[00:01] Katie: Welcome to The Focus B show, where Katie Stoddart high performance coach, interviews experts around the world in performance and mindfulness. Now here's your host. Katie.
[00:32] Katie: Welcome to another episode of the Focus B show. Today I'm here with Jessica Boston. Jessica is a cognitive hypnotherapist and has been working in this field for over ten years. Thank you so much for joining the show, Jessica.
[00:47] Jessica: Not at all. Thank you for having me.
[00:49] Katie: Yes, it's wonderful to have you here. I was just telling Jessica off air that I read about her in Metropolitan magazine in Barcelona maybe five years ago, and this is the first conversation we're having, so I'm really excited to have you here. The first question I'd like to ask you is about the role of our subconscious mind. So, as I know, hypnotherapy deals with our subconscious. I'm wondering, how do you think our subconscious mind influences our daily performance?
[01:21] Jessica: I mean, our subconscious mind is essentially responsible for our daily performance, so its influence is around 95% of your day. It might be more, it might be a little bit less, but the role of the subconscious in your day to day is enormous. And if you're not aware of it, you'll end up living on a pre programmed setting that you have not chosen. Essentially, it's been chosen by your teachers, your parents, your family around you, society, celebrities, press, social media. You are not living with the scope of choice that you believe that you are. It's really important to understand your subconscious, why it does the things it does and how that could be impacting your life.
[02:24] Katie: That's so amazing, and I've read it so often that our conscious mind is only 5%, but it's so hard to visualize. Can you give us a few examples of when our subconscious mind takes over? Like specific examples?
[02:41] Jessica: Well, an easy way to think about it is if you work at a place where you've got two managers in charge and one of the managers you get on with a little bit less well than the other one, the manager that you have the ear of is the 5%. So you have a bit of sway with that manager, and you can say, we really need to do this, and that manager says, sure, we can do it. But they're only 5% in charge. They're a much calmer, clearer part of the business. And then the other one, the other manager, who you don't seem to get on with as well, is much more emotional and much more afraid. Maybe they've had a lot more experiences in their life that have made them more wary. But their level of fear and their experiences, if they are the manager and they are in charge, and they are the one who's going to say yes to all of the things that need to happen in that business, if you don't have the ear of that manager, nothing is going to happen. And how this will show up in your life is that it mainly shows up when you're afraid. The subconscious mind feels that it has to step in and say, actually, this isn't as safe as we thought it was going to be and now we have to react and do something about this. And it can do that in lots of different ways. It might have to shut you down completely. The ways that the subconscious might step in to shut you down is actually to tell you that you're not good enough, you're not prepared enough. And the thing is, sometimes the subconscious is right. There will be times that you're not prepared enough for something or you don't have enough information for something. But more often than not, it's a miscalculation of how ready you are for it depending on it's. Sort of like it does this math equation based on the algorithms that it's already got programmed, all of the stuff that it knows from everywhere else in the world. It's collected all of this information from your teachers, your parents, society, everything. And it's created a calculation of how safe you are going to be in this situation. And ultimately, at the last second of going into the situation, it does the maths and says we can do this or we won't do this. So the subconscious really is the decider. It's the final decider. Even if the conscious is like, yes, this is all good, if at the last second the other manager steps in and says actually this isn't safe, the business won't well, more likely than not, the business won't advance because it never takes any risks. It never really does anything.
[05:37] Katie: It's just astounding I mean, I think about these things and I often wonder how much of it is subconscious and how much of it am I subconsciously sabotaging or our different patterns? But it's nice to see it in the light of two managers. I like that. And sort of putting a face onto them.
[05:58] Jessica: What can people do? It makes it much easier go on. Sorry. It does make it much easier to communicate with the subconscious if you help the subconscious make things tangible because the subconscious speaks a slightly different language as well. And that's a mistake most people make, is they have the ear of the other manager of the conscious because it's easier to talk to the conscious. And they sort of don't like the subconscious because they're a bit more afraid of them because they are afraid. So they don't feel confident in knowing how to approach the subconscious. But actually the subconscious is not so scary. You just have to know how to engage it. And that's why I love a metaphor because that really easily engages the subconscious. It makes things that it finds difficult to grasp, hold onto. It makes its algorithms and its mathematical equations a little bit easier to process. Like when you were at school in a math class and you said, all right, you've got two chickens and the farmer. And the farmer has okay, that makes more sense to me than just two plus two equals four.
