Fear Was Meant to Be Your Servant, Not Your Master
Soul Sync, Season 10, Episode 17. My conversation with medium, healer and hypnotherapist Joanna O'Brien about fear, limiting beliefs and learning to trust what you feel. Press play below, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Here's a question I've been sitting with since I recorded this episode. How many of the things you believe about yourself did you actually choose?
I don't mean the big, obvious ones. I mean the quiet ones that run in the background. I'm not good enough. People always leave. I'm not the sort of person who does that. They don't feel like beliefs. They feel like facts. And that's exactly why they're so hard to shift.
In this episode of Soul Sync I'm joined by Joanna O'Brien, a medium and healer who has also spent years working as a hypnotherapist, Master NLP trainer and Reiki Master. Joanna's work sits right where the spiritual and the psychological meet, and our conversation kept coming back to one idea of hers that I haven't been able to shake: fear was meant to be our servant, and somewhere along the way it became our master.
The more we talked, the clearer it became to me that underneath almost every fear there's a belief holding it up. So that's what this post is really about.
Our beliefs are running the show
I genuinely think our beliefs drive everything we do. They decide what we go for and what we talk ourselves out of before we've even started. They shape who we let in, and what we think is possible for us at all.
The trouble is, so many of them aren't helping us. Most were formed to protect us, often when we were very young, and they end up keeping us small instead.
I can look back at my own life and see it clearly. For years I wouldn't say the words "I am a medium". I'd say I was developing, or unfolding my mediumship, or still learning. Anything but the plain truth, because a part of me didn't believe I was allowed to say it. Nobody was stopping me. The only thing in the way was a belief.
I saw it all the time in my years in recruitment. Brilliant people would talk themselves out of a job before they'd even applied. Not qualified enough, not enough experience, so what's the point? I see it now with lovely medium friends too, who won't put their voice out there until they believe it's perfect. And so nothing moves.
I've had beliefs about relationships too, and Joanna very gently called me out on them in this episode. She asked me what has to happen for me to trust someone. Did I need them to be with me 24/7? To text me every hour? To sign a contract promising they'd never betray me? My answer was "all of the above". We both laughed, but it told her everything. Those rules weren't really mine. They were built out of old hurts.
And I've had beliefs about what's actually possible, which mediumship has turned completely on their head. More on that in a minute.
Where do our beliefs come from?
Joanna talked about something called the imprint period, a phrase from the sociologist Morris Massey, who described the years from birth to around seven as the time we soak up the world around us with very little filter. As Joanna put it, we're sponges. We absorb everything, and the mind's job is to work out what it all means. It sorts through every experience and, from that, we decide who we are.
For Joanna, that meant growing up with a very strict dad. Not a horrible man, she was clear about that, just disciplined and sometimes a bit unfair. One of six children in a happy, busy home, she still grew up with a feeling she could never quite put down: not good enough.
That one landed with me. My dad wasn't one for saying "I love you" either. I could count the times on one hand. What I find really beautiful is that since he passed into the spirit world, our relationship has carried on evolving, and I feel him around me now in a way that tells me he's healed. But I know how much of my younger self was quietly shaped by trying to earn something that was probably there all along.
Joanna made another point that I think is worth saying out loud. Many of the rules we live by are unconscious, and they aren't always ours. They can be things we've picked up from other people, and they keep running long after the people who taught them have stopped.
I said something in the episode that I keep coming back to. The beliefs you hold about yourself right now could be ten years out of date. Some of them have simply followed you from childhood without ever being questioned. If you can put them under a microscope and ask where each one actually came from, I think that's the first real step to changing your life.
Fear was designed as a servant
This is the heart of the episode for me. Joanna said fear isn't the enemy. It's a very useful emotion, not pleasant, but useful. It was designed to get us out of danger. The problem is that it's become our master.
She explained it through the way the mind works. The unconscious mind's job is to protect us, and it will repeat whatever it once learned kept us safe. So if we've been badly hurt in a relationship, the conscious mind can be saying "I want to be loved, I want something stable", while the unconscious mind is saying "danger, danger, danger, I'm going to get hurt". We move towards love with one hand and push it away with the other.
I asked her, half joking and half not, why I'm not manifesting a relationship when I feel ready for one. I think I already knew the answer. This is why I believe manifesting gets misunderstood. You can make the vision board and say the affirmations every morning, but if the belief underneath is quietly saying not for you, that's the one you'll end up acting on. The belief always wins until you bring it into the light.
Your brain believes what you practise
I love the spiritual side of all this, but I also find it helps to understand a bit of what's going on in the brain, because it takes away some of the shame. A limiting belief isn't a character flaw. In a very real sense, it's a well-worn path.
Back in 1949, the psychologist Donald Hebb proposed that when brain cells repeatedly fire together, the connection between them gets stronger. The neuroscientist Carla Shatz later summed it up in a line you've probably heard: neurons that fire together, wire together.
Think of it like walking across a field. The first time, you're pushing through long grass. Walk the same route every day and you wear a clear path, until it's the obvious way to go and you don't even think about it. Every time we think "I'm not good enough" and act as if it's true, we walk that path again.
The hopeful part is that the brain keeps changing throughout our lives. That's what people mean by neuroplasticity. A new path feels awkward and slow at first, like any new habit, but the more you walk it, the easier it gets. In the episode I said a lot of us are living our lives on repeat, with the same thought patterns as yesterday and the week before. The only way off the loop is to start doing something new, even when it feels clumsy.
A feeling should only last about 90 seconds
This was one of my favourite moments. Joanna shared the idea, popularised by the neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, that the chemical rush of an emotion passes through the body in roughly 60 to 90 seconds. So why do some feelings stay with us for years?
Because we keep feeding them. We tell ourselves the story again, the old belief kicks in, and the body responds as if it's all happening right now. The feeling becomes something we carry rather than something that moves through us.
Joanna has an Irish background, and she pointed out that Irish people tend to say sadness is on them, or in them, rather than "I am sad". I think that's beautiful. It's a reminder that a feeling is something you're experiencing, not something you are.
That's the idea behind the technique she teaches, and the meditation she's made for Soul Sync. When fear comes up, you don't fight it or push it down. You turn and face it. You say, "Fear is within me. I accept, I allow, I approve." You give it a colour, you breathe, and then you ask what you'd rather feel instead. Maybe it's curiosity. You give that a colour too and breathe it all the way around the body.
What I love is that it's not something you can only do lying in a dark room. Once you've learned it, you can use it on the way into a meeting, before a difficult conversation, or, as Joanna does, before she steps up to give a reading or demonstration. "I see you, I hear you, and I'm going to do it anyway."
