Session - 0037 Peter McLaughlin Discovering Spiritual Hypnotherapy

Peter McLaughlin was a successful entrepreneur who ran his own security guard business, overseeing 50 employees. The nature of his business allowed him to manage it on autopilot with minimal daily input. During a challenging period when medical professionals could not determine the cause or cure for a particular type of leukemia, Peter dedicated 4 to 5 hours each day to extensive research. His relentless quest for answers led him to explore beyond traditional medical explanations, delving into the profound influence of the mind over the body. Through his journey, Peter discovered a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness between mental and physical health.
European Association of Professional Hypnotherapist Website:
https://eaph.ie

You can connect with Peter on his website:
https://www.blueskyhypnosis.com


Music Used is by:
https://soundcloud.com/ashamaluevmusic2/my-world?in=ashamaluevmusic2/sets/piano-music

Clarification: During the Podcast Aidan Noone references - "leaving one's body." Please do not take this literally. The intention was to reference a spiritual leaving and or going metaphysical, a thought journey.  Going meta can provide a different perspective.

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Transcript

Aidan Noone [00:00:04]:
Peter McLaughlin, and thank you for joining me as being my guest today on the Professional Hypnotherapist Podcast.

Peter McLaughlin [00:00:11]:
It is my pleasure, Aidan. Glad to be here.

Aidan Noone [00:00:14]:
Great. And tell us where where are you based at the moment?

Peter McLaughlin [00:00:18]:
In Florida. In a place called Tarpon Springs, Florida. It's about midway down.

Aidan Noone [00:00:23]:
Right. I'm sure the weather is fantastic.

Peter McLaughlin [00:00:26]:
It is. Although at this time of year, it starts getting really hot. And for a person who grew up in the northeast of the United States, it's, it takes getting used to.

Aidan Noone [00:00:34]:
Okay. I'm sure. Yeah. Mhmm. But at the minute, in in in Ireland, it's about 15 degrees centigrade. But, anyway, okay. Peter, you weren't always working, in the in the work you're doing as a hypnotherapist coach. Tell us where you started and what you started in.

Peter McLaughlin [00:00:56]:
Wow. Okay. So I started in business, and I was I was doing business. I was in, technology when I first got out of college. At a certain point, I decided I didn't wanna be in business anymore. I was in New York City. I quit that, and and I became a professional actor for 10 years. I got back into business, but it was my own kind of business at that point.

Peter McLaughlin [00:01:18]:
And what brought me into hypnosis was a simultaneous diagnosis same day when I was volunteering to be a firefighter of, Lyme disease and a chronic form of leukemia on the same day that led me into this work.

Aidan Noone [00:01:35]:
Right. Right. That was a very poignant time in your life. I'm sure. I'm sure. Yes. So how how did you how did you cope with that?

Peter McLaughlin [00:01:46]:
Well, I I had my own business at the time. I I owned a security guard business, and I had 50 employees. And because of the nature of the business, I was able to put it kind of on autopilot. Uh-huh. And I would spend about 4 or 5 hours a day just researching because the hematologist, oncologist said, we don't know what causes this kind of leukemia. We don't know how to cure it. And I just I just spent every day researching, researching. And the more I did this, the more I was drawn from the purely physical cause and effect into the power of the mind over the body.

Peter McLaughlin [00:02:18]:
Yeah. And then from that into the power of the spirit over the mind. And that's when I thought, okay. I need to learn more about this and hypnosis seemed like the perfect way to do

Aidan Noone [00:02:30]:
that. Mhmm. I read from your website, you know, the and to quote it to to discover how powerful our minds are for creating illness, health, despair, love, failure, and success. In other words, it's it's it's our mind is responsible for everything, really, isn't it?

Peter McLaughlin [00:02:52]:
I think it is. And and I and I do think that there is this animating force. I don't know if above is the right way to say it. I think it's a human way of saying it, which is fine. But this animating force that you might call a spirit or you might call a soul, that that influences the behavior of the mind along with everything that happens on the physical plane. So for me, the more I've done this work, the more I feel like I've been drawn into that spiritual aspect. You know, the wasn't it, Einstein that said, if you wanna solve a problem, you can't solve it at the level at which it was created. You have to go up a level.

Peter McLaughlin [00:03:30]:
Yeah. And for me, I find that some of the what you might even consider the religious, ethics and truths of forgiveness and grace is what ultimately solves these thorny problems that we have at a lower level with our relationships, for example, or for the way we view ourselves. And so my practice, I think, is ultimately dedicated towards finding the deeper reasons why a person is having the symptoms that they're having and resolving that.

Aidan Noone [00:04:05]:
Mhmm. So what I'm getting from you is that to get to the root cause of the of the issue.

Peter McLaughlin [00:04:13]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. It's almost like what I say to to my clients sometimes is that we are more sophisticated version versions of a car. You know, cars now have software. They have hardware. And when there's a problem with the car, we would we would say that's the symptom, but that symptom is generally not the reason for the for the symptom. It's something underneath the hood of the engine, deep in the bowels of the engine.

