Ottawa-based consulting hypnotist, Kimberly Ann O’Connor has spent the last 14 years helping thousands of clients gain freedom from debilitating phobias, addictions, anxiety and trauma through her company, Consulting Hypnosis Co. She walks us through the process of how hypnosis can help create positive change through mind triumphing over matter
How does a chain smoker go from smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for 40 years to losing complete interest in it and giving up smoking entirely? One way is through hypnosis – an altered state of heightened awareness and suggestibility, often described as a trance or a state of deep relaxation that bridges the conscious and subconscious mind to help individuals make long-term, positive changes to their lives, through a series of expert hypnotist-guided processes and techniques.
“It had been a few years since I had begun practicing as a consulting hypnotist and one day my dad approached me and asked if we could work together for smoking cessation. Two sessions is all it took for him to give up something he’d been doing daily for four decades. It’s been seven years now since he’s touched a cigarette. He is healthy and happy that he didn’t have to struggle at all to quit smoking, because hypnosis was the tool that broke the chains,” reveals Kimberly Ann O’Connor, founder of Consulting Hypnosis Co. and Canada’s top-rated consulting hypnotist.
Ottawa-based O’Connor is also a National Guild of Hypnotists certified consulting hypnotist and trainer, Founder of Global Mastermind Alliance of Professional Hypnotists, Co-Founder of the Zenith Guild of Hypnotists, Creator of The Hypnotist Academy, as well as a Registered Social Service Worker (RSSW) psychotherapist, certified addictions counsellor, certified yoga instructor from the Kripalu Center and Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Montreal Centre and also holds a BA in Psychology from the University of British Columbia.
O’Connor’s HYPNO-ZZZ’s podcast is the world’s No.1 sleep hypnosis podcast on Spotify, while her YouTube channel has over 1.5 million views. With a significant national and international following, she has also been featured in Forbes, Men’s Health UK, Women’s Health UK and Best of Toronto. In 2022, O’Connor co-authored a book with fellow consulting hypnotist, Rachel Strabley, called The Little Green Book for Prosperity: A simple hypnotic approach to attract and create what you desire. The book explores a successful approach to hypnosis at home for an abundancy mindset and includes pre-recorded morning and night hypnosis sessions.
With over 14 years of hypnosis experience, O’Connor is the perfect conduit to explain the basis of hypnosis and its far-reaching impact.
Hypnosis is an ancient practice that’s been around since the dawn of human language, with related scribings found in temples in ancient Greece and Egypt. There’s also mention of hypnosis in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. “Hypnosis sits at the intersection of culture, science, wellness and personal empowerment. There are clinical studies that show the efficacy, short-term and long-term effects of hypnosis, particularly around relieving pain, PTSD, trauma, and anxiety. Electrical impulses from stimuli to response can be mapped pre-hypnosis to post-hypnosis with entirely different results,” says O’Connor.
In Ottawa, hypnosis is a growing therapeutic trend that is gaining traction as an innovative approach to personal growth and well-being in the city’s modern wellness and mental health landscape. O’Connor attributes this to Ottawa being a hub of bright, driven, open-minded people, who first witness resounding success using hypnosis to combat lifestyle issues such as stress, anxiety, insomnia, addictions or phobias, low self-esteem or weight management, and then use hypnosis for relaxation or pleasure.
Increased awareness dispelling misconceptions about hypnosis and witnessing the dramatic changes on relatives and friends may have also led to the growing popularity of hypnosis, especially in the last 10 years, O’Connor muses.
While the reason for the success of hypnosis is still unclear, O’Connor says that in essence, hypnosis is a conversation with the unconscious mind that allows for a respectful, holistic updating of belief systems. For O’Connor, this is accomplished through the hetero-hypnosis protocol — a structured procedure that induces a relaxed, concentrated state, wherein the subconscious is more receptive to change, and then proceeds to use a combination of linear, simple and future-focussed positive ‘truths’, therapeutic suggestions and deepening techniques to elicit course-correction from deep-seated patterns towards positive behavioural change.
“When you emerge from hypnosis, there is an expectation that you’ll instantly feel a sense of more optimism, power and clarity. Hypnosis is counterintuitive because it gets stronger, not weaker, over time. So the results will vary for each person, because everyone’s looking for something different, but the experience only gets richer and deeper each time you experience hypnosis,” explains O’Connor.
Following a short stint as a yoga instructor and laser technician, O’Connor founded Consulting Hypnosis Co. in Toronto in 2012. While the company’s name is synonymous with O’Connor’s professional title, she describes the company as a vehicle for compassionate, effective, and long-term change, with a commitment to excellence and efficacy.
O’Connor implements what she calls the ‘O’Connor method’ at Consulting Hypnosis Co., combining the hetero-hypnosis protocol with her unique remote hypnosis protocol, rigorous follow-up structure and the National Guild of Hypnotists curriculum. She also draws on her experience as a psychotherapist and addictions counsellor, so that through hypnosis, she focuses on all-round personal wellness and clinical change.
This approach is very different from stage hypnosis where audience members volunteer to be hypnotized and perform entertaining stage acts, guided by a hypnotist. “When you’re working with a hypnotist for personal and intimate change, the situation will be clear around what you’re consenting to, what the process will feel like and will map out achievable objectives and expectations. Stage hypnosis is not designed to have an outcome. It’s designed purely for the experience, and there is no lasting impact on your life, which is the complete opposite of what we offer,” avers O’Connor.
