Denise Billen-Mejia 0:07
Welcome to Two hypnotherapists talking with me, Denise Billen-Mejia in Delaware, USA.
Martin Furber 0:13
And me Martin Furber in Preston UK.
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:16
This weekly podcast is for anyone and everyone who would like to know more about fascinating subject of hypnosis, and the benefits it offers.
Martin Furber 0:24
I'm a clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist,
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:27
I'm a retired medical doctor turned consulting hypnotist.
Martin Furber 0:31
We are two hypnotherapists talking.
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:34
So let's get on with the episode. Hey, Martin. Hey, are you getting over COVID?
Martin Furber 0:41
Alright, just about Yeah, nasty, nasty experience. I'm glad I had me jobs!
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:46
Yeah, I had mine too, but I also got it. At least I believe I got it, I had all the symptoms, the first test was negative, and I was just too sick to go get another one. That was, mine showed up just after Thanksgiving. And it was a good four weeks. And what we were going to talk about is really, the stress of having your plans just go sideways, being polite about it. When you've got so many things to get done. And as I did, because, you know, I've got this we've got Cheryl's concert, by the time people, conference, by the time people are listening to this that's happened. And the launch of my new website, and I've got all the little twiddly bits of the new website. And just how, frankly, during the four weeks that I was ill, I really didn't care. But, but it really throws you for a loop, especially when you're a solopreneur, as so many hypnotists are.
Martin Furber 1:42
Yeah, of course. What do you think, though, is part of that thing of our self preservation mode, you know, our sort of primitive brain will always step into protect us and even when we are perhaps physically laid-up, but we think no, we can get on with this mentally, ie some work on the computer, this that and the other, then we just can't concentrate? Not perhaps because we're feeling that ill. But it just won't allows us to concentrate, it won't allow us to do things.
Denise Billen-Mejia 2:11
Yeah, I don't know if that's just because you're ill that your brain isn't working. But it certainly would be good to allow your body and mind to heal when things happen. And even you know, if you've broken a leg and you, you can still function mentally, and you could be on the computer with your leg propped up. But you certainly need more sleep, you need more rest, regardless of the fact that your brain is working. So I think we need to honour that. Yeah, sometimes you need to push through, sometimes it's it's really important to push through
Martin Furber 2:44
Yeah, it's getting that balance though, isn't it? You've got you've got to push through. And then on the other hand, it's like sort of, as you've always said, any medical condition is exacerbated by stress, so even a broken leg will take longer to heal if you're body spending all its energy using your brain rather than...
Denise Billen-Mejia 3:00
Correct.
Martin Furber 3:01
Really. Yeah, that's in my very simple terms, but...
Denise Billen-Mejia 3:07
Actually, we may have ran out of this topic. It felt like it was going to be a really long topic, but I think we can segue to other stresses in life. Do you see... I have acquired a new patient, a client, I should say, Who's has a condition I won't say what it is. But a medical condition, a known medical condition, that's one of those symptoms that's really irritating, isn't going to do anything bad to her. It's never gonna go away. But it gets worse when she's anxious and stressed.
Martin Furber 3:36
Okay,
Denise Billen-Mejia 3:37
And so she's come to me after several years, she thankfully has already been hypnotised by somebody several years ago, more than a decade ago, who is no longer with us. And now she's looking for a new person.
Martin Furber 3:48
So she knows the process works.
Denise Billen-Mejia 3:50
She knows the process. And she trusts the process. Yes, yes. And delightfully, she asked her doctor, how her doctor felt about it. And her doctor said absolutely.
Martin Furber 4:01
Yeah, that's great. And that brings us right back to the beginning of this conversation when you were talking about your new website, because although this podcast is not an advert for either of our websites, in particular, I know you've been working really, really hard on it, and you were put back for four weeks when you had Covid. But I do think it would be a good idea, because we don't know who all our listeners are. I know some of them are hypnotherapists. And I also know some of them are members of the public with an interest in hypnotherapy. But we don't know if anybody else is in the medical profession or something like that. If any of our other listeners are in the medical profession, and your new website is, in part, aimed up doctors, isn't it and other people in the medical profession?
Denise Billen-Mejia 4:42
Yes, there's a section. There's a section aimed at doctors.
Martin Furber 4:45
Who want to introduce hypnosis into their practice as an addition to their tool belt. So obviously...