[07:08] Katie: Yes, that's a nice way of putting it. It always helps to have images. The question I was going to ask is what can people do to become more aware of these patterns? So obviously, aside from working with the hypnotherapist like yourself, if they want to work on these things in their own sort of daily life, how can they become more aware of the power of their subconscious on their actions?
[07:30] Jessica: Observe, take a step back. And one of the first things that you can do is instead of looking at yourself with the eyes of judgment and judging these patterns, because that doesn't really help change them, all it does is make you more emotional, make you more fearful. And the more emotion is involved, the harder it is to see it. So literally taking a step back to observe, instead of being inside the painting, you're looking at the painting. That is one of the first steps to say, okay, I see that every single day at around this time I do this thing. Why is that? Oh, well, maybe it's because 20 minutes earlier, every single day, my mother calls me and she tells me about all of the things that are wrong with her, and that really frightens me and gets me in a wound up state. Once you start to break things down and see, could it be this? And looking at things like, I always think of this job a bit like detective work. As well as working with the subconscious, you're trying to make sense of how you became you.
[08:42] Katie: Yes, I like that. I often think of my work as a coach, also as a detective. So I like that analogy. It's often digging to find a sort of deeper cause or meaning behind actions and behaviors and what tools can people put in practice? So I love the way you're saying, like observing and detaching and looking at it from another perspective. But how about practical tools that people can use daily so that they can start reworking these patterns, noticing them and really seeing the benefits?
[09:15] Jessica: Well, one of the first things you can do is notice just paying attention also to the thoughts you have. So as an observer, you're paying attention to the thoughts you have to the things you say to yourself as well. And looking at the relationship that you have with yourself as if it was a relationship that you had with someone separate from yourself. Because I think that's part of the difficulty is we always treat ourselves differently to how we would treat others. And our relationship with ourself is a relationship. There's me and how I react. To me, it's not just me. It's me and my own reactions to myself. That's the relationship. And you're understanding the relationship between the conscious parts and the unconscious and how they grew to become mistrusting of each other. Where did you become divided? Where did the dislike for yourself happen? Because that's often what happens as well. Is that a significant emotional event, a traumatic event, will split ourselves from ourselves. So our conscious and unconscious parts of ourselves will start to fall out. And it's bringing those parts back together and getting them to like and trust each other again. It's going to be so critical. So even when you're observing, you can think rather than judging and saying, oh, it's so sad, I'm so angry at myself that I don't like myself more. Go, okay, I can see how that could have happened through that event, through the way the subconscious works. How can I get these two working together again? And you might need a bit of help for that. But once you start to think about the subconscious and the conscious working together, it takes a lot of pressure off because I think also most people just want to know they're normal and okay, and it's really normal and okay for those two parts to disband. They do it often events happen that break us away from each other. We have to come back together as one, and we have to do that through kindness and patience and liking ourselves. It's a process of liking and trusting ourselves again and to be patient with that, because that doesn't take a day. There's a lot of fads around rapid therapies and fast solutions to problems. And even hypnotherapy is a very fast solution as far as this world goes. But it's still a process. If you fell out with a friend because they'd taken money out of your wallet, you wouldn't just be like, oh, that was cool. A day later, you'd take a minute to be like, I've got this person in my house. Am I really okay with them being here? What are they doing upstairs? It takes a moment to win back that trust. And we have to recognize it's the same with ourselves when we disbanded from ourselves, it takes a minute for that to come back together.
[12:24] Katie: I didn't know about this. That significant events make our conscious and subconscious mind sort of separate. Can you explain a bit more about this? Because I don't know, so I'm curious and I'm thinking there must be people listening who also don't know. So could you tell us a bit more? Why is it that this happens and in which sense? And then how to bring them back together? Obviously, seeing a hypnotherapist is one way, but another way is becoming aware of it. But yes, just that.