Becoming limitless
Joanna told me that on the night before her 40th birthday she went to bed and woke up thinking, I'm bored with being this person. I know there's more inside. So she gave herself an early birthday present and decided to just be herself, with no limits. That's the heart of what she calls becoming limitless, which is also the name of her six-week mediumship course.
Mediumship has given me so much, but one of the biggest gifts is a complete, settled knowing that far more is possible for us than we've been led to believe. When you've felt the spirit world blend with you and seen what comes through on platform, it's hard to keep believing the small story about yourself. I even admitted in the episode that I've started playing around with telekinesis, because it reaffirms in my mind that this is possible. I always say to people, if you say you can, you can. If you say you can't, guess what? You can't.
I really believe we are souls of unlimited potential having a human experience. The only real ceiling is the one we've been taught to believe in.
And then there's intuition
We finished up talking about the times spirit tries to warn us, and the times we don't listen. Joanna shared two stories that I'll leave for you to hear in her own words: a voice telling her to get up and go into the sea moments before the waves turned on her son on holiday in Corfu, and a warning she heard and ignored before walking straight into an armed bank robbery in London.
I shared mine too. I was driving at 70 miles an hour when I heard a clear warning, just before a lorry pulled out in front of me. I swerved, and my old police driver training to steer into it rather than away kicked in. I genuinely believe that saved our lives that morning.
Joanna's response was simple: that boils down to belief as well. I think she's right. When we override what we feel, it's often because we don't yet believe our intuition is worth trusting. The more you practise listening, the louder it gets. If you'd like a safe space to practise that, you're always welcome at my free Tuesday development circle on Zoom.
Try it for yourself
Joanna has very kindly made two guided meditations for Soul Sync listeners, and they're coming to the podcast straight after this episode. Releasing Limiting Feelings was created especially for the podcast and is built around the "I accept, I allow, I approve" technique. It's a guided visualisation rather than hypnosis, so all you need is somewhere comfortable and a willingness to give it a go. Releasing Limiting Beliefs follows shortly after. Make sure you're following Soul Sync so you don't miss them.
If this episode spoke to you, have a look at Joanna's website, where you'll find her readings, healing and breakthrough sessions, soul coaching and her six-week mediumship course, Becoming Limitless.
Spiritual takeaways
Question what feels like fact. Many of our deepest beliefs were formed before we were seven and have never been checked.
Not every rule is yours. Some of the rules you live by were learned from other people and kept running long after they stopped serving you.
Fear isn't the enemy. It was designed to keep you safe, so thank it, and then decide for yourself.
Beliefs beat affirmations. If the belief underneath says "not for me", that's the one you'll act on, so start there.
Your brain believes what you practise. Old paths are just well walked; new ones get easier every time you choose them.
Let feelings move through. An emotion's chemical rush lasts around 90 seconds; it's the story we tell that keeps it alive.
Trust the quiet voice. Intuition gets louder the more you listen to it.
Thank you, Joanna, for such an honest and generous conversation, and for the meditations. You can find out more about her work on Joanna's website.
You can listen to the full episode above, or on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts.
Full episode transcript
The full conversation is below, lightly edited so it reads easily. Tap any section to open it.
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Jason: Hello, and welcome back to the Soul Sync Podcast. I'm psychic medium Jason Paul, and you're in the place for the seekers, the sensitives, and the people who've always felt there's more to life than we can see. Now, I want to begin by asking you something. What would you do with your life if you weren't afraid?
I don't mean the big dramatic stuff. I mean the everyday things. Putting your hand up for that job, sending that message, stepping onto the platform perhaps, or indeed letting someone in. Fear was never meant to run the show. It was designed to keep us safe, to get us out of danger. It was meant to be our servant, and somewhere along the way, for an awful lot of us, it became the master. And that's at the heart of today's conversation with Joanna O'Brien.
Joanna is a medium, a healer, a hypnotherapist, a Master NLP trainer and a Reiki Master, and she's spent years helping people get underneath the fears and feelings that hold them back in their life. Now, in this episode, we cover a lot of ground. Joanna couldn't read as a young girl, and she believes the spirit world had a hand in what shifted for her at 13.
We talk about strict fathers, never feeling quite good enough, and how that shapes who we go looking for in love. She even puts me on the spot about trust in relationships. Apparently "all of the above" isn't the right answer. Who would've known? She also shares two of the most extraordinary stories I've ever heard on this podcast: the day a voice told her to get up and go into the sea moments before the waves turned on her son, and the day she heard a warning, ignored it, and walked straight into an armed bank robbery.
And here's the exciting bit. After this episode, I'm releasing two guided meditations Joanna has created for us here at Soul Sync, including Releasing Limiting Feelings, made especially for you. Make sure you're following the podcast so you don't miss them. Fear holds us back so much in our lives, and so do the beliefs that we hold. I think it's really healthy to question the beliefs we have in our lives. This is my conversation with Joanna O'Brien.
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Jason: Joanna, Joanna, Joanna, welcome to the Soul Sync Podcast.
Joanna: Thank you, it's wonderful to be here.
Jason: Oh, it's wonderful to have you on! Don't be nervous. I know you're slightly nervous. It's just literally you and I, and it's a delight to have you on.
Joanna: Thank you.
Jason: You do many different things. To begin with, tell the listener a bit about you.
Joanna: I am a medium and a healer. I've actually been a therapist longer than I've been a medium. I'm a Reiki Master, an NLP Master. When I think back to what I've done, I can't believe it, actually. I've done quite a lot, but I have a love of learning. NLP and hypnotherapy form the basis of my healing. I find that I get both types of clients coming, so someone can come to me, for example, to learn mediumship, and I'm a mentor, so I'll help them using guided visualisations, calming, relaxation. Also, phobias are quite a big thing as well. People sometimes have a fear of certain things, so I do quite a diverse range of techniques.
Jason: Well, to be doing NLP, to be doing hypnosis, to also be a medium... I can completely understand why they all dovetail into one another, because they're modalities. But when I was at the very beginning of my journey, trying to work out what the power was, where it was, where the switch is, I couldn't completely understand why and how hypnotherapy would be very useful for that. And this is a special episode today, I do have to say that, because you have very kindly... after this episode, there's going to be a couple of tracks released, hypnosis tracks, which we'll talk about more as we go on. It's exciting. You've put a lot of effort into coming on this today, so thank you.
Joanna: You're welcome.
Jason: How did this all kind of come about for you? Because you mentioned to me that... I was going to say you were born very intuitive, but you had another career before you came into this, didn't you?
Joanna: I did, yes. I used to work for the Ministry of Defence. I became a career consultant as well, and, if I'm honest, a lot of the psychic abilities within me have really helped me in my careers. It's always been people-centred, what I've done. I've always been, sort of, facing the public and helping in some way. I actually loved working for the MOD. I used to meet people from all around the world: Germany, Cyprus, the Falklands. I ended up going to Cyprus. We lived out there for four years. Oh, that was really a spiritual place, really spiritual. But the work itself, you know, if I'm honest, I was just like a hamster on that wheel, just going to work and not really doing any therapies, but it helped that I was able to help people, if that makes sense.