Denise Billen-Mejia 4:53
And not necessarily with them as the hypnotist because you got a seven minute session for somebody to deal with whatever the immediate medical issue is, you don't Yeah. I can't imagine, and the ringing phones, and yes, you can be taught to work on it. But the reality for most physicians, those rapid inductions that can help to take control of the situation, in an emergency situation, the ones they're going to be really useful for them. I would never discourage anybody from learning hypnosis, please. It's a great thing, but if you're only going to use it yourself, but um, but really to encourage them to reach out and know what to look for in a hypnotist. It's come up over and over again that you know, a weekend training is not enough.
Martin Furber 5:35
No, absolutely
Denise Billen-Mejia 5:36
Today is this client whose doctor said go for it,which is I asked her how did you find me? Assuming it was going to be Google My Business or something? She's local, but further away than usual. She's still in my state, but she's further south than usual. The usual people that aren't referred. And she said, I did my research. And I knew I wanted somebody certified. I felt Yeah, I don't see. I don't see many people who say they aren't. So I think it might have been who I was certified with. Yeah, I didn't really get into it too far. But I think that's, it is terribly important. And we need to be sure, as even if you took a weekend course, you're probably not going to be that confident. And if you're not that confident, it's really hard to get it to work, if you don't believe in it. You can always do more training with a deeper look at what hypnosis does and answer that.
Martin Furber 6:31
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm careful with my wording here because I know in the states you can't call yourself a Hypnotherapist. But yeah, I'm speaking from the British perspective. Being able to hypnotise somebody is completely different from performing hypnotherapy on somebody. You know, as I say, you say, these weekend courses that you see popping up here and everywhere, yes, they might be able to teach you how to hypnotise somebody, but how to, you know, give the full therapeutic benefits of hypnosis to somebody is a completely different thing. You know, it's a much more...
Denise Billen-Mejia 7:06
it also, it doesn't, doesn't usually if you've got to weekend course, you're gonna have to take months and months of practice sessions and see patients.
Martin Furber 7:13
Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, just...
Denise Billen-Mejia 7:18
And we digress again, and why not?
Martin Furber 7:20
That subject ended quickly, I'm just going back to it now, because yeah, when your plans suddenly get thrown up in the air, we were talking about, yes, maybe our primitive mind is trying to protect us and stopping us from using all our blood sugars or whatever it is, to use our brain. Of course, I'm putting everything in layman's terms, which may be useful for some of our listeners. But, you know, it throws everything out, doesn't it? When something happens like that, it then becomes more and more difficult - do you find, to get restarted?
Denise Billen-Mejia 7:53
Yes, it took me, I was probably better by Christmas. And then of course, the Christmas kerfuffle we are not a Christian household. So we weren't that involved with it, with just some friends.
Martin Furber 8:08
You still have to join in the queues at the shops.
Denise Billen-Mejia 8:10
Exactly. Yeah, the traffic and all the rest of it. It just really, that slows you down. It was hard to get...New year really was a marking point. I think I might have decided 2023 was a restart. And I would get this website actually done. I'm a terrible person for deadlines. I need an absolute or I don't get any further.
Martin Furber 8:35
Yeah, do you find you work better with a deadline though? Under that little bit of pressure? That little bit of adrenaline that comes with it? Yeah, I do. I do. Even though you know, we always say it's best not to leave things to the last minute. This that and the other and procrastination, etc. But I do find when I have a definite deadline. You're not leaving it to the very last minute, but knowing I have that deadline, I find I work better to it.
Denise Billen-Mejia 9:01
Yeah, I find that if I do something ahead of time. Unless somebody says, oh, good. I'll take that now, and it goes away from me, I'm constantly picking at it, until the deadline and then I go into a little flurry of activity right before it's supposed to be in. So, most of my articles and copy for websites and things get written and written and written. So I'm sick of the subject by the time I actually get to it and I put it away for a bit and then right before it absolutely has to be in...I write something completely different.
Martin Furber 9:34
Okay, so just going back to the question, though, when you've been say, thrown off kilter by a period of illness or something, how do you get motivated again, do you have any anything that you paticularly do?
