Clairvoyaging

040: Hypnosis and Magic // with Eisley Hallows

• Clairvoyaging • Season 1 • Episode 40

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Ever wondered how to blend magic, witchcraft, and personal growth into your daily life? Join us as we talk with Eisley Hallows, an integrative shadow work coach with a flair for the mystical. We dive into the fascinating world of Integrative Change Work, a unique coaching method that merges hypnosis with practical techniques to help you rewire habitual responses. We discuss the practical and the mystical, and Eisley offers a fresh perspective on how magic and witchcraft can be harnessed for personal transformation.

Eisley describes the therapeutic power of journaling and hypnosis, offering strategies like a four-day expressive writing exercise to help confront and process past traumas. From parts-oriented shadow work to rewriting emotional memories for healing, this episode is a treasure trove of magical discoveries, emotional connections, and transformative practices. Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or simply curious, there's something in this conversation for everyone.

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Lauren:

Hey guys, in this episode we talked to Isley Hallows, an integrative shadow work coach who, quote works with weirdos. We talked about her lifelong interest in magic and witchcraft and I asked her a bunch of questions about hypnosis and shadow work because it's fascinating to me. I'm your host, lauren Leon.

Frank:

And I'm a weirdo Fascinating to me I'm your host Lauren Leon, and I'm a weirdo.

Lauren:

We are a married couple learning how to develop our own intuition, and this is episode 40 of Clairvoyaging. Wayfeather Media presents Clairvoyaging.

Frank:

Claire Voyaging. What's going on? Weirdos.

Lauren:

Yo, just a bunch of weirdos.

Frank:

How's everybody doing?

Lauren:

Hi guys.

Frank:

Lauren, what was today?

Lauren:

First day of first grade.

Frank:

The first day of first grade and a lot of school started today, so it's not just us and it's not of first grade the first day of first grade.

Lauren:

And a lot of school started today. So it's not just us and it's not just first grade, Not just our little our little weirdo.

Frank:

Back to our regularly scheduled program here at home, because it's been chaos.

Lauren:

When your daughter is starting to say summer is too long. You know everyone is longing for the schedules to be back in order.

Frank:

Lauren and I are Sagittarius, sagittarii. Yeah, and you know, our daughter's a Cappy Capricorn. She loves her structure and we are maybe the wrong people.

Lauren:

Or we're the right because she is going to keep us in line, I think.

Frank:

And we're going to loosen her up. It was meant to be probably.

Lauren:

Yeah, I think our job is to help her. Like you said, loosen up, Just have more fun. She's a fun kid. She likes her structure, so she's ready to be in first grade.

Frank:

Anyway. So today I celebrated the first day of first grade by having my two-year-old son hit me in the nards with his toy lightsaber, A pain I'm still suffering through. That was about an hour and a half ago. If this is the last episode, you know they had to bury me.

Lauren:

Oh, wow, it's the my lightsaber.

Frank:

Yeah, my lightsaber. He has a little lightsaber toy and I know it intimately.

Lauren:

Clearly. Wow, I'm so sorry.

Frank:

Did you not see that happen?

Lauren:

I did, I did. Yeah, you took it like a champ.

Frank:

It wasn't like a fall over fall to the ground type thing.

Lauren:

No.

Frank:

I sat down. I said all right, everybody, it's time to calm down. As a little bead of pain sweat trickled down my forehead. Oh my God, it was fine. Let's talk about the.

Lauren:

Very sorry.

Frank:

Let's talk about oh, what do we got? What do we got?

Lauren:

Well, let's talk about uh oh, what do we got? What do we got? Uh, well, a couple of updates. Update us. Um, just a reminder. We have some fun stuff up on our patreon. It's gonna have more exclusive content soon, but for now it's our ep, our music ep that frank and I created together years ago and a pilot that frank and I wrote and produced together.

Frank:

Still working on that.

Lauren:

And I was in. It's called Remixed. We released those things on our Patreon. It's $4 a month Very reasonable price of $4 per month, so cheap. We're going to start having listener episodes where we can chat with some of our listeners, hear about their own spiritual journeys yeah, we're really, we're doing community building now yeah, we want to see where are you at. If you'd like to become a member, head on over to patreoncom slash clear voyaging podcast. We are excited to have you there everybody.

Frank:

One last thing we have new merch, new designs. If you didn't hear us talk about it last week, lauren, what's the code? I want to extend it for another week. The code is HS15. That's. Hs for heart, hs for hearts and stars. Yeah, go get it 15% off of all of our merch New stuff. And again, I said it last week, I'll say it again we are making no money. We literally can't make this any cheaper, so I just want people to have stuff.

Lauren:

Also, I'm wearing one of our shirts right now and I want to say it's well made, it's comfortable. There's a skeleton on it and a captain sea captain.

Frank:

It's the official sea captain of Claire Voyaging. He's the Voyager.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Frank:

And on the design, he is looking in the wrong direction as a skeleton pops up behind him.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Frank:

The t-shirt design is called. I'll Believe it when I See it. That is irony in a design and not like the Alanis Morissette brand of irony.

Lauren:

Oh yeah.

Frank:

Who.

Lauren:

Where everything is just the opposite of what it is.

Frank:

That all said. Fan of Alanis Anyway.

Lauren:

Big fan. Okay, let's get to this episode, because Isley Hallows is very cool. We had a very enjoyable conversation with her and she kind of didn't mean to, but we became inspired to start talking about magic and spells and like witchcraft at the Leon house.