Touching on how hypnosis helps where traditional interventions fail, O’Connor says that for most people, hypnosis is often their last resort, after they’ve tried everything else and failed. This helps her gain insights into the challenges, triggers and points of relapse, and when combined with the three key pillars of hypnosis — namely, desire, trust and relaxation, can bring about measurable progress and lasting success.
“I had a client who needed to undergo surgery for the reversal of hearing loss, and she was petrified because she had lost her mother during a surgery when her mother was anesthetized. After our sessions, she confidently stepped into the surgical setting, moved forward into anaesthesia, had the procedure and regained her hearing. This shows how fear can really amputate us from possibility, and I find it really inspiring to know that hypnosis can eliminate and dissolve that fear so that we regain that possibility to live fully again,” shares O’Connor.
At Consulting Hypnosis Co., the process begins with a complimentary private consultation for client assessment and session mapping. Then, 48 hours later, the client receives a tailored and personalized hypnosis session recording by O’Connor of about 45-60 minutes duration, which they can listen to at their convenience. The experience of each individual’s hypnosis session is different, but in general, according to O’Connor, the session will be relaxing and soothing, evoking varied feelings of intense lightness, deep heaviness, numbness, tingling, floating sensations, time distortion or temporary amnesia. However, it will never feel like a bad psychedelic trip, but instead, it will feel special and enjoyable.
Above: A staged scene featuring Kimberly Ann O’Connor with a patient. (Photo: Vasko Obscura)
Subsequently, there are regular check-ins after one week, one month, three months and one year to ensure that mapped outcomes and expectations have been met. The company also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if a client is dissatisfied with their hypnosis session.
Having worked with thousands of clients till date, O’Connor says that while the general age group is between 35-65 years old, she often sees teenagers or kids as young as 10 whose parents bring them in for hypnosis treatment after witnessing their own successful post-hypnosis results.
The remote hypnosis protocol that O’Connor implemented in 2016 allows her to connect with people around the world through hypnosis sessions. She feels that remote hypnosis has been far more successful than the live hypnosis sessions, which she earlier used to conduct at her Toronto office, since people are less conscious and feel safer and more relaxed when in their comfort zone. This is more conducive to deep hypnosis, producing better results. Besides, a client can re-listen to the recording any number of times to revivify the experience. The recording can also be reused by O’Connor for troubleshooting by asking the client to go back into the session and point out specific areas of concern.
Apart from O’Connor, Consulting Hypnosis Co. currently has two other consulting hypnotists, who bring their own unique expertise, experience, perspective and vision to the company. O’Connor also refers clients to one of the six hypnotists who are part of the Global Mastermind Alliance of Professional Hypnotists, based in the US and the UK. Patients are matched to hypnotists based on the consulting hypnotist’s field of speciality as well as through word of mouth, social media presence or a client’s own personal preference.
Aiming to educate, inspire and share the benefits of hypnosis with more people, Consulting Hypnosis Co. offers free weekly sleep hypnosis sessions on its YouTube channel and on the HYPNO-ZZZ’s podcast. “The Global Mastermind Alliance of Professional Hypnotists, which I founded, also communes once a week to discuss technique and insight. We share friendship and camaraderie, and that’s all in the spirit of generosity and zero gatekeeping, to make each other better hypnotists,” adds O’Connor.
In 2023, O’Connor founded The Hypnotist Academy, which offers the NGH Certified Consulting Hypnotist Certification Intensive program. Rooted in the National Guild of Hypnotists curriculum, this certification, conducted personally by O’Connor, blends the O’Connor method with rigorous NGH standards and real-world business-building strategies to train aspiring and practicing hypnotists in the art and business of modern clinical hypnosis to build a thriving six-figure practice with integrity, confidence, and global credibility.
O’Connor will be launching a HynoGuide App on the Studio.com platform at the end of April. The subscriber-based app will be akin to having ‘a hypnotist in your pocket’ with tailored sessions on macro topics like sleep, confidence, anxiety, prosperity, healing and health. “You’ll essentially be able to work with me through the app through daily check-ins, daily tasks and assignments, and full-length sessions based on your concerns. Over the course of the 3-6 month program, clients can expect meaningful, lasting change,” notes O’Connor.
Having moved to Ottawa from Toronto last November, O’Connor is also looking to open a second facility in Ottawa and hire more hypnotists to join Consulting Hypnosis Co. She also wants to create more training centres for hypnotists in the future.
On her continued passion for hypnosis, O’Connor remarks, “It’s so exciting to work with a tool that I trust so much, that I will never fully understand. It’s also such an incredible honour to be let in to people’s deepest desires, greatest fears and biggest challenges, right from the first conversation that we have, and then get to walk a journey of celebration with them for weeks, months and years to come. I love getting to experience trance so often and being delighted by the feeling of rejuvenation when I move through trance and then emerge. I’m committed to hypnosis guiding me and continuing to illuminate a path in front of me which I didn’t see before and I want to keep practicing hypnosis till my last breath.”
For more information about booking a private consultation or purchasing pre-recorded hypnosis sessions from the website, visit https://www.consultinghypnosis.ca/
Header image: Vasko Obscura
