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 and consulting hypnotist.
Martin Furber 0:31
We are two hypnotherapist talking.
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:34
So let's get on with the episode.
Martin Furber 0:38
Yep, let's get on with the show. Indeed. Denise, introduce our guest, please.
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:43
Hi, this is Sharon. I can't pronounce your last name because I'm horrible with last names. Sharon is also British from London, but also lives in the US most of the time, but currently we're recording from, are you in London now?
Sharon Waxkirsh 0:57
I'm in London. My London office. I've got I've got I've got a lot of baggage around me, lots of suitcases.
Denise Billen-Mejia 1:08
And Sharon and I met very briefly at the Elman conference a bit at the beginning of the year and have a load of things in common, and she very kindly agreed to come and talk, and now she knows Martin too. So Sharon first pronounce your last name because it is a bit of an issue.
Sharon Waxkirsh 1:23
It's exactly as it spelt, it sounds is the way it is spelt. So it's Wax Kirsh, that's it.
Denise Billen-Mejia 1:29
Thanks, Waxkirsh, do you know what was the origin? I haven't come across that name before.
Sharon Waxkirsh 1:31
It's potentially German, I think Waxenkirsch, but somebody recently from a heritage something, just wrote to me and said, We found something somebody that we believe is your closest ancestors, becasue we don't have any. There's only another set of Waxkirshes in the world, and they're in Jamaica. And so they're Jamaican background, they're from my father's side, some cousin married into Jamaican families. And that's the other Waxkirsh. So, so that's it. That's it if you if you see another Waxkirsh, they're my family.
Denise Billen-Mejia 2:09
Okay, I'll also hide from you if I do.
Sharon Waxkirsh 2:12
If they don't know me, that means they've disowned me. And that's very sad.
Denise Billen-Mejia 2:15
So Sharon, tell us a little bit about your background, since neither of us actually know you terribly well. And probably very few people listening to this know you at all. How did you manage, Why did you come to America? And do you live here often? And how did you find hypnosis?
Sharon Waxkirsh 2:38
I always say, I reside in Indiana and I live in London.
Denise Billen-Mejia 2:42
Oh, that's fun. How many months of the year are you in each place?
Sharon Waxkirsh 2:46
Um, I'm more I would say I would say more in the US. But actually, we travel a lot. My husband and I, my husband is a professor at university there. So it means that we can sort of every semester, every break of the semester we're out. And so whether we're out of the US or out of our state is variable. This month, I've just come back from Italy. And I'm off to Copenhagen next week. And then I'll be in New York, and then I'll be back in Indiana.
Denise Billen-Mejia 3:18
Okay, so Sharon, tell us how did you find hypnosis?
Sharon Waxkirsh 3:21
How did I get into this? You know, it's a funny thing. I was actually an animator originally, that's what I trained in. So I I'm really good with art and the subconscious mind in that respect. So when I get artists that come to see me, we've got a lot in common. I actually have worked with a lot of filmmakers as well, as it's uncanny where your past is, yeah, you're presented with as a clinician, but I, I was actually looking for a new career. I just wanted to do something else. And I sort of wrote, I guess what we all know now, is automatic writing. And I just kind of scribbled a list of all the things I wanted to do in life. And that included being a chef in space. And being a potter. I couldn't cook by the way, but nevermind. I wanted to do all these great things. Maybe 3d animation, which I knew is now computerised. And that wasn't so exciting for me. And then I just wrote, you know, hypnotherapist on this list. And I just continued with my list and I thought, hang on a minute. So I thought well, had I been watching too much Derren Brown. I mean, it was, you know, it was when he was first on the scene as well. I mean, this is going on 20 years ago. And I thought, well, you know, why? Why this and I was really interested in self development. Anyway, and one of the things that I was very aware of when I used to do workshops of you know, self development workshops of any kind, I would go on them for a week and come out sort of elated feeling like oh, yeah, so you know, I've found myself. And then you know about two days afterwards of that week, you know, like, you know, eight days in nine days, and it's like, okay, what happened? What did I spend the money on? What was, what actually was not working or what didn't happen? So when I saw about, you know, my on my list, hypnotherapist I thought, hang on a minute, does this have something to do with that part of my life? So