Denise Billen-Mejia 9:49
Aside from the external you better do this because otherwise your business is gonna go kapoohy? Well, yeah. Yeah, I mean, really the deadline I have no, I could push the deadline for this. forever, but I'm about to pay for my hosting again for my current website. So it's yeah, I can pay for that for another year. And then I put this one off for another year. And I really need to have a website that I can make changes to the new course isn't on my old one. I don't know how to make WordPress work, and I don't want to learn. There's just so many bits of tech, and they keep bringing out new bits of tech. So I'm gonna use, I'm gonna use this deadline to motivate me and I think that's what happened. Yeah, I think that's it's not consciously doing that. I think that's what happens.
Martin Furber 10:40
So subconsciously, but of course, that's what we deal with all the time. As hypnotherapists.
Denise Billen-Mejia 10:45
Yes.
Martin Furber 10:46
So yeah, you've got that subconscious thing in the back of your brain telling you...Yeah, you get it done, get it done!
Denise Billen-Mejia 10:52
Have you added any new things to the last? Do you have any new stuff coming up? Are you perfecting the stuff you did last year? Because you had the new office affiliation? That's really a 2023 thing, even though it started in 2022?
Martin Furber 11:08
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, that's it. I'm working alongside the consultant psychiatrists and the other therapists from other disciplines, at The Therapy Company in Preston, I've got that on my plate. And then also, I am starting a new position with a charity teaching Mental Health First Aid to would be Mental Health First Aiders, because over here, we've got that programme in the workplace, that most big workplaces will have a First Aider, I think there's a legal requirement for it over a certain number of employees. And now workplaces are having a mental health first aid, as well as a you know, physical health First Aider. And I'll be I'll be teaching that course. It's like a level two equivalent to English O level, from back in the day.
Denise Billen-Mejia 11:54
And for Americans, that means it's about tenth, it's probably closer to 12th grade, actually, because yeah, we have more specialisations, but it's it's a high school level, education, not a university level education.
Martin Furber 12:06
Yeah. So I'm gonna be teaching....
Denise Billen-Mejia 12:07
Do you think? Do you think that those kinds of outside validations also motivate you? A little pat, on your back though, the psychiatrist said, Yes, Martin, come and work with me.
Martin Furber 12:20
Yeah, of course. Yeah. It's nice to be validated, isn't it? But it's also nice to get the recognition for hypnotherapy as well from that, because people who are medically trained. I mean, psychiatrists refer people for other kinds of talking therapies. CBT most commonly, I imagine. But it's, it's nice to be acknowledged by the psychiatric profession that you know, they value hypnotherapy as an additional complementary therapy as a useful tool. Yes, it's good for the benefit of all hypnotherapy, isn't it?
Denise Billen-Mejia 12:58
Absolutely. Which is the main, the main purpose of this new version of my website is to try and get more people to hear about it.
Martin Furber 13:06
Your new website is the same web address. So isn't it? AAHypnosis?
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:10
Yeah, it's actually there'll be two, but that will get you there, and the one that's on there, will get you there to heal and be radiant.
Martin Furber 13:17
Yeah. Okay.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:18
Thank you. Thank you for the plug.
Martin Furber 13:20
Oh, no problem it is in the show notes below as well.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:24
So what what do you do to unwind? Oh, we do. I know set Sunday is sacrosanct not for religious purposes, but that's the one day that you, if Nick is off, you don't have to, you make sure you have time off.
Martin Furber 13:41
Okay to unwind or to relax. There's a difference. I'll give you an example. Yeah, definitely. I'll give you an example. Today I was run ragged. I was here there and everywhere. Clients here, articles there, run absolutely ragged. And I was at that point where you might think you're just going to sit down with a cuppa, just relax and do nothing. And I thought no, I'm gonna go clean the bathroom. And boy oh boy did I feel better for that. There used to be an advert you know, years ago, on television, and I cannot remember what it was for. It used to say, such a such a body forgot, forgot ironing and remembered such a thing, and so they were showing this person doing their ironing, but they weren't thinking about their ironing throughout. I was out of it for holiday company. So the idea was to encourage you to do your housework, but allow your mind to drift off to foreign climes. And to then book a holiday.
Denise Billen-Mejia 14:42
Sell, vacations.
Martin Furber 14:43
Yeah, virtual vacations. Yeah, but I often find that if I really want to switch my mind off I can do something that requires no thought processes, like cleaning the bath out or something or cleaning the bathroom floor.