[12:57] Jessica: Well, this is a theory that I have, and it's also not in all significant emotional events. So if you had a more solid foundation of self, you can have a significant emotional event. And that wouldn't necessarily do that if you are quite confident and okay in yourself and you've done a lot of work on yourself. There might not be reason for these two to disband, but what often happens is, let's say there's an event where you're walking down a back alley and somebody grabs your handbag and you sort of knew that you shouldn't have gone down that back alley. What will happen is the subconscious will start to freak out about the fact that this has happened and say, I can't believe this has happened. You put us in so much danger. And the thing is, the subconscious is a bit of a victim blamer, especially if it's programmed to be a victim blamer, because you've grown up in an environment that is always victim blamed or always said, especially women who are very much conditioned to blame themselves when bad things happen. So the subconscious starts to do the same and says, you were responsible because you knew you shouldn't have gone down that back alley. And then the subconscious is all the time in your ear with your feelings, with your thoughts, reminding you not to do something similar again. And depending on how the event goes on, to be handled in the mind. So if the event doesn't get the kind of healing and processing that it needs in that moment and throughout that period of healing, it will continue to remind you of it constantly. It's not dissimilar. I don't want to compare it essentially to like breaking a leg because it is obviously more complicated, but if you have an injury and it's not healed correctly, there will always be a reminder in the body of the fact that it didn't heal correctly and it's similar in the mind. If the mind doesn't go on to process the event in a way that sort of says, you can relax, you can trust us, we're not going to go down back alleys again. Promise. We've learned then the subconscious will sort of continually remind you of the danger that you put it in. And that's when the conscious and the subconscious slightly separate and go rogue and the subconscious goes, you know what? You messed up. I'm doing my own thing out here.
[15:36] Katie: That's amazing. I find that absolutely fascinating. I love all of this. I actually want to do a course on hypnotherapy, but this isn't like part of the podcast. It's just such a fascinating topic and I think if we're interested in the mind and in high performance, we can't just neglect the subconscious mind because like you said, it's 95%, so it's huge.
[15:55] Jessica: You can't neglect it and you can't neglect the impacts of trauma and significant emotional events. You have to help the subconscious heal from it and you have to understand the subconscious and why it does the things it does. It always has its reasons. Of course it doesn't want you to go back in a back alley and get hurt if the subconscious is there to protect you. It's like an overbearing mother that has heard that you went down a back alley and got hurt. And now it's saying all the time, why did you do that? I can't believe you. I can't believe it. I can't believe what you've done to us. We can't trust you anymore. We can't believe you would be so stupid. And because what its intention is, is to keep you alive, it doesn't always do it in a way that you're going to like or say, thanks, that feels really good, thanks for helping me. Because its intention is not to make you feel good, it just wants you to survive for sure.
[16:47] Katie: And so how can people process these significant emotional events? What's the best approach? What's the best way for people that let's say it's not like a huge massive trauma because obviously then external help is generally needed just to even have that external feedback. But let's say it's significant enough that people know it has had an impact, but not deep enough that they really feel they need help. And I think this happens quite often. If it's something really deep, people will know, okay, I need help with this. But it might be if you look at it on a level of importance, it might not be that high yet. People might still feel, okay, it was actually still quite a big deal. How can I make sure I've processed it and I've healed emotionally on this event?
[17:33] Jessica: Well, there are different things I would say about that. Firstly, it depends on the hugeness of the event and then also the messages that the subconscious has gathered ever since the event that it has gone on to affirm. Because let's say that happens and then the subconscious gets a message and it wires that message and says life is dangerous. Let's say it's quite a big message. It might just be back alleys are dangerous, or it might be the world is dangerous. And then it takes on a message like, the world is dangerous and then you're out on the street the following week and somebody else takes your handbag and then it says, I knew it, I knew the world was dangerous. And then it starts to gather all these messages and starts to become hyper vigilant to these messages. So really it really depends on how many messages the subconscious is attached to, the message that it's holding onto and how it's almost like a lawyer gathering information for the case and saying, okay, we're gathering all of this. Information. And we're making a super case, a super folder, so that when we go to court, we can argue what we believe. And it doesn't even need to be true or false. Lots of lawyers don't work on a basis of truth. They work on a basis of who pays them. I mean, we know this. And this is why the subconscious isn't really working on a fundamental truth. It's just working on the truth that keeps you alive. So what I would say to that is, understand, to work with the subconscious, you have to understand the subconscious messages it holds onto to keep you safe. And whether or not, if they're quite small messages, you can just be curious about them and help them and even talk it through with the subconscious and say, okay, that message you have that everything is dangerous, I'm going to go on a walk now and prove to you that actually life isn't as dangerous as you believe it is. And in fact, we're going to go on a lovely walk right now, and we can't guarantee that everything will be safe and fine. We can't guarantee that this won't be a walk where we might get hit by a bicycle, but the percentages are in your favor that you won't and go out and enjoy the walk, but also make sure that the subconscious holds on to this information. It's not enough just to do the thing. It has to do the thing and remember the thing.