I went on a very brief, let's say, web crawl, because at the time, there wasn't that much out there, but loads of spinning. It was it was great. And I was like, oh, am I being hypnotised? I have no clue, you know, and I kept thinking, well, who trained the trainers. So I looked at this, for me, was my pyramid. And I came across a gentleman called Gil Boyne. And I decided to phone him up. He was in America. So I phoned up and he said, Yeah. Elderly gentleman in his 80s. He said, Well, do you know I'm 80-something years old? And why don't you work with my one of my students who knows my work better than I do? He's my protege. And I said, Oh, who's he? And he said, he's in London. So he guided me to Dr. John Butler. So some of the viewers may know John. And I was one, pretty much, one of his first students, whereas there was about six of us on his training, I'd say very small. And so it was pretty much like having one to one tuition. Well, it was one to one tuition. It was, you know, there was, as many of you know, when you work in the industry, and you're alongside lots of other students in these training groups. There's a very small percentage that actually do go out into the, into the big wide world and choose to do this as not only as a career at some point, but a full time career. And so I would say none of the students were that interested to take it as part of their career.
Denise Billen-Mejia 6:58
Do you think they actually, their intention was just, this is an interesting thing to learn?
Sharon Waxkirsh 7:03
Definitely. Absolutely. I mean, there were definitely people on that. As I say, there was about six of us. Yeah,
Denise Billen-Mejia 7:09
I just want to make sure people listening who who have learned a bit of hypnosis but aren't doing it full time. That's okay! We're happy with everybody learning hypnosis, not being full time, but we want to be, if you're gonna do it as a job, at least know what you're doing, really have training first
Sharon Waxkirsh 7:25
Really have training. But yeah, and it is true that, you know, the, the people that I I started with, they were fantastic. We all made a lot of effort. But in terms of them going on, you know, they were already people who are in careers, that's the thing. So there was a nurse, so she was in a career. It was totally appropriate for her to be doing this. There were other people doing various other things. So there was an osteopath and again, an acupuncturist. So again, these were careers that they used hypnosis as part and parcel of, of that profession, which makes sense, right. But to go into it as a full time person, that's something else, I guess, who had no other career other than animation, which didn't really go with it.
Sharon Waxkirsh 7:33
But you did, when you finished the course. You then hung a shingle and started working?
Sharon Waxkirsh 8:18
Yeah, I went straight to full time I decided, you know, for me, it was a question of I've spent my money on a training, and I'm going to just use it, that was it. It was, there was no question I want to make my money back, which I have done. I can't even say that, you know, I mean, it's been a lifetime, this is already a 20 year career. So I ended up you know, just doing hypnotherapy. And I think because I was with John Butler, he was a specialist as well in the medical arena. He was at the time doing something called Hypno-Surgery, Five-Live, which was a live filmed event on Channel Five in in Britain, at the time of a hernia operation, no anaesthetic. And if you manage to watch that you can see it on YouTube with a guy called Dale who wouldn't quit smoking, just so you know, he would do this, but he didn't want to quit smoking. He would come into our course. And John would be teaching us but of course, he would be getting influenced by what we were learning and stuff like that. So it was great for him. And John was doing, you know, it interested me this kind of surgical element. And then, not long after I finished I had a friend who was a surgeon, and he'd invited me to one of these parties, surgeon parties. And he said to me, Oh, don't tell anybody what you do. And I said, why is that? He says, Well, you just don't don't say well, you know, it's not the sort of thing you talk about. And I said, Well, you know what, I'm really proud of what I've just learned. If somebody asks me I will. interesting how people did at this party, they said, Sharon, what do you do? And I said, I'm a hypnotherapist, and there was a, did you see that hypnosis surgery Five-Live? And I said, yes, I did as it happens, that was my tutor. And they said to me, can you teach me? So I thought you know, I have been out of this five minutes. And so I contacted John and I said, Look, this will be completely unethical. And there's no way I could teach this. I had no background in it. I said, Could you teach these people, I've got a group of