Frank:

Well, you know what I'm going to do a video on magic and my interpretation of it. And, guys, I just want to say you are all doing magic all the time, whether you know it or not. There is power in the words you choose, and with intention, those words are a spell. After all, you have to spell them out, don't you?

Lauren:

Oh, do you yes.

Frank:

Yes, yes, yes yes.

Lauren:

So dive into this world of shadow work and magic.

Frank:

Hypnosis.

Lauren:

Hypnosis. We ask Isley all the questions and she gives us all the answers. She gives all the answers, isley Hallows. Thank you so much for being with us on clear voyaging. So we love to hear people's journey to getting to the work that they are doing now, the services that they offer, all the things that you do and your website says I work with weirdos, which I I love. Welcome, you are in the right place. So can you tell us just a little bit about yourself and what got you here?

Eisley:

Yeah. So think about it. Like I feel like I've always in some way like been here. So I've been practicing magic since I was like a nine-year-old kid, so like that's basically since I can remember. Um, but as far as like career wise, um, I've been a doula, I've been a tarot reader, I've been a legal assistant, which actually helps me a lot more than I thought it would, um, in this specific instance. And then I found like a sales page for what was called the best fucking coaching course and they advertised. They advertised it as like Jedi mind magic and things like that and it was. It was really cool.

Eisley:

And I kept an eye on that website for like six months and I kept coming back to it. I'm like I need that. I need to do that, you know, because it's like you can rewire your responses to anything that's automatic for you, and I'm like I want to do that. And then, like I finally just like jumped into it Just a couple days before the course was actually supposed to start. I'm like, yeah, I'm doing it After like six months of looking at it and get in and like the very first day, like she shows us the the mind map for like how to change any habit and I'm like I've been doing this for a long time already in my magic and I've always been the friend that people go to for, like you know, sorting out their shit and getting advice. Advice like, when people have a thing that they want to do but they don't know how to do it. They would come to me, and this training basically just showed me how to do that more effectively yeah, so you?

Lauren:

yeah, this was like a hypnotist teaching you how to do that for others, or or did you like? Receive the, the like a session first.

Eisley:

Um kind of so the. The actual certification is called integrative change work and it's taught um the. The course that I was in is taught by Melissa tears and Simone. So Melissa handled um like the like practical teaching the techniques and how to help people. Simone typically handled how to build the business and market it.

Eisley:

Once you're there, melissa, she runs the Center for Integrative Hypnosis in New York. She is a renowned teacher of hypnotists, therapists, all sorts of stuff and she teaches this very specific kind of coaching called integrated change work. The first day she taught us what was called the meta pattern, which is just like four steps um that you either work yourself through or work your client through um and you are basically lighting up a neural network and then like molding it to how you want to be and then kind of smooshing that new desired behavior back with the like problem state beforehand and it kind of like neutralizes it out and you loop the pattern and then it basically overwrites it on purpose. Sounds great, it is so cool. You know, I feel like I have like literal magic powers.

Eisley:

You know, with my background in like witchcraft, I eventually am like I can't do shadow work without this anymore. This is like the perfect way to do any sort of shadow work, because you can neutralize triggers, you can start break change habits. Because she sees everything as like um, everything you do is a habituated response, because all the habit is is the fastest point. Um, your brain takes between, like point a and point b. It is like because our brain thrives on prediction and with this pattern you first introduce like prediction errors and your brain's like OK, what the fuck is happening? And then you are basically practicing a new response over and over in a very specific way that overrides that old pattern completely.

Lauren:

Oh man.

Frank:

I think you just turned Lauren on to something brand new.

Lauren:

Yeah, I'm about to go down a rabbit hole. Well, I mean that's part of this, this down a rabbit hole. That's part of this. This is the rabbit hole.

Frank:

Before you do, I have a couple of basic questions I'd like to cover first and then I'll unleash you. Alright, first thing, On the show, we haven't had many people talk about magic and witchcraft at all.

Lauren:

We had we had Mexican folk magic practitioners, but I also.

Frank:

I'm also aware that, like, magic is a term that can vary by practitioner, so I'd like to know, like, what your definition of magic is and how you use it.

Lauren:

Okay.

Frank:

Just so we're all talking the same thing.

Eisley:

Yeah, yeah, fascinating. Yeah, I'm not initiated into any sort of specific tradition or anything. I am completely, almost completely self-taught intuitive. I'm trying to pick my words carefully because, like, if you ask 10 different people, what magic is you're going to get 10 different answers.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Frank:

Yeah, yeah, and like all of them, in some way will be right, and then all of them will also get you cussed out by random people, which is not too hard to achieve, yeah, anything.

Eisley:

So magic is what is left over when you take a house away from a home. It's like an ever-present thing that's always there. That also actively resists definition. I think magic actively resists definition because of this specifically. But in practical usage it's what I tap into when I want to change my reality. It's unseen, but the effects of it can be seen and it can be felt. But you and anybody can sort of use it to change a thing and it has rules. But all of those rules can also be broken. So are we talking like.

Eisley:

That's an interesting question.

Lauren:

Sorry, are we talking like spells or like tools like pendulums, or do you put tarot into the category of magic?

Eisley:

Those are things that can be put there but aren't necessarily required to be there.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Eisley:

The tools can make it easier to manipulate and then, like tarot, can turn it into from like energetic currents, into like a language that you can then interpret based off the visuals on the cards or like the traditional symbolism that's on it.

