Mind-Body Wellness Podcast
Grab your favorite cup of tea, find your comfiest spot, and nerd out with Annika on all things holistic health and mental wellness! This is a supportive space for self-healers, here to grow and learn together-and of course laugh a lot along the way!
Annika runs a virtual holistic wellness practice focused on helping women + teens gain relief from anxiety, depression, fatigue, and digestive imbalances. She believes in following a gentle and natural path to your healing, reconnecting with yourself and working WITH your body to access deep and lasting wellness!
Let's get Nourished!
Mind-Body Wellness Podcast
"I Rewired My Brain In 3 Days" --with Guest Holly Higgins | Ep. 15
In this powerful episode, I sit down with Transformational Hypnotherapist Holly Higgins to explore the incredible potential of the subconscious mind.
Holly overcame 10 different diagnosed 'mood disorders' with a holistic approach. She now helps other unconventional humans finally resolve their most challenging inner struggles, whether that’s really stuck habits, phobias or limiting beliefs.
I also share about my own recent personal experience of getting to the subconscious root-cause of an OCD type of tic (that I've had for 27 years) and resolving my annoying habit in just 3 days after working with Holly!
In this episode we talk about:
- How transformational hypnosis actually works
- Healing younger parts and the "inner child" from a somatic and subconscious lens
- How Holly's clients are healing through major phobias and limiting beliefs
- Why you don’t need years to make a very profound shift in all those 'sticky' areas of life!
🧠 How to work with Holly:
Website: hollyfisherhiggins.com
Holly's Podcast: Mindspeak
🌻 Download the Free Mood Type Questionnaire HERE🌻
Book with Annika at: nourishedbynature.co
Instagram: @nourished_by_nature_wellness
This podcast episode is for educational and informational purposes only and solely as a self-help tool for your own use. I am not providing medical, psychological, or nutrition therapy advice. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problems or illnesses without consulting your own medical practitioner. Always seek the advice of your own medical practitioner and/or mental health provider about your specific health situation. For my full Disclaimer, please go to https://www.nourishedbynature.co/disclaimer
Welcome to the MindBody Wellness Podcast, where we have insightful conversations on all things holistic health and mental wellness. I'm your host, annika Taylor. I'm a holistic health practitioner and somatic coach, and I believe that the key to healing already lies within you. Together with Nature's Medicines, we have everything we need to live our most authentic, expansive, coziest and dreamiest life possible. Let's get nourished. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I am so happy to be with you here today.
Speaker 1:I'm actually interviewing one of my all-time heroes in the holistic mental wellness space. Her name is Holly Higgins. She is a transformational hypnotherapist doing amazing work in the world. She helps unconventional souls to overcome their most challenging inner struggles. In addition to serving international clients in one-on-one and group settings, she's passionate about sharing knowledge through her top rated podcast, MindSpeak. Holly is an avid homesteader and hiker and lives with her husband and son in Knoxville, tennessee. And with that, let's get Holly on the show. All right, welcome Holly. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so thrilled to have you on the podcast for joining me today. I'm so thrilled to have you on the podcast. For me it's kind of full circle because I was just listening to every episode. I think I've listened to every single episode of your podcast, mindspeak, and it really was one of the things that encouraged me and kind of just helped me to get out of my shell and start my own podcast, so it really feels like a full circle moment. So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm so happy to be here and really happy to hear that my podcast inspired you to start a podcast. It seems like one of those big, scary, complicated things and then when you actually do it it's like, oh, that wasn't as hard as I thought. At least that was my experience of doing a podcast.
Speaker 1:It's true, I'm just excited to get into gosh, talking about getting unstuck with subconscious healing, talking about brain rewiring, talking about all the beautiful things that you do. What really led you to being a transformational hypnotherapist? What was the evolution? Maybe just kind of start us off and walk us through your journey.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's an unconventional story and I'll try to give you the abbreviated version because I could give you the really, really long version. But the short version of the story is I started my journey as a practitioner in the holistic healing arts as a nutritional therapist people on their nutrition, primarily with regards to their mood, and helping them with symptoms of depression and anxiety and things like that, because that was my own story. I used to deal with very, very significant mood and mental health issues and found a ton of healing through nutrition. So that's how I started. My career was in the field of nutrition and I was working with clients and getting amazing results and really loving the work that I did.
Speaker 2:But one thing I started to notice over time is, even though people would know what to do and they would know what to eat and they would know that, oh, when I eat these foods and when I take these supplements and when I do these things, I feel really really good and I'm not having depressive episodes or anxious episodes it would be hard for them to stick with that behavior because there would be another part of their mind that would really want to lead them back to their old habits and their old ways of being, and so one of the things, one of the skills that I really wanted in my toolbox was I wanted more tools to help people with habit change, because, as we have all experienced, we can know what we need to do, we can know what makes us feel our best, and yet we can find ourselves doing the exact opposite.
Speaker 2:And this isn't just in health. This is in every area of life, career, relationships, I mean, you name it. We can know, here's the path. I need to do X, y, z, and yet why am I doing the exact opposite? And so I found myself doing a really deep dive into habit change and what really creates habit change, and that led me to studying the subconscious mind, because the subconscious mind is the deeper part of our mind, with the really, really old, sticky programming that we're not aware of, but it still affects up to 95% of our thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
Speaker 1:So, once I went down 95%.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, up to 95% is the stat that most people in this field throw around, which is just mind-boggling.
