That time I tried hypnosis

It's back-to-school for mental health season and I have some tips. (Plus a super opportunity for all of my subscribers.)

Thank you for the birthday wishes and welcome new subscribers!

I usually send posts on Wednesdays but I think we can all agree that last week came too fast. So here we are. Happy Sunday to you all.

Today I want to talk about an alternative treatment I tried this summer for my insomnia: hypnosis. (If you are short on time, please note that there is a discount code for a pretty cool experience at this post’s end along with a list of mental health care tools and resources I have personally found effective.)

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There is little I haven’t tried in my battle against the insomnia that has plagued me since I was a child. Drugs—both pharmaceutical and psychedelic—supplements a go go; therapies both physical and talk-based; EEK and EEG monitoring in sleep labs; breathwork; nutritional counseling and journaling; massage, reiki, acupuncture, aromatherapy, and as of last spring—nasal surgeries as well. I feel like I’ve tried every sleep aid and sleep treatment on the planet, but I’d never tried hypnosis. Lying on the floor while a shaman beat the air above my face with a severed hawk’s wing wasn’t intimidating, but giving someone the power to disable my consciousness felt too big a step. To possibly fall asleep in front of someone, to be rendered helpless, be a pawn? I could not abide it. I am a control freak. In twenty years of marriage I’ve probably let my husband make my morning tea for me three times, so surrendering my brain faculties to a stranger? Yeah. No. Hypnosis was not an option.

But over the past year, I’ve been growing closer to a woman in my town who—like all of us creatives—wears a lot of different hats. One of those hats—the jaunty one, the patterned one—is “hypnotherapist.” I first spoke to Louise Mittelman about engaging her skills for my rescued racehorse Abuelita, a 1,200-pound thoroughbred who was full of rage and mistrust and bone-deep sadness. I’d tried every option in the new age horsegirl playbook with that mare—testing for Lyme, testing for ulcers, removing her horseshoes and helping her go barefoot, ground work, professional training sessions, 24/7 turnout—but I hadn’t considered hypnosis for her, either. I’m comfortable with woo woo; a hippy streak runs through me. But I’ve always dragged my feet when it comes to believing that hypnosis works. This is shortminded of me—empirically—because my mother used hypnosis to help her stop smoking when I was a teenager. It worked.

Photograph by Holly Linton for The Guardian of me and Abuelita- when I rescued her, her skin and personality was so sensitive she could only tolerate grooming by way of a heated wet washcloth.

I didn’t get to engage Louise’s services for Abuelita—the place that I was boarding her was foreclosed on and I retired her to a special farm for racehorses two hours away in Gardiner, New York. But I kept thinking about Louise and the services she offered. What was I resisting? Why was I resisting? Partly, I felt awkward around attempting hypnosis with a friend. Where would we do this, exactly? In bed, with her at my feet? Would she wave something in front of my face—a pocket watch or fulcrum—some old timey, cliché gesture that would make me laugh or disassociate from what we were trying to do?

But after the three nasal surgeries I underwent in April failed to alleviate my sleeping and breathing problems because the surgery was only successful on one side of my nose (I have to go back for a more aggressive surgery this November, alas) I was desperate for relief. I’d gone far enough to let a surgeon cut open my face: surely, I could let a trusted friend into my bedroom.

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Accordingly in July, I told Louise that I was ready. I asked if there was anything specific that we should focus on, and—cleverly, overriding my inner people pleaser—she reflected that question back: what did I want to focus on, specifically? How could she be of help?

For nearly a decade, I’ve been plagued by premature wake ups at exactly 4:10am. It’s a horrible time to be awake—too early to be productive (the rare times I try to go downstairs to work on something or read outside of my bedroom I end up waking my young daughter or my husband and I always wake the cat) and too late in the morning to take a sleeping aid. Generally, I tackle these early wakeups by reading on my Kindle (so I don’t wake my husband turning the pages of a book), sucking down some CBD tincture and entering into a spiral of anxiety about how I’m not sleeping and am going to be tired, and then I get my cortisol up and can’t go back to sleep.

I asked Louise— is this hour, 4:10am, something we can work on? Can you hypnotize me away from wake ups at that specific hour? She said: absolutely, yes.

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According to a hypnotist named Igor Ledochowski, “All problems in life are problem trances, and all solutions are solution trances.” This rings true given the shape and texture of my insomnia. I’ve seen every doctor under the sun for blood panels and hormone tests; I’ve had my thyroid checked countless times and have visited nutrionists and the answer always seems to be that the problem is in my head. (If you read my post about why I got nasal surgery in the first place, I now know that the problem is not entirely in my head.)

It didn’t seem wildly impossible that I could retrain my mind to not wake up at 4:10 a.m. How Louise would guide me away from these early wakeups, and how—exactly—she was going to hypnotize me remained to be seen but I engaged her for an appointment, prior to which she sent me an extensive list of questions that helped me establish expectations and a little hope.