surgeons that are very interested. And he said, Well, you know, what Sharon, I found it very difficult to connect to that world at this point; and then you seem to have just walked into it. And he said, Well, why don't we set up together. And we created something called the Institute of hypnotherapy for medical and dental practice, The IHMDP, where we would teach surgeons anaethetists and dentists and the medical field in that realm. And of course, I was getting better and better trained by being alongside John all the time, and I was just getting more and more influenced and trained and trained and trained. I mean, it was really intensive training. And we would go around and give workshops and lectures. And I'll never forget, I was at the British dental trade association. And we were meant to be doing a live presentation of two clients, one patient that was wanting to do something with no anaesthetic, and the other one, which was a phobic who wanted to do a surgery, no anaesthetic. So I'm waiting for John, and I'm on the phone that morning. I'm John, John, are you coming? I can't, I'm stuck in traffic, I'm stuck in traffic, you just go ahead. And I'm like, Well, I've got to go ahead. It's our time. So I do the work. I'm hypnotising this patient, and at the same time talking to the audience, and I'm doing everything at the same time, it was quite nerve racking, sweating buckets. Anyway, that goes really well. And so it comes to lunch. And I'm John, John, where are you? You did the first one okay. I said, yeah, yeah. But are you coming at you? Because I'm still stuck in traffic and the guy's down the road? And I ended up doing the next one. And I have to say, What a brilliant mentor because it was after that, he said, well, you've done it now. And he said, and in fact, I had actually been doing a lot of dental work. Prior to this. You know, it wasn't just this was the only one but he said, take the dentists, he said, Why don't you just take all the dentists, and deal with them. And so when we did trainings, I would just do trainings for dentists. And that's how I became much more well known in the dental arena. But of course, the medics were still interested, and I was really interested in the medical field, but it is definitely a different kettle of fish. I mean, it's you know, it's, you know, there are different dynamics to these these industries, although they need the same processes.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:02
They're also it's a it's a definite niche. I mean, there is just this part of the anatomy you're dealing with, you need to know about the rest of it. But you're only dealing with the mouth. Whereas, a physician could be a lot of different things.
Sharon Waxkirsh 13:13
A lot of different things. Yeah.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:15
So do you work with medical issues? Or do you because I know
Sharon Waxkirsh 13:18
Yeah,
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:19
We talked about a knee replacement a little while ago, right.
Sharon Waxkirsh 13:21
Yeah. So hopefully, I'm still waiting for a an orthopaedic surgeon to agree to doing a knee replacement, no anaesthetic. But yeah, I've done I you know, I have been in all sorts of surgery. I mean, one of my most challenging ones, I would say was, was a vasectomy. And it was challenging, because my client hadn't told the surgeon that he wanted me.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:52
So that's a challenge.
Sharon Waxkirsh 13:54
It was a real challenge.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:55
Yeah. This person,
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:58
And this is a real thing. So I you know, I've learned a lot about how to manage all these situations now. But the surgeon wanted me outside the door. And so I had to sit outside the door...
Denise Billen-Mejia 14:09
Just relax!
Sharon Waxkirsh 14:12
And then the surgeon would constantly call me in, and I'm not in scrubs, and I'm having to walk past my clients, nether regions, you know, on full display, which was not, I don't have an issue with it, but it's not most comfortable for him, as well. And so I had to walk past this and then do some work. And then I'd be told to get out now sit down outside the surgery. Wait a minute, until the surgeon, could you come back in again, please? And it went on like this, and I said, well...
Denise Billen-Mejia 14:46
How long is that? I mean, the vasectomies are not usually very long. It must have prolonged it tremendously.
Sharon Waxkirsh 14:50
It did, I mean, and that's the most stupid thing. I mean, on the other side of things, I just did a 80 year old tooth removal, no anaesthetic, and it took, I would say, under 15 seconds from beginning to end. That's including induction and anaethetism and tooth removal. So it's, you know, it can be done, you know, you've got somebody...
