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Hypnotherapy/Inner Meditation Guidance

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I offer 2-hour Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy sessions, and I also incorporate guided meditation or inner imagery within regular therapy when it supports your process in the moment.

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Below, you’ll find a clear explanation of how these two approaches differ, along with practical details on what a guided meditation experience looks like in session

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Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy Sessions

Sessions are a minimum of 2 hours (2.5 average)
Investment: $170 per session. (Insurance does not cover 2-hour sessions)

Age Regression Experience

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I am advanced-certified in Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy, a deeper, structured process distinct from the guided imagery and meditative work I naturally integrate into ongoing therapy.

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In regular sessions, we may use brief imagery or grounding experiences to help you access emotion, insight, or nervous system regulation. These moments arise organically and support the flow of therapy.

A full hypnotherapy session is different.

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It is intentional, longer, and designed around a specific theme — a symptom, repeating pattern, emotional trigger, or internal conflict you want to understand and shift at its roots.

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What Happens in a 2-Hour Hypnotherapy Session?

We begin by helping your body settle into a relaxed, receptive state. This relaxed state allows the analytical, thinking mind to soften, enabling deeper emotional memories and subconscious material to emerge more freely.

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When we operate primarily through conversation, we tend to stay in a beta brainwave state — thinking, analyzing, explaining. Hypnotherapy invites a slower rhythm. As your nervous system settles, access to emotional memory networks stored in subcortical regions of the brain — areas linked to attachment, survival responses, and early relational imprinting — opens.

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From there, I guide you toward an age, scene, or inner experience connected to the issue you are working on. Often this takes the form of age regression, where a younger version (some people's past lives) of you comes forward around the origin of a belief, feeling, or coping strategy.

We follow what arises.

Your system leads. I guide.

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The Heart-Centered Element

What makes this approach “heart-centered” is the relational and compassionate framework.

We are meeting memories, images, feelings, while also repairing experience.

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You may meet younger or past versions of yourself with the presence of your wise, resourced adult self. Together we create what could not fully happen at the time:

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• Attunement

• Protection

• Voice

• Validation

• Emotional completion

• A felt sense of safety

It becomes an inner attachment experience.

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Rather than analyzing your younger self, you sit with them. You listen. You protect. You bring warmth, strength, and choice into moments that originally felt overwhelming or powerless. I guide the process. 

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The nervous system registers this as new learning.

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Because emotional memory is stored beneath language, healing includes a felt sense. Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy works directly with those emotional layers by allowing your system to re-experience and reorganize memory in a safe, supported way.

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In many sessions, this process includes:

• Reclaiming disowned parts of self

• Releasing stored emotional charge

• Forgiveness work

• Expressing previously suppressed anger or grief

• Strengthening ego resources and self-worth

• Integrating spiritual or transpersonal experiences if they arise

 

We are essentially co-creating a corrective emotional experience — one your body and subconscious can absorb. This is why multiple sessions are helpful, as several corrective experiences are needed to help solidify the new emotional experience. 

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How This Differs From Guided Imagery in Ongoing Therapy

In regular therapy sessions:

• Imagery is shorter.

• It supports insight or regulation.

• It follows the natural rhythm of conversation.

• We move in and out of reflective dialogue.

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In a full hypnotherapy session:

• The experience is immersive and sustained.

• We follow one theme deeply.

• The relaxed state is maintained for longer.

• The subconscious leads more directly.

• Emotional processing happens at a deeper, preverbal level.

• Integration work is intentional and complete before we close.

 

You Remain Present and In Control

You remain aware throughout the process. You can speak, shift, or pause at any time. Hypnotherapy is a collaborative, relational experience — something we create together.

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It is a guided inner journey designed to help your system reorganize patterns at their roots rather than simply manage symptoms at the surface.

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This work moves at a slower, more spacious pace than traditional talk therapy. We allow time for your nervous system to settle, for imagery to unfold naturally, and for deeper layers of experience to come forward. The process has to be slow and intentional. 