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Louise told me to budget two hours for our first appointment and I soon learned why. She spent nearly an hour simply talking to me—she’d gone over my in-take packet answers with a fine-tooth comb and had astute questions about the information I supplied. She explained that rather than waving a bell or pocket watch in front of my face as I had feared, she was going to take me through a kind of vision quest. She told me that if at any point she was encouraging me to visualize something that felt wrong, loaded or too challenging to visualize, that I should speak up and let her know. This invitation for dialogue changed my debut hypnosis experience. I now know, in hindsight, that if she hadn’t invited me to redirect her during the session, I would have been hung up on fighting toward whatever thing she’d asked me to see instead of enjoying the process of the visualization itself.

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I have a comfortable purple couch in my office—it’s where I run my interview series Craft from the Couch—and I lounged on said couch with Louise on a floor pillow some distance away. I’m sensitive to voices and disconnect when my interlocutor is too nasal or shrill or adopts a vocal fry but—crucial for a hypnotist—Louise has a lovely, soothing voice, a timber akin to sweet tea: caramelly soft.

We started the session with my eyes open—I appreciated this because when we got into the thick of it, my eyelids became heavy; so heavy that she invited me to close them. This progression from open eyes to closed eyes thus felt organic, earned and exciting—the relaxation was working on me, a person who has a hard time relaxing! What I loved about our session was how specific and tailored it was. Louise used bits and pieces from our warmup conversation to incorporate language, words and images that had value and meaning to me. She invited me to visualize and then enter a real place I had discussed with her—a meadow that has sentimental meaning—and on top of this real place, she helped me layer abstract images and sensations to tackle my early morning wakeups. Specifically, she helped me locate the place in the meadow where the 4:10am wakeup was trying to push up through the ground to eclipse my nourishing meadow in a nuclear flash of blue pulsating light. What was extraordinary about Louise is she didn’t tell me to get rid of that blue flash or to fight it; instead she encouraged me to find a place in the meadow where I could relegate that blue light to—where it could be needy and pulsating without ruining the calmness of the rest of the grass field. Throughout the hour-long hypnosis journey, Louise upheld this positive, playful and flexible process of inviting me to make room for everything—the good, the bad, the anxious—instead of fighting what came up. That welcoming attitude made it easier for me to surrender to the work that we accomplished on my purple couch.

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You might be wondering if I fell asleep during the session? I did not fall asleep per se, but I was in a trance for sure. After the session, I felt tremendously, deeply rested in a way I only achieve from doing Yoga Nidra (a special kind of yoga that invites deep rest that I’ll talk more about in a moment.) I felt less anxiety when the night came—I was now equipped with a mental place to store my anxieties if that mid-sleep wakeup should come.

But it didn’t come. And it didn’t come the next day. Countless days passed where I slept straight through the night. The calmer my life is, the better my sleep quality—so I’ll admit that during the hectic weeks leading up to the school year’s relaunch, I’ve had some wakeups creeping back, but they are less frequent than they used to be and I’m better equipped to handle them without spiraling into a low-grade anxiety attack. Louise said for some people, hypnosis can be a one-off thing: for others (me, I think) it’s helpful to make hypnosis something regular, or seasonal, which feels pleasurable to me. I’m going to schedule another appointment to get me through the roller coaster relaunch that is back-to-school and work.

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A treat for my subscribers

Louise asked me to keep in touch after our session, to let her know how my sleep journey developed. I was so enthusiastic about the benefits I felt, I asked if she’d consider sharing a discount code for her services just for my subscribers. While Louise physically splits her time between Brooklyn and the Massachusetts Berkshires, she works virtually and with people in all time zones. From everything I’ve shared here, I hope it’s clear that I can’t recommend her services, her kindness and her attention, enough. I should note that I don’t stand to gain anything from you working with Louise—my first appointment was not a freebie, and we are not doing an affiliate partnership or commissions or anything like that. It’s simply a stressful time for so many of us humans—it’s suicide prevention month as well—and mental health is front of mind for me in a bone-deep way. I found hypnosis—or at least hypnosis with Louise Mittelman—to be deeply rewarding, and I’d love for anyone who is curious to give it a try. Without further ado: Louise!

If you get in touch with Louise, mention code BEFORE15 to get 15% off both in-person and virtual sessions of tarot, hypnosis or reiki.

Louise Mittelman has been practicing as Night Bloom Hypnosis since 2019 and offers private Hypnosis, Reiki, and Tarot sessions. Her work focuses on activating neuroplasticity to help her clients release old habits, find new perspectives, and make intentional, positive transformations. She offers in-person sessions in Brooklyn and the Berkshires and virtual sessions all over the world. She can be contacted at louise@nightbloomhypnosis.com or by visiting her website.  You can also read more about Louise and her practice in The Paris Review.

My subscribers can use code BEFORE15 to enjoy 15% off any of Louise’s offerings. I hope you find relief and positive change if you do!

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Back to school for mental health: Other resources I’ve found helpful to battle stress, sleeplessness and anxiety during stressful times

I do not have affiliate partnerships with any of the brands I mention below. The programs and products have worked for me—are working for me—so I’m simply sharing in case they work for you as well.