Denise Billen-Mejia 15:18
But, let's just, this lest anybody who is truly new to hypnosis is watching. This is not somebody you walked into the doctor's office and said, Oh, I can take care of that, boom, this thing you had prepped this person, you'd were...
Sharon Waxkirsh 15:31
No, not no, no. And I'm gonna tell you Denise.
Denise Billen-Mejia 15:38
I'm going have to manage some expectations. This is an unusual situation.
Sharon Waxkirsh 15:41
I, so I don't want to come to people to get wrong idea about this, because they're really, you know, in general, I do prep people, and that goes without saying. This route, there are times where I am in some of the, I would say, the most challenging situations and challenge and I enjoy that part of my work. I enjoy a challenge. I enjoy an experiment. It's not for everybody. I think one of the things about doing any kind of surgical, medical or dental is you have got to go with the flow, you have got to be open to the whole point of, deal with what emerges, you've got to go with that ethos. Otherwise, you're in trouble, because there's so many different dynamics that are going on. And with this particular person, it was like, that's what I'm having. And I'm like, Oh, sure, let's do it c'mon. And the dentist was like, well, I don't have time for this. And I said, Well, how long do you need? And she, 'Well I've still got patients' I said, I'll do it, and I'll get it done in a couple of seconds. And so the client was already like, oh, it's a couple of seconds, numb. All right, well, done. So that, again...
Martin Furber 16:51
The real power of suggestion there!
Sharon Waxkirsh 16:52
The real power, exactly. And so and I always say, you know, it's the power of motivation, we don't, which is, it's not always understood how this works. And so people are often scared, because they don't understand how it works. Therefore, they spend ages doing something, thinking the length of time is going to create a different outcome. And that's not always the case. But I do think if you understand the subconscious, that's the key. And, and so, and again, I've been doing this 20 years, that there's a there's a big difference, we're just walking into. I have made so many mistakes, and I have done so many things that I'd like to have done a different way. So yeah, you have to keep learning on the job.
Denise Billen-Mejia 17:38
Yeah. What is your current passion? Sorry, I sort of know the answer. What is your current passion right now? What what do you want to or don't you want to talk about that yet?
Sharon Waxkirsh 17:53
I, you know, I've got things going on, as you know, Denise. I'm, one of the things that I'm creating is a global organisation for medical and dental practitioners to be able to work alongside hypnotherapists so that we have a mutual referral basis. I think that that's really important. I have been, you know, time and time again, hypnotherapists have come to me and said, Sharon, how did you do it? You've managed to get into the medical field or the dental field how, and this has taken years? And I don't think I'm there yet. I really don't I think I'm far from it. And yet, I have worked very hard, but I could it could be better. But it's you know, I've actually just been offered to link my training school to a school board. The London International Medical School. So it's for international students who are in London, who are training to be medics. So I've just been talking to the professor who's beginning that, so you know, these things take years to cultivate, those kinds of relationships. I've known that particular man for 18 years or something, and he's seen me develop, develop, develop. But I'd like it to be that, it's not, it doesn't take everyone else years. I want to have a, I want people to be able to come on board. Saying that, as hypnotherapists I think we, ethically, we need to be aware of our abilities and be very clear about what we can and can't do. I think we have to have a very high level of training to be alongside the medical and dental field. These people have been in training for years. And I'm sorry, we cannot just walk in, and just expect, just because we know one tool, that they're going to go oh yes, well, of course I need you. I've just trained for nearly 20 years of my life and I've just got my degree degree degree degree, PhD, etc in this little tiny niche. You know, we've got to we've got to understand that these people have, and they've put 1000s of dollars pounds, you know, whatever into it.
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:10
And put their lives on hold. And then somebody says, I took a six week course. I do think that one of the things, sorry, Martin, go ahead.
Martin Furber 20:19
No, I was just going to say, the amount of times you've said on this podcast though, you wish you'd been taught hypnosis as part of your medical training.