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What you need to do for sessions:

For online sessions, it helps to create a space where you can fully relax. Lying down is ideal if possible. A couch, bed, or reclining chair works beautifully. I will need to see most of you on camera so I can track your breathing, facial expressions, and body responses as we work.

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Using headphones or earbuds is important, or alternatively, having high-quality speakers is also acceptable.  They allow you to hear my voice clearly while I can still hear you. Even though you’ll be in a relaxed state, we continue communicating throughout the session. You remain aware, engaged, and able to speak at any time.  Please use a laptop or traditional computer

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Before scheduling hypnotherapy, I prefer to begin with one intake session. Your insurance may cover this. This allows me to understand your history, your goals, and the patterns we are addressing. From there, I thoughtfully design your hypnotherapy experience to align with your needs rather than using a generic script.

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Inner Guided Meditation and Hypnotherapy General Information

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As I shared above, Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy is one focused and intentional way of working with imagery. In our regular sessions, I often incorporate guided meditation and imagery more organically, allowing it to support insight, emotional connection, and nervous system regulation as part of the natural flow of therapy.

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For some people, the word "hypnotherapy" or meditation brings up images that feel unfamiliar or uncertain. The way I work looks much simpler and more natural than that. Think of it as a guided therapy meditation—one where you remain present, aware, and in charge of your experience. You choose what imagery comes forward and what feels right to explore. I’m there as a steady guide, helping the process unfold in a way that feels safe and supportive.

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This approach uses imagination, imagery, metaphors, and story because these are among the brain’s most natural ways of creating change. Research in neuroscience shows that the brain responds to vivid imagery much like it responds to real-life experiences.

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Images, symbols, and stories activate emotional, sensory, and memory networks simultaneously, allowing insight and healing to occur beyond words alone. This is one reason meaningful change can occur without forcing anything or trying to “think” your way through it.

Imagery is often described as the primary language of the unconscious. Rather than pushing suggestions, this work gently structures space for images and metaphors to arise on their own. As they do, your inner wisdom shows what you are ready to feel, understand, or shift. I don’t create the imagery for you—you do. I simply help you stay connected to it and listen to what it has to offer.

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In this space, different parts of you are able to speak in a quieter, more intuitive way. Instead of debating or analyzing, they express themselves through sensations, images, and symbolic meaning. When they have room to be seen and felt, they often move toward resolution naturally. Many people experience this as a softer way of working with inner parts—one that allows worries to settle and new perspectives to emerge.

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Both the thinking mind and the feeling mind are important here. They work best together:

• The conscious mind helps name what you want support with

• The unconscious mind explores solutions through imagery and felt experience

• Reflection afterward helps integrate the insight into daily life

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This combination allows change to feel organic, meaningful, and lasting—guided by your own inner intelligence rather than imposed from the outside.

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​How Visualization and Hypnotherapy Support Healing

A neuroscience-informed approach to working with the mind, body, and emotional memory

Many people carry stress, emotional pain, or old patterns that talking alone has struggled to shift. Visualization and hypnotherapy work differently. They engage the brain and nervous system in ways that support emotional regulation, learning, and change at a deeper level.

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These approaches have strong roots in neuroscience, psychology, and clinical research.

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Why Visualization Is So Powerful for Healing

Visualization uses imagination with sensory detail—images, feelings, colors, warmth, and movement. The brain responds to these inner experiences in meaningful ways.

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Your brain processes imagery as real experience

Brain imaging research shows that when a person imagines a scene, the same brain regions activate as when that scene is actually seen or felt. This includes:

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• Visual processing areas

• Emotional centers such as the amygdala and insula

• Autonomic nervous system pathways that influence heart rate, breathing, and muscle tone

 

This means your nervous system responds to imagined safety, comfort, and support as meaningful information.

Research by Stephen Kosslyn and colleagues in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience demonstrates that mental imagery activates the visual cortex in a way closely aligned with real perception.

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Meaning:
When you visualize a calming place, a supportive presence, or a grounded version of yourself, your system practices regulation rather than stress.