Speaker 1:No, it really is Holly. It really is, yeah, gosh, yeah.
Speaker 2:So got really deep into studying the subconscious mind, and if you spend any amount of time studying the subconscious mind, you're going to come across hypnotherapy. And so hypnotherapy, it kept calling to me, it kept tapping me on the shoulder and eventually I had a session of because I grew up in the South in a very conservative environment, that basically says to anything remotely woo-woo.
Speaker 2:I was already going out on a limb doing holistic nutrition. That's already a little too weird. And then I was like, oh my gosh, if I do hypnotherapy, if I'm a hypnotist, I am going to be the weirdest person on planet earth and everyone's going to abandon me and leave me forever. I'm going to be too weird for everybody. And yet God was just throwing signs at me. I was in a used bookstore. A book about hypnotherapy fell onto my toes. I was chased by a swarm of bees in February, which it was like really cold, and the bees like there shouldn't be bees in February. And so I Googled like what's the bee spirit animal? And it said something like people with the bee spirit told him, make excellent hypnotherapists. And I was like oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:No, I just I kept getting. It felt like God was like slapping me across the face and like you need to do this, you need to do this, why aren't you listening? So eventually I trained um as a hypnotherapist, and the work that I got into with clients was so exciting, so powerful, so transformational that eventually I stopped practicing nutrition, not because I don't believe in it or that it isn't extremely effective because it is but I just fell so madly in love with this work that I just wanted to do it full time. So that's the semi-abbreviated version of how I got here.
Speaker 1:And it sounds like you really found like we talk about root cause in holistic medicine all the time, but it sounds like you were just trying to dive deeper and deeper into the actual root cause of what can keep us stuck in life. Does that sound kind of correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, because with nutrition I was dealing with the physical root causes, but when you get into this work, it's more about the emotional and the subconscious root causes, so we can have root causes on many different levels. And so I don't know. I just think the way that I'm wired and my personality working with those deeper emotional root causes, it was just such a good fit for me and I just love the work that I do.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that's amazing and I'm kind of curious now that you've like brought up, you had powerful experiences yourself. Would you mind sharing? It could be one, it could be a couple different experiences that really sold you on the power of hypnotherapy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So I will say there is no area of my life that has not been touched by this work of my life that has not been touched by this work. I mean I have experienced sessions with other practitioners and done self-work on my own in literally every area of my life. So confidence, boundaries, creativity, money, mindset, physical health I mean you name it. I've done work in that area and it just had massive transformations in every area of my life.
Speaker 2:A really interesting experience I had that is kind of a mind-boggling story and I like to tell it is I had this really sticky habit of sleeping through my alarm for the longest time. It went as far back as I could remember. Like if I set an alarm, I'm going to sleep through it and there is nothing that you know, unless maybe I have some really big, crazy, exciting thing the next day, like oh you're, you're going on a trip, you know to your favorite destination, like you want to get out of bed for that. I just could not wake up with my alarm and so I did a hypnosis session around it and I went back to a car accident when I was 14 years old and in this car accident I hit a tree, I flipped and totaled my car. I very easily could have died, but I didn't. And one of the big things that I uncovered as I went back and explore that accident accident is I had that accident because I fell asleep at the wheel when I was driving. I was very underslept, I was trying to squeeze too much into my life and was very underslept, and I drove to school the next day. It was really stupid. I was very tired, but I fell asleep at the wheel and that's how I hit the tree. And so what happened in that moment when I hit the tree and when I kind of woke up and realized what was happening?
Speaker 2:What I discovered in hypnosis is what happened once I realized what was happening in the accident is my subconscious mind made an imprint that said we can never let her under sleep again. That said we can never let her under sleep again. She always has to get lots and lots of sleep so that bad things don't happen. And so I put the puzzle pieces together in hypnosis and I was like, oh my gosh, I can't wake up with my alarm because there's this really deep subconscious program that says you are not safe unless you get lots and lots of sleep. So we can understand that from a survival perspective, which the subconscious mind is all about survival and keeping us safe. But really, like I'm an adult and I can make wise decisions, and I know now like if I'm really underslept I probably shouldn't drive, and so I was able to rewire that via hypnosis and then just boom, I started waking up with my alarm easily, or even before my alarm. So that's just one story.
Speaker 1:That's incredible and like I love this almost. It's so complex but it's also so simple, like you talked about. It's just, it's survival. And your subconscious, like really, that's that, that whole traumatic experience stuck with your nervous system, with your subconscious, is like yeah, we will, we'll do anything to make sure that never happens again. And I think it's really clever and intelligent that your, your, your body was like okay, we just will sleep through the alarms because that is the safe thing to do. And you'd never have guessed that in a million, I never would have in a million years, unless you'd been able to uncover that with hypnosis, which is incredible, yeah.
