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.

Empaths are highly sensitive people who act like energetic sponges, soaking up the heavy emotional baggage of everyone around them and holding onto it. Over time that constant absorption can turn into emotional overload and real physical tension, and many empaths describe their sensitivity as both a superpower and a burden. Learning to clear and protect your own energy field is the key, and there are specific grounding and shielding techniques made for empaths. I share those tools during your private session and we fit them to you, so you leave knowing how to keep your boundaries comfortably in place. Clients often tell me the difference is that they can be with people again without carrying everyone's feelings home.

Brian Weiss is the psychiatrist who wrote Many Lives, Many Masters, and many people who contact me say that book is what first made them wonder whether the fears, relationships and unexplained patterns they carry might have a story that reaches beyond this lifetime. His other books include Only Love is Real, Messages from the Masters and Same Soul, Many Bodies. I took a class with him in Austin in 2005 through an Omega Institute program, right after I started learning hypnosis. It was a large group, around 150 people, and watching him guide a group process made the work real for me. It was no longer only something I had read about. If Many Lives, Many Masters is what brought you here, you are in good company. The full story is in the Teachers and Influences section of my blog.

That instant, unexplainable familiarity with someone is often a sign that your souls have shared many past lives. Souls travel and incarnate together in groups, working on shared lessons over many lifetimes and trading roles as spouses, siblings, parents and close friends. Before your session you fill out a cast of characters list with the important people in your life. As past life scenes come up, I cross reference that list, and clients are frequently surprised to recognize a current spouse or friend in a very different role. Seeing the original agreements and karmic bonds behind the connection tends to bring clarity, and many people come away understanding why this particular relationship feels so deep.

You do not need to deliver eloquent descriptions for this to go well. There is no right or wrong way to experience trance, and once the analytical mind steps aside, words come more easily than you expect. I keep my questions gentle and open, things like what do you notice and tell me more, and I let your impressions come out at their own pace. It is a collaboration rather than a performance. Quiet and anxious clients typically find they feel comfortable within a few minutes and share their journey just fine, and some of the richest sessions I have facilitated came from people who barely said a word in everyday life.

Yes. Positive talents and abilities from past lives, things like writing, teaching, music or healing, are carried forward in your soul's cellular memory. One client of mine had always been drawn to flying, and on his very first lesson he could handle the plane by instinct, because he had been a pilot in a previous life. When we access those lifetimes in trance, I ask your subconscious mind to bring those positive talents forward with you. What tends to happen is that abilities you have barely touched become easier to learn and to amplify, and clients often find themselves using them in their careers or creative work in ways they had not expected.