Denise Billen-Mejia 14:55
The perfect use of what is essentially a hypnotic step because you're.. you're just you're using your imagination, and you're probably making all sorts of lovely pathways in your brain.
Martin Furber 15:05
Yeah. So that's how I can actually make myself unwind. I wouldn't say that's how I relax. If I want to relax, weather permitting, I will put the sunlounger outside and go and lie down on that that's relaxing to me, or listen to a hypnotherapy recording.
Denise Billen-Mejia 15:22
Okay,
Martin Furber 15:22
Yeah, that is relaxing, but to actually unwind, I tend to do something such as going for a walk. If I'm if I'm really, really wound up, and I feel the urge to unwind, going for a really brisk walk, I find really unwinds me.
Denise Billen-Mejia 15:37
Yes, actually, I find it very helpful if it's raining, because I'm just sort of angry walk and get rid of all those kind of thoughts. But actually, what I was thinking more is the fact that you have set time in your week, when you allow yourself to do other things, to do things which are for recreational purposes and not for an, and that's built in. You don't have to be all wound up on Saturday to have Sunday off.
Martin Furber 16:03
Oh, no, no, no, Sunday is unwinding day. That's the day me and my partner do something. We shut the rest of the world out basically. It may be something as simple as just having a nice drive to the coast and a really good long walk. We may... I mean, we don't do anything flashy, we're not the type to go to restaurants and that kind of thing. But, you know, we may go and buy takeaway sandwich in a box of mango and sit down on a bench and watch the sea coming in and out for an hour eating. Yeah, just something like that. Or any number of things garden centres, a vintage car rally, absolutely anything at all.
Denise Billen-Mejia 16:45
Do you find theatre movies? Like when I say theatre? I mean live theatre. But do you find those things are relaxing?
Martin Furber 16:51
I like...
Denise Billen-Mejia 16:52
Or will help you to feel regenerated somewhat.
Martin Furber 16:55
Yeah, I like the movies. Nick doesn't it's an assault on his senses. You know, when you go into...
Denise Billen-Mejia 17:00
Interesting!
Martin Furber 17:00
The movie theatre, it's there on the great big screen in front of you. Plus the sounds, plus other people behind, talking and throwing their popcorn in the air.
Denise Billen-Mejia 17:09
Yeah. But would he enjoy movie watched at home?
Martin Furber 17:12
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. There have been occasions when something's come on television, and then he said to me, this would be far better seeing it on the big screen - Avatar springs to mind as one thing to get that full experience on the big screen. But then, for him, it's weighing up one way or the other. You know, which, which is better? Sort of in the comfort of your own home or seeing it on a big screen, but with all those other sort of downside and distractions. Oh, yeah. All those other distractions. So yeah, theatre, I can't remember the last time I went, I really cannot remember.
Denise Billen-Mejia 17:55
I went to a concert about a year ago, I didn't do very much the last couple of years because of Covid.
Martin Furber 18:00
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just prior to Covid we started going to concerts. We went to three in a 12 month period. Kim Wilde, Spice Girls and Cher. Yeah. Oh, yeah. All pre-Covid. I could fill a podcast talking about the chair concert. She was fabulous. She did say she did say her 'next' farewell tour.
Denise Billen-Mejia 18:29
Yes, she does have rather a lot of them!
Martin Furber 18:34
I'm sorry, I beg your pardon. We have been to a concert since Covid. We went to Kim Wilde. Which was just a few months ago, about October time.
Denise Billen-Mejia 18:45
I mean, you and I met during the epidemic. We didn't know each other before then.
Martin Furber 18:47
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. things to be thankful for with Covid.
Denise Billen-Mejia 18:48
There you go! So, spinning back to hypnosis. Yeah. What aspects of your relaxation, do you think could take advantage of that state? Obviously, you're not not formally hypnotising yourself or getting anybody else to do it. But do you think that, that ability to use the creative side of your imagination is helpful?
Martin Furber 19:12
Yeah, the best thing I learned and anybody who's watching or listening to this can do it themselves too, is I like to do the 7-7-7 breathing. In for seven, hold for seven, out for seven, or any number you choose. Basically, breathe in, hold and breathe out for equal lengths of time.
Denise Billen-Mejia 19:30
In equal portions.