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:25
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Sharon Waxkirsh 20:26
Exactly, yeah, exactly. That's why this school, this medical school, is interested in me coming alongside because they're going to put this in, and I've just been again, invited by an aesthetics, a dentist that I've known for years who went into aesthetics, who's now got his own school, who wants me to team up with his school, because they want these things to come. They want them to be side by side, they should be side by side. It should be integrated.
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:54
Yeah, I usually try to explain when when we've talked about the fact that some there's there's some areas where they do not wish you to be practising hypnotherapy unless you are a physician or something similar. And my thing is, we as hypnotists, need to take it down a peg, in order to allow them to realise, that we were offering a technical ability in a modality, yes, it's very nuanced. It isn't learn this five minute thing, it takes a lot longer than that. But mostly it's practice. The theory is pretty easy. But if we could, if we're comfortable being technicians, I think we will be a lot better accepted. And the idea that I'm coming in because I'm a hypnotist, so I'm going to cure cancer is really not what we want to be. You do have some amazing things. A 15 Second induction for tooth extraction is fabulous. But unusual.
Sharon Waxkirsh 21:56
Yeah. Yeah, it is. And, and I 100% agree with you, on every level there, Denise because when I go into any kind of surgery, I'm a technician. And I have to sit back, I have to watch sometimes some really dodgy work going on, especially in the dental world, because I've gone to various different dentists and I'm going, you're doing what, you know. And I'm like going, I don't even know what's going on. But that's not right. You know, and I kind of sometimes I'm thinking oh, God, you know that I haven't seen that before. But I have to sit back and just say that's what my patient chose. And, you know, respect to the, to the people that are working around because if they feel your respect, they will also kind of give you the same respect back. It takes some time. I mean, I've worked as I've worked with some, I've worked with one man, a lovely gentleman, Mr. Henshaw, and he was at the King Edward, the Seventh Hospital in the Harley Street area. And that's where the queen goes for many of her issues.
Martin Furber 23:14
She did!
Denise Billen-Mejia 23:19
It'll take a while! It's like, it's like when they change the years, you have to write a different number, it just sounds wrong.
Sharon Waxkirsh 23:27
But that's where the royalty went. And so this gentleman, he just, he said, I needed to do a tooth. It was kind of, I don't know what it was some removals, but there's also a bone graft. There was, it was a quite a huge, huge operation actuall. No anaesthetic and he wanted his anaethetist on board and he didn't want it filmed. And afterwards, he said, I totally regret that. And you didn't need the anaethetist here, and I apologise. And he said, and your clients not mad, which I thought she was! And he said, and it was all...
Denise Billen-Mejia 24:00
A learning experience for everybody.
Sharon Waxkirsh 24:04
He was so pleased. He said, you know, anything you want, Sharon, just let me know. And he was as sweet as anything. But it was a huge, he said it, in 40 years, it's been the biggest learning curve he's ever had. And he said he never would have believed it.
Denise Billen-Mejia 24:19
And yet, isn't that tragic? Because 50 or 60 years ago, he could have been taught that in school.
Sharon Waxkirsh 24:23
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And again, and I'm gonna put this out there, which is something that we as hypnotherapists should understand, is that when you meet somebody in the medical or dental field, they may say that they've studied, and I've had that plenty of time. Oh, I've done hypnotherapy and you say, Well, what have you done? Oh, it was a disaster! Why was it a disaster? Because this person ended up having some kind of ab-reaction or something or other.
Denise Billen-Mejia 24:46
Yeah.
Sharon Waxkirsh 24:47
And so they don't know what to do with it. And again, I also came up with this when I was, you know, my training school I was always training the dentists especially, or the medics, a really short programme, that they're not going to come to a lot. And my idea is, they're not going to bother, they're not going to come into a long training. So give them what they want. It's remiss of me and I've stopped doing that. I've decided no, you want to learn come for the whole thing.
Denise Billen-Mejia 25:15
But that's my course that still because life keeps happening, and I don't get it out there. But mine is only to teach them what it could do.
Sharon Waxkirsh 25:23
Right.