Eisley:

It's also like everything that science hasn't developed enough to explain yet Like once you've experienced it, it's impossible to deny it. It's just such an ingrained part of my life now that I don't know how to function without it. Like you know, if I need a little bit of an edge on like let me bring in some extra money so I can make sure I pay my bills this month. On like let me bring in some extra money so I can make sure I pay my bills this month, I will put out a lot of offers and stuff in my business and also I'm going to be tapping into like a lot of energetic currents, because money, when it boils down to it, is just energy to begin with and you can use magic to manipulate that and bring it closer to you. You can. I'm not sure if I'm actually doing a good job in any sort of definition of it all whatsoever.

Frank:

Can I try and distill a little bit?

Eisley:

That would be a great idea, because I'm doing a horrible job?

Frank:

No, I don't think you are.

Lauren:

No, I mean it's clearly like. So, like you said, ingrained into your everyday.

Frank:

It seems like if you are a practitioner or use magic, you are in the business of alchemizing, of affecting change, using whatever forces are at your disposal.

Eisley:

Right, yeah, I mean like she said energy and stuff. I mean it makes sense to think of it that way. For sure, it is the act of manipulating that force and it's also the force itself.

Frank:

It's big concept that, like so many people, have tried to nail down yeah but it's something that is more easily understood when you feel it than try to put it into words sure yeah, yeah sure I have also heard that, like a lot of the standard ritualistic stuff that you would consider part of of magic or witchcraft, like pendulums, it's just tools, they're nice to have, it's like you don't need anything right to really do it right.

Eisley:

No, you could build a house with just your bare hands, but like you'd probably hurt yourself and it's going to be a lot easier with a fucking hammer, you know, you know you can have like allies on your side, like spirits, uh, deities and things like that, to help you, sort of like.

Eisley:

You know, affect change okay um, and then, like you can sort of focus your own power with things like wands or jewelry or like any sort of like, whatever comes most naturally to the practitioner because, like, every person practices and, you know, uses it in a very different way and while there can be some overlap um things in common, like I don't think any two people do things the exact same way right okay I want to know about nine-year-old you starting to learn about magic.

Lauren:

What was your? What piqued your interest? What did you start doing at nine years old? I love that um.

Eisley:

So there was a scooby-doo movie yes, our daughter's a big scooby-doo kid your daughter, your husband well, yeah, you got her into it. Um, so the movie with the hex girls in it, like that is the movie that's like solidified that there and also like one of the first movies that probably should have clued me into the fact that I was a lesbian. But anyways, y'all know.

Frank:

The girls got it going on, it's fine.

Eisley:

They do, they absolutely do. But I was like the way that that movie specifically sort of approached it. It was not the same way that other witches in pop culture at that time were portrayed. They talked about Wicca and like how this was a religion for them and they took it very seriously. You know, and of course they're like the dramatized elements that come with any sort of cartoon, but like that was the first thing like huh, like maybe people like actually believe this and I was like a really like computer kid, I thought.

Eisley:

As long as I was a little girl I always knew I wanted to be on the computer. So I did googling about it and there was this website back then. It was called spirit online and that was like my portal to everything because it had like lists of like gods and goddesses and from all sorts of different paths pantheons, um, and what they were like you know about. Yeah, they were kind of like attached to in those cultures. Um, it had like different ways to like like elementary ways on how to like manipulate energy and like basic little spells and like walked you through all of the little um ways to go about it. So I used that um as like my little springboard in the beginning, like following all the little instructions on there and just like seeing how it played out. Like to me, the spells on that website were experiments and then I figured out they worked. I don't remember exactly what it was that first time, but there was another time after and I don't. I've never told the story publicly because every time I do, every time I get close to it, I'm like no, they're going to think I'm fucking crazy. I want this.

Eisley:

I was a little kid, yeah, um, and I was at my dad's house and um out there I was playing with my sister and my stepbrothers and we saw there was a little snake in the um in the road that had gotten run over.

Eisley:

It was like black and yellow stripe and I haven't ever been able to find the actual like name of that specific snake, because I can google, search it and find a picture of what it looked like, but there's nothing like attached to it as like the type of snake it was. But it was just little thin snake, black and yellow stripes, and I felt so bad for that snake because, like I was a really sensitive kid, an animal lover and I'm like all this other stuff that I've done. This website works, so I'm gonna bring the snake back to life. So I took it over, um, like across the street and there was like this little like clearing, like it wasn't really much bigger than I was, but it was like this little like it was made to do magic there. I don't know what it was and there was like a little cinder block, um, right next to a fence post.

Eisley:

So I took the snake and I laid it on the cinder block. I was by that fence post and I put my whole little heart into bringing that snake back to life. And this snake that was previously squished and, like you could see, like how it was, like it was very obviously dead and flat, that snake slithered away, oh my gosh, and you couldn't tell me shit, like did you tell anyone? No, no way. I mean what? How?

Lauren:

did you walk away? From that just like how did you walk away from that? Just like, not just flipping out, Were you like I'm a magician, Like I did?

Eisley:

it. I'm a wizard, yeah, like I was like like part of me. Like, in order for magic to work, part of you has to believe that it is possible, right, and I put everything I had into that, but I didn't say anything to anybody, because I have lived in South Georgia my entire life. Oh, wow, I had gone and made any sort of big deal about that. Then I would have been like, no, that was not an option for me.

Frank:

Yeah, so that that brings up another question. By the way, I just wrote down in my notes resurrected dead snake. So so my question is this how and we'll get into the the deeper stuff later, but just like this is very interesting to me, living where you lived, like how did your environment or your parents react to your interests at this point?