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Visualization helps regulate the nervous system

Imagery supports communication between the prefrontal cortex and emotional brain regions. This supports emotional steadiness, clarity, and a sense of internal safety.

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Studies in affective neuroscience show that calming imagery can:

• Lower physiological stress markers

• Support parasympathetic nervous system activity

• Improve emotional containment and resilience

 

This aligns closely with polyvagal theory and modern trauma-informed care.

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Meaning:
Your body learns how to settle, breathe more fully, and feel steadier from the inside.

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Visualization supports emotional memory updating

When imagery brings up an emotional memory while you remain regulated, the brain becomes open to learning something new.

Memory reconsolidation research shows that emotional memories can be updated when new emotional experiences pair with older ones.

 

Meaning:
Old emotional patterns gain space to shift when new experiences of safety, compassion, or strength enter the picture.

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How Hypnotherapy/Inner Guidance Meditation Enhances This Process

Hypnotherapy uses focused attention, guided imagery, and deep absorption. This creates a state where the brain becomes more receptive to emotional learning and integration.

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Supports focused attention and absorption

Neuroscience research shows that hypnosis is associated with measurable changes in brain connectivity. Functional MRI studies conducted by David Spiegel at Stanford demonstrate altered communication between different brain regions, including:

• The anterior cingulate cortex

• The default mode network

• The salience network

 

These changes support emotional engagement, clarity, and presence.

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Meaning:
Your attention becomes more focused and internally attuned, which supports deeper emotional work.

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Softens habitual self-monitoring

During hypnosis/guided meditation, the brain shifts away from constant self-evaluation and overthinking. This allows emotional material to surface in a more direct, embodied way.

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Spiegel and Faymonville’s research shows reduced activity in brain regions associated with self-judgment and time orientation.

Inner experiences gain space to unfold naturally, allowing insight and emotional release.

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Strong clinical evidence for symptom relief

Meta-analyses and clinical studies support hypnotherapy/guided meditation for:

• Anxiety and stress regulation

• Chronic and procedural pain

• Trauma-related symptoms

• Somatic and stress-related conditions

 

Research summarized by David Hammond and others shows consistent benefits when hypnotherapy is delivered in a supportive, therapeutic relationship.

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Meaning:
Many people experience relief, clarity, and emotional movement that feels meaningful and lasting.

 

Why Visualization and Hypnotherapy/Inner Guided Meditation Work Especially Well Together

Visualization offers the experience.
They offers a state of focus and openness. 

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Together, they:

• Engage emotional memory networks

• Support nervous system regulation

• Allow new experiences to register as real and embodied

 

This approach aligns with modern trauma-informed, mind-body therapies that focus on how change happens in the nervous system rather than through insight alone.

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​What Clients Often Notice

Clients often describe:

• A stronger sense of calm and grounding

• Greater emotional clarity

• Increased access to compassion and inner strength

• Relief from patterns that once felt stuck

Each experience unfolds at its own pace, guided by your system and your readiness.

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Research and Professional Sources

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Hypnosis-Related Research

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Mental Imagery & the Brain

• Stephen M. Kosslyn
  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
  Research on how mental imagery activates visual and emotional brain systems in ways that mirror lived experience.

• Allan Paivio
  Imagery and Verbal Processes
  Cognitive psychology research showing that imagery and verbal thought operate through different but interacting systems, with imagery creating stronger emotional and memory encoding.

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Neuroplasticity & Experiential Change

• Norman Doidge, MD
  The Brain That Changes Itself
  Clinical and neuroscience-based discussion of how experiential practices reshape neural pathways through felt experience rather than insight alone.

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Trauma, Body Memory, and Inner Experience

• Bessel van der Kolk, MD
  The Body Keeps the Score
  Integrates neuroscience, trauma research, and clinical observation showing how healing occurs through body-based and experiential approaches.

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Memory Reconsolidation

• Karim Nader, PhD & Einarsson
  Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
  Foundational research on how emotional memories reopen and update when new emotional experiences occur within a regulated state.

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