EP38 – The Journey of Becoming a Hypnotherapist

Matthew J. Brownstein hosts Monica Obando in this special episode of Illuminated Mind®. Monica Obando is a Colombian-born American, Industrial Designer by profession who discovered her passion for helping others by becoming a Clinical and Transpersonal Hypnotherapist. Her soul-searching journey took her to combine her love for the arts and her passion for yoga and hypnosis to create a new transformational modality that has helped thousands to create incredible life changing breakthroughs.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the illuminated mind podcast. My name is Matthew Brownstein. I’m the founder and lead instructor of the Institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy. And I’m here with one of our proud graduates Monica Obando. So welcome. Thanks for joining me.
Hi, Matthew. Thank you so much. It’s been an honor. Hello,
your bio to everybody. Monica Obando is a Colombian born American industrial designer by profession, who discovered her passion for helping others by becoming a clinical and transpersonal hypnotherapist or school. Her soul searching journey took her to combine her love for the arts, the her passion for yoga, and hypnosis to create a new transformation modality that has helped 1000s to create incredible life changing breakthroughs. Well, why don’t we start with that? That’s interesting to me. I don’t know the details. You presented one of our conferences, so gotten to know your integrity and your heart. But talk to us about yoga hypnosis and some new transformational modality. What have you been up to?
Yes, yoga, I became a yoga instructor back in 2013. So I had no experience I have not seen never been in yoga before. I just saw kind of videos and stuff like that. And then one day, I can’t feel like a call. And I decided to just join a course and I became a teacher a year after here in Tampa. So since then I have been practicing. And then back that was 2020 13. And then in 2015 I had this call to get into hypnosis. And then I found a school and I and joined a school and it’s been amazing, such a transformational experience. My life changed completely since since then. So back in I moved I’m originally from Colombia moved to the States almost more than two decades ago, actually. So the reason I moved here to the States was because I was feeling kind of lost feeling like like I needed something else. And in my mind, I thought that moving here to the States everything was supposed to change that I everything that I had all the things that I was carrying my baggage all that heaviness was supposed to stay there back in Colombia. And I was so so completely wrong because when I moved here was even worse, no language, no culture, no many many things. So I had to start from scratch. So adding way more baggage to my my shoulders. So that’s when the soul searching began and I started doing all the all these studies and they now I created a program called overcoming the toxic mother trauma. Based in my my experiences at my office as a hypnotherapist that I’ve noticed so many traumas created by our own mothers, sadly. So it’s something that we have been growing and, and it’s a lot of pain created by them. Sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it’s unintentional. So I created something that is mixing the arts or therapy, including hypnotherapy, and then yoga, the breathing techniques and stuff like that. So it’s kind of like a holistic approach for us to heal emotionally, physically, all the traumas that we have from created by our own mothers.
Yeah, beautiful work. I love to hear how it’s unfolding for you. I know for me intrapersonal hypnotherapy that became our brand, because it was so obvious through all the regressions back to childhood, it was like, all these memories with the inner child also have an inner parent. I’m curious why you honed in on mother, because I used to joke like when you go back to these traumas, it’s usually at the dining room table, because that’s where the family came together. It’s usually mom and or dad, or it’s the nuns, dining room table parents or nuns. But why Mother and not Father, why not parents,
because we are as a mother’s we are the ones who nurtured from the womb, they are own babies, we are all the time and that inner connection. And something that I found in my practice is that when people go into in vitro that they are going as their mother, mothers are pregnant with them, they feel their mothers, they see their mothers suffering crying or extremely happy or they feel all those emotions. So they they become mother at the same time. So it’s like is that embedded information that we are absorbing since since conception in that moment, so it’s, it’s a lot when we go back and undo all that the integrated information and for people, obviously, are those painful memories when they are painful, they are extremely painful and they stay with them until we process them until we see them transform them. So that’s why it’s important because sometimes we as mothers, as women as daughters, we have so many many traumas and things that we behave In a way we feel them in a way that is not a good way. But we don’t know how to overcome that we don’t even know that we are suffering from that. So there is a lot of loneliness, sadness, and we see so many women that are so beautiful, perfectly, you know, from the inside out, but all of a sudden, it’s like this little monster inside that they don’t even know they have, and they don’t even know how to process.