Speaker 2:I never would have figured that out consciously. I mean, I was trying so hard to change this habit. If I was going to figure it out consciously I would have. And, like you said, these programs that our subconscious mind is running, that seem to be detrimental to us, that seem to be getting in our way, that seem to be blocking us, that seem to be like, oh my God, why can't I just change this thing? Can I just change this thing? 99.9% of the time those programs are there for our safety and our protection. The installation and the programming and the wiring is just like a little bit wonky and misguided and it just needs to be kind of lovingly steered in a new direction, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And I remember like listening to your podcast and listening to you talking about this and like for the first time for me hearing about it, I remember you explaining one of the times, sort of explaining it as like we're just updating like a program. It's almost like a, you know, like your computer or your whatever it is, electronics sometimes need to be updated, and that kind of stuck with me as like electronics sometimes need to be updated and that kind of stuck with me. It's like that made a lot of sense Because, of course, if things are still running for 14-year-old Holly in the mind, that's not going to be updated to where you are today as an adult, as a capable adult, and so that's kind of yeah, that's how I think of it and it makes so much sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, not just 14 years old, but most people are running programs from when they're five, from when they're two, from when they were in the womb and hadn't even arrived to planet Earth yet. This is the software that most people are running on, because the majority of our deepest beliefs are installed by the time that we're seven and unless we go in with a magnifying glass and take a look at those and decide, hmm, is this helpful to me now, as a 30-something adult or whatever, is this useful? Is this worthwhile? Unless we go in and do that work, we're literally running with an operating manual and an instruction manual of our seven-year-old self or our five-year-old self, and it makes our behavior and our decision making and everything make so much more sense and we're just able to have so much more compassion for ourselves when we know that.
Speaker 1:So we're talking kind of a lot about the hypnosis, but I wonder if, for our audience, maybe we should back it up a little bit and kind of sort of explain who comes to you and who would benefit from this type of healing work. Who are the people that will come and work with you? I'm kind of curious, like even maybe touching on are there physical or emotional symptoms that, like often, people come to work with you on Cause? I know we could work on pretty much anything in hypnosis, but are there themes and things like that that you see?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I work a lot with creatives and entrepreneurs, so people that have really big aspirations for themselves, they're doing really creative, really bold work in the world. But they will have self doubt pop up. Their inner critic will be really loud. You know, maybe things will be going really great for a while and then suddenly like oh, I'm writing this new book or whatever it is, and they're just stopped in their tracks with fear.
Speaker 2:I work a lot with that population, but not exclusively. The people that come to work with me generally feel a lot of tension, and what I mean by that is they really want something. I want to be able to go to a social outing and not just feel terrified. I want to be able to put myself out there and not just feel terrified.
Speaker 2:I have this really bothersome fear or phobia, and I've had it for a really long time and I can't get to the bottom of it. I have this persistent habit that I can't seem to break and I can't get to the bottom of it. So people are experiencing that tension of I want this thing, I want to feel like this, I want to be like this, I want to do this, and yet I can feel something inside of me holding me back, and the way that I describe it often is like an invisible rubber band. So you're trying to walk forward, you're trying to move to that goal or that outcome and you're stretching yourself and you're doing the things and then boom, you get snapped back by that invisible rubber band and the invisible rubber band are the thoughts, the feelings, the beliefs that pop in and say, no, you can't do this, or who do you think you are, or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:So it's people who are feeling that tension and I joke that my job is to be the invisible rubber band snipper, to go in and to work with you in a really deep way to resolve those inner tensions that are keeping you from having the outcomes you want, whether that's with emotional states that are really bothersome so perhaps you know, social anxiety or fears or phobias, or just feeling really depressed and down on yourself and having low self-confidence, or whether that's goal achievement or business building or putting yourself out there or whatever it is. And I will occasionally work with physical symptoms as well. I work quite a bit with insomnia and sleep issues. There's some really interesting stuff that goes on with that and I've also worked with physical conditions like chronic menstrual issues and UTIs and migraines, and chronic bothersome health problems also often have emotional root causes.
Speaker 2:So I you know business experts out there would probably tell me to put myself in a box and give myself a really pretty niche and all of that. But I just I'm such a multifaceted person. I have a hard time doing that, but those are a few of the areas that I work with and I would also say that when people come to me, they need to be in a space where they are ready and willing to go very, very deep, because my work is not surface level. We're getting into some usually very deep, very tender areas within their psyche and I hold it all with love and safety and compassion and non-judgment. However, a person has to have a willingness and a readiness to go there.
Speaker 1:So I know what we were talking before and sometimes people will come with anxiety or depression and you and you mentioned you know even that can be a part of you that's keeping you in a state of freeze or in a state of a fight or flight, like that stress response. So I'm kind of curious what you find sometimes like might be keeping and it can be a general answer, but what maybe would be keeping someone feeling anxious or depressed chronically? Are there certain things there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, with anxiety, a lot of times I end up tracing that back to being very unsafe in childhood. So, whether that's like neglect or abandonment or abuse, oftentimes we'll uncover just some form of not being safe in childhood and it could have been a chronic thing, like maybe you were chronically unsupervised or didn't know where your parents were or, you know, experienced abandonment like that or it could just be like a really single severe issue that only happened one time. You know whether an issue was chronic and it happened all the time, or it was a single severe, isolated incident. Both of those types of situations can leave an impact of trauma on the psyche and the whole system. So a lot of times with anxiety, I find unsafety in childhood, and so what we do in those sessions is, though we might go back. I use a tool called regression and hypnosis, so we do go back and we do visit with these younger parts of us that feel unsafe. Even though that can be initially painful and there might be some emotion that comes through. The really beautiful thing is what we do in this work is we bring those little versions of you to safety, so no matter where they are in space and time, and I like to say, these parts of us are frozen in time elsewhere. So the little, traumatized five-year-old or two-year-old or however year old part of you is frozen in time somewhere, still feeling so unsafe and scared. We, I like to say we, time travel, we go back in time, we rescue that little version of you and bring them forward to be with your adult self, and the amount of healing that that provides for people is just mind blowing. So with anxiety, it's usually some type of unsafety, instability, with depression.