• Yoga Nidra & Beyond with Ayla Nova: My therapist was the one who suggested Yoga Nidra. Mind you, I used to do Ashtanga yoga obsessively in a studio every morning but I stopped when I became pregnant in 2013 and have never practiced again—I’ve moved to online ballet videos because I do not have 2.5 hours to do yoga anymore. But I adored the body scans the instructors used to do while we were in shavansana—I just didn’t know the body scans had a proper name: Yoga Nidra. After searching far and wide with a lot of misses (there are a lot of dramatic voices and sound effects out there— one show I listened to had a man insisting that I was in a cabin lying on a sheepskin throw; it all got very porny) I found Ayla Nova and now my ears belong to her. Ayla has programs lasting from 17 minutes to 90 so whether you need serious help unwinding or just something to take the edge off, you’ll find peace with her. I love listening to Ayla in the airplane because I’m a nervous flyer.

• Coast Cannabis Co. gummies: If these gummies are available in your state, run out of your dwelling and get them. The ones that work the best for my sleep issues are, in order of effectiveness: tangerine, then cranberry-pomegranate, then goodnight grape (which tastes a little chemical as most grape products do). I adore these things not only because they work, but also because they aren’t coated in sugar like so many nighttime edibles are. (No thank you I don’t want a bunch of sugar just before I sleep?) I take half a pill a night.

• Ancient Minerals Topical Magnesium: Magnesium can offer better, deeper sleep at night, especially for those with restless limbs. I get a giant 33.8 fl. oz. jug that I distribute into travel spray containers. It works best applied to your calves or the bottom of your feet.

• Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella Pot Pourri in a Terracotta Jar: I’m a big fan of aromatherapy, but the lavender oil I have for rest leaves stains on my sheets. Enter Santa Maria Novella, an iconic Italian perfumery that has been around since 1210. Their beautiful products aren’t cheap, but something about their handcrafted pot pourri and the fetching terracotta jar it comes in sends me to the meadow Louise helped me conjure; a field resplendent with wild flowers, bergamot and laurel, and leaves coated with bitter orange sea salt. I’m obsessed with this stuff. Obsessed. Santa Maria Novella, CALL ME.

• Vetiver bath scrubber: I got one of these while I was in England this summer, and after scouring the Internet, the item I hyperlinked is the closet thing I found that appears to match the quality of the scrubber I bought overseas at the fanciest garden shop I have ever entered. I firmly believe that scent can stimulate feelings of mental wellness and this thing is enforcing that belief. After using it in the shower I emerge a totally new person. In addition to leaving my skin smelling like a Tuscan baby’s, it also softens skin noticeably and increases circulation.

• Tribe Organics Ashwagandha: It was a nutritionist who first recommended these mood-stabilizing (and mood-enhancing) supplements to me, but it was learning that the Sanskrit means "horse-scented” that really got me hooked. I’m no scientist and you can read about the stated benefits online, but I can attest to these pills (two a day) significantly helping me with stress management and not biting my husband’s head off. Or my daughter’s, for that matter.

• Talk therapy: This one’s massive. As I wrote about in my memoir, I was totally against talk therapy until I finally tried it, and now therapy is a non-negotiable fixture of my mental health care. Many people don’t know that their insurance covers therapy—if you have an insurance plan (not a given in this country), check to see if yours will.

• RW Knudsen Just Pomegranate Juice: Back in October, I shared my concerns that I need to give up wine completely, and since then (and especially post surgery) I’ve been vastly reducing my alcohol intake. In an observation that will shock approximately no one, the less I drink, the better I sleep. But I like having something special with dinner in a special glass. After trial and error, I now prefer RW Knudsen pomegranate juice mixed with seltzer in a stemmed wine glass. Looks like wine—bubbles like champagne—and tastes just tart enough to feel wine-adjacent.

• Walking: I have been a runner since I was a teenager, but at some point this year while I was running, I thought, I don’t want to be running anymore. Running had started feeling aggressive to my joints and it was annoying that I had to put on special clothes to run in and shower after running because I got so sweaty. Enter: walking. Slower, softer, noticeably less sweaty: Walking! What a gift! If I walk fast, I reap the same health benefits from running but I can walk in the same clothes that I write stories in. I have come to cherish my fast walks where I catch up on my favorite podcasts, and when I pass neighbors I like—which is often—I can stop to chat with them without it becoming a whole ordeal because I’m dripping sweat all over and my heart’s beating too fast. If you’re on the fence about becoming a fast walker or have some ego shame around it, please let that shit go. Walking’s where it’s at! (No offense to runners. I get it. My husband is one. And he goes to the chiropractor once a week while I’ve been once in the last five years. Just sayin’…)

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What are your favorite tips, strategies, resources and/or products for mental health maintenance in this very busy fall? Let us know in the comments! And don’t forget to give Louise’s services a try (with the special discount code unique to my Substack subscribers above!). I’ll see you next week— in the meantime, let us know in the comments how you’re staying sane this fall.

xoxo

Courtney