Denise Billen-Mejia 25:24
So that if they personally want to learn fine, but you need, you can probably do a shorter course than Martin and I had to do because you won't need, it was pretty annoying to me, to hear about Hippocratic oath as a hypnotherapist. Kind of redundant, and a few other things. But absolutely, you still new practice, it doesn't matter how many cardiac operations you've done, you haven't done it with hypnosis, so.
Sharon Waxkirsh 25:49
Exactly, and also what I...
Denise Billen-Mejia 25:51
And it's not 20 years worth of training either.
Sharon Waxkirsh 25:54
Right, exactly, and also what I understood, with all of the medics and dentists that I've trained is, when they started using hypnosis, of course, they would get deeper than they realised that they were going to get, and if they didn't have knowledge of how to come through that part of things, then that's also a problem. Yeah, it's very scary, because suddenly you're faced with you know, as we all know, you open the subconscious mind and boom.
Denise Billen-Mejia 26:23
There can be all sorts of stuff in there. Yeah.
Sharon Waxkirsh 26:26
Problematic in many things in especially in the hypnotherapy world. Right, I have to say that there are problems in our in our world, which are...
Denise Billen-Mejia 26:35
Is that going to get in the way with us, of modality being accepted in the medical world?
Sharon Waxkirsh 26:42
So, I'm not sure it is, I think, I think because now there is much more in the way of neuroscience and studies that have come through in terms of, you know, universities are doing much more work to see how this works. And you've got much more equipment to gauge brain nuances and problems. And, you know, the neurology behind it. Also, I think that the medical establishment is taking note from a research perspective. The problem that I see with research in this area is that, again, you do research with anyone in hypnosis, and it's so individual, you're only going to get a fraction of some kind of awareness of what's really going on. But again, you have to do research, it's the right thing to do. And I think the medical establishment is more open to listening now because there is factual research being done.
Martin Furber 27:53
Have you heard of the CORP the clinical outcomes research programme over here in the UK, on hypnotherapy?
Sharon Waxkirsh 28:00
No, I haven't.
Martin Furber 28:01
Oh, right. Yeah, it's it's something that I'm a member of.
Sharon Waxkirsh 28:07
Oh, I need you to send me an email about it.
Martin Furber 28:10
I will I'll include it in the show notes actually. Our clients fill in, after they've given their consent, they fill in a questionnaire after each session and they grade themselves on seven different categories. And it then it keeps a running total over weeks. And, you know, it provides, like for example, when I refer my client back to her psychiatrist, or I'm sending notes over, there's the evidence.
Sharon Waxkirsh 28:34
Oh, I'd be really interested in that Martin.
Sharon Waxkirsh 28:36
All this medical speak, all this doctor speak just before we do have to wrap it up, Sharon, let's just lighten the mood a little bit. Tell us about some of the fun stuff you've done.
Sharon Waxkirsh 28:45
Oh, fun stuff, I think unusual stuff. Did you know about my dog hypnosis?
Martin Furber 28:54
No, no do tell! That's gonna be an unusual one.
Sharon Waxkirsh 28:57
Okay, well, I apparently, seems like I'm the first person in history to use hypnosis for veterinary surgery for a hernia operation, no anaesthetic on a dog.
Martin Furber 29:10
Wow!
Sharon Waxkirsh 29:10
And then, and then recently, I have got it on film. And then recently, I did a dog phobia, a phobia that a dog had of the dentist.
Denise Billen-Mejia 29:23
That sounds fascinating. What do you tell it to picture?
Sharon Waxkirsh 29:30
I introduced the toothbrush to it in a different way. So I put the dog into a trance state, and then was able to brush their teeth, which they'd never been able to have their their lip held up before. And that would that normally have sent them into an absolute spin. And you can see that video, I've videoed it as well.
Denise Billen-Mejia 29:47
Well, send it, we'll include that in the notes too.
Martin Furber 29:51
That doesn't sound quite as crazy as it may initially sound, because if you think about it, horse whisperers, what do they do?
Sharon Waxkirsh 29:59
Exactly right.
Martin Furber 30:00
They calm horses down and they get them prepared for a race. And, you know, it's a still a real thing, even in this day and age, and going around the tracks, isn't it? There have horse whispers.