Speaker 2:Most often what I find is a critical parent or a very critical peer.
Speaker 2:Is a critical parent or a very critical peer, so a parent that was constantly belittling them, putting them down, just being really abrasive and mean, or even peers bullying, bullying at school.
Speaker 2:I see that a lot where you're in elementary or middle school and you're just getting bullied all the time and you're hearing all of these horrible messages, whether it's like you're stupid or we don't like you or don't do that, or just like this chronic nastiness from the outside world, whether that's parents or peers or another caregiver.
Speaker 2:When someone hears that over and over, they internalize that as their own inner voice and so what gets installed is a critical voice and then over time, that becomes the voice that's narrating their own thoughts, and so it's not actually their true self that's saying all these nasty things. It's that voice that got installed from being in a critical environment and hearing those things over and over and over. And so when we do this work and someone has internalized a critical parent or a critical peer, we basically unravel that critical voice and then we install the voice, the kind, loving voice of their true self, so that they no longer have to hear that horrible narration of whatever they tell themselves all the time. You're not enough, you suck, you're stupid, you can't do it. On and on and on.
Speaker 1:I like got goosebumps when you brought that part up, because how many of us like have deeply critical voices that are just running all the time and, um, I definitely relate with that. I think I came to that realization literally only like last year was like, oh, this isn't my own voice, you know? Getting down on myself, this is just like you said, it's just I took that on.
Speaker 1:Know, getting down on myself, this is just like you said, it's just I took that on and I just don't think we talk about that enough because it's such a big problem and I think, even like you said, like if that that can actually keep us stuck in that frozen state, cause we just don't ever feel good enough and we're always feeling that pressure and it's weird because it's like you know, it's like that person's sitting on your shoulder still like telling you all these terrible things about you, but it's like you said, it's not your true self and how freeing to get, to update that and and no, start speaking kindness and start being your own cheerleader and like I mean that's that is very deep, being able to work through that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's incredible and it changes people's lives. And you know, that is very deep. Yeah, being able to work through that, yeah, that's incredible. And it changes people's lives. And you know, we don't realize like, oh, this isn't my own voice. Actually, when I tune in, it sounds like my dad, or it sounds like my mom, or it sounds like Tim White from sixth grade, who was always chasing me around the playground and doing really mean things to me, I mean. And then the amazing thing is that when people go back in time and they realize where and when those voices got installed and they see their little self, you know, like five, six, seven, when we can see our younger self and witness our younger self through adult eyes, it's very difficult to not have compassion and to see it a different way. Oh, my gosh, little me. I know daddy is taking care of you and he's your role model and your father figure, but he ain't got it right. This is actually the truth. The truth is that you were born lovable. You were born worthy, you, you were born whole.
Speaker 1:There is nothing wrong with you and I'm kind of curious because I, having worked with you, like I understand the whole process. Would you mind kind of maybe giving us like a little mini crash course and like what would it look like for someone to work with you? Like what's your process? We're talking about hypnosis and parts work. Would you mind kind of breaking that down, if someone was come and work with you for the first time, what that might look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. First of all, I always have a call with interested clients to make sure it's a good fit, because I want to make sure that I'm in the best position I can be to help you and if I don't feel like I am, I always refer out. So I always just have a call with someone, getting to know them, making sure it's a good fit, kind of introducing ourselves and just feeling out whether it's a good fit. And then, if I do feel like I can help someone, what I'll do is I'll have an intake call with them and that is just like a coaching call, a talking call.
Speaker 2:There's generally no hypnosis on that call and we'll just have a conversation about what is the challenge that you're dealing with, what are the pain points that you're experiencing, what is your history with this issue, how long has it been going on, what symptoms does it create in your life?
Speaker 2:And then, on the flip side of that conversation, I like to have that person daydream and tell me all about how they want their life to be, how they want to be feeling and behaving and what they want to be achieving Like. I just have them paint a picture of their dream life and then I scheduled the hypnosis session separately. That's usually about two and a half hours. It's a really deep and thorough and long and amazing session and clients just get to get comfy. They are usually at home, they are often in their pajamas, on their bed or on their couch, just in a really cozy, comfortable position, and I just guide them into a state of relaxation with their eyes closed. So a lot of people have, because of Hollywood, they have preconceived notions about what hypnosis is. It's going to be this crazy thing and I'm going to fall asleep and you're going to make me dance like a chicken.
Speaker 1:No, I know I used to think that, holly I'm embarrassed to say, but I will say it I used to think that if you got hypnotized you might get stuck in a state of like I don't know why I thought this. I don't know where I learned this Media brainwashing.
Speaker 2:So many people have that belief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this idea. It's weird. You'll get stuck in like the upside down world and like not be able to come back.