I became comfortable doing that. And then, when I was a career consultant, being psychic was an advantage, definitely.
Jason: It's the same as me in recruitment. I've said this on the podcast before: when I first started developing my psychic skills with a medium, it was almost like I was then trying to do a reading, trying to fill in, and then I had a penny-drop moment, and I thought, I've been doing this for years, but as soon as you attach the word psychic to it, I'm suddenly getting a bit clammy, I'm getting a bit sweaty. I am a very, very sharp psychic, but it's because I've worked in that business of helping people, reading people, in the world of recruitment. It's quite funny, we've both sort of done something there that's about empowering people, helping people to live their full potential: you being a career consultant, me being a recruiter.
But the thing with being a recruiter is, when there's potentially a £10,000, £20,000 deal on the line, my goodness, you make sure your psychic receptors are as sensitive as possible. I'd be calibrating them every morning before I came onto the sales floor, you see, Joanna.
Joanna: Yeah, it's like you get downloads, don't you, from the spirit world as well, insights into the right thing to do. When I was younger, I actually had learning difficulties. It wasn't recognised then, but I had dyslexia.
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Joanna: And I remember being about 13, and suddenly something shifted within me. I could do things. And I attribute that to waking up, or starting to wake up psychically, and the spirit world. And I ended up going to university and doing a degree in English Literature. It's weird, I genuinely couldn't read. I mean, it shows you, the more open you are to the spirit world, how far they can help us.
Jason: Oh my goodness, massive.
Joanna: I've actually forgotten that, to be honest, but I know that I had learning difficulties, and it's coming back a little bit now, I must admit. I think when we're using computers all the time, you know, it auto-corrects, we lose the ability to spell a little bit.
Jason: Well, it's getting even worse than that, isn't it? We've gone from having a spell check to now having something that writes things for you, and even I can sometimes find myself using it and over-relying on it at times, because all these tools, I would very much rely on them in the job I would do, because it was so admin-heavy. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because we're all psychic on some level or another. We've all got the ability, we all sense things, we all feel things. But some of us are just much more sensitive than others. I, as a very young boy, was very sensitive, but I learned to suppress that part of myself over time.
And actually, that's why my life, I think, started to go completely off the rails at the end of my 20s, and I think that was because I was suppressing a lot of those parts of myself. But, you know, you've got to be in the right environment to, firstly, open up your senses.
Joanna: Sensitivity.
Jason: If you're not in the right environment, the last thing you want to do is make yourself more sensitive if you're in a tricky surrounding, because that's not going to be conducive to that. There's something I keep finding, and I don't know if this is an absolute coincidence, but I don't think it is: every medium that I come across is neurodivergent to some extent or another. Everyone is on some kind of spectrum, I've noticed. And it seems to me that a lot of us start off our life, and that neurodiverse condition is a real barrier. It could be a really difficult thing in our lives, but even me, with my ADHD, it is very much a superpower. It's what makes me so sensitive and so receptive.
Joanna: Yeah, I agree. There's fear, isn't there, of being different? I think it goes back to, you know, evolution, as we evolved. It's like you have to be accepted, otherwise, if you were kicked out of the tribe, you're more likely to expire. But the older I get, the more I sort of feel comfortable being different, and actually relish it.
Jason: Oh, I kind of embrace it now. I went to Glastonbury the other day, and I was walking around with my bags of sage, and I even bought a little cauldron, and I thought, 'Oh God, you're becoming more witchy by the day, Jason, with all your concoctions.' It's quite funny, actually, my mum came around my house the other day, and I was sitting there making candles. I had all these herbs and different things out, and she said... 'What the hell are you doing? You look like a...' But that individuality is really important. But again, you've got to be in the right environment to really step into that with yourself. I've had many times in my life where I didn't want to be my authentic self, or at times I didn't even know what that necessarily meant or was.
I'm the sort of person where I'm very colourful, but there are other periods in my life when I'm wearing black. I quite like my thumb painted on occasion. I don't know what it is, I'm so sensitive to colour, but then I look back at times and I think, you were wearing black then. That's alarm bells ringing back at that point in your life.
Joanna: Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I worked for the MOD, I started off working for the Royal Army Medical College, and I was terrified. Honestly, I was shaking in my boots before I started, but once I got there, it was totally different. I thought everyone was going to be shouting at me and criticising me. There is that strain, there is that discipline, and you take things seriously, but I absolutely loved it. I loved the culture, and they were so welcoming, and just interesting people. Really interesting. Discipline itself, I think, is quite a good thing. I think we all wear masks. Different masks. And I actually find it hard to be myself, because when I'm a medium, I'm channelling the spirit, so I'm almost becoming them. When I'm a therapist, I'm listening to people and I feel calm, but when I'm myself...
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Joanna: I can be all sorts of different things, but I know that my background, my upbringing, my dad was very, very strict. Very strict. He was ex-Army. And it can kind of, I don't know, make you become a person that you're not necessarily comfortable with.
Jason: Well, it's very interesting how those formative years shape everything, don't they? You growing up in that kind of environment, I can imagine that you were constantly trying to please your dad, constantly trying to seek that love and affection by operating within the boundaries. That's gonna make you feel you need to be something in order to receive, and...
Joanna: Yes. I've always felt that I had to be perfect, maybe not good enough, and it does put a lot of pressure on you. It does. So I've developed this kind of so-what attitude. So what.
Jason: I love that. That's the attitude I have these days.
Joanna: So what? Not everybody's going to love us. Not everybody's going to hate us, but I think the more you can be yourself, your true, authentic self, it does give you confidence, really, just to be who you are. It's so freeing.
Jason: Well, do you know what? Even in recent weeks, it's the same as me. When I was working in my business for years, I was certainly not telling people I was a medium. That's why I used the surname Paul, my granddad's name. I was hiding parts of myself, because it's only been, I would say, in the last few weeks that I feel I'm probably the most Jason that I've been for... well, probably my whole life. Because even when I was younger, yes, okay, maybe I didn't have a lot of the conditioning and hadn't been through a load of experiences, but then I had very much the same relationship. My dad was very loving. He took me in when I was very young.
I had another father, but actually, my biological dad was not a very nice man, a very selfish man. When my mum got back from the hospital with me, the story goes, our stuff was just on the doorstep, because she hadn't paid rent for the last couple of weeks because of being so heavily pregnant. So I went through my childhood, and my dad, bless him, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely man, did everything for his family, but my dad had his own struggles with his own mental health and his own ability to navigate his way through his own depression, which seemed to get worse as he got older. But I very much grew up in that way of being, probably, where I was constantly trying to seek love and affection from him, and obviously I feel that I always had that sense of abandonment from my actual biological father.