Eisley:

they did not love it. Yeah, um, like uh, one of my relatives at that point in time. They like she was, she was into it for a while. It didn't stay with it, but like I did. But like that relative was not allowed to talk to me about anything about it. Anything I learned had about it had to be completely on my own. Luckily I had pretty unrestricted computer access, so like that's where I found everything at that point in time. Like I had to keep it completely under wraps, like I was. You know people call it the broom closet and I don't love that term either, but like that's basically what it is.

Frank:

It's another closet. That's funny.

Eisley:

As soon as I got to where I could like really do that, like you know, I was really really open about it and I didn't really care if they loved it or not. You can't like have an experience like that with that snake and then go back to the life that you thought you had no way, no way.

Frank:

Did you have any friends that were like interested in this stuff too, or were you just rolling solo?

Eisley:

um, I had friends that were interested in it, but like, not to the same degree that I was, yeah, and like I also had to be very careful if I talked to anybody, like at school about it, right, because like there was one time I got called to like the counselor's office and I was like don't want to repeat that experience again. I was undiagnosed autistic, so I was already the weird kid you know, but like it only takes one time where, like someone is like are you going to cast a spell on this bully?

Frank:

for me before you.

Eisley:

You be like oh no, that's not that's not what I want to be known for right.

Lauren:

I don't like smart kid, you know yeah, just like to close up the snake loop. Did it become less smushed? Or yes, did it? Did you watch that happen? Like I watched it happen, holy cow.

Frank:

You know, I have this visual in my head and I'm trying to figure out what it's from, and I'm pretty sure it's from Hocus Pocus. Doesn't the cat get run over at some point and reinflates?

Lauren:

Does it. There's a lot of cartoons where that happens.

Frank:

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Eisley:

All the cartoons they get partially run over. Yeah, it was flat, like my hand flat. And then it was just. At first I saw it twitch and I'm like no fucking way and it just kind of started like I have lens stuff, but it was just kind of like it was stretching or something as much as a snake can do, but it was just like moving in a way, like how, when, when someone wakes up in the morning, how they kind of like settle back into their body and stuff like that.

Eisley:

Oh, saying those words out loud just kind of made me tingle. Yeah, um, but like, and then, like you know, it was not like it reinflated, but it's like it kind of took the shape that it was supposed to have again, yeah, um, and then just like, very slowly, just kind of slithered. That it was supposed to have again, yeah, and then just like, very slowly, just kind of slithered off of the cinder block.

Lauren:

That's amazing, incredible. Okay, I love it.

Frank:

Okay, so then you, you, you said you went on to do some doula work. What kind of doula work?

Eisley:

So I started off with just birth doula and then I eventually worked over to postpartum, um, and then I kind of switched over to death doula work as well. So I've worked at both ends of the spectrum. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, I figured out that I'm just really attracted to very liminal spaces, um, so it it feels very appropriate that I kind of landed in this conscious, unconscious mind space, you know right because there's nothing more liminal than that yeah um, but the doula work it was.

Eisley:

it was incredible like I got to connect with some really cool people through that part of my life. Um, I made a lot of really cool friends, got to help people in ways that were just so powerful. Yeah, I would imagine on both sides Like it's just like there aren't words to describe that sort of connection that you have with somebody in that, where they're basically a portal for life.

Lauren:

Right.

Eisley:

You know, and they're looking to you for help, like maintaining themselves as they're doing that, because that's a lot of hard work, yeah.

Frank:

How did you manage your own emotions in that space? Or does it just feel so natural to you? You bring snakes to life, so like was this like a natural space for you to work in?

Eisley:

very natural at the time and like now where I am now, it feels like, you know, I I definitely had a lot more work, that I needed to do that point in my life because I was like mid-20s at that point in time, um, and like, when I was with the clients, I was in a they're in a very specific capacity. It's not as flattened out as this, but you, you know how, like, if you work for somebody else, you have, like, the customer service persona.

Frank:

Oh yeah.

Eisley:

Like it's that very compartmentalized part of you that's there for that very specific job. Yeah, face, especially like in in the birth capacity. You know where it's, like they're kind of settling into this transition period, like you know. And basically the hour before the baby comes, where it's just like everything is just sort of like hazy, but also moving very fast at the same time and there's there's a sort of rush that comes with that, um, but like and and all you know, thinking about it in retrospect, there is also like the. There's a very distinct crash afterwards too, um, because, like you know, you're in there while people are giving off all these like really strong pheromones. They have like the oxytocin and they have like the dopamine that you're having because you're doing such a really good job like supporting this person and the serotonin, like all these beautiful, wonderful brain chemicals.

Eisley:

And then there's a baby yeah, and you can just see the little squishy little baby and it's just wonderful. Um, back then I was still able-bodied, so I didn't really have that much trouble with it physically, but emotionally after I would have to take a couple days before I was able to return back to real life I couldn't imagine.

Lauren:

Wow, yeah, I haven't thought about that on the doula side.

Frank:

I'd be so not good at that. I just went to a funeral yesterday and I wasn't ready to nap for 10 hours just because of the emotions behind it all. You know what I mean.

Eisley:

Right yeah.

Frank:

And yeah, you probably would have been, you probably would have done. There's another life for you in, like a paramedic or an EMT or something like that.

Eisley:

Yeah, I actually did consider that path for a while, honestly, but then I was like yeah, like like um. Then I was like you know, I I'm I'm good with the, the more emotional aspects of it. I don't really want to see like the, the gore and stuff like that. I don't think I could deal with um. But like helping somebody who has been through that, that's totally natural right, yeah, I, I tried to.

Frank:

I went through emt school for a little while well no, I did emt school. I was like a certified emt. At some point I did the certification. I was like I can, I can't work in this. I did a couple of ride alongs and I said, oh, this is the wrong thing for me, but for all the same reasons, like it's, it gets gnarly. I am better with emotions, though Well, other people's, not my own, that's interesting.