Speaker 2:I think that's actually a scene in the movie Office Space. I don't know if you ever watched that.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's what it is.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of Hollywood movies and TV and media that tries to paint hypnosis as this very wacky, kooky thing. It's this thing. There is such a thing as stage hypnosis that you may have seen at a college graduation or a party or whatever. That is a thing where I don't even have to. I don't even want to go in and explain all that because it's not my area of work, but it is. It is a thing. And yet therapeutic hypnosis is so much different and I personally believe that we have all been brainwashed to think that it's silly and kooky and hokey because it's insanely powerful, and there are institutions and people out there in the world that do not want us to be powerful.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of examples of that in the holistic health space To reclaim our health and our sovereignty and our agency and all of that. So my thoughts are we've all been brainwashed into thinking it's this cookie thing so that we don't take our power back, because it really. It's, in my opinion, one of the most powerful tools on the planet.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, and actually sidetrack there. No, no, no, I love the sidetrack.
Speaker 2:Actually, all it is is it's a deep state of relaxation. With intention, I just guide you into a relaxed state with your eyes closed and then we start exploring the issue. We start exploring via different tools. I use a lot of regression, so regression is simply taking you back through time and it's really fascinating how that happens. You don't need to use any conscious effort whatsoever. Your subconscious does all of the work. I just give you the suggestion. You know you're going back to the place in time that has everything to do with whenever this issue started and just very magically your subconscious will bubble up an image or a word or a thought and then suddenly the picture will start to unfold, or the scene.
Speaker 2:You know, not everybody's visual. Some people have an inner hearing or inner knowing. Some people are very visual and they do see. You don't have to be visual for hypnosis to work. Visual and they do see. Um, you don't have to be visual for hypnosis to work. So I'll do regression in sessions to um, help people find out the origins of an issue, just like I found out. The origin of me sleeping through my alarm was that car accident when I was 14 years old and um. I use a lot of different tools in sessions, but uh, you've been mentioning parts work a few times. I do a lot of parts work and I find that parts work combined with hypnosis is like turbocharged.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I agree, yeah, yeah, 100% People tend to dip into hypnotic states during classic parts work as well, but I find just going in intentionally with the hypnosis it's just a lot easier to access those parts. So there's a lot of different tools that I lean on. But basically, you know, if you're coming in with this inner tension of I want this but I keep getting this, we go in during the session and we find out why. That is what has created that tension, and then we unwind that tension through different processes and experiences. It might be going back and rescuing those little versions of you that are still stuck in time is often something that we do.
Speaker 2:And then by the end of the session, I create a custom audio for my clients, and what this audio is is it's me speaking everything that you need to hear in order to achieve the outcome that you want. So very often I'm speaking reaffirming words to those little inner children parts, telling them the things that they needed to hear, whether that is you are loved, you are worthy, you are safe, whatever it is those deep core messages that they need to hear and they need to believe about themselves. And then very often I'm also painting a picture of the client's dream life. So the client comes to me and they say I just hate this social anxiety. I hate this inner terror that I have whenever I make presentations. Every time I'm around people, I freeze, I clam up. So after we do the healing work in the session, the audio is going to paint a picture of them being just so relaxed and easy and free at gatherings and talking and conversing with others with ease and just with a big smile on their face.
Speaker 2:I just, whatever the outcome is that they want, I paint a very, very vivid picture of that in an audio so that they can listen to that daily.
Speaker 2:And they listen daily for about 30 days and what they're doing is they're having a mental rehearsal of their desired way of being and over time, when the subconscious hears that again and again and again generally a month is all that is needed the subconscious just says, like well, this must be true and it takes it in and it completely changes everything for the person. And so they walk away with that custom audio which is about 15 minutes long. So they're listening to a 15 minute audio for about 30 days. And then I have a follow-up call, generally a month from the time we had our session, and I like to check in with people and see how they're doing, and it's always really fun to check on the progress scores from before the session and after they've had time with their audio. Most of the times people do a complete 180. Maybe their confidence was at a two and now it's at like an eight or a nine. It's really cool to see.
Speaker 1:Would you mind walking us through maybe one or two of your favorite client breakthroughs, things that you've worked with, clients that have just been like really stuck in your mind as really really powerful and profound for their healing.
Speaker 2:I would love to and it's very hard to pick because I have so many I would love to write a book one day of just transformation stories, oh please do Not just for the sake of the outcome.
Speaker 2:Oh, please do Not just for the sake of the outcome, but for the sake of inner discovery, because, just like I shared with 14-year-old me in the car wreck and my subconscious creating this belief, we can never be underslept. We always have to sleep a lot. I personally find it very fascinating what is going on in people's inner worlds that make them do the things that they do or not do the things that they want to do. So the transformation is really juicy, but also the psychology of why things happen. I would just love to write a book about that one day. So I have two stories I would like to share.
Speaker 2:One is I was working with a client she was an entrepreneur. Is I was working with a client, she was an entrepreneur, and she had the worst time sending out invoices. Like every time she went to send out an invoice, she was just terrified and she would freeze and she would feel guilty and she would just like delay sending out her invoices. It was just. It was this feeling of like I'm not worthy of receiving, like just this, this, this real freeze around money, and she wanted to be able to send her invoices with ease and to feel worthy of being paid for her beautiful work. And so we go into hypnosis and we're exploring the root cause of this and she has a few scenes come up, and then the last scene that we went to she went and she said oh my gosh, I'm in the womb, my eyes are closed and I can see the redness of my eyes and I just know, and I can tell that I'm in the womb. And I said okay, what's happening here with you in the womb? And she said oh, I can feel my parents arguing and it just feels so harsh and scary. And I said well, what are they arguing about? She said, oh, they're arguing about money and they're really worried. They don't know how they're going to provide for me once I'm here, once I'm born. They don't know how they're going to pay for me and they're really worried about finances. And oh, this is just so scary and they're fighting and it's so harsh.