That definitely impacted me a lot into my teenage years, into my 20s, and actually, I never know whether or not to... because this isn't my dad. In how this happened, you can't put this on him. But I ended up in my 20s attracting this awful partner, and found myself in a very horrible domestic violence situation, but that's because I was ultimately looking outside of myself for more love.
Joanna: I know.
Jason: But, you know, that comes up a lot for me in mediumship readings with people, that kind of relationship that they have. With the parents, in terms of their relationship with love and getting affection, it can colour someone's whole life, can't it?
Joanna: Oh, yeah, the first seven years of life. They call it the imprint period. We're sponges, and we just absorb everything around us, and it's the mind's job to say, what does this mean? So we're being bombarded with all these things, and the mind has to find a meaning, and what it does, it sorts through all our memories, every single thing that's ever happened to us. And then we define ourselves, don't we? Our sense of self. I mean, my dad wasn't a horrible person, it's just that he was disciplined and sometimes a little bit unfair. But I never felt like I sort of met his expectations. I mean, there were six of us. Yeah, really big family, but we had a really happy childhood.
But there's always that feeling that I'm not good enough. Not good enough. And you have to overcome that, as you said. And I think if you haven't got that feeling inside of self-love, and self-acceptance, and self-worth, you do look for it outside of yourself. But I think there's another aspect to it as well. I don't want to really put my opinions out here too strongly, but there is something about the soul seeking to learn while it's here, and I think that we do attract certain experiences to learn from and understand ourselves on a deeper level.
Jason: I agree, I agree. I think the tricky times that come up in our lives are what make us grow, and we all have those times, because I feel it's ultimately in our soul plan. And I tend to find that other mediums, other psychics, other healers, a lot of them have been through these really challenging times, because I feel that gives them, I don't know, the palette of life experience to be able to then be a healer. Because, you know, it wouldn't make sense, would it, otherwise? Someone who's had a pretty okay life, a few challenges here and there, then suddenly gets something ignited within them to become a medium. Well, have they got that life experience?
Have they got that empathy? And I very much think about myself these days: why do I always look through such a lens of humility, care and love? Because I've been at some rock-bottom places in my life, and even as a police officer, seeing all that I did has given me the empathy never to judge someone. You never know what someone's... So I try to just show kindness in these types of things, but it's because not much surprises me. I used to think to myself, even in the police, how much more can you see of the sadness of humanity at times, and what they're going through? But that's why I feel that I'm doing what I'm doing.
So, I wanna ask you about hypnotherapy, because we've got these couple of tracks we're releasing, and I'm very excited about these. But what is it about... Because I've had hypnotherapy, and I remember distinctly, I was in a relationship and I'd just broken up with someone in Manchester. My world was ending, obviously, at the time, and I was getting such bad anxiety that I'd been diagnosed with something called GAD, which sounds almost like a foreign object, something you find on a floor or something, but general anxiety disorder, I was told I had. But I was not in control of my thoughts at that point. It was almost like I couldn't get a grip. All I could think about was this guy.
One day we were together, and the next day, all of a sudden, he'd moved his stuff out when I was at work, and my world had ended. So I went to a hypnotherapist, and I did find that it helped, but I'm not sure if I went to it enough, because I think it helped to some degree. But talk to us about hypnosis, why you got into it, and how it works for people.
Joanna: Yeah. Well, everyone's different. Some people can have one session, and that's it. Others perhaps need a bit more, just so that they really reinforce all the learnings. So when I studied NLP, hypnotherapy was a big part of that, so we trained in hypnotherapy.
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Joanna: If you think of yourself, you have a conscious mind, which I always think is here, and you have an unconscious mind. There's also something called the superconscious mind, or supra...
Jason: How do I switch that switch on, Joanna?
Joanna: The conscious mind, I will show you, is the thinking mind, yeah? That's where the thoughts are racing, and it's very hard to switch that off. So what hypnotherapy attempts to do is to bypass the conscious mind and go directly to the unconscious. And the unconscious is the part of us... it's like a defence mechanism. Its job is to protect us. It breathes us. When we sleep, the unconscious mind takes over, and that's when we start dreaming. It's a very, very powerful aspect of being a human being. The problem with the unconscious mind is that it loves repetition, it loves habits, so the things that we've learned all our lives are what it uses. Some of these things are not necessarily good for us, but what it likes is something that is, let's say, predictable.
So, let's say... we call them triggers, yeah? Someone will leave you in a traumatic way, and I'm sorry that happened to you, by the way.
Jason: Oh, thank you.
Joanna: What the unconscious mind will do is kind of say, relationships are dangerous, I'm vulnerable to hurt. And it sets up a kind of conflict, so the conscious mind... we want to be loved, we want to be in a stable relationship, yeah? Yeah, but the unconscious mind is saying, no, danger, danger, danger, I'm gonna get hurt. So it's like we move towards something with our conscious mind, and the unconscious mind will try to take us away from it. So with hypnotherapy, we try to bypass the conscious mind and just use techniques such as breathing. Breathing is one of the most powerful things you can do, if you breathe in a certain way. Breathe in... and breathe out.
The basis of hypnotherapy is changing our perception of events, and taking away that need, that fear, if you like, that threat of danger. It can help with phobias, feelings, emotions, all sorts of different things. Just trying to think of... let me tell you. I'm not afraid of the dentist. Not at all. I don't dream about going, but I had to have a lot of dental treatment this year, so I went, my partner took me, and I actually feel quite nervous talking about it, but I want your listeners to see. They injected... is it Novocaine? In my mouth.
Jason: Oh, lidocaine.
Joanna: Whatever it was. So I was perfectly fine, and I was lying there, and suddenly I could feel my heart beating. And I thought, oh my god, what is happening? It was really speeding up, yeah? I started to panic. And my partner was just sitting there, and I said, am I having a heart attack? I don't know what's happening. And the nurse leaned over and said to me, it's Novocaine, it can release adrenaline into the body. As soon as I understood that, Jason, I started breathing techniques. So I took a big breath in... and a longer breath out. I can feel the adrenaline running through my body now as I think of it, and that's what happens with the mind.
You replay the scene over and over again. Understanding allowed me to centre myself and calm myself. So that's the kind of self-hypnosis technique that we can use. Hypnotherapy is just amazing, because it works on the body, on the central nervous system. Once the nervous system is calm, it starts sending different signals. So, depending on what the person comes for, let's say, I want to feel safe when I'm in love, or in a relationship, you induce different images, different pictures, but the breathing is what really changes the nervous system. And that's it in a nutshell, really.