Peter McLaughlin [00:04:40]:
There's a hose that's become cracked or loose, and it might be spraying some kind of liquid onto something hot, and now you get smoke. So the smoke is the symptom, but it's not really the problem.

Aidan Noone [00:04:52]:
And, indeed, we have within our heads as we call it the most powerful. If we could liken our mind, our brain to be in a computer, the power of our our mind to to do things for us. And the whole area of, you know, the subconscious, unconscious, subconscious, you know, maybe speak to that for us for a moment.

Peter McLaughlin [00:05:21]:
Well, I suppose I would take, like, a quantum physicist's outlook on the universe that that everything is happening simultaneously. Right? The time is an illusion, that there are other aspects of our existence on this planet that are probably an illusion. I believe everything is real. Everything. And this is the reason why the placebo effect behaves the way it does, and that our mind is is the centerpiece of this experience that we're having. And that if our mind really believes and really grasps a particular truth, that often comes true. So if somebody really believes that they're unlucky, they tend to have that experience. If they really believe that they're on the other side of the equation very lucky, that tends to be their experience.

Peter McLaughlin [00:06:20]:
And for me, this would be crystallized in the ancient wisdom of the law of correspondence from the Hermetic principles as as above, so below, as within, so without. I would say right now with every client with whom I work, I'm thinking about that law of correspondence. They're describing to me something in their outer world that they that they are angry about or that isn't working for them. And I'm thinking, what is it inside of you that's creating that mirror image reflection? And what this does is it gives that person the the agency. It gives them the power because if they can change what's inside, then they will have a different reef reflection on the outside. Mhmm. Did that answer your question?

Aidan Noone [00:07:09]:
Believe you can or whether you believe you can't. You're correct.

Peter McLaughlin [00:07:12]:
Correct.

Aidan Noone [00:07:13]:
Yes. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Now your work entails a lot of spirituality and, you know, reference to reference to, let's say, the the the physical reference to beyond the physical. Mhmm. Maybe you could just speak to that for us for a moment.

Peter McLaughlin [00:07:37]:
Sure. Sure. So back to the whole concept of quantum physics that there that there is no time. Yeah. To me, it's it's obvious to me, from the work that I've been doing, from what I've read, from the people that I've listened to, that our consciousness survives our physical death, that we that our consciousness never dies. That that's the energy that is created but never destroyed. And that we come into this lifetime, and those of us with children could say, oh, in my case, I have 3 children. All 3 of them had distinct and different aspects to their personality, things that they were afraid of, things that they were drawn to, things that they were good at.

Peter McLaughlin [00:08:27]:
And I would say that that is in part due to their experiences in previous lifetimes. And in my practice, as we mentioned before, I'm always looking for the root cause. And when I have a client in hypnosis or when I have them using an ideomotor tool and I have the client go to the origin of their of their issue, their symptom in this lifetime, Maybe 70% of the time, 60, 70% of the time, it's in a past lifetime. So that's an example of a spiritual aspect, I would say, that we transcend from being incarnated, you know, as Peter and as Aiden in this lifetime. There's a period of spiritual awareness when we don't have a body anymore, but we still have consciousness, and then there's another lifetime that we would call a past lifetime. And then I think that this is overseen by loving entities that a religious person, I think, might identify if you're Christian as Jesus, as Mary, as the saints, as the angels, as God. If if you're from a different religion, you might have different names for your for your, spiritual deities, but I think that that's true. I think we're operating inside a much larger system.

Aidan Noone [00:09:52]:
So our consciousness is immutable.

Peter McLaughlin [00:09:56]:
Yes. That's right. That's right. And I would say that, you know, Shakespeare said all the world's a stage. All the men and women are merely players. And I think that's exactly right. I think we are all like actors. You're playing the role of of Aden, you know, the the x year old Irishman, and I'm playing the role of Peter, the 62 year old American with my history and my background, just like a good actor does.

Peter McLaughlin [00:10:23]:
They take the script and then they fill in in their mind the backstory so that their character can be richer. But we've played other roles before too, and that our ego and our body and our story in this life is the role we're playing now. And the actor, if you will, in this metaphor, is our spirit. The actor is our soul that goes from role to role to role, from lifetime to lifetime to lifetime.

Aidan Noone [00:10:54]:
And so how how do we as it were, or can we ensure that the role we're we're partaking in is the correct role for us, if that makes sense?