Hmm, yeah. And that leads us to hypnotherapy. So talk to me about hypnotherapy in general, what is it for you? And why is it the choke primary modality as opposed to perhaps other professions or other facilitation types of work?
Yes, by hypnotherapists my life I think, is something that changed my life completely transform it from the root. Because when I went through the training, I’ve noticed that many beliefs are challenged. So so many things, you have to learn to unlearn. So the things that you learn prior to come into the class, they are kind of challenged in a good way. But it’s, it’s for you to let go of all those those layers that are not serving any purpose. And all of a sudden, you start remembering who you truly are recovering your true self re re remembering your own persona. So it’s amazing transformation. And that’s when you heal yourself in that way, you are able to heal others. So that’s the beauty about this kind of work. And the teacher becomes the student at the same time. Because every time that you see a client, you see kind of a reflection, and that kind of something that happened to us something that that makes you click in a way. So is it you keep healing, this is a never ending journey.
Beautiful I like I love how you talked about helping to realize who you really are your exact words, but it’s like, you know, to realize your true self. And our upcoming conference is called redefining facilitation. And the subtitle is embracing a path of healing and enlightenment. And for me, the enlightenment process is very much discovering who you truly are not just for me, like great saints and sages throughout history, have been talking about when you become enlightened, you realize who you really are, in your own words, from your experience, why would that be so important? You alluded to it, and I clearly care about it. Let’s dive deeper into why is this self realization theme so important.
Because when we are born we are so in a pure form. And the problem is that will come so program and usually those programs are negative by like you say parents, nuns, you know, anybody around family members, teachers, school, anybody friends, is that programming, programming, dumping, dumping, dumping. And usually those programs are negative programs is the sadness, the anxiety, the pain, the anger, the hate all those negative emotions that as kids we absorbed. And at the same time, we become so confused that we lost our own selves, we even forget how to properly breathe, that is the foundation of life. So that is to me so baffling, when I when I get my clients, I the first thing I teach them is how to properly grieve for the session for the moment. So it’s just that by itself is helping them to reconnect, because we are always in the survival mode, instead of leaving them thriving. We are just surviving. And that’s so unfair, totally unfair thing. We had a problem with your cell phones, we have, you know, social disconnection that we totally forgot who we truly are. And we usually are in their social media applications. And he ended up looking for ways outlets to let go. And to get away from our own minds, we are not able to even come into a common space to meditate or even five minutes because then is the inner voice is telling you the inner child, the inner critic is all the time that stuff that we become, you know, crazy that it’s sometimes I even heard that that meditation is bad for you, because people you know, get get crazy become crazy and stuff like that. So it’s such a misconception. So is is the wrong way to approach things. So that’s why hypnotherapy to me is, you know, is the therapy to go for us to transform in a quick way. If that’s, that’s to say,
Yeah, to transform into who we truly are, which is you already are Yeah, this is like you said they were born pure. And then well, even if we acknowledged the past life model, like the essence of us, right is inherently pure and good. And I like to talk about misconceptions like meditation is that makes you crazy? Think people already crazy meditation helps to bring them back to sanity. But, you know, we talked before we started the interview about misconceptions about hypnosis, and you’re big on educating the public about what this really is. So what are some of the misconceptions like meditation is bad? What are some of the options that you were to dispute that
hypnotherapy is is something religious and is demonized in a way you know, so As people, it’s a sin to go to hypnotherapist I have so many instances where I have been calling it a witch. So as you know, if so I educate him, you know. So one thing that I always do is, it’s a one on one session in zoom prior to any session to see if I am a good fit for my client, and my client is a good fit for me. Because sometimes there are, again, those misconceptions and are going to be under your power. No, ever, you’re never going to be under my power, am I going to be fully asleep, and I’m going to be doing that ridiculous stuff that isn’t the shows and stuff like that. And it’s that element of education that I love to prior to the session. So any question that a client has, is going to be answered in a proper way, in a human way. It’s not going to be any disrespect or anything like that. Because there are questions, obviously, and confusion, especially lots of confusion about how therapy works. So when the client gets that clarification, they happily come to your therapy, and they are more more accountable into their therapy, they do it and they love to do it. And they are amazed of their own transformations. And and they they lead, you know,
beautiful. So it’s not witchcraft or demonic and you’re not doing sinful behavior, but help.
Exactly, no, no, no, no, no good to know.
Let’s talk about your private practice. So you mentioned doing online consultations. So maybe since COVID, like the you have a private practice, you have an office, you see clients online, tell us about that.