Speaker 2:And I said, oh, okay, I was like okay, so what do you, as that little baby in the womb, what do you make that mean? And she says I make that mean that when I'm born and when I get to earth, I need to take up as little resources as possible, I need to make myself small, I need to not want for anything. I need to not ask for anything. I need to make myself small. I need to not want for anything, I need to not ask for anything. I need to make myself very small and make my needs very, very small because clearly there isn't enough to go around and there isn't enough for me. So I decide that when I'm born, when I get to earth, I'm going to take up as little as possible.
Speaker 2:And what we did in order to heal that was there was a couple of things. One thing I had her do was I had her imagining putting her adult hands on her mother's belly, like communicating with her baby self in the womb. So imagine adult her literally sending a message back in time to her baby self in the womb of like oh honey, like you can have big needs, you can have big wants, like it's it's safe to need, it's safe to want, there's more than enough to go around. I had her make that transmission from her adult self to her pre-birth self in the womb. And then another thing I had her do was I had her connect with the consciousness of her parents at that point in time and essentially kind of raise her hand in the argument, even though she was in the womb, and say mom, dad, like I can hear you, I'm scared, like is there really not enough for me?
Speaker 2:And it's amazing this can happen in hypnosis we can. Sometimes we speak with people who have passed, sometimes we speak with people like back in time. But both of her parents came in and they said oh sweetie, we are so sorry, there is more than enough for you, there is more than enough to go around. We are so happy and thrilled that you're going to be here. We're just figuring out logistics, we'll figure it out, it'll all be okay and you're going to be so well provided for and we're going to take good care of you. And so, like, all of this just got rewritten for her.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that. That blows my mind. Yeah, yeah, and like I'm assuming that after that, money became so much more easeful, like receiving money, yes, it was actually wild.
Speaker 2:I was staying in contact with her as she was listening to her audio and of course, we had our follow-up and she started getting all of these really unexpected gifts.
Speaker 2:I think, if I'm remembering correctly, her neighbor gave her a boat or something, something big and massive, and she was just sending out her invoices with total ease and just all of these little unexpected gifts and money and surprises and not even just monetary things were coming into her life. She was getting a lot of unexpected monetary things coming into her life, but she also started receiving a lot more compliments and praise and just receiving in other ways. It was just like, oh, it's safe for the world to give me things I deserve and I'm worthy of receiving these things. It was not just a money thing, it was a receiving thing.
Speaker 1:It was a receiving thing, it was a receiving thing that is so beautiful. And I mean that's, I feel like that's one of those really core things for so many of us is like not being able to receive. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And if I can, if I can share just one other story um, this was a client I worked with, um was it last summer or the summer prior, it doesn't really matter, but it was a client I worked with and she had extreme health and safety anxiety. So she was terrified of getting on a plane. She thought she'd die if she got on a plane and she also had really extreme fears around her health, just around like contracting illness or being food poisoned. And then she had had this for a really, really long time. And then it ramped up after COVID, just with all of the messages that we were getting around health and safety during that time, it just everything really ramped up for her. And yet she had this dream. She lives in the United States and she had this dream that she really wanted to go to Italy with her son. She has Italian heritage and she wanted to visit her homeland and kind of go on this trip of a lifetime. But she was like, how the hell am I going to do that when I'm terrified to get on a plane and I'm terrified to eat almost every food? The way she described it to me was like her life felt like it had shrank down into this teeny, tiny little box of just being at home and being isolated and being fearful. And so I said, well, absolutely, we can work on that.
Speaker 2:And I did some more.
Speaker 2:A lot of times I'll work with people for just a month, but with her the symptoms were pretty extreme at that point, and so we decided to work together for three months, which is still a really short period of time.
Speaker 2:People are in therapy for years and years and years, and here I am saying, like, well, three months is on the longer side, but the type of work that I do is very accelerated and so a lot of times issues can be healed within a month. But with her we chose to work together for three months, and over the course of working with her and these really deep and powerful sessions, we went back to the roots of the fears and the feeling of being unsafe too, from stuff that she picked up in the womb that actually belonged to her mother and her grandmother. It was like this ancestral, generational, inherited trauma. But anyway, by the end of our work together, she was able to go to Italy. She got on a plane, she went to Italy with her son. They had like the adventure of a lifetime. She said she was driving a car through these tiny Italian streets and the buildings were like super close, and caving in on the car and she was doing that and having fun and just eating foods that she hadn't eaten in years.
Speaker 2:She had a ton of food sensitivities and fears around food and just, you know, enjoying gelato and bread and all of these foods that she was so afraid to eat. And, um, she just had the trip of a lifetime. And she said that her son was with her and he was just like mom. Like who are you? Like what happened? Like are you okay? Like this is wonderful, but like what, what did you? What happened to my mom? This is like you're this adventurous, you know, free spirited, like this is my fearless mom, but she was able to fulfill that vision and just let go of all of these really debilitating fears. It was really really rewarding. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:That is an understatement so like, and that's the thing that I just. That's why I wanted to talk to you and share this with my audience, because we are meant to be able to live our biggest, boldest, most authentic version of us, and we're talking about your dream life. What does the true you like, what do you really want? Like, what were you made to do? And even simple things like just getting to enjoy a vacation with your family, like it, just it really does bring.