Peter McLaughlin [00:11:07]:
Well, I think by definition, it's the correct role because we live in a free will universe, and we have agency as a a nonphysical spiritual being before we're incarnated, and we incarnate based upon whatever lesson it is that we're supposed to learn for this lifetime. And upon consultation and advice with these loving beings, our our our spirit guides and so on, We take on certain kinds of challenges and other aspects of this incarnation so that we can learn the underlying lesson. So I think I think we we have chosen. I think the key is to remember this, to remember why we're here, to remember that we are eternal beings, to remember that everything is organized around love and choice and forgiveness so that for people who are in states of chronic anxiety, for people who are in states of chronic low self esteem, for people who have, broke a string of broken relationships behind them, for people who have done things in the past for which they cannot forgive themselves. This this philosophy, this way of understanding and being offers freedom from all of that. You know? That that hypnosis in many ways, I've said to my clients, is kind of like, psychedelics, that it can help the person step out of the biography for a moment and look back at their at their life with a greater sense of objectivity and be able to recognize perhaps that their struggles don't define them. And and whether it's meditation or hypnosis or psychedelics or prayer, when you can separate even for a moment from that from that egoic sense that's holding on, and you can see that you're you're larger, more beautiful, more powerful. I think throughout the ages, we know that this has offered people relief.

Aidan Noone [00:13:23]:
So you can find, you know, the solution inside yourself, but at the same time, it's necessary to to to go to the metaphysical, go to beyond the physical because it's been the beyond the physical that you gain knowledge. Would you agree?

Peter McLaughlin [00:13:40]:
I would totally agree with that. Yeah. And I think that that's exactly what Einstein said when he said, if you wanna solve a problem, you can't solve it at the level at which it was created. You have to go up a level.

Aidan Noone [00:13:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you your work, a lot of your work well, I'm saying a lot of your work, but you can tell me if I'm right or wrong. You do a lot of, past life regression and, you mentioned also, you know, the role, on your website of near death experience and the spiritual regression. Can you talk to us about that?

Peter McLaughlin [00:14:14]:
Sure. And you probably know this as a hypnotist yourself that there are certain techniques that we're taught to regress someone back in time. So the first thing that I was taught was how to age regress someone. So if somebody's 45 years old and they had a trauma when they were 5 years old, how to regress them to that age in order to resolve the trauma where it lives. Well, it's the same thing with past life regression. It's just it's it's the same technique to bring somebody into an earlier lifetime. And if somebody suffered a significant trauma in a past lifetime, and that's the reason why they have a fear of getting on an aircraft or speaking in public or driving over a bridge, then any other attempt to fix that, in my opinion, is, is bound to not succeed fully. Just like if you don't get to the root cause of a problem with your car, you're dealing with kind of a Band Aid.

Peter McLaughlin [00:15:18]:
And it's the same thing in terms of age regression, past life regression with spiritual regression. Being able to regress someone to meeting with their spirit council, regress them to, a moment at which they were choosing the circumstances of this lifetime, those would all be, in in in principle, the same way of doing things.

Aidan Noone [00:15:44]:
Something that occurs to me, Peter, you know, going to the spirit the spirit guide, how does one differentiate between a a good spirit guide and a not good spirit spirit guide?

Peter McLaughlin [00:15:59]:
That's a great question. And I'm not exactly sure why this is, but when I bring somebody to a spirit guide, I have them ask, are you my spirit guide? Are you here to, for my highest and best interests? Right? So it's 90% of the time, they they hear yes. 10% of the time, I'm just making these numbers up, they hear no.

Aidan Noone [00:16:25]:
Right.

Peter McLaughlin [00:16:26]:
And then we say, well, who are you? Why are you here?

Aidan Noone [00:16:30]:
Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:16:31]:
And that leads to to other other realms, other avenues that we don't want any part of, really.

Aidan Noone [00:16:39]:
Yeah. Absolutely not. No.

Peter McLaughlin [00:16:41]:
And then and then the other way of doing this is that if a person is a let's say if a person's a Christian, their spirit guide, we can just have them meet with Jesus. We can have them meet with Mary, and then we don't we don't really need to go through the, are you here for my highest and best interests?

Aidan Noone [00:16:58]:
Okay.

Peter McLaughlin [00:16:59]:
Now the other thing I would say, Aidan, is that when a person meets with their spirit guide 90 some odd percent of the time, and I and I ask them, how do you feel in the presence of this being? They usually say, I feel totally comfortable. I feel like I've known this being forever. I feel I feel cared for. I feel protected. This is another this is another layer that I think we often leave out is what is your body telling you? You know, when you're walking down at an alley at night and you hear footsteps behind you, your body is telling you this may not be safe. The hair stands up on the back of your neck, and you you start to go into this en garde place. Conversely, if you're on a beach and it's warm and you feel the sun on your skin, your body tends to relax because your body is always speaking to you. So there are different ways of ensuring that the path you're walking down is is safe, that it is in your highest and best interest.

Peter McLaughlin [00:18:02]:
Yes. It's a very good question because we do live in a in a universe of dark and light.

Aidan Noone [00:18:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's that's important. And to be comfortable in in the situation that you find yourself.

Peter McLaughlin [00:18:18]:
Yes. You wanna be sure that you're if you're a client, that you're comfortable with the hypnotist with whom you're working. Yeah. And then once you go into these other realms, you wanna be comfortable that in those realms. Even if you have to confront something very difficult from the past, you wanna feel like you're supported on the physical plane by the hypnotist Mhmm. But also on the nonphysical plane by your spirit guide or by an ascended master, for example.