Martin Furber 19:31
Yeah, equal portions. And in doing that, after maybe doing 20 breaths of that you can really take yourself down to a nice place of relaxation. And then just visualise what you want to visualise, as a positive future rehearsal, positive future visualisation, of a situation, some upcoming events, something like that. And the whole process can take about 15 minutes but it can really, really clear you in the daytime, and it can really sort of take you out of yourself. And then you can bring yourself back around nice and slowly in your own time and feel refreshed. As opposed to, if you go for a lie down and put your head on the pillow and have a 15 minute sleep, and then you wake up feeling groggy for the next two hours, right? Yeah,
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:18
Yeah, you gotta give yourself a an hour or so. Yeah, a siesta.
Martin Furber 20:23
Yeah, well, siestas are fatal for me, if I have a siesta, I wake up and I'm like a bear with a sore head. I am not a nice person if I have an afternoon sleep.
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:32
You do not like two mornings in a day?
Martin Furber 20:34
No!
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:34
So since I think this is a segue, and of course, you can cut it out if you don't. I know you just wrote an article about meditation or mindfulness. How do you think those compare to the hypnotic state?
Martin Furber 20:52
Okay, well,
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:53
So I think of it. Sorry to jump in. But I think that hypnosis is sort of necessary to clear out the clutter. So that you can, you can meditate but of course, there are a lot of people that don't intentionally use hypnosis, but obviously gonna go through that, that mind, state, okay.
Martin Furber 21:12
OK, but self hypnosis and meditation have more similarities than differences. But if we're talking about meditation, and hypnosis, as in with a hypnotist or hypnotherapist, then that's where the two differ. In terms of, we were talking about mindfulness, mindfulness tends to be concentrated on the here and now and isn't a guided thing. It's something you do yourself, whereas hypnosis, hypnotherapy is, is meditation with a purpose, you're being guided, you're being taken on a journey. Those, to me are the main differences.
Denise Billen-Mejia 21:54
Yeah, although I do that, because I do guided meditation, more of a guided meditation where I'm doing group work, I wouldn't try to hypnotise a bunch of people at the same time. So I tend to use tapes and let them listen to an audio between chat. Coaching, sort of with guided meditation. And now that, that all of my information is in one place, some of those people will realise that it's actually hypnosis. Not to think about the marketing aspects of it, because some people get scared off when they hear hypnosis. They think it's too 'Woo-Woo'. Or it's just a trick.
Martin Furber 22:31
Yeah. But if you call it something...
Denise Billen-Mejia 22:35
This will hopefully help educate the public.
Martin Furber 22:39
If you call it positive visualisation, guided visualisation, then that sounds acceptable to people who fear the word hypnosis.
Denise Billen-Mejia 22:50
Yeah, but again, if you want hypnosis to be accepted more, as I do in the medical community, then we're gonna have to name it. Otherwise, we've got 15 different hypnotists all practising 15 different things. They're calling different things because it's better for marketing. And it's, it's just confusing, but it doesn't really matter what you call hypnosis. It's, it is what it is.
Martin Furber 23:14
Yeah, but it is different things to different people as well isn't it? As some people remember everything that was said to them, practically, you know, verbatim, but other people may remember the beginning and may remember the end, but they don't remember the middle bit. Here's something our listeners and viewers might find interesting. Do you find with a lot of clients, they lose all perception of time?
Denise Billen-Mejia 23:40
Yeah. Most of, in fact, that's something that the gentleman that I got great enjoyment from last year, I'm not going to name him, but he was wonderful. Wonderfully, enthusiastic, wonderful client absolutely followed everything I suggested. Everything I told him, we need to do, he did. He was wonderful. And he said that the first time he came to me, on the second occasion, he said, and I left the room, I thought, well, that was short. And then I looked at the clock. And it was, oh, it's an hour. Yeah. Have you had the same thing with with your clients?
Martin Furber 24:19
I've had a similar experience recently where somebody said, Well, I wasn't out I wasn't hypnotised. And I said, Oh, and how long do you think he lasted? He said, 10 minutes. I said, Well, if you look up there, you'll see it was 35 minutes. It just totally blew his mind. And you're like, Well, what happened?
Denise Billen-Mejia 24:36
I mean, we know this because we know that when we daydream
Martin Furber 24:39
Exactly!