Jason: It's very interesting, and I completely agree. Basically, we have the same thought patterns that we had yesterday, the week before, the month before. We are living our life, in many senses, on repeat, and the only way to come out of that kind of cycle is to start doing things new, and that can be difficult a lot of the time, because normally that requires change. A lot of the time, growth requires a level of discomfort. Growth requires discipline in sticking to something. And I can be a very tricky person when it comes to discipline. I only need to look at the fact that I joined a new gym two weeks ago, and I've just managed to wipe my feet on the doorstep there about once.
So I'm doing very well in the discipline department, but... The hypnotherapy, I can understand. Bypassing the conscious mind makes total sense. And I must admit, my conscious mind is very interfering, very overpowering, so I can imagine it might take me more than one attempt to do that. How does the hypnotherapist, then... you're wanting to get to someone's subconscious. How are you constructing a method in order to do that, when someone comes to you? If I'm coming to you right now... and I guess a fear of mine is, well, I guess I'm scared of heights, but I think I've also got lots of relationship blockers, because I'm single. Not that I'm... I would love to be in a committed relationship, but I'm not gonna settle for just any odd person.
But I do feel that I've got... because why am I not manifesting someone? I feel that's because, deep down, I've probably got some level of issues in the relationship department. So how would you go about helping people and constructing what it is? I'm almost imagining you have one of those sort of optical illusions, the Joanna wheel, where you put it on and they start going into a... you sort of set it to a certain speed. Or is that my imagination taking over there?
Joanna: Every person that I've ever seen has been totally different, so one size doesn't fit all. The most important thing is to listen.
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Joanna: Listen to the person. Listen to the words that they're using, yeah? So just listening to you now, I would say that there is conflict. What is love? Yeah? What is love, then, really, for you? I know what it is for me. So we find out exactly what the root cause is. What is the problem? Because people come with presenting problems, yeah? So you might come into my office and say, oh, I've got a fear of heights. And then there are ways of just drilling down under the layers, under the feelings, yeah, to the root cause, and that's where I would begin. So we would look at your childhood and issues, and also, there's something called the rules of life and values, so it's about what a person values, really.
So I would say to you, tell me, what is love for you, then? What has to happen for you to know that you are loved?
Jason: I feel for me, it's about commitment, friendship, honesty, integrity, kindness, I think, trust... Yeah, for me, it's very much about being there for one another, and just being committed. I was gonna start listing out qualities. 6'2", you know, nice dark features, I'm happy with blonde, but that's not really what you're trying to achieve there, Joanna, is it really?
Joanna: No, no. Well, it's your life, it's what you want, not what I think. First thing that jumped out at me there was trust. Okay. Trust.
Jason: Out of interest, what was it there that just happened for that to jump out?
Joanna: Because you already told me about your childhood, and I was listening.
Jason: You're very observant, aren't you?
Joanna: You have to be actively listening, and it helps in mediumship as well, because I think sometimes we don't listen. We're not there, we're not present, yeah? So when I'm with a client, I am mindful, I'm here, I'm with you, I'm listening to you, I care, I'm compassionate. Trust is an issue. What has to happen for you to trust someone? For example, Jason, do you need to be with them 24/7? Do you need them to text you every hour? Do you need them to sign a contract saying, I promise I will never, ever betray you?
Jason: All of the above, Joanna. Does that sound unreasonable to you in a relationship?
Joanna: What I'm trying to do is change your perception of your expectations of others, okay? So if you start thinking of the rules, which are unconscious, they're all in the unconscious mind. The rules can sometimes not be our rules. They can be what we've learned from other people. And it's their behaviour, not necessarily their words, that build or destroy trust. So, with you, I would definitely put you into a nice, calm, relaxed, hypnotic state, and start talking to your unconscious mind to ask the questions, and to rephrase the questions that you constantly ask yourself. So, in relationships, we are vulnerable, yeah? We are vulnerable, but we have these expectations. I know he's gonna call, I'm sure he'll call.
And they don't call, so what happens? The mind immediately thinks of the worst-case scenario, yeah?
Jason: I don't know what it is when I'm in a relationship, and I know that this goes back to traumas in other relationships, and I think, being gay, in general there seems to be a high level of... what's the word I want to use? Promiscuous behaviour, in that sort of world, and I feel... That is a perception, but I think another thing is, with the trust, I don't know what it is, whenever I'm starting to court someone or whatever, it's almost like the unhelpful ego mind might want to pipe up and start going, oh my god, what's he thinking? And it's like... you're not like this in any other situation. But I don't think I'm made for the modern day.
I don't like dating apps. Texting, to me, is a useful modality of communication. However, when it comes to relationships, I'm more of an on-the-phone person. All these things, like read receipts and whatever, I don't have any of that switched on my mobile, but they are all designed to play against the human psyche. If we look at the world that we're in now, social media, the way likes... all these things are so complicated in what they do to our psyche, because they're all designed to be addictive, to play on the human condition. It can be hard.
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Joanna: I have been doing this a long time, and I know myself as well. I think fear is the root cause of many of our issues. Fear. Now, fear isn't the enemy. It's a very, very useful emotion, not pleasant, but it was designed as a servant. It was designed to get us out of danger, yeah? It's become our master now. There are so many things. Even I get overwhelmed if I listen to the news, watch things that are just horrible. It can be really overwhelming. So it's about looking at what fears you have in relationships, and being brutally honest with yourself. Loyalty is the most important thing to me, and always has been. And I've had relationships where I've constantly been betrayed.
Jason: That's horrible when that happens.
Joanna: It is, it is, but human beings are like mirrors. We mirror each other. And I know that I went for certain types of men because the love that I had for my father... I didn't feel... you know what, I just didn't feel I was enough, good enough.
Jason: Enough. So you would have settled, I imagine, for behaviour that was not acceptable, really.
Joanna: First of all, if they were keen on me, I wouldn't really be that interested. The minute I thought they were cooling off and not interested, my god, I was there. I was like, oh, you know, I really must... I must text him, I've got to be with him. The penny dropped one day, and I thought, why? What is this? What is going on? So I took some time out, and I thought, I am so afraid of being betrayed, and I keep attracting these people that are reinforcing this fear. And it was the fear of it. When I started, sort of... I know it's a hard concept for many of us, but I thought... I have love within myself.
I am enough. Then I attracted the person I've been with now for 16 years, and I just think it's because I surrendered and realised what I was doing. I was literally pushing them away. In a way, it's kind of trying to get that love that we didn't feel when we were younger. But you can't. I know my dad loved me. I know he did, he just didn't show it. And it's only since he's passed... and he actually stands right here. Yeah, yeah.
Jason: Well, it's the same with my dad. Oh God, if I think how many times he would have said I love you, or showed me that emotion...