Aidan Noone [00:18:43]:
K. Now you mentioned previously that, you you were in business. I think you said the security firm. Is that correct?

Peter McLaughlin [00:18:51]:
I had a security guard company. Yes.

Aidan Noone [00:18:53]:
Yeah. Okay. And I I presume and I'm not putting words in you, but I'm presuming that's you know, because of your involvement in business before, to what extent was that the impetus to for you to write your published book, entitled, Becoming the Customer?

Peter McLaughlin [00:19:12]:
Well, so I for most of my career, I was involved in sales in one way or another. And the way that I got into the security guard business was that, I met I met a person who became my business partner. He had inherited this business from his father and it had dwindled down to just a couple of clients and really not enough revenue to keep it going. And I wanted to, own part of a business. So I joined him bringing with me sales experience, and I then tripled the size of the company. And I bought him down to 5%, and I ran it. So the main skill that I brought to that was sales. I sold that business.

Peter McLaughlin [00:19:58]:
I bought a small shipping and packing store thinking I could just put this on autopilot. That was not the case. I was basically defrauded and, you know, a little embarrassing, but true. And I I was able to build that business up more, but not enough to really, you know, keep things going economically for my family. So I sold that, and then I had to take a sales position in a corporation. So I've got a fair amount of sales experience from early in my career to what I did with the security guard company to 2 different companies that I worked for after all of that happened. And from that place, I wrote the book as a hypnotist and as a salesperson to bring together essentially, to help people understand the powers of persuasion, to understand how to build rapport, to understand better about questioning, to really undercut under, unearth the deeper emotional reasons that somebody wants to make a purchase or that they're considering making a purchase and to be able to sell to that.

Aidan Noone [00:21:09]:
You know, it's in the business that we're in, hypnotherapy, coaching, life coaching, whatever. You know, it's it's, what do you think motivates people to get off their backsides as it were and contact somebody like like us?

Peter McLaughlin [00:21:27]:
When I studied yeah. When I studied this work, which was in 2003, there was a a phrase that stayed with me, and that was when they have suffered enough. So that's my answer to that question, when they have suffered enough. When when enough the and that's actually the genius of pain, and I'm a human being. I don't wanna feel any pain, but pain can be one of the greatest motivators. And part of pain is frustration. So if a person's having something going on and they go and try this kind of profession and doesn't work and they try someone else in that profession and it doesn't work and then they try something over here and it doesn't really work, eventually, they'll be willing to try something that's more esoteric, that's more off the beaten path.

Aidan Noone [00:22:15]:
Mhmm.

Peter McLaughlin [00:22:16]:
So for me, it's that's what that's what ultimately motivates people is the pain. And then if that's coupled with a referral from somebody that has worked with me before who had great experience, and they say, you've gotta work with this guy, that's where I find a lot of people. And then I also find people that come in through my YouTube channel. I've got 120,000 subscribers at this point, and I have videos and people have, you know, some people have remarkable remarkable experiences, and they want more. And so they'll contact me. Or it could be because of some of the esoteric work that I do that people will will reach out to me as well.

Aidan Noone [00:23:02]:
And, you you know, we mentioned pain and, you know, the the power of hypnosis to alleviate pain. Mhmm. Now being you being in the United States, you know, it's a very, well, I suppose the world is becoming very litigious. You know, and I like to think, from my point of view that, you know, that the work we do to some extent, maybe to a large extent, it is an adjunct to, you know, orthodox medicine. What's your take on that?

Peter McLaughlin [00:23:36]:
Well, I I mentioned how I got into this work. It was a diagnosis on the same day of Lyme disease and leukemia, and that I was volunteering for my local fire department, and I became a firefighter and an EMT. And when I was trained as an emergency medical technician, I learned that there were 22 branches of allopathic medicine. 1 is trauma. You know, a person that falls out of a tree or they cut their fingers off with a snowblower or they, or they, you know, get violently attacked and injured or, medical, and that would be all the chronic diseases. So as a person who has dealt with a chronic disease, you know, this form of leukemia where I was told that I would live for 10 years maybe, and that was in 20,021,003, I can I think I I my perspective is that allopathic medicine is really good at one of those and not good at the other? It's really good at the trauma. Fabulous trauma. But the chronic disease, I think they're completely baffled by it.

Peter McLaughlin [00:24:42]:
And and for me, as a non I'm gonna say I'm I'm not a doctor, so don't take my advice. You know, take everything with a grain of salt that I say. Talk to your doctor. Talk to your psychologist

Aidan Noone [00:24:53]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:24:53]:
Is that, for root cause, cancer, for example, the tumor didn't cause the tumor. Something else did. And the body and the mind is connected. So for me, if it's trauma, it's a slam dunk. It's going to the emergency room. If it's medical, I have way more questions about what's gonna work. Now your point is, what is our role? Yes. Our role is an adjunctive role.