Speaker 1:It just brings so much vibrancy to life, especially for those of us who, yeah, like, maybe we have gone through a lot of trauma in the past. Maybe there have gone through a lot of trauma in the past. Maybe there's just been a lot of different little things along the way that have really shrunk down. Um, our world, like you were describing with her, and being able to guide someone through, being able to like heal through that Um, even if it takes all of three months, like that is so rewarding and so beautiful, and I'm so grateful for you and that you are out here doing this and that you took the time to allow yourself to go through the same process that you're now taking your clients through. It is incredible. I think that, like now, I'm kind of excited. Can I share about us working together?
Speaker 2:I would love to First of all thank you. I receive that. I let that in See. I've worked on my walls of receiving and I let things in now.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I receive that I love it. I would love to talk about our work together, because that was I mean, that's a story that I would love to share as well work together because that was.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's a story that I would love to share as well. Yes, I am so excited and I wasn't like I wasn't planning on let's do this podcast because I'm going to work with Holly and we're going to talk about me on the podcast. That was not my intention, but I'm really excited to share because I had such a powerful healing experience with Holly. It was only last week, but when I had emailed you about doing the podcast, I also just threw in there. At the end I was like, oh, I'm a little embarrassed, but I'm going to ask her could you help me with this problem that I've had since I was five? I've got this.
Speaker 1:I think you could call it a repetitive, compulsive behavior of counting all the corners in every room I'm in, or if I'm driving, I'm counting all the cars or the trees or the, you know, the mailboxes, like I have this and it's very subconscious. Well, it has been. It has like since I was five. It's been very in the background. So even if I'm sitting watching TV, I'll just be like quickly counting all the shapes in the room and it's actually started becoming very like conscious and I started the past two years just being very like wait, why am I doing this? This isn't making life very enjoyable. But I also didn't know it was something that I didn't have to do. I just thought like, okay, this is just a tendency I have and I certainly couldn't control it consciously. But so that's why I mentioned the email was like hey, holly, this is like so weird and I'm embarrassed to ask, but like I've got this thing going on Like can you help me? And you're like, of course, um, let's do it.
Speaker 1:So we set up um a session and we kind of went back to what were the experiences in my childhood that made me feel like I need to be compulsively counting and keeping, like, like having a grip on life and really like holding everyone and everything around me in. And with this counting, it was kind of like like my baby self, like my five-year-old self, was like this is, this is going to keep everybody in. And so, anyway, we went through. It was three different, three different memories One when I was five, one when I was 14, and then one, I think, when I was six, and like it was so interesting, like cause you're right, all of a sudden, like you'll have an image pop up. And the one when I was six. Like I was like Holly, I see a pumpkin Don't know what that's about. Like just kind of second guessing Maybe I just thought of a pumpkin. You're like, okay, let's just allow that to kind of see if anything forms. And then that last memory was me crawling on my hands and knees through this pumpkin patch.
Speaker 1:They had like a hay bale maze and I was trying to lead my little sister and I think there's some other kids behind me through this maze, but my six-year-old I was trying to lead my little sister and I think there's some other kids behind me through this maze but, like my six-year-old self was starting to really be concerned that we might die in there. Like we might not make it out unless I, like kept track of everything and made sure that, like I knew the right way out, but you brought it all back to like. So that was your system calculating and categorizing. Okay, this is what we're going to continue doing. We're going to continue counting. Subconsciously, we will keep track of your whole world, time and space. We will be counting and keeping track and tracing everything in your space. And that was my, my subconscious is solution to keeping me safe, because it all comes back to safety right.
Speaker 1:Most of the time it's always coming back to safety and I thought that was so crazy. So that was that experience. And this was only last Monday, so this was only last week, and I kept thinking, oh, she's going to give me the recording, I'll listen to it. It's really sweet to listen to. I'm very happy to listen to it, but I don't think it's going to change anything too fast. And even if it does like so, I'm trying to paint the picture. I wasn't like convinced that this was going to work, because this has been 27 years of me having this compulsion and within three days I had emailed you. I was like Holly, I'm not having to count anymore. Like I, like I don't have that compulsion anymore. It's fading, it's completely fading In three days after 27 years. What are we talking about? What are we talking about?
Speaker 2:That scene that we went back to with you and going through the hay maze, I think I remember you saying it was hot and it was confined and you felt claustrophobic and when you're in a hay maze like that, you can't see the end. And there was all this feeling of responsibility for your little siblings and you felt like, oh my gosh, are we going to die? So you were literally orienting. I mean, how many corners have I passed? Where are we? How are we going to get out? And so you could see, like the counting and the tracking and the tracing, in this scene where your subconscious says like you might die, to an adult, like we know okay, we're not going to die in a hay maze but to a child it sure, to a child of course it feels like you're going to die in this hot, scary, claustrophobic hay maze. So, just like I had that trauma imprint with that car wreck where my subconscious said we need to make sure she gets lots of sleep for the rest of her life, your subconscious said we need to make sure Annika is always oriented to space and time and location, not only for her safety but for her entire family's safety, safety.