Joanna: Oh, no.
Jason: Very few. But it's interesting you say that, because since my dad has gone to the other world, I feel our relationship has evolved, and we've said so much to each other, and I feel his presence all the time, and that's very comforting for me, because it lets me know that he's healed by virtue of how he's being. But I also do thank my dad a lot, because he probably made me very successful in a lot of ways. It was almost like I had this point to prove constantly. I would do something, and he would say, oh yeah, good, but then he'd be on to the next thing. I'd run my business for probably 6 years, got it to multi-million-pound level, and I'd never even had a well done!
Or anything like that, like, I'm proud of you. Ridiculous, if you think about it. But then, would I have probably got it there? I think he was such a central part of my character, of just having this tenacity to keep going. But it definitely has impacts for the good and also for the worse, because I think it was also responsible for other things. But it's not all on my dad. It's every part of the fabric of our lives, isn't it? My experiences at school, my experiences in the playground, all these different things. So, I want to ask...
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Jason: One of the tracks that's gonna follow this interview today is Releasing Limiting Feelings. What is a limiting feeling, in your mind?
Joanna: A limiting feeling is something that stops us from living our lives in the way that we want. In a way, I think we're here to reach the full capacity. There are no limits, only the limits that we put on ourselves. And it is the feelings that limit us, yeah? A limiting feeling, I don't know... let's think about mediumship. Confidence. Massive, massive thing in mediumship. And mediumship, as well, is interesting, because it can force us to uncover things that we weren't aware of inside us, yeah?
Jason: Very much so.
Joanna: A limiting feeling? Think, I'm not lovable. I'm not good enough. That's a feeling, yeah? Fear of failure is a limiting feeling. Why? Why? Why? The way that we feel colours life. It colours our perception, yeah? I was very, very shy, obviously, when I was a young girl, and I just used to feel that I wasn't good enough. So it stopped me from taking opportunities, perhaps. It just limits your life. And often they're not based on any facts. They're not...
Jason: Based on truths.
Joanna: No, it's not the truth of who you are. And when you asked me earlier about the supra-consciousness, this is the third brain, if you like. This is the soul. This is the aspect of us that is within the body, and it's possible to access that using hypnotherapy as well, although you don't need it. You can meditate. But the soul wants to experience these things. It wants us to learn, it wants us to understand, and it wants us to approve. And if people listen to the tracks, there's a section, a very important section, where we speak out loud, I approve of a limiting feeling. I allow, I accept. Because we spend a lot of time repressing our limiting feelings, yeah?
But they get triggered anyway, and that can be detrimental. Do you remember we talked about conflict? It's like, my mind wants to go this way, but the unconscious mind is saying, well, no, don't do that, just in case. Remember last time when that happened? Love is the best example. Remember when you got hurt before?
Jason: Yes. That friend there, you know, on your shoulder. It can be very difficult, I think, a lot of these things, especially limiting beliefs, limiting feelings, because I used to come across it all the time in the job I did in recruitment, about people believing in what's possible for themselves, and the amount of times people might think, oh, I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to throw my hat in the ring, I'm not going to put my hand up, I'm not gonna apply for that job, because what's the point? I know I'm probably not right for it, I'm not qualified enough, I haven't got enough experience. And we can talk ourselves out of so many things before we even get started.
I think to myself, the amount of conversations I've had with lovely medium friends of mine recently about, look, you've got a talent, you need to get out there into the world, you need to start to put your voice out there, and they said, oh, well, I need to get it right first, it needs to be perfect, it needs to be this. And then there's never any movement or progress, because we have in our mind this belief of ourselves, or belief that we feel we must be doing it like this, at this level, what other people will think of us. And it can stop us doing the things we want to do in our lives.
Joanna: Yeah, it stops you. It limits you. But we are the ones that place the limits on us. Yes! Outside forces are always present, but that's why hypnotherapy is so powerful, because it can unlock the unconscious mind. It can, if you can interrupt the pattern and replace it with something more positive. It's like, I used to think I was a very, very limited person, yeah? I couldn't read. Probably couldn't write, I can't remember, it was a long time ago, but I know I had dyslexia. And then all of a sudden, it just opened up, you know, this brain, whatever. When I turned 40, I literally went to bed at 39, I woke up when I was 40, and I thought, do you know what?
I'm bored with this. I'm bored with being this person. I knew there was more inside. And I gave myself an early birthday present. I just thought... I'm just gonna be me. I just need to be who I am inside, with no limits. So this kind of becoming limitless idea... there is nothing that we cannot do if we are willing, and if we can approve of ourselves, that really, really helps. But how you feel does directly affect your behaviour, and how much of our behaviour is unconscious?
Jason: Oh, so, so much. And how we feel, you know, it defines our mood, our thoughts, our actions, what we're gonna do with our life. It's like this morning. Like I said to you, I was meant to do something at 8.30, and I missed the call I was meant to do because I overslept, and it's like stubbing your toe when you get out of bed. It can inform the rest of your day. I really think hypnosis is wonderful for that, because it's the beliefs that we have about ourselves that allow us to reach new heights, and you're right in what you're saying. Anything is possible, and I think one of the beautiful things that mediumship has given me... many different things, but one of them is to be completely comfortable and safe in the knowledge that anything is possible for a human being, and what we can actually achieve, what we can actually do.
And that's why I've recently started playing around with telekinesis, because it's like... Reaffirming in my mind that you can do this. This is possible, you can do anything. And I think when you're a medium as well... obviously, I've got a lot of medium friends, and some of the stuff that they've done, feats of seemingly impossible things that defy the laws of gravity, that I've seen done as well. But it's because they start from a default position of, this is possible, and I can. What a lot of us do in our lives is we start from a position of, it's probably unlikely, it's probably not gonna happen, should I waste my time doing it in the first place?
And then you get other people who say, do you know what, I am gonna stick this 10p to the wall with nothing but my mind, and they do it. So you've got to look at the beliefs that you've got and really examine those, and the beliefs that you might hold now about yourself could be 10 years out of date. They could be thoughts that have just followed through from your childhood. And I think that is the case for a lot of us, a lot of the time, in my experience.
Joanna: Yeah. What you believe is what you are.
Jason: Well, I always say to people now, look, if you're gonna say you can, you can. If you can't, guess what? You can't. And that's why when I go into mediumship now, when I do platform demonstrations, no matter how nervous I am, no matter what, I will go out there with my Hollywood actor's, BAFTA-winning face on that shows that I'm confident, even if I'm not confident. Because the moment you go out there with that energy that's not confident, the energy dips, and I understand what my role is out there. But I think it's looking at the beliefs that you have about yourself. If you can really kind of put those under a microscope and look at where these beliefs actually come from, I think that's really the first stage of really changing and transforming your life.