Yes, back in 2015, when I graduated, I opened my practice right then and there. And then it was in my office in office, but then COVID hit and you know, we have to find some other ways to to work. So I decided to do it online, and it works perfectly fine. People are now it’s even better, because I can see people from all over the world is not limited to my office, and I am bilingual, English and Spanish. And I am able to see clients from all over the place. So is is good. And I open the barriers, they frontiers, there is no lines to me. So it’s beautiful in that sense. So um, I see people in Europe, I see people in Australia, and I see people in English, I see people in Spanish, so I can see kids too. So I see, you know, all over the place. Any audience and that’s good.
Yeah, right on. So COVID forced you to go online, and we turn the school into the can still train in house. But also we turn the school into 100% online, and I agree with you in the education side of this. And in the private practice side, online is just as good, nothing’s lost. But if anything, it’s better in so many ways. Not to mention you can have clients, like I said, all over the world, which is extremely rewarding. How do you get your clients? What do you do for marketing and when
I have different ways why now that I’ve noticed works really well. For me, those are the YouTube videos, I don’t have many, my channel is not as big or anything like that, but, but I have people audience that they see my videos that they keep, keep looking and keep digging. And that’s how I see I noticed a lot of people coming to me and then the word of mouth, obviously, I have been around since 2015. So one claim that you see is affecting in a positive way no less than 10 people. So they just because they see them, you know, their friends, their family, everybody see their transformation, they see the change, they see that that dark cloud removed all of the sudden and they haven’t they don’t exactly know what or how that happened. So they inquire because this is that’s the beauty about this therapy to that is not only inside and you reflect what you’re feeling when you’re sensing is reflected in your physical and your persona. So it’s your aura. So you give that vibe that clean bye to everybody and it’s like something happened to you tell me what is so is this there’s I always call it spiritual marketing. People keep keep asking keep inquiring about it, and then they come to me.
That’s great. Yeah, and our school is training I refer to it as psychic advertising. It’s like sending out the the right vibe. So So that’s great that people are coming to you word of mouth and then YouTube videos or any other way that clients tend to
absolutely I do take out videos I do you know, I name it. I guess I am all over the place. I am in Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok Google business YouTube LinkedIn. So one post what I get my thing is that I do is one post I’d recycle and send them all over the place, you know, the ripple effect and and even even one at least one is going to give you a client and that’s for sure. So just set out for yes, it’s an effort that is something that is rewarding, because we are not only making money, but at the same time you’re helping people and again, one person that you help you’re gonna You have that ripple effect and entire family and that’s why I love to work with moms. I’d like to work with women because we are kind of like the foundation in our house. We are we are this. The foundation, you know, kids gravitate towards the mom, the husband gravitates towards a mom, everything. Everyone gravitates towards a mom. So it’s beautiful when the kids see Mom changing, so they change immediately there is no question says, and the husband, the husband sees Aha, the wife happy is a happy husband. So it’s an entire happy environment is this ripple effect that I have seen? And that’s why you know, I focus mainly on females.
Yeah, right on. Good, good. We need more of that. Tell me about a case history, something that comes to mind whether it’s kind of out there down to earth. Your claim that comes to mind that really was wonderful.
Yes, I had one case, in class disorder, this girl has this mast cell disorder. So it’s kind of like when you are allergic to everything, and everyone around you everything. So the mom went to with this girl she was at the time when she came to my office, she was 12 years old. She was suicidal to the core because she didn’t want to live in that condition. She was allergic to the task to the sun to the wind to everything around her. She couldn’t socialize. So we went into hypnosis. And then a past life. It was a past life. She was feeling guilty. She was feeling in a previous life she was having she was 17 years old. And he she was in a village. And that village got attacked by bad people. And she was a teacher. And she had in charge, like 17 little kids. So she had to cross over a bridge with the kids and they breach that card. But there’s people and children with all her kids. So she passed there. And that past life. So she was feeling guilty. She was not accepting this life. She didn’t want to live anymore. And that life, so she felt so guilty that she didn’t want to live in this life anymore. So we went back and did. She saw what she had to see she transformed. And then in this present life, we connected kind of on a cellular level. So we connected to her cells. And then we talked to one particular cell that he was, you know, the sickest one I asked her to find that sickle cell in her body. So we changed entirely that cell. So that information from that cellular level went to her entire body. So tell Carol right now she’s 17 or 18. She is a mom. And she’s happy is amazing. The changes that you can see in people the transformation is incredible. Coming from suicide, she didn’t want to do anything. She was a cutter and stuff. And now she’s thriving with a beautiful baby.
