Michael Newton wrote Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, the books that introduced Life Between Lives hypnotherapy to the world, and the institute that carries his name still trains and certifies LBL practitioners today. Life Between Lives is the name he gave to deep hypnotic work centered on the period between incarnations, what your soul does after one life and before the next. I found out in 2007 that he was coming out of retirement to teach, and I made sure to be there. I traveled to Chicago that year to train with him, and that training is when I decided to specialize in spiritual hypnotherapy. I later served as a teaching assistant for LBL training, spent time with Michael at the Newton Institute strategy meeting at San Damiano in 2011, and returned there for LBL teacher training in 2014. The full story is in the Teachers and Influences section of my blog.

Most people have already read Michael Newton's Journey of Souls, and often Destiny of Souls too, before they ever reach out to me. That is usually why they want to do the session in the first place, because reading the book provides encouragement to want to experience this world. I do not think it has an impact on the experience itself. Just recently I talked with someone who had read it and was blown away by it. So I cannot give you a cut and dry answer, do it or do not do it, because it is up to the individual. Here is what I would say. If you have not read it and you are concerned that it might give you expectations, then just do not read it. The session does not need the book. And if you have already read it, like most of my clients, you are in good company.

Yes, you stay in the driver's seat the entire time. Hypnosis in my sessions is a state of heightened, focused awareness. Your conscious mind is present as an observer through the whole experience, so you hear everything, you know where you are, and you are choosing to take part. You can open your eyes whenever you like, ask me to pause, or decline to answer any question that feels uncomfortable, and I will follow your lead. Nothing about this resembles stage entertainment, and you will never be asked to do anything silly. What my clients typically notice is the opposite of losing themselves. They feel more aware of their own inner world, not less, and they come out of the session with a clear memory of what they said and experienced.

Those fast flashes are what some of my clients call fleeting images, so I use that term as well, and I can slow them down. Some of my clients are not especially visual, so a past life memory arrives as a quick scene that appears and vanishes, almost like a slide show. When that happens I use specific hypnotic suggestions that ask your subconscious to let the images settle and hold still long enough to look at. I also shift your attention away from your inner vision and toward what you feel in your body and your emotions, because those channels tend to be steadier. What typically happens is the scene stabilizes, and once it holds we can gather rich, detailed information from it just as we would from a vivid picture.

Those intuitive flashes, hunches and psychic knowings are often messages your spirit guides or Higher Self are dropping into your mind. In the hypnotic state, clients discover that what they had been writing off as random thoughts, odd coincidences or their brain doing something weird is actually real spiritual guidance. In a Quantum Healing Hypnosis session you can ask your guides about your gifts directly and how to use them. From there we work on trusting it. I teach self hypnosis anchors and progressive relaxation so you can quiet the logical, analytical part of your mind on your own. With practice, many people learn to hear these signals comfortably, recognize them when they arrive and trust them enough to navigate their lives by them. Understanding the gift is the first step, and using it well is the second.

You can still have a good session with me. Over twenty years and well over three thousand sessions, I have found that going into hypnosis comes down to how the session is run. I customize every session in real time using my clinical hypnotherapy background, and I have multiple backup inductions ready if the first one does not settle you. I also use interactive dialogue to quiet an overactive mind, since a busy mind is the most common reason people feel they did not go under. Clients who told me they had failed before often tell me afterward that this time it simply happened. Come with an open mind and let me handle the rest.