Speaker 2:And so when you have that moment of extreme fear. Whether it's a car wreck or a hay maze or whatever it is, there's a trauma imprint that says this is the program that will keep us safe. And so what we did was we just brought little you to safety, we brought her out of that maze and I think we took her to your home, where you live now, and we just told her like, oh, you've done such a good job keeping everybody safe, but you don't have to do that anymore, you just get to play now. And how cool it is, how fast that shifted. That's just amazing.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, I'm reeling. This is so new and I'm so thrilled and so relieved, but also just like what just happened. I know that was the goal. This was a goal, but I just did not believe that it'd be so fast and so peaceful. It gives you so much trust in myself. Now I feel like, oh my gosh, like I can do anything, my brain can rewire, and it really empowers me. So thank you for giving me the gift of feeling like that empowerment. Um, and I'm just I'm really excited for people to be able to connect with you and see if working with you is a good fit. I know that there's people in my audience who are probably like how, how do I connect with Holly? So would you mind maybe sharing with us? Like, how, how do I connect with Holly? So would you mind maybe sharing with us? Like, how can people connect with you? Maybe your website or your Instagram? How can people find you?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. I would love for you to come over and hang out with me. I'm on Instagram at hollyfisherhiggins, and I'm sure you're going to link all this up in the show notes. Fisher Higgins, and I'm sure you're going to link all this up in the show notes. I am on there somewhat consistently. I'm trying to balance real life and social media, but you could find me on there. My website is hollyfisherhigginscom and I have some freebies there that you can download. I have a self-sabotage download explaining self-sabotage. I have a couple of different free audios to listen to, like a procrastination audio, a clear the crap audio, I called it. If you've had a really funky day or gotten in a horrible argument with someone, you can just give yourself a car wash and just wash all that off. Oh, I love that. Yeah, off, oh I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh, I love that you can find those things at hollyfisherhigginscom.
Speaker 2:I do have a podcast called Mind Speak. That oh good, oh, thank you, I love it. And in this season of life I have a little toddler. He's almost three, he's like two and three quarters, my little baby boy. In this season of life I just don't record as much as I used to, but I record episodes sporadically and it's still just a great resource. I mean, all the episodes are still there.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's so many episodes. Yeah, they're all there to go listen to, so you guys can go binge, yeah, mind.
Speaker 2:Speak podcast. So, yeah, those are a few different ways you can connect with me and I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to connect with you. If you love this episode, send me a message, reach out, I'd love to connect.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thank you so much, holly, and thank you so much for just taking the time and speaking to us about this really, really vital work. Is there anything that you want to leave us with? Is there anything that, if people were just wondering, yeah, but what about? Maybe I'm too, this isn't going to work for me? Or if they have questions or doubts? Is there anything that you'd like to leave our audience with?
Speaker 2:just as far as transformational hypnosis, just as far as transformational hypnosis, yeah, I would say most people I'd say like eight out of 10 people when they come to me there's some skepticism, because it's not that they're doubtful of the work or anything. Most often they're more doubtful of themselves. They say, oh, I've seen all these amazing transformations and that's really cool, but I just don't think it's possible for me. There's something within them that says that's great for other people but that's not for me. I would say eight out of 10 people that come to me they say that and then they're mind blown. They're like oh, it really did work for me, just like I was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so um that's encouraging it's very common and very normal to have those fears. Uh, you know, especially if we've tried a lot of things that haven't worked, you know, if we've we've hit a lot of roadblocks or we've uh we've faced a lot of disappointments in our lives, it's very normal to feel like, yeah, that really good stuff's just for other people, it's not for me. So I work with that a lot and it doesn't bother me at all. Come on in, we'll just work with it.
Speaker 1:I love it because that's exactly how your attitude with me. You're like, yeah, well, let's just give it a go, and I'm so glad that I did. Thank you so much again. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day. Do you have any? I'm going to go pick some of my homegrown zucchinis. We've got a couple that we just. We have got two zucchini plants. I know that you grow your own food.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I was curious are you harvesting anything right now, or is it?
Speaker 2:all. Oh no, we're harvesting and my little boy loves picking all the things with me. We. We went out to the garden last night and we did a harvest and we picked the zucchini and the squash and he's calling the zucchini, he calls them keenies. He's like mommy, can we get more keenies?
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh Henry.
Speaker 2:So we've got our zucchini and our squash and our peppers and we're starting to get a few tomatoes, but it's like an abundance. I'm going to have to start giving it away, freezing it. Um, I'm going to get back into fermentation again. I want to do my own fermented pickles. I'm going to think I'm going to do some fermented carrots, Um.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, yeah, I love it. Yeah. Well, that's where I'm going to, that's where I'm heading. Next, I'm going to go harvest some vegetables.
Speaker 2:Um have just the most wonderful amazing rest of your day, holly, and thank you again so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you'd like to connect with Holly, her website is hollyfisherhigginscom and she has a lot of resources on her website, as well as the link to her podcast, mindspeak. If you would like to work with me or learn more about what I do, you can go to nourishedbynatureco. That's nourishedbynatureco, and under the resources tab you can download my brand new resource called the Mood Type Questionnaire, which will help you understand which of your neurotransmitters are low. I use this tool along with amino acid therapy, working with my clients. My clients have been reporting 80 to 100% reduction in their core moods, whether it's anxiety or depression. So go ahead and grab that resource to help you get started in understanding your own moods, and you can always book your first consultation with me at nourishedbynaturecom. Until next time, stay nourished, my friend.