Lauren:

How much did your magic come into play when you were doing doula work?

Eisley:

That's a good question.

Eisley:

I've never been asked that question before, so like it did come into play a lot of the times.

Eisley:

And this was all with consent of the people that I work with. Of course I don't really do anything without consent, but like I would create like this bubble when I was in there with a birthing room with them, just to like sort of protect and keep all of the like big, high stress things like in-laws outside of the bubble and you know, inside you know you have like this really calming, soothing, like you're thinking about, like the transiness of it, like that's kind of inherent with birth. But that was probably also like part of the the bubble that I would create. But like there were I remember one mother and specifically who was terrified that she was going to hemorrhage so we put the bubble around it and, like you know I'll never know if that was the thing, you know that kept her good, but you know it's. It's something that I did make a habit of with whenever I had the consent to do that and it always worked out fine. I never had any like big, horrible things happen in the birth that I was at.

Frank:

Wow, yeah, I feel like you're probably really good at just creating that like safe zone. It's very like where you're, like you know, in the actual like flow state of this. Is your job, that partitioning you have to do and control yeah, I mean there's a bubble around our conversation right now yes, there is. That's really cool.

Lauren:

Yeah, that's a great skill, lots of practice, so okay, I want to hear more about the hypnosis stuff the mind, mind mapping yeah, are you doing shadow work along with hypnosis, or are they two separate things, and are you like guiding someone through shadow work?

Eisley:

uh, yeah it. It mostly depends on the client, like which specific things I'll bring into our approach. Um, so typically, how it works when a client comes to me for that is they'll like. They'll be like okay, I'm having trouble with this specific thing, I can't get through it, and I know that you're the person to help. That's something that basically every one of my clients will say to me verbatim. I know that you have a person who can help me with this. That's great, yeah, and I love it. I love it. You know there's, there's something like in their past that you know, they know is strongly affecting how they're behaving today and they want that thing to no longer have power over them. Yeah, so typically, what I'll start out with is a journaling exercise. Um, it's only four days, it's not like a whole long thing. Um, but I adapted it from a book called opening up by writing it down, by dr jamie pennebaker wonderful book.

Eisley:

Um, and what you do is you write about this specific thing that has power over you for 30 minutes. Once you put the pen to the paper, you keep writing for 30 minutes, even if you have to repeat the same sentence five times in a row, like you get, get it out. You're honest with yourself. You are not judging yourself for the reactions. You explore how you feel now, how you felt then and any other thoughts that come to mind, like when you're writing it down. You just write it 30 minutes and then you're done, leave it for the next day.

Eisley:

You do this for four days in a row, you do this for four days in a row and then afterward what you have is a timeline of how your brain sort of processes things. It gives me a really good idea of like, are you slow to open up or are you open in the very beginning and then very quickly kind of retreat afterwards? There's either one or the other most of the time and that gives me an idea of like how to adjust my approach with the client and it also gets all of that shit out of the closet for them, for them to then be able to sort through like in total honesty, without judging themselves about it?

Lauren:

are they going through the journal with you, or do you read it? Or do they just tell you about?

Eisley:

no, I don't um, they are free to share with me, but I don't have them. I don't give them any rules or anything on that. I want them to write for them. So I'm like I'm very clear. Like I'm not going to grade you on this. You're writing this for yourself in order to get the process like started. It's like a jumpstart for the shadow work process.

Eisley:

I don't want them to pay attention to like grammar, spelling, anything like that, and if they choose to share with me after the process is done, I welcome it, um, but otherwise I just kind of ask them to go through and see, like, how their language changed over those four days. So is there a like more like positive language? Um, in the beginning or in the end of the process, um, and normally there will be a pretty dramatic difference, oh wow. So, like I'll have them go in with like a highlighter and highlight all the things that are like quote unquote positive and quote unquote negative, and then they can either like you can just have it like a visual aid with the highlighters, or you can like pack, uh, paste it into like kind of like chat, gpt and have it like evaluate for you, um, and that exercise comes with a lot of benefits on its own um, it's called expressive writing and like that can help you like break out of a trauma response. All on its own um, it'll help you resolve your feelings that you had around that.

Eisley:

And I think a lot of the really good shadow work that we're able to do is like after that, integrating what life is like without that having power over you anymore, and then like hypnosis can come into play after that. So if there's still something that feels like really sticky, but either like they're judging themselves about it or they feel like they shouldn't have those feelings, or like everything should be fine now, or maybe they feel bad about feeling good now. You know those are all conscious processes like shaming.

Eisley:

Shame is a whole other topic on itself, but it keeps people feeling, um, with hypnosis, like you're bypassing all of that conscious bullshit, like it goes straight to the unconscious mind, um, and depending on like what sort of like how people process, because some people are very visual, um, they can see things very well in their mind so it turns these unconscious things into like vision so they can process it out in like a sort of like internal role play sort of thing. Um, some people have like more audio. They hear things more than they see things um, in their mind and their imagination. So, like, we'll do sort of things like, okay, you hear this voice where around your body, is that coming from?

Eisley:

And that is always a weird question to ask people, because they're like, what are you talking about? I'm like listen to. You know intrusive thought or like this recurring thing that you're having trouble with. When you think about that voice where around you, in the space around you, is that coming from? And a lot of times it'll be like it's coming from right here, right behind my head, or like it's over here, or maybe it's right in front of my face. But it's like then we get to play with that. If they have like a partner, say that your lover is telling you these things that make you feel really, really good about yourself. Where does that voice come from around you? And normally it's a very different space oh wow.