Sharon Waxkirsh 30:10
They do they do. I have to say, though, people have asked often asked me, How do you do it teach us I want to learn. And I personally feel again, with anything in the medical, dental and now veterinary world, we need more research. And I'm very fortunate where my husband works, there is a Veterinary College, and we're trying to get them involved to see if we can do the actual research because I don't think this is necessarily a wise thing to be doing on every animal, myself. I think again, you know, without, you know, without the research being done, I don't really want to go, oh, this is how you do it. And this is what needs to be done, etc. It's It's one of those thing.
Martin Furber 30:54
From what we know about hypnosis, though, is it's easy to see the theory side of it, how a dog would pick up on the right tones on the right rhythm of voice, etc, etc. Because they do pick up on our, well they can feel our fear can't they, they can pick up on that.
Sharon Waxkirsh 31:10
Yeah, I mean, the funny thing was when I made this film of this, the amount of physicians that phoned me afterwards said, Gosh, if you can do that on a dog, imagine what you could do on a person. I was like, oh, my God, how many conversations have I had with you? I mean, what did it take?
Denise Billen-Mejia 31:31
A Dog! Man's best friend.
Sharon Waxkirsh 31:35
It's interesting that people don't look up from the bigger picture until they're thrown this kind of... what's going on?
Denise Billen-Mejia 31:43
I have another question, though. You're doing this, you're doing this, and you're doing this. Do you ever have any non hypnosis related time? Is that where you're off in Europe right now. Are you zipping around?
Sharon Waxkirsh 31:55
I've been working since I've been here! I love it. I love it.
Denise Billen-Mejia 31:59
If you love what you do, you won't work a day in your life. Yeah,
Sharon Waxkirsh 32:06
Right. I mean, you know, I'm sitting in the aeroplane the other day and I just, you know, what do you do? I do this is what do. I sit next to a doctor and a dentist next to me on the plane. So of course, what do I do? this is my youtube channel, have a watch. And I was in, I think it was Stansted Airport, two or three months ago. And I just asked somebody to use their phone charger. She was next to it. We set up a conversation. She's now going to be one of my students. I went to Covent Garden Market and I was looking at all these pretty brooches. And I don't know how the conversation happened with the lady who was sitting there, but she's fearful of her, of a procedure, a medical procedure. And I ended up doing a hypnosis with her, she gives me a brooche for free and I'm going to learn from her how her procedure went. You know, it's, you know, if you've got, if you're able to give, in a way that's going to help somebody, why would you turn it off?
Martin Furber 33:01
Absolutely, and it is a very helpful and caring profession, isn't it?
Sharon Waxkirsh 33:05
Yeah.
Martin Furber 33:06
Sharon it's been an absolute thrill, I don't know where the time's gone. I'm absolutely delighted that you've joined us on the show today.
Sharon Waxkirsh 33:13
Thanks so much both of you Martin, Denise. It's been such a pleasure to speak to you both; you know, with Denise I, you know, I've known her not very long myself, but we're so on board with the same concepts and ideas. It's just wonderful to meet like minded people and be in the profession. You know, as I, when I studied this, one thing that I was taught is there is no competition from anybody. You're doing your own thing in your own way. But we do need to collaborate.
Denise Billen-Mejia 33:14
You need collaboration.
Sharon Waxkirsh 33:24
Absolutely. Yes, it is a very personal thing. Clients make their own decisions on who they think they will, you know, get the best treatment from. I can't think of anything that is more personal than hypnotherapy actually in that respect.
Sharon Waxkirsh 33:56
Gynaecologist!
Denise Billen-Mejia 33:58
My thought too! But it is, you've got to be on the same wavelength with other therapists to work with them and with your patients. They have to...
Martin Furber 34:06
Absolutely you've got to get into their space.
Sharon Waxkirsh 34:10
Thank you so much.
Denise Billen-Mejia 34:10
It's been really nice. Thank you.
Denise Billen-Mejia 34:21
We hope you have 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.
Martin Furber 34:37
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.