Peter McLaughlin [00:25:29]:
We are not the first call you make when you have a serious problem. But for people like me with a chronic a chronic illness that has that have gone down these roads, that like me has been told by their doctor, the qualified medical professional licensed and everything, that we don't know what causes this, we don't know how to cure it, it seems to me that that is the beginning of your journey. That's the beginning of your odyssey, and no one can tell you exactly how to do that because it's different for everyone. But I would say that there's always an emotional component that is inherent in something that is has been brewing inside of you for a long time.

Aidan Noone [00:26:19]:
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Peter McLaughlin [00:26:20]:
And that from that adjunctive perspective, it makes sense whether you work with somebody like me or somebody like you, Aidan, that you you examine the role of your mind. You examine, in particular, the role of your emotions because holding on to emotional pain, in my opinion, is like holding on to physical environmental toxins. It it can only harm.

Aidan Noone [00:26:47]:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And, I know you do some work, with people who have IBS, you know, about the whole the gut brain connection, the gut brain access. And in my experience as well, I I think it's so really, really important that, you know, people, realize and get to the root cause of the, the emotions that are not as it were put to bed, if you want to call it that, you know. That is so important in my my opinion. And that's it's it's cannot be overstated. Now, Peter, if you could have a just to sort of change gear a little bit.

Aidan Noone [00:27:33]:
If you could have a conversation with your younger you, what would you say to that younger you?

Peter McLaughlin [00:27:41]:
At what age would you say? So I'm 62 right now. If I could have a conversation with me at what age?

Aidan Noone [00:27:46]:
Whatever age. Any type younger you. Bill, I'll

Peter McLaughlin [00:27:49]:
pick it. I'm gonna pick 17 years old.

Aidan Noone [00:27:54]:
Okay.

Peter McLaughlin [00:27:56]:
I remember I remember saying to myself and other people at 17, I wanted to live a very interesting life. I wanted to do a lot of different things. And and I think I was able to do that. I think I would tell myself at 17 to to be more bold, to take to be to be less fearful of taking risks, not not crazy physical risks, but, you know, of of walking up to the girl and asking her for her phone number or for a date or, to to to go on an adventure someplace, to take a trip some and and go do something. I think I would tell myself to be to be less hesitant and to be more bold, and that and that everything is everything is gonna be fine. All the things that you're worried about, it's all gonna turn out well if you just keep going.

Aidan Noone [00:28:52]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. Great. Great advice. I think I think it's it's so important that, yeah, young people should be, you know, nourished and and, you know, wrapped around arms around them in terms of, look, this is how go go for it, you know, just go for it. So what has to be the most difficult part in your opinion, of being a hypnotherapist, hypnotherist, coach?

Peter McLaughlin [00:29:24]:
I think it's I think it's helping people understand that, like, if you wanted to get your kitchen remodeled, the first step is actually to to destroy what's there. You know, the if you if you came back after the 1st day of the guys working on your kitchen to do this beautiful kitchen remodel that you're spending all this money on, if you came back at after the first day and you didn't understand the process, you'd be horrified. Be like, wait a minute. I didn't like my kitchen before, but at least I could fry an egg in it. I can't even do that now. And I remember that for myself when I was going through my own, healing path that that I felt like I was tearing down. I used to call it the Potemkin village of my life. Potemkin village, for those who haven't heard that term, is kinda like a Hollywood set.

Peter McLaughlin [00:30:19]:
You know, the the the the town looks like this beautiful intact town when you look at it from a particular direction, but if you look at it from behind, it's just held up by 2 by fours. So I talked about I had constructed this kludgy Potemkin village of my life, and that part of this healing process was was not was metaphorically knocking that down like a kitchen remodel. And that there was a period of discomfort when I couldn't rely on this artificial village that I had created before the new one was constructed. And I think that this kind of deep healing is a is in some ways like a purging. You know, if you've been holding on to these old emotional toxins, deep emotional painful things, that as it as it comes up and leaves you, it it can be unpleasant. There could be a lot of sadness. You know, you could sometimes I call some of the work I do spiritual surgery because afterwards, people sometimes feel wiped out. They feel really tired, and then they feel better.

Peter McLaughlin [00:31:36]:
And I think in order to succeed at anything in this life, it's necessary to have a sense of persistence. You can't go to the gym once and expect that you will transform your physical body. You know, you can't say I wanna be a lawyer, so I went to one day of law school. It requires a kind of commitment and courage and a sense of persistence. Like, I'm gonna I'm gonna solve this because you can't solve people's problems for them. I can't do it either. We can guide them to the solution. Like a trainer in a gym, I can't lift the weights for you.

Peter McLaughlin [00:32:19]:
So I would say the most difficult part of this this work is in in helping people understand the need to be that motivated. And to that end, I would say, in my experience, when I work with, committed athletes, whether they are professional athletes, I've worked with some athletes, in the National Football League, or if it's, division 1 college athletes or or seriously committed high school athletes, that they already know that it doesn't that it doesn't come easy, that it takes work, and they're willing to put in that work. They just wanna know what they have to do. Those are the those are the, quote, unquote, best clients or the people that that understand that, that aren't gonna be just looking for the magic bullet, the one pill where, you know, I hypnotized them once and now they're paying everything has changed. So it's that educational process at the front end that I think is probably the most challenging. And I think that that's an area that, I will be working on for the rest of my life. How can I explain this better? Yeah. How can I help to motivate people better? How can I streamline the process to support them better? Because I think that's the tricky part.

