there and schedule a 15-minute conversation if you have a question about hypnosis, or how you can begin your own journey, I love hearing from readers, and clients, and listeners. Feel free to reach out to me, and also don’t forget to go to practicehappynow.com and download, you can do a couple chapters of the book How Big Is Your But or you can do the meditations.

Thank you so much, this was a pleasure.

So fun, thank you.

✓ Try hypnotherapy to help deal with your traumas and phobias.

✓ Discover the power of your mind through NLP. Your thoughts have the power to make things happen. If you’re full of negativity within, your reality will reflect it.

✓ Pay attention to what your body tells you. The mind and the body are interconnected and what happens to one always affects the other.  

✓ Practice overcoming your negative thoughts and controlling your emotions. Learn new ways to train your mind through workshops or therapy.

✓ Declutter your life by choosing what needs to be thrown away, what needs to be fixed and what needs to stay. Get rid of baggage that does nothing but weigh you down.

✓ Focus on the true important things in life which are non-materialistic. Only then will you find true happiness.

✓ Regularly meditate and disconnect from the world. It’s good to find some peace and quiet in the midst of a busy life.

✓ Develop a habit of waking up full of positivity and start your mornings with gratitude. Let abundance manifest into your life.

✓ Practice deep breathing. If something bad happens, pause and take deep breaths until you feel more relaxed and clear your thoughts.  

✓ Grab a copy of Rene Brent’s book, How Big is Your But, to dicover how to change your life through hypnotherapy.

Links and Resources:

About Rene Brent

Rene Brent RN-CCHT is a warm, compassionate and skilled Certified Clinical, Transpersonal and Interpersonal Hypnotherapist. She has also been a RN for over 25 years. She has worked in ICU, Trauma/ER and Recovery Room.