Eisley:

And what we'll have them do is like take that mean thing and take it, like grab it with their hands and move it to the place where the nice things come from, and I'll have them tell me what's changed. And normally that voice either comes a lot more kind, it'll say things in a way that still gets that need expressed. Um, that unconscious need is expressed in a different, kinder way. Um, other times it just kind of like shorts out and, like it, it doesn't have the same pull anymore. Um, but the way that our brain kind of maps out these things, like, regardless of what sort of imagination you have, whether you know you see things clearly or you don't see anything at all there's a way in hypnosis to manipulate those processes, um to make big changes, like you know, whatever they need to be. Um, a lot of the times, like we don't need any sort of trance at all and everything can just be conversational, like it. It'll be hypnosis, but it'll feel like just how we're talking right now.

Lauren:

I've never been hypnotized, but like you probably have.

Eisley:

You just don't know.

Frank:

Oh, how do you think I got you to marry me?

Lauren:

My thought is always like, oh, my brain would fight again. I did this with our therapist. I did this like a past life regression and I could feel I was like I'm making, I'm making stuff up, like I could feel my brain fighting, like wanting control and wanting to just I don't know, not unconscious at all, like, not subconscious or whatever, unconscious at all, like not subconscious or whatever. How do you get?

Eisley:

someone into a state of like that trance. There are a million and a half ways to induce a really deep trance, um, but I think the first part is really interesting, where it's like we actually spend so much of our lives in hypnosis and we don't even realize it. When you are watching a movie, are you constantly thinking this is on a set. This is like there are cameras on the outside of this.

Lauren:

We are filmmakers.

Eisley:

So with that, sometimes it's like Maybe I should use a different metaphor.

Frank:

Well, hold on, but I know what she's talking about, because that's only for the movies that are like okay.

Lauren:

Right, but when there's the words on the page, when there's a movie.

Frank:

When there's a movie, that's like just blowing my mind, like I'm not thinking about the set or the mechanisms behind it. I'm looking at the story. I'm just engrossed by what's being presented to me that engrossed.

Eisley:

That's hypnosis. Yeah, another form of hypnosis is like when you're driving to work or a place that you go all the time and you're there but you don't actually remember the entire process of driving there. Yeah, you've gone into hypnosis. It's simply a state of focused awareness. That's all it is.

Frank:

Wow, I don't think I had a word, I know, of focused awareness. That's all it is um. Well, I don't think I had a word I know that feeling. I don't think I ever had a word for it. Yeah, but yeah, of course.

Eisley:

Of course it is that's anxiety is also a form of hypnosis oh, I'm good at that one go on like anxiety is just another form of trance.

Eisley:

Like it's like when you're sitting there and you're ruminating over all of these things that could go horribly wrong. That's your imagination coming to the. When you're sitting there and you're ruminating over all of these things that could go horribly wrong, that's your imagination coming to the top. You're just using it to hurt yourself. Right? When you realize that that it's just another form of trance that gives you power over that anxiety instead of the other way around. And there's lots of different, like more somatic ways that you can break yourself out of that Like. There's like bilateral simulation, which is the easiest way to do it. Um, basically you can.

Eisley:

I'm going to demonstrate with a coffee cup. You drink one hand coffee cup. That's basically the normal thing, as we do as an adult, right? But if you drink it with two hands, that's bilateral stimulation, because you're using both sides of your body to make sure that this thing doesn't spill all over the place. But, like if you imagine drinking out of a cup with just one hand and then drink out of it two hands, it's a very distinctly different feeling. It's because you're in both sides of your brain at the same time and we have anxiety is typically located on just one hemisphere of the brain. So when you kind of diffuse that activity over the entire surface of the brain, the anxiety can no longer keep it together.

Lauren:

How do I undo an anxiety, like if I'm like going through, you know, you know your brain just like acts out all these different like what ifs and stuff like what's a way to like stop it in its tracks.

Eisley:

One way that you can do it, that like nobody will be able to tell that's what you're doing, is it like you pick a spot on your wall or your ceiling? Um, sometimes, like I'll pick like a little imperfection in the paint or like a chip on the ceiling, whatever, and you just focus on that and you just like laser focus. That's called foveal vision, it's that tunnel vision, um, and then just slowly kind of expand your awareness, like around that dot, and then keep expanding it further until it's like everything that's in front of you and then expand it even further, so your awareness is all the way into your peripheral vision and your brain shuts the fuck up. That is the fastest way to do that.

Frank:

That sounds a lot like sitting in the power, like Michael Mayo was saying.

Lauren:

Oh, yeah, way to do that.

Frank:

That sounds a lot like sitting in the power, like michael mayo is saying, oh yeah, taking your consciousness out of your head and expanding it, and expanding your awareness to your surroundings. Yeah, that's very interesting yeah, that's.

Lauren:

I feel like that's more helpful than just because I can tell my brain like you're just spiraling oh yeah, trying to use your brain, your brain to like stop doing something. This is a waste of time.

Frank:

This is a waste of energy. Trying to use your brain to fix your brain is often not helpful not at all unless like you're hacking it sorry what yeah, your conscious brain at least yes

Eisley:

like and all of that is just a conscious manifestation of an unconscious need or unconscious process, like when you are consciously telling yourself, okay, this is just a spiral, this isn't real. Like I should feel fine. My approach to like coaching shadow workers is very parts oriented, like. So there's one part of you that feel like it is very important for you to know this thing and that is why you're having anxiety about it. It's this other, different part that feels like this part shouldn't have any say in the situation. But this part has a need. You know, this part has something that is very desperately trying to tell you.