Peter McLaughlin [00:33:45]:
And I think that that actually falls under faith. Faith that there's a that there's a root cause for what I'm dealing with. Faith for that there's a solution. And faith that even in my darkest hour as I'm as I'm navigating this, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And can I can I tell you a quick anecdote that illustrates this?

Aidan Noone [00:34:07]:
Yep.

Peter McLaughlin [00:34:08]:
So in the fire department, one of the training evolutions that we would do was they had this giant plastic drainage tube, essentially, and it was just large enough to crawl through it. So in a darkened room, they would have us crawl through this this tube, and and and the only way to crawl through it was to take off the the air tank that we wore on our back to take it off while you're inside the tube. And and while you're still breathing the air, you have it in front of you, and you're kind of pushing yourself with your toes and reaching forward and pulling like this to get yourself through this tube. First time I did it, I was about, I don't know, 15 feet into the tube. I didn't know how far left, how much far I had further I had to go. And it's so dark, and you're so closed in, it's really disorienting. And I had this thought, do I need to go back the other way? Can I make it through? Now this is a training evolution. I'm not in a building that's on fire or anything.

Aidan Noone [00:35:20]:
Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:35:20]:
And it was and it was this moment of just going, yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, I will get through this if I just keep going. But it it required kind of the mind over matter that you were saying before, the mind, being able to calm the emotions down so that I could keep going. And I feel like that's part of our challenge as humans in this lifetime. So often, we embark on something where we can't we can't really see around the next corner, And we have to trust or have faith that if we keep going, we will make it.

Aidan Noone [00:36:02]:
Something that occurs to me, you know, how long is long enough for you to remain in that pain?

Peter McLaughlin [00:36:12]:
Well, that's to the individual, that's an individual thing. When they've suffered enough is another way of saying that Yeah. Is for each individual. And with alcoholics, they talk about when they hit rock bottom. Well, what's rock bottom for you might be different than what it is for me. Yeah. You know, some people might as soon as they get a warning at their job, that might be enough for them to say I've gotta change. For other people, they'd have to lose the job, lose the job after that, the one after that.

Peter McLaughlin [00:36:41]:
They'd have to lose their family. They'd have to lose friends. They'd have to lose aspects of their of their health. For other people, they might actually have to lose their life and then come back and face the same challenges again. K. So I don't think you and I can really answer that question. That has to be answered by the person who's

Aidan Noone [00:37:03]:
Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:37:04]:
Going through that pain, and as humans, we all go through it. Absolutely. Physical, emotional, spiritual, some kind of pain.

Aidan Noone [00:37:14]:
Mhmm. Whilst hypnosis is not magic, there have been, I'm sure, and you've witnessed this yourself yourself, I'm sure, there have been many magical moments with clients.

Peter McLaughlin [00:37:30]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I'm so glad you said that because it sparked in my mind that while hypnosis is not magic, I think that magic suffuses our existence. I think it's magic that, that a man and a woman can come together and produce another human being. I think it's magic that in the spring, that a tree that looked like it was dead all winter now has buds on it that then turn into leaves. I think it's magic that you can put a seed in the ground, cover it up with dirt, and water it here and there, and it turns into this beautiful plant, maybe that produces food that you can eat. I think it's magic that you can take an apple, eat it, and it translates into sustenance for your body. I think we live inside of magic.

Peter McLaughlin [00:38:19]:
I think it's all magic. And I think the the moment that we accept the miracles of life, the it it is the moment that we become empowered by life. We become empowered to have that faith to keep going through that tunnel, to to trust and have faith and believe that there is a root cause to our issue and that we can solve it, that we are powerful enough to solve it with the help that we have around us. Mhmm. So, yeah, I love I love that you said that because

Aidan Noone [00:38:55]:
Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:38:55]:
The older I get, the more in awe I am of this existence. Mhmm.

Aidan Noone [00:39:04]:
Spirituality plays a huge role in your work, I I gather from you.

Peter McLaughlin [00:39:08]:
Yes.

Aidan Noone [00:39:09]:
And to to that extent, would you agree or disagree that that what that's what differentiates you from other people in this line of work?

Peter McLaughlin [00:39:21]:
Yeah. Especially, if you take it on the on on the main. If you say of the main of hypnotists and how they practice. I'm not saying that there's no one else that practices like I do, but, yes, I would say that I'm in a in more of a decided minority of hypnotists, insofar as I'm I'm committed to root cause. And as you just pointed out, I I expand into the spiritual realms. So that is a key aspect of what I do. That is absolutely key. So, yes, I I would say so.