Denise Billen-Mejia 24:41
Exhaustive amounts of time, you could have had, you could imagine entire an entire life cycle and it'll be five minutes. And you can, you know, take take a short nap or in your, you know, sort of lucid dreaming, and go on a vacation to Maui or wherever And when you look at the clock, you realise you'd been on Maui for an hour hour.
Martin Furber 25:04
Yeah. I mean, do you ever do this sort of like sitting at your desk? Do you ever go into a daydream? Sometimes?
Denise Billen-Mejia 25:11
Oh, constantly!
Martin Furber 25:15
Seriously, do you ever go into a daydream? And you don't...You realise suddenly half an hour has passed. So where did that go? Yeah, right. Yeah, it is not just me then.
Denise Billen-Mejia 25:23
I wonder actually, if you think about people talk about the rabbit hole of social media. Just click, click, click. I wonder how much of that is actually in a sort of semi-hypnotised state because you, you're just, you're clicking, I bet you could say to anybody, and what did you read three posts ago? Hmm. I don't think people were taking it in they're just looking at the stuff. A lot of people, not everybody, obviously.
Martin Furber 25:49
Yeah, I mean...
Denise Billen-Mejia 25:50
People have no idea they'd been an hour looking at Facebook, when they were supposed to be writing that article.
Martin Furber 25:56
And of course in that kind of state, people are quite suggestible to the idea on times as well. Because you can say to somebody, and I wonder if you'll remember what I said seven and a half minutes ago, in 12 minutes time.
Denise Billen-Mejia 26:11
I was thinking you were going to say then, and I wonder why Facebook ads are so popular. Because if you're in a hypnotic state, you're going to accept advertising too. You know, if your critical mind is on a break right now.
Martin Furber 26:27
Oh, talking about ads and what have you...Did you ever, there was a load of stuff we were taught years and years ago about subliminal advertising, you know, when everything was 30 frames per second, and they drop it on one or two frames in and they...
Denise Billen-Mejia 26:41
Girls in, or females in ice cubes and Vodka bottles and things? Yeah, yeah. I think if we came, don't know if it was illegal, but it was certainly frowned on after a short period of time.
Martin Furber 26:54
Yeah, it's illegal in this country, I know that. I know that we were told it was illegal, but he wasn't in the states. I wondered if it was now, or if it is still used now or....
Denise Billen-Mejia 27:02
I don't, it's not officially used. Who knows what people really get up to?
Martin Furber 27:05
Yeah,
Denise Billen-Mejia 27:06
Because it's subliminal! Yeah, you can slow things down. I'm sure Google will catch them if it was wrong.
Martin Furber 27:12
You know, I just wondered if, with talking of Facebook ads, I wondered if, as you scroll...
Denise Billen-Mejia 27:16
Yeah, I haven't. I haven't seen anything to suggest that people are using it. But I wouldn't say never.
Martin Furber 27:22
Right. So I'm just trying to think back now to the start of this conversation, because as usual viewers and listeners, we've gone all over the place, and we hope you found it interesting. We always do. But we were talking about when things throw us off kilter. And when things, something unexpected happens. What about other things unexpected? Other than illnesses though.
Denise Billen-Mejia 27:47
Internet going out, because there's been a power surge or something? Or your favourite site going down? And you've been speaking of somebody whose whole business exists because of this little machine in front of them? That is extremely stressful, and I can't fix it. It makes me go crazy.
Martin Furber 28:07
Yeah. I mean, this is a this is how some people react so differently to different things though. Say, for example, you're on the motorway, you've got a full busy day ahead of you planned with two or three meetings with clients. And you get a puncture. And there's nothing you can do. It's just one of those things. But you know, you're going to be delayed by three hours by the time rescue have been out and changed your wheel over or whatever. Now, some people would react as in make a couple of phone calls and just say, well, you know, that's the situation. That's how it is. I can't do anything about it. Other people would go into a full meltdown.
Denise Billen-Mejia 28:44
Yeah, I am somewhere between the two. It depends on what I am trying to get to. That is, well for a start, right now I'm a great deal calmer about it. But flight delays used to drive me crazy because I was a locum tenens doctor, so I had to get to places to go to work. And there was nobody else that could be me if I didn't get there. So I was responding to the fact that I was letting people down even though I had absolutely no control over what the plane was doing or what the weather was doing. I did have, fairly early in my career, I was flying into Maine, I was in Boston, and we had been so delayed that the flight was... so many people were supposed to be on the flight, the flight got cancelled because they had been delayed. And I spoke to customer service. I don't think I was too awful. But I was certainly quite forceful about how, what the heck am I supposed to do now apart from sit around in Boston for overnight, needing to be at work at 7am? And they, I think they were just impressed by the fact that I was an emergency room doctor. Well, he got me a limousine and had me driven a seven hour drive. Two men driving me in limo, with me taking a bit of a nap in the back, and then they got to drive me all the way back. It was quite amazing.