Yeah, so you saw this all those symptoms, all the allergic response symptoms drop away? Yes. How many sessions take was just the one past life regression?
No, no, no, it was quite a few, quite a few. No less than 10 no less than 10. And in different stages in your life.
So less than 10 sessions, so less than 20 hours and you completely change this person’s life. And she was 12 years old. So she was she open to obviously she was but um, did what do you find about working with somebody who’s about 12 years old? My experiences under 14 They don’t always have the emotional maturity to do
yes. They don’t. Sometimes they don’t. But I go to where they allow me to go. Meaning obviously the mom is always there present during the sessions by the kids. I just kind of grayish and see where they they want to go. Because we don’t have the emotional maturity. And I agree completely with you. But that again, I get it. She’s not always that you know that you are 12 and we are gonna do this. No, it’s very unique cases in a way. But this mom was so desperate that I was like, Okay, hands on. And this is you know, that that was kind of like the agreement. And I actually love to see teenagers, teenagers are in that stage of life where they are confused, but they want to leave, they have so much energy, but they don’t know how to how to use that energy, how to focus that energy. So with hypnosis, it’s completely amazing how they can find actually, like a month ago, month, month and a half, I have my first 911 kids. So this girl was the not one of the 911 people that die there and then she ranked her during here and she was feeling lost, completely lost. She is 14 right now. And her mom was like, oh my god, this is you know, I don’t know what to do with her. She was feeling lost and stuff. So when she came we went back immediately but she was like, it was so superficial that I you know, because I don’t have any agenda every time that I do a session. It goes where you want me to go, you know is where your mind takes us. And that’s the place that we visit. And it was so vivid that she was living there and, and at the same time, so exciting to see someone healing from that such an early event because it’s something present. So it was good. And mom was so like, Whoa, this is amazing. So
yeah, yeah, the past life stuff. That was one of the things that got me out of the field of Chinese medicine. Because I was learning hypnotherapy. When I got to the past life regression type of work, we regress somebody back and she had a shoulder injury and a past life, we resolved the mental impressions of that, and the shoulder pain goes away. And I’m like, Oh, my God, in Chinese medicine, I’d be putting needles in her. I’d be massaging I would do like different techniques. But it’d be based on a diagnostic model, essentially treating the symptoms when I realized there’s no way any of those techniques, Western medicine with whatever they would do chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, nothing could get to the mentor, not even psychoanalysis or talk therapy would get to that level, and then one good regression bring up the memory helps you to see, wow, the root cause is mental. I mean, it’s what A Course of Miracles teaches, right? You only have to heal the mind. And here we are all treating and tracing symptoms. Yeah, you found just, it’s amazing about Yeah, the 911. And now this other girl just to go back and discover the root cause and resolve it.
Yes. So it’s incredible. They body, the memory that the body has is incredible. And that’s something that I am tapping a lot lately, and it’s going back to the great grandparents and the great, great grandparents as far as I can go during one session, obviously, because it’s only two hours to go, you know, so far, but the healing that they are having the transformation they are having is incredible, the changes, they see the realisations they realize that they have been carrying this ancestral pain. And at the same time, this ancestral knowledge, so it’s about you what, which one do you want to choose? You know, is the pain or the knowledge? Is that this wisdom that comes with you? Because we have it all? You know, so it’s Which one do you want to carry? Because usually, because of the programming, we are carrying the pain with them?