Aidan Noone [00:39:54]:
Yeah. And I agree with you with regard to, you know, road cause. You know, how essential is that to get to the root cause in your opinion?

Peter McLaughlin [00:40:09]:
Well, I would take you back to cars. Like, if you brought your car into the mechanic and, it was making a strange noise

Aidan Noone [00:40:15]:
Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:40:15]:
And the mechanic said, just turn up the radio.

Aidan Noone [00:40:18]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:40:19]:
How how would you feel about that?

Aidan Noone [00:40:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. You know? And then we have the the whole area of, you know, people will say, well, you know, hypnosis is all about suggestion. But it's not all about suggestion.

Peter McLaughlin [00:40:32]:
Agreed. Yes. The way I the way I like to describe it to clients is that if we just think about a 2 sided coin, one side of the coin are are the internal obstacles you have to reaching your goal.

Aidan Noone [00:40:46]:
Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:40:46]:
Right? That you're not good enough, that it's not possible, that you don't deserve it. That's the obstacle that's pulling you back in the other direction. The other side of the coin are the suggestions. Yeah. So if we were to translate this into gardening and we said, oh, we wanna put a garden in Aiden's driveway. And let's say your driveway is made out of asphalt. Well, the seeds would be the suggestions. If we spread those out over the asphalt, we wouldn't be very successful because we'd have that underlying obstacle.

Peter McLaughlin [00:41:21]:
If, however, we got out our sledgehammers and we broke up that that asphalt and we tilt the soil. Now we put down the seeds. We've, we've addressed both sides of that proverbial coin.

Aidan Noone [00:41:35]:
I I love the the analogy, the metaphor of, you know, the the seeds. I love that. I think it's it's, it's really, really good. Now, is there anything else, Peter, that you would like to share with us that in your opinion is something that would be of enormous value, would say to the viewers and listeners, to this podcast. And by the way, I've really enjoyed talking to you.

Peter McLaughlin [00:42:02]:
Well, and I enjoy talking to you too. So So the the the one the one of the things that we haven't talked about so far that I would like to mention Yeah. Is and I'm just gonna start with the word parasite. Right. So you said before, earlier in the conversation, how would you know if your spirit guide was essentially of the light? How would you know if they were here for your highest and best interest? And we talked about how you could do that. And then we talked about that we live in a in a universe of light, of dark. Well, I think that there are not only physical parasites that are way more widespread than our our system gives credence to, but there are also energetic parasites. And a big part of my work is is working with each client and screening them to find out if they have any spiritual parasites attached to them.

Peter McLaughlin [00:43:01]:
Because if they do, these energetic parasites can sort of influence how that person feels, how they think. So, for example, when after clearing these things out, I've had people say to me, I don't have that negative voice in my head anymore that's telling me that I'm no good.

Aidan Noone [00:43:19]:
Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:43:20]:
And that there, excuse me, that there are ways that you can you can test for yourself to see if you have anything like this. I mentioned that ideomotor tool. I'm not sure if you use them, but I have my clients use a pendulum, which looks like this. Very simple. Okay. And that pendulum, when you use it properly, the person holding it can establish the motion for yes, the motion for no, the motion for maybe. And I have them use this tool to determine all sorts of things, including root cause, and it's very accurate. It's an example of your body speaking to you.

Peter McLaughlin [00:43:59]:
The pendulum is basically an amplifier. It's amplifying what your body is always telling you. And so for people to have, if they don't already, an awareness that that they could have, say, spiritual attachments that could be influencing them, I think is a is for some people, it might be like, oh, wow. I never even thought about that. That voice in my head, it might not be mine. That might be the voice of a of a harsh parent. It might be the voice of a harsh coach or teacher. And however you conceive of that, it's like you're holding on to that energy, and it's not serving you.

Peter McLaughlin [00:44:42]:
So being able to release that kind of energy can free you the way it did for this one woman that I'm thinking about who said after 40 years of this voice in her head that was saying she was no good, it was finally gone.

Aidan Noone [00:44:55]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. And then what, you know, what do we fill that void with, if that makes sense?

Peter McLaughlin [00:45:05]:
Well, I would I would just then go back to that analogy I made before, which is if you think of a physical parasite. Right? So you eat some food that wasn't cooked properly or wasn't washed properly, and now there's a there's a tapeworm. There's a nematode. There are all of these different microorganisms that are not nest that that are not helping you. They may be causing you a crate of sugar. They may be causing you to gain weight. They may be causing you to lose weight. They may be causing skin rashes.

Peter McLaughlin [00:45:35]:
Consult your doctor. Don't listen to me. That when when you eradicate those Yeah. What is that vacuum filled with? Well, I would say it's filled with your healthy body functioning, your healthy gut flora that that that in a way almost, like, fills itself in. So if the negative thoughts if suddenly the negative thoughts are gone, I think it's filled with who we are. I You look at a I don't I don't know if you have children, but when you hold a baby, you're looking at the face of God. You're looking at pure love. That's who you are, Aidan.