Martin Furber 30:05
Did you do a 'Lady Penelope' in the back?
Denise Billen-Mejia 30:08
Yes, sort of thing. I think probably the alternative would have been a free flight, which wouldn't have helped me. I mean, that was, I suspect that's what they did for the others, but there were a lot of passengers but it wasn't any fault of the airline it was just that's the weather, the reality.
Martin Furber 30:24
That's great though - a chauffeured limo!
Denise Billen-Mejia 30:26
It was lovely. Yeah, I've never been so posh in my life.
Martin Furber 30:31
That thing though about perception of time just getting back to that. If you were delayed for three hours in an airport, trapped in, especially once your air-side, and you can't get back out, and you're delayed for three hours there. That three hours will go one heck of a lot longer than if you were just sat on a beach for three hours when you have nothing to do equally.
Denise Billen-Mejia 30:51
I have found a book is very helpful during that time. Also in Boston different flight but I flew through, I do not like Boston Airport. But I got one of the greatest books I've ever read was an alternative history which I used to love, I don't read a lot of it now, but I used to love it. And they had one of those book exchange things, these like little free library where you... The traveller's finished that book they put it. They do it likewise in youth hostels, that sort of thing as well, but they do it at the airport and so the first time you buy you put $2 in the bin and then you give one - take one and I found this book and I read the whole thing. Six hours going up - six hours coming back. Well just the flight coming back, thankfully, but I had a six hour layover. I got I really almost got annoyed when they called the flight.
Martin Furber 31:42
Again though, you get engrossed in a book, did you find it's that hypnotic effect? Time will go very, very quickly. Talking of those book exchange things. Have you seen what's become, I wouldn't say commonplace in England, but we've got one in Darwen anyway. You know, the old red phone boxes over here?
Denise Billen-Mejia 31:59
Are they using them for books?
Martin Furber 32:00
Yes, they're using them for books. They are filling them with books. And again, leave one take one.
Denise Billen-Mejia 32:05
Yep, that's a great idea. We have here what's called a little free library. People can participate. I think they pay an amount to use the name. And they put up these little, like giant birdhouses with a little door and people keep you know, 20-30 books in there. And people just exchange, come by, and drop them off and take them it's Yeah. Then you'll suddenly see a whole range because people are clearly moving and downsizing. The same author.
Martin Furber 32:31
Yeah. Yeah, brilliant. Yeah. As I ssay, one started down the road from us and it was like yeah, what a great idea. What a great idea, and it's a use for the redundant red phone boxes. Well, we're at the end of antoher episode!
Denise Billen-Mejia 32:48
That's very good. I was gonna say that that's also a lovely way to keep the phone boxes. Yeah, they are. I mean, there's such there's such a it's almost like a Bobby with the right sort of hat on. Isn't it a symbol of Britain?
Martin Furber 32:59
Yeah, we're at the end of another episode.
Denise Billen-Mejia 33:10
You see, we can talk about anything people!
Martin Furber 33:12
We can. We can, anything and everything as we always say it's just a conversation between two friends and colleagues and it goes where it goes. But next episode, we do have a guest on with us don't we? Les Roberts, talking about children hypnosis and hypnotherapy.
Martin Furber 33:28
So it'll be a lot more cogent, and definitely worth listening to. So please join us again next week.
Martin Furber 33:38
Join us next week, and thanks for joining us on this one.
Denise Billen-Mejia 33:48
We hope you've enjoyed listening. Please remember this podcast is designed to give you an insight into therapeutic hypnosis, and is for educational purposes only. Remember, consult with your own healthcare professional if you think something you've heard may apply to you or a loved one. If
Martin Furber 34:05
If you found this episode useful, you can apply for free continuing professional development or CME credits. Using the link provided in the show notes. Feel free to contact either of us through the links in the show notes. Join us again next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