Eisley:

And this part saying shut up, yeah, yeah and yes. Like, if you think about it, like say that this is a worry that you've had since you were a kid. You know, if you imagine telling this little kid version of you to shut up, what happens? You know, it doesn't actually make it go away, but it does make it hide itself and kind of reverse back into the shadow until that need comes up again for whatever reason, right? So the key there is to figure out like, why does this keep coming up? And that's when shadow work really comes into play.

Lauren:

It's time for another round.

Frank:

You're getting Lauren real good.

Lauren:

You're getting me. Good, we've been talking about this, that's awesome.

Frank:

Yeah, we've been putting some shadow work off.

Lauren:

Nothing is ever a coincidence yeah isley, you came across my threads feed for a reason because my brain has been wanting more, uh, healing and getting through the like beliefs that I'm like I gotta let go of that. I don't know how we were just saying it like a few days ago where I was like I have these like trauma responses and I have this and I'm like actively working on it. I've learned Reiki and I'm like doing healing and inner child stuff, but there's still stuff that I'm like healing and inner child stuff, but there's still stuff that I'm like I know I'm like creating either this wall or this belief in the back of my head that says like no, you're not good enough to do that or whatever.

Frank:

I'm like I need to undo it but also, like the last time we went through like a big like trauma healing shadow work thing, like was it, you know, I don't know like a couple months ago.

Frank:

I feel like if you do uh, you were just, you were talking earlier about how, if you're doing like a deep dive into your own subconscious, that if you are doing it solo or whatever, like it could be very difficult and like you require some time afterwards to like level out again. I I went through the same thing, like because of the pod and all the stuff that we're learning, I'm like okay, time to time to fix. Frank and I did some some shadow work and I was like like for like a month I was like I am maybe not okay right now and you know, I took the. I like pulled the rug out of under myself Cause I, you know, you, you make up your own like ways to stay stable and I had to remove that to get down to the under the hood there. But yeah, it's time for another round of messing ourselves up to heal ourselves. Yeah.

Eisley:

It doesn't have to be like that. It really doesn't Like. That's the, that's where hypnosis really shines, because, like you don't have that conscious like nagging at you, because it completely bypasses that yeah. Like you're going straight past it to the unconscious, I want to bypass the compressor.

Frank:

Sorry, that's a Star Wars reference. I don't know. We refer to that a lot. We really need to stop. I don't think that's not our demographic.

Eisley:

So sorry. Oh please, I could talk about Star Wars the whole time.

Frank:

Don't get me started.

Eisley:

Don't get me started. I'm here to talk about one thing today.

Lauren:

Okay, Separate conversation will need to take place between Frank and. I just about Star.

Frank:

Wars. I need to ask you. So, talking about the bypassing of stuff, the strategy that you're talking about, where you're writing out things for 30 minutes for four days, that so that I was like what is that? While you're talking about it, I was like what is that doing? And it made me feel like, oh, it's your mapping over the course of four days and four different, like you know, states of being. However, like your brain works, you're mapping four different like paths to this, like trauma or or something that you are getting to. So it's like a good way to like get to all the different thoughts and thought process you have. You have around that that lead back to this like particular point. Is that kind of what's your thought process behind that?

Eisley:

kind of the way that I kind of the way that I come to that is like when you're doing this writing, this automatic writing exercise, it's like you are simultaneously like writing out the narrative that you have surrounding that feeling and then also stripping it back over the course of four days because, like a lot of the, the problems that we have aren't actually the problem itself is the narrative that we have built around it that props it up. So like when you're able to kind of strip that narrative back and then be honest about, like, what you're actually feeling and then actually participate in those feelings, like it's a completely different way to process, other than like I should be over that. That happened, you know, 20 years ago that's very interesting, because you do.

Frank:

We're people are storytellers, they build a narrative around events you know what I mean.

Eisley:

Like things happen, but then we we tell stories around it to like, try and process, but that story becomes its own thing yeah that's very and the story will change a little bit every time too, because, like, the human memory sucks really bad like, and it's because it sucks that we're able to like it's like, it's like a bug that you can exploit in really cool ways. Yeah, so, like, because this the human memory sucks in this very specific way, um, that you can feel like you remember exactly how it was the day that it happened. You can tell the story um of this event that happened, say, 20 years ago, um, exactly in detail of how it actually happened. But it's typically not like um.

Eisley:

So there was actually a study where, um, like, right after 9-11, right where they had people write out what happened the day after 9-11, and then they had it, you know, a lot of time elapsed and they had these people write out what happened on 9-11 again, and then they compared these two papers and they were completely fucking different. Oh yeah, because when you remember an event, you're not remembering the initial event as it happened, and then they compared these two papers and they were completely fucking different. Wow, yeah, because when you remember an event, you're not remembering the initial event as it happened. You're remembering the last time you remembered it, and every time it's like making a copy of a copy of a copy so it messes it up a little bit. Or like the game of telephone where you know you whisper in one person's ear and then everybody whispers it around.

Lauren:

And then you know suddenly like the grinch is no longer wearing underwear or whatever. The classic ending to every game of telephone.

Eisley:

Yes, that is funny too, because, like people are also so emotional, like our emotional, memories are stronger and and your emotions change, it's hard to hold on to a feeling yeah, so I'm sure that like yeah, that is, that is interesting yeah, there's a way that you can exploit that in a process called therapeutic memory reconsolidation, um, where you can basically decide, like, how do you wish that memory had actually happened, but that event in your memory, how can you rewrite that to affect you in a way that, like, would facilitate you being the person that you want to be, right? Um. So I do this a lot with like people who are really interested in like inner child work where, like, maybe their parents were not as attentive as they wish they would and they have a lot of really big locked up feelings about that. One of the ways that you can do that is you can pick like either yourself, you can pick like someone that you admired as a kid.