Peter McLaughlin [00:46:20]:
That's who I am that has been infected, covered up, distorted by the pain that we've experienced in this life. And when the proverbial, or metaphorical arrow is taken out of your body, It's filled with healing. It may leave a scar, but the scar isn't painful to touch. Now the underlying, part parts of your body can function the way they were designed to function.

Aidan Noone [00:46:55]:
You know, to what extent are are we talking about or are we talking about getting out of our own way, if that makes sense?

Peter McLaughlin [00:47:04]:
It does. And the way I interpret that statement is is that we we hold on to negative patterns. So we we might learn learn as a child that money doesn't grow on trees, that it's hard to earn money, that it isn't it isn't right or isn't good to to to have a certain amount of money and more. So in that sense, that in that imposed belief would be getting in our way. Yeah. If our desire was to move out of poverty or to move out of struggle with with finances. So it it's not we're always taught it's a question of will or that there's something wrong with us that we can't do that. And I think it's probably the way you do that it's programming that's holding us back and that and that to get out of our own way, we have to understand that and to resolve that programming so it's not pulling us in the direction that we don't wanna go in.

Peter McLaughlin [00:48:17]:
So for that woman that had that voice in her head for 40 years telling her she was no good, That was getting in her way. She wasn't really getting in her way.

Aidan Noone [00:48:26]:
Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:48:27]:
You know, if you have a broken leg and you wanna be an athlete, that's getting in your way. But healing the leg you you see what I mean? So so one of them, I think, is people get mad at themselves. They get angry at themselves, which just compounds the problem versus saying versus, employing compassion and saying, what part of me believes that I don't deserve this? What part of me, is is wounded and can't do this? What part of me believes it's not possible? So rather than having a struggle between these two parts of you, it's saying, oh, this part is hurt. This part has got a broken leg. Let let's fix that leg. And once we do, both parts, conscious and subconscious, can move in the same direction.

Aidan Noone [00:49:20]:
Excellent. I I love the way you answer that. And something that occurs to me is, you know, is, what am what am I not aware of that that if I was aware of this, that I could be much better or that, you know, I could leave again, it's all about leaving the physical and going to somewhere else and see it from a different perspective. And because perspective is so important.

Peter McLaughlin [00:49:47]:
Yes. It is. It's it's vital. It's vital. And we have, by by dent of being in a physical body, an extremely limited perspective. So to illustrate this from a from a scientific standpoint, if I were to ask you or anyone else, what percentage of the light spectrum can you see with your physical eyes?

Aidan Noone [00:50:09]:
Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:50:09]:
And and, obviously, the light spectrum is made up of many different components. So visible light and x-ray and gamma ray and infrared and near infrared. The answer to that question is 0.0 035%. If that's not a narrow perspective, I don't know what it is.

Aidan Noone [00:50:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. And in the work that we we do as, therapists, hypnotherapists, you know, we expand that awareness and we open up, you know, that foveal vision into into broad spectrum viewing so that we can take on board all that is available to us. Because oftentimes, as as you know, that we're we're limited by what we think is available to us. So finally, Peter, is there is there any finally, finally words of advice or or, that give us the benefits of your wisdom, please?

Peter McLaughlin [00:51:21]:
Well, I guess it would be 2 things come to mind. 1 is a reiteration that whatever anyone who's watching this right now might be struggling

Aidan Noone [00:51:31]:
with,

Peter McLaughlin [00:51:32]:
that there is a root cause and that your job is to find and then resolve that root cause.

Aidan Noone [00:51:41]:
Excellent. Yeah.

Peter McLaughlin [00:51:42]:
And that you're not alone. That there are other that there are other humans on this planet, and we all need help, all of us, in different ways. And that whether it's you or me or somebody I don't even know, There's there are people that can help you along your path, and and there's not one person that's the guru that's gonna solve everything, that it's probably a series of people that will behave like helpers or physical guides along that path. And that for me, ultimately, I think it's important to have some kind of internal relationship with something greater than you. And that the more you cultivate this relationship, the stronger that that cord is, and the more you feel like the more you know that that can't be taken from you no matter what happens. You know? We have relationships that end. We have jobs that end. We have financial circumstances.

Peter McLaughlin [00:52:50]:
We have health crises. We have we lose people that we love who die. We face our own mortality. And I think navigating this decidedly challenging path with something connected to something larger that can't be taken from you is is essential. That when somebody that you love goes out of your life, they cannot take the love away from you because they never gave it to you in the 1st place. They just triggered it. You released all those feelings inside of you. So how can you learn to do this on your own so that when you walk into the world, you don't feel needy, you feel you feel full?

Aidan Noone [00:53:42]:
Excellent. So how can we contact you?

Peter McLaughlin [00:53:47]:
Through my website, which is blueskyhypnosis.com.

Aidan Noone [00:53:51]:
Right. So that was Peter McLaughlin. Thank you so much, Peter. I really enjoyed this conversation, and hopefully, we can do it sometime in the near future again.

Peter McLaughlin [00:54:01]:
I hope so. And thank you, Aidan.