[20:04] Katie: I think I often think of these types of things, but just on a conscious level. So obviously, as a coach, we work at changing beliefs and that's a similar thing. So if you have the belief that you can't do a certain task, then consciously realize when you are doing this task to prove to yourself that you can do it and to essentially rewire your beliefs. So it's very similar. But the difference is here we're going one level deeper to actually look at it impacting the subconscious mind at the same time, especially if this is linked to a significant emotional event or trauma, which in the case of beliefs can also be the case. It can also come from a significant emotion.
[20:47] Jessica: Well, most of your beliefs do. Yeah, most of your beliefs come. They're not random. You're not pre programmed and sent down like brought by the stalk with everything ready to go. We're born pretty much clean. We've got our DNA, we've got our stuff from before, we've got the stuff we inherit from our ancestors, et cetera. But then you'll hear it all the time. People say, I was such a confident child and I was so, so confident. And then I don't know what happened. Well, let's find out what happened. Okay, then they were at school in the playground and somebody pulled down their trousers and started laughing. And that wired into their mind that school was dangerous or what's the underlying message from that event that they've taken on. School is dangerous. People will hurt me. I'm alone in the world. People don't like me. And they'll take that narrative and run with it and justify it and make a story around it. That's what the unconscious does. It makes a story. It takes a message, and then it builds the story like a movie maker. It says, oh, what can we do with this? We need to keep you safe. So it's not enough just to tell you the world is dangerous. We have to tell you the world is dangerous with a film that is so compelling that every time we play it to you, you'll say, oh, you know what, I'm not going to go out today, actually, I'm a bit afraid. I think I'll just stay at home. Because the subconscious is fine with that. It doesn't mind that you end up staying at home. It's quite happy for you to do that as long as you're safe.
[22:27] Katie: That is just crazy. And I'm wondering now, all these films and stories we tell ourselves, I'm wondering, are any of them even true? Because are they all just perceptions and just generalizations?
[22:40] Jessica: Absolutely. But the subconscious is the generator of the stories as well, because the subconscious is the meaning maker. It's always trying to make sense. So it loves an archetype because we've lived similar stories. You hear a story and you think, oh, that's brand new. No, it's not. They're the same stories over and over and over again. And the subconscious is always trying to see where we fit in and how do we make sense of the randomness of the universe through story. So it's always trying to make up stories. It makes it easier to process the difficulties of life, but also knowing that the subconscious does this for worse, essentially it can also do this for better. It all sounds very bleak, but it's not bleak at all. Once you know that the subconscious loves the story, the subconscious also loves the story of how you're brilliant and you're a winner and how you turned everything around and how things were bad, but then look what you did. And it likes those stories. It just has to know they're safe. As long as it knows the story is safe, it will help you achieve the story.
[23:56] Katie: I'm thinking that there's a lot of times where the subconscious, in order to keep you, self sabotages you. This is why a lot of people have fear of failure and fear of rejection, and that's extremely common. And I'm wondering, is there a way to sort of fool the subconscious mind into believing this is actually still safe so that it doesn't end up sabotaging your progress?
[24:20] Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, most of my job is that, again, it's not just that you're fooling it for better. The subconscious is also fooling you for worse. So you're sort of tricking the subconscious out of its perception and giving it a better story. You're saying, okay, I can see the story you've made up and I can see why you've done what you've been doing, but essentially, if your perception isn't real, nor is mine. Well, not mine. My version that I will feed back to you that you've told me that you want, which one would you like more? Because your reality is not fixed, your story is not fixed. The story that you are playing out every day is the one that you are choosing. But it is not a truth you can choose. That essentially my job is helping you choose the story you'd like to live. Choice is a really fundamental part of my message, is that if your subconscious is pre programmed, most people don't want to tamper with their subconscious because they like it and it's fine and that's just the way things are great. But you're not choosing it. Don't fool yourself and say you're freely choosing the mind that you have. I don't mind what you do. It's not my business. But if you are not choosing your mind, you're living out the pre programmed one you had from before. I'd like to live my life knowing, to the best of my ability, I chose as much as what my thinking that was possible. I didn't just settle with what was.