Joanna: Absolutely. And I agree, with mediumship you do literally step into another zone. It's so lovely.
Jason: It's a lovely zone, isn't it?
Joanna: Isn't it? A zone of just being, just be, and allow them to channel. I mean, it's possible, you don't have to be a medium to channel. You can just open and channel and ask them to come in. There is so much they can do, I think, that none of us are really aware of yet, but I do think we are finding out more that the spirit world can actually do more than we know. When my son was really young... there have been so many things in my life, I mean, warnings, for a start, yeah?
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Joanna: I took him to Corfu, and I bought him this... what do you call those things where you ride the waves? Surfboard. Right, so in those days, we used to listen to Walkmans, it shows you how long ago it was. And he said to me, Mummy, come into the water with me. And I said, let me just listen to one song, and then I'm coming in, right? So he went in. I was listening to my song, there were loads of kids, the water was about up to their knees, yeah, it wasn't deep, and there was a jetty. So I was listening to my Walkman, a song ended, and I heard a voice say, get up now and go into the water.
Didn't question it. I turned it off, took it off, put it down. As I was walking towards him, the waves changed, and the whole thing became like a tsunami. All the kids were screaming. He had this surfboard, and I could see... I was running, and all the parents were running towards him. Everyone was screaming. They were being battered by these waves, and I could see my son holding onto his surfboard, being battered towards the jetty, and I thought, oh my God, he's gonna go under. Anyway, God, I was battling through the waves to get to him. Just got hold of him, and this is the truth, the whole thing just went back to normal, okay?
Oh God, I couldn't believe it! Where did it come from? But that voice told me to get up and go in. So I didn't question it. It was really weird. Because I was listening to music, which is very powerful, by the way. Sound healing is incredible. Heard the voice, and just obeyed it. So it's a form of channelling. It helps you, and it can help you to overcome issues, to overcome problems, if you allow. But as you said, it's the ego sometimes that stops us.
Jason: It's interesting, what you're saying there, because I think the spirit world can help us far more than we even realise, and I actually feel that they do help us more than what we're actually conscious of, because I hear people say to me a lot, oh, I'm sitting, you know, but I'm not feeling anything. And I always say, look, you may not be feeling anything, but trust me, 100%, if you are sitting with that intention, they will be doing things regardless of whether you're aware of it or not. But when I look back at my life now... I can really clearly see, I feel, where Spirit have helped and guided me. Something very interesting that's been happening recently popped into my head when you was just explaining about that.
You know, a very, very, very scary encounter.
Joanna: That really was.
Jason: I can imagine. My clairaudience has started really opening up recently. I keep getting vibrations in my right ear, because the right side is always where I feel spirit. But I've noticed over the last few days, and it has made me laugh quite a lot, actually... I opened up a drawer a couple of days ago, and I was looking for this cable, and then all I heard was this internal voice saying, oh no, you need to look in the drawer below. Opened it, and there it was. And then when I'm doing stuff on the Soul Sync as well, the spirit world are around me a lot when I do the podcast. I've been looking for something or doing something, and I'll hear them say, no, you need to do this.
And it's been happening quite a few times. Even when I was riding my bike yesterday, I heard them say, look over your right shoulder, and then all of a sudden there was another car that was just about to, sort of... thank God they told me that. There was one time where I had it really, really loud, and then I never had clairaudience again until recently. It was me and my mum, we were driving really early in the morning from Bristol to Heathrow, and there was a lorry, from nowhere, that just literally pulled out, right, and just before that happened, the spirit world told me to basically slow and swerve. And it was the scariest moment of my life, because when it pulled out, luckily, because I'd just heard that, I swerved, but at 70 miles an hour, I was losing control of the car.
Joanna: Oh, my goodness.
Jason: And luckily, because I was a police officer, I remembered from my training to steer into it rather than steer out of it. That saved our lives that morning, and I've never been as confident behind the wheel since that ever happened. I'm so conscious now of lorries when I overtake them. So they do help, but I think a lot of the time in my life they've been trying to help me, but there were probably certain points where the spirit world was just thinking, for goodness' sake, we're getting frustrated. Can we get through to him at this point? Is he gonna listen? Is he gonna be receptive?
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Joanna: Yeah, but that boils down to belief as well. When I was in my 20s, a very young woman, I lived in the East End of London, and I was walking to put a cheque into the bank. Just before I got there, I heard, and some things you just don't forget, 'Bank robbery.'
Jason: Oh, goodness me.
Joanna: So I continued in. I wasn't a medium at that point. Maybe I was psychic but didn't know it. Standing at the teller, I handed her my cheque. The next thing I know, this guy pushed me, and I turned around, and it was, like, June or July, and he had a balaclava, a great big overcoat and a sawn-off shotgun, and he was pointing at me. So there were loads of people in there, and everyone was crying. And just, you know the shouting that they do? There was another guy with him as well, with a shotgun. Anyway, long story short, I ended up being forced back, and I sort of collapsed on the floor, if you know what I mean.
I wasn't unconscious. But then the worst thing: the CID burst in with guns.
Jason: Oh my goodness! Whoa!
Joanna: I tell you what, my life has been amazing. Even I think sometimes, did that really happen? But it wasn't until that night... I mean, I was in there for hours. They caught them, obviously, but I thought, oh God, I'm gonna die. It was that night, the thing that really got me nervous and shaky: I thought, oh my God, I had a premonition! Bank robbery! But I just totally ignored it. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd never gone in there. But anyway, I think they can help you in many, many ways, but you have to build up your belief. It can be small things, it doesn't have to be massive things. It can be in small ways, and gradually we learn to trust.
I'm flying Monday morning, I'm going on holiday. If I get any premonition, 'Don't fly', I'm not going. And that's how much I believe now.
Jason: Oh, I do, I do. Yeah, if I got a feeling like that, no way. I say that I listen to my feelings, and most of the time I do, but, you know, I do still find occasions where I will feel something. And then I'm very quickly reminded, if I don't listen to it, why I should listen to the way that I feel. Because recently I parked my car in a car park... I don't know what it is with Glastonbury. Every time I go to Glastonbury, something happens. I go there, and there's something about the energy there where I am so exhausted. Like, I went the other day with my friend Michelle, and it's half an hour from me.
I could drive half an hour anywhere. But we went there for two hours, and I said, oh my God, I am so tired, I can barely even keep my eyes open, Michelle, I don't know what's going on! And when we parked the car, I had this feeling, don't park the car in this space, but I thought, oh, it's the only space in the car park, whatever. Come back, and someone's reversed into the side of the car. Jason, you felt not to park there. Why are you doing these things against your own intuition?