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And thank God, these people are in your out there as people who will come to you or people, you know, like us who do this kind of work who have the ability to bring these type of memories essentially to consciousness? If not, yeah, there’s just so much unnecessary suffering. So I was thinking of a creative way to ask this might not be the most refined but from zero to 1010 being the most rewarding. How rewarding would you say it is to take people through this experience,
then 11. For me, again, this is exciting, because there are no many hypnotherapists in it around. So the kind of work that we do is unique. So that makes you unique that makes you This is so empowering, so empowering, so fulfilling, to go through these processes and help people the way you do and people get so amazed and how they transform so quick, that they are like whoa, you know, again, they keep sharing, keep spreading the light and the word of mouth of how you can heal so quick,
makes it as rewarding as it could be to be on the giving side of this profession. What’s it like going through the school? You graduated quite a few years ago now. But yeah, can you tell us what the journey was like the process the transformation? Yes,
it was good. It was at the beginning, kind of like the unknown. So that’s something that maybe as a student or future student, if you are going through that, that I don’t know if this is right for me or not. Just you know, talk to graduates and see what exactly they feel how was the process for me the process was good, good because of the knowledge all of the information that is given is incredible. And is everything condensed? There is no it’s not like you go into YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, and this is the rabbit hole that is nowhere to end but this is this is the essence it’s concise. It’s what you truly need to go within and then as you go through practices, you keep peeling those layers of the unknown. So you become finding your true self refining that essence and that they will make you become the hypnotherapist that you are to come you know because that’s something else. Some people they they like like me I go more focusing to female into women and I have my reason why my because I’ve refined my niche but then other people they go into more into extraterrestrials. Some other people go into like language some other people go into anxiety some other people go so you’re gonna find your path because this is such an extent extends so big that you can find your own journey.
Beautiful. I’m so glad you’re on this path with us. If you had, well, yeah, we get towards closing words of wisdom, but how about also if somebody wants to contact you private sessions or to learn more about you how to do that?
Yes, visit my website is www dot Monika Mo Ni CA, OBE and do that come Monaco bundle.com. So that’s the best way because that through there, there is a button where they can have you can apply your people can apply for the 30 minutes, the free consultation. So in that free consultation, we are going to have you know, a good chat and is going to be my undivided attention. And you can talk everything on anything that you want to talk about to have transformed to hypnotherapy and we will be meeting that is the most important thing prior to the session and see if we can we both are a good fit for each other.
So you always do these free consultations on Zoom. So you can
always, always, always, always, always said that. So that was something that I learned on my own to my that’s that distill the process, because sometimes people they call me and you know, it’s such a waste of time, because they they don’t really know what they want. So they is there is no, but when they apply, they see me and I can guide them better to refine the why of the session. So that’s that’s how they feel that is, is more deep, where they need to find. And it’s beautiful. Again, because we meet each other prior.
I’m sure it’s really good for you too. So I’m thinking back when I was in full time private practice, we didn’t even have the internet way back when that I would get on the phone and give them at least a 15 minute consultation. And that’s where you build the rapport and get the connection. But I would have done that too. No, I think about it, I would have wanted to see them. Let them see me that feeling because a lot of times, if you do an online scheduling system, like go to my website, just book an appointment, they’ll book the appointment, and they don’t show up for the appointment. And
that’s something that’s something that I’ve noticed is out of 190 a person there they are, they are yours you know your clients and they are your your audience. Because sometimes the problem is that when you are not invested, you do the call, but you never come. You know, but you are invested, then you go to book you do you invest your time in, in reality, you want to invest in changing your life. So because that’s in reality, what it is, is investment and you expense this, but it’s an investment in you,
right sounds like one of the magic principles of getting a client to show up is do a free consultation, but even do it on Zoom, let them see you let them feel out your energy. Let them get a sense of what’s gonna be like working with you versus just online scheduling system. And then they don’t know who they’re working with. And yeah, I was helping a graduate recently to build his business. And he’s like, Yeah, I got these clients. But nobody showed up. And it was like, Oh, you’re doing like where’s the consultations and even better is get them on Zoom. Beautiful.
Yes, and everything is automated, because I have the button goes to zoom soon because to Calendly. And you know, everything is then and there. So,
right we connect. It’s automated, but you’re not skipping the vital step of talking to your client before they actually show up for a session. correctness. Beautiful. And then just overall any listener who’s interested in spiritual growth, healing hypnotherapy, what are some closing words, some words of wisdom?
Keep looking for your true self. You know, do you know who you think you are, if you haven’t done any shadow work, any any digging deep. Find your true self because you are more way more than you think you are. This world is so limited, and you are just surviving. And it’s not that you need to thrive. You’re truly life.
Again, it goes back to the path of healing and enlightenment. I know who you are. It’s a path of Self Realization. Thank you so much, Monica, for joining me here. It’s a pleasure to get to interact. And thank you for your sharing with my audience. And I hope people reach out to you to book sessions because I’m sure they’re wonderful. So thank you so much for your time.
Thank you. Thanks