Eisley:

Like you know, people do like Mr Rogers a lot of the time. There's one guy that I work with. He picked like Tony Robbins, which, okay, that works. But what you can do is you can like go into trance. You visit these different points on your timeline, so maybe you see yourself in your crib and then you see yourself taking your first steps, and maybe you pick also like you're going off to kindergarten and maybe you had your first heartbreak, and you would insert like Mr Rogers in each of these different points, reacting exactly how Mr Rogers might do. And then you see these changes generalize across each of these moments because, like you're not overriding the memory, like you can still remember it as you remembered it before, but the emotional connection that you had to that memory is overwritten with this feeling that you have. You know what if Mr Rogers was there instead?

Frank:

um, and that facilitates a lot of healing for people who are interested in that, I can imagine this is so okay, this brings up some like huge questions about, like, who we are as individuals, because, because a lot and I think we've talked about this on the show before, I've said it, because I say a lot of things People often build their own narratives about who they are, based on where they've been or what they've done, or the stories that they emotional stories and at some point it seems like you're suggesting that why are we holding on to these bad moments just because and letting them define us?

Frank:

like if they do not serve a purpose. Rewrite them. You don't need them anymore. You there's no good reason to remember the bad stuff if you can just like eliminate it or rewrite it and make it work for you yeah, like I don't know.

Eisley:

I don't know if I would say it that way yeah, say it how you would say it better than frank yeah, that was

Eisley:

weird there. There, there is a benefit to remembering how things were, just because therapeutic memory consolidation does not like overwrite that reality. It just changes your emotional connection to that point in your life, right, um, like, if you want to, you can think about it and remember how things actually happen, but there's no longer going to be that emotional connection to what actually happened, because your brain's like okay, that's a different, you know timeline, different scenario where it is just it's a thing that happened and I don't really feel any sort of way about it, because I chose to feel this way, um, as if this happened instead, um, but like okay, yeah, yeah okay yeah, like you can still remember it, um like, but you're not forgetting, like, where you came from and what steps brought you to here.

Eisley:

You're just choosing to change the way that it affects you.

Frank:

You're. You're like splitting. We're splitting the reality memory from the emotional memory and we're playing with the emotional memory Like it's silly putty or something, and forming it to something that works for you. You're so cool.

Eisley:

Thank you, I know.

Frank:

Oh no, that's a really, that's a really cool thing to do. And again, like you mentioned, this is probably something that you've been doing your entire life and something that people know how to do. But like being able to define it and label it and identify it as something that you can use as a, as a tool or, you know, have as a practice, is so beneficial and everybody needs it, Everybody.

Lauren:

I agree. Yeah, that's huge Boy.

Frank:

So big shout out to the hex girls.

Lauren:

Yeah, the hex girls started Isley on the quite a quite a path, holy cow.

Frank:

That's awesome.

Lauren:

How can people find you?

Frank:

Do you have any social handles?

Eisley:

and stuff.

Eisley:

Yeah, so I am at Isley Hallows on Facebook Instagram Threads. I've been spending most of my time on Threads lately. My website is isleyhallowscom and you can read about me and all the stuff that I'm doing on my services page. The coolest way to do shadow work with me at this point in time is called shadow study. Um, it starts with that journaling intensive and then we spend six weeks together um, just like, um you know, hypnosis, like doing all this parts work type stuff, like reintegrating and rewriting your reality in a way that puts you back in the driver's seat I love that I'm a big fan

Frank:

same last thing, last thing, and we can cut this if you don't want to answer, but icely hallows, give me the. How'd you come up with it?

Eisley:

so, um, I, my wife is transgender and, um, she decided that she was going to change her name, and I was like I don't love my name, so I'm going to change my name too. And we also ended up changing all four of our kids' names, which I learned. I wrote all of the paperwork all by myself, using what I learned, as you know a legal assistant.

Frank:

I forgot to ask you about the legal assistant stuff. Oh my God, there it is, yeah.

Eisley:

So I learned how to write legal paperwork when I was a legal assistant for like two months over the summer, like five, more than five years ago now, a while ago, wrote all that paperwork and we were going to choose, like you know, what do we want our new family name to be? And we thought about it for a while. You know, ask the kids what they would like and things like that, and we actually, um, it was some game that my wife was playing and there's this guy. He had the last name, hallows. I was like that's cool, I want a cool name like that. And she was like, well, why not actually just use that name? I'm like you're right, that is an incredible last to choose that.

Frank:

And Isley is just a name that I've liked for a really long time, so I just decided to take it on as my own. That's so cool. Look at you rewriting emotions, rewriting your name. Yeah, I love it. It's incredible Changing your own reality to what?

Lauren:

works better for you. I love that so much.

Frank:

Thank you so much for being on the show.

Eisley:

Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been absolutely a delight.

Lauren:

Thank you Bye Isley.

Eisley:

You're welcome. Bye-bye.

Frank:

Thank you for listening. Visit wwwclairvoyagingcom for show notes, merch or just to say hi. If you'd like to support our journey, visit wwwbuymeacoffeecom. Backslash clairvoyaging. This has been a production of Wayfeather Media.

People on this episode

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Frank A. Leon

Co-host
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Lauren Leon

Co-host
Contributor

Eisley Hallows

Guest