Joanna: I know, but we question, don't we? The mind just questions, and a little bit of doubt is healthy, I think, but it's the strength of the message. I think that's what convinces me. That's what I listen to, the strength. Because who knows what thoughts are going around in our minds? Experience helps with mediumship, and practice. The more we practise opening and trusting, the more we get, I think. And talking about 'fear ofs', it's like fear of looking foolish, yeah?
Jason: Oh, yes.
Joanna: I mean, I might look stupid. I'm pretty sure it'll be okay Monday morning, but I might look stupid if I get on the plane, sit down and think, no, I've got to get off. But I will do it, because...
Jason: How far would you follow this? If you were suddenly taxiing to the runway and you got the feeling, would you get the plane to turn back with such a feeling? I suppose it depends on the strength of it.
Joanna: I would, because I really trust my guides, I know. But a part of me as well is thinking, well, they wouldn't let me get on the plane in the first place. They wouldn't let it get to that.
Jason: They wouldn't let it get that far, but you have to open the door and go down the slide to get out. But if it needs to be done, it needs to be done. There's one thing I would say to anybody listening to this: trust in how you feel. If you're up in your head trying to make a decision, come back down to what your heart's telling you and how you feel. So, Joanna...
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Jason: Do us the absolute honour, then, of introducing the track that's going to follow this, and there are two tracks. One is Releasing Limiting Beliefs, which was an older track that you made, which was beautiful, but the one that you've made especially for this is Releasing Limiting Feelings. Tell the listener what they can expect from this and how it should be used.
Joanna: Okay. So it's not a hypnotic experience. It's just a guided visualisation. It's something that you can use whenever you need it. The idea came to me because I have an Irish background, and Irish people have a tendency to say 'happiness is in me', or 'on me', or 'I have sadness in me'. And I thought, oh, that's wonderful, because it shows how feelings, apparently, can only last 60 to 90 seconds in the body. Why is it that some of them last longer? Because we attach stories and meanings to them. So let's say, for example... First of all, I chose fear, and it's not an easy thing to deal with.
Jason: But it's the thing that holds so many people back.
Joanna: Thank you. I think you suggested it as well, and I agree. It's the thing that stops us from living to our full potential. And also, it's just horrible. Yeah, fear and anxiety. When you listen to the recording, just open your mind and allow, because one of the worst things we can do is to repress, okay? We all have fears. It's a perfectly natural human way of being. It's actually very, very useful to be afraid. It will get you out of potential danger. The problem is, today, as I said earlier, it's become our master and not our servant, so lots of things can trigger us. I wanted to do something that would empower people, that would give them that sense that they're not as vulnerable and helpless as fear would have them believe.
So you literally just sit somewhere comfortably.
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Joanna: Choose what your fear is, what your 'fear of' is. So, fear of failure, for example. If that's what you want to deal with, set your intention: I'm ready. I'm just gonna turn and face it. I'm not gonna repress it anymore. So you go through speaking the words, 'I accept. I allow. I approve.' Give it permission to be here. And you literally just allow whatever the fear is. There's a certain technique as well to go in: you give it a colour, yeah? And the breathing is a really, really important part of it, because that will directly calm the nervous system, yeah? And when the nervous system is calm, the brain is calm. Allowing the feeling to just be.
Accepting it. Understanding it as well, that it's just a feeling. It's just that fear has such a visceral effect on the body. That's its job. Yeah, it's designed. You know, everyone's heard of the fight-flight effect. Once you have learned everything that you need to know, you then preserve all the learnings, all the wisdom, so that you never forget. And then you let it go. The second part is just as important, and as you listen through... I've really tried to use the trance voice. I mean, it's hit and miss with trance, but just to use the trance voice to instil calm, peace, that feeling of safety. The second part is: what is the opposite to your 'fear of'?
What do you want to feel? If you don't want to feel afraid, what do you want to feel? Maybe you want to feel a sense of curiosity instead of fear. And then we get that feeling of curiosity, and then we magnify it. We give it a colour, and then we breathe it all around the body. And all people have to do is just be ready and willing. The reason I like this technique is because once you've learned it, you don't have to be sitting still in a dark room. You can use it in your everyday life. So, for example, if you're going into a situation where you're out of your comfort zone, or that's going to trigger you, you can literally just say...
Find a quiet place, definitely, to speak out loud. Or you can say in your mind, 'Fear of looking stupid is within me. I welcome it.' And once you start to face the fear, you release it. Yeah? Is that... Fear of fear, I think, is another problem. But it's accepting that it is there, and it's okay, I can deal with it. I see you, I hear you, and I'm gonna do it anyway. So it's a technique that I use quite a lot. Before a reading, before I'm doing a dem, I'll literally just put my hand on my stomach, follow the breathing pattern and allow. Just allow myself to be.
Jason: See, even there, you can sense that energy changing instantly with you. Do you know what I love about this particular track? It's so universal, because if you strip it back, your thoughts are either love- or fear-based, and if something is holding you back in your life, it's fear. It's fear of something or another, and I feel, by having a track like this... It's so universal, and can be used in any area, I imagine, where you feel you're not reaching or striving to be where you want in your life, or you feel that something's holding you back. Somewhere, if you go right back, like we said earlier, what is the core reason? What is underpinning it all?
It will be a fear of something. And actually, I feel that the ultimate fear is death, isn't it? You know, if you look at why someone would be worried about losing a job, well, that goes back to finances. What do we need finances for? Food, accommodation. So sometimes you have to really work back to probably find the root cause of what that is. I could talk to you for a whole other hour about this, honestly. We could go on and on and on, because I feel like we've barely scratched the surface here, but...
Joanna: It's a huge area.
Jason: Well, we haven't even talked about the other areas of your experience. This is the beauty of this podcast, you go down many rabbit holes, but it's been lovely to have you come on. Thank you, and thank you so much for taking the time to make the track, which you can listen to till your heart's content. It's almost like this track is, I imagine, something you want in your day-to-day human survival kit.
Joanna: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be 'fear of'. You can just say, 'Oh, loneliness is within me', or 'sadness is within me', and just accept it. Use it, because you go through the layers of your emotions and get to the root cause. And as they come up, just keep allowing them. 'Yes, sadness is within me. Low self-esteem is within me.' Just allow it all to come up. And you will find that with practice, it gets easier. And even just learning to laugh, or to smile at yourself, helps, because it changes your physiology.
Jason: You've got a very soothing voice. It's almost like you were made to do hypnotherapy.
Joanna: It's funny, isn't it?
Jason: Yes, you've got a very hypnotic voice, even when we're talking. Are you trying to put me into a trance at the moment, Joanna? Because I feel like I'm slipping into some kind of place here. What are you doing to me? Well, it's lovely to have you on. Thank you for coming on to the Soul Sync.
Joanna: Oh, I've really enjoyed it. Thank you, thank you for having me.