[26:01] Katie: Yes. And I think a lot of people don't realize that it is pre programmed and that they could actually change it and there are ways of rewriting it. And people are afraid, and I think they're afraid again. The subconscious has stories probably about hypnotherapy and rewiring the subconscious. And everything that I feel people aren't 100% clear on, they're afraid of. I think that's very common. I remember I've only been once to see a hypnotherapist and I was also nervous. You don't know what it is. It's a fear of uncertainty and fear of unknown.
[26:39] Jessica: Absolutely. And there's a lot of story around hypnotherapy. There's a lot of story around the hypnotherapist and mind control. It's sort of funny to me. I totally get it. But I also think, why would anyone think that I would want to pre program their brain with my own thoughts and ideas? And also what benefit? I'm not the CIA. I'm just me operating from you're, essentially choosing what you want, fed back to your own thinking. That is it. You're choosing the messages. I'm never saying, hey, I think it'd be really great if you chose to live like this because ultimately I don't know what is best for you better than you know what's best for you.
[27:29] Katie: That makes sense.
[27:30] Jessica: You know what you want. Everybody knows what they want. My idea of a perfect life could be sitting at home with my dog watching the telly. But that might not be your perfect life. So why would I choose what would be best for you? But fear is a really normal part of working with the subconscious. The subconscious does not like the arrogance of somebody coming along and saying, all of those amazing intricate fears I've set up to keep you away from danger might be squashed by somebody who is confident in saying that they can help you get rid of them. Because the subconscious is thinking, we spent a lifetime keeping you alive and safe, making you afraid of everything, making you not want to go out. And then this person comes along and essentially puts us in a whole heap of danger because that's what it still believes. The world is dangerous. We would get why it wouldn't want to do that. So the subconscious is always sensible and it's always logical. It's just not always working in your favor.
[28:31] Katie: I feel that people that do end up going to hypnotherapy let me know if I'm right on this. I feel that there's people where they've actually seen how they're being damaged by their subconscious and they actually realize that they can change it. Maybe because they've read about it, maybe because they've tried a few things and also realizing that we are not our thoughts, but we're also not our subconscious thoughts. As in if that changes, we're still us. There's deeper meaning than just our thoughts and our emotions. And I think if we became aware of that, then it's easier to sort of we're not as attached to the mind, and then it's easier to change it. I feel that that's sort of a relevant point, because then the identity isn't put in question as much.
[29:22] Jessica: Absolutely. And I think most people forget that their thoughts have changed throughout their life. You don't probably have the same haircut you had when you were six, and you probably don't have the same things on your wall. I had these 17 posters on my wall. I don't have that on my wall anymore. Your mind changes all the time. Changes are constant. You're constantly changing what you think. But when it's linked to your survival, when it's linked to whether or not you will stay alive, those thoughts are much more stubborn and will stick around for longer. And those are the thoughts you need more help with because they're not necessarily correct. Your mind makes over calculations all the time. It's like you're living with a whole heap of incorrect mathematical equations, and that's affecting your life because fear makes the equations miscalculate. That fear says, take more, do more, be more safe, get the numbers wrong. We don't care. We've just got to stay alive. So it's fine. You survived. You survived the thing it wanted you to survive. But the calculations need to be refined for better living.
[30:39] Katie: I love this. I feel I could talk all day with you. This is so fascinating. I love everything about how we can look now at the subconscious mind, what of things we can put in place to realize it and have this sort of awareness and detachment. And also be aware that if we want, we can rework these patterns either with hypnotherapists or just by realizing it ourselves. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Jessica. Where can people find you?
[31:09] Jessica: Well, you can find me@jessicabostin.com, and you can also find my album, which is on Spotify. It's called? The feeling is you and actually, it talks about a lot of the subjects we've discussed today. So if you want to talk the first. Track is all about stories and the stories of the mind and how the mind is made up of stories you're telling yourself. And also the track negative minus less could be really helpful to you if you want to work through significant emotional events. But again, I would start by working that through with somebody. Once you know more about the subconscious then to look at more of the tracks on the album. But the two tracks around the garden are very, very safe. That's about establishing safety within. Amazing.
[31:54] Katie: I'm definitely going to check it out and I'm going to put it in the links in the show notes. Thank you so much for being on the show, Jessica. It was a real, real pleasure. Thank you.
[32:02] Jessica: Thank you. Thank you for having me and have lovely day.
[32:06] Katie: You too. Thank you. Bye.
[32:09] Katie: Thank you for listening to the Focus B show. We would love to hear your feedback. Let us know in a review how this episode inspired you. Keep buzzing.