Creative Changes
Location: 11 Redbud Court, Sequim
Phone: 972-345-2671
E-mail: Patcough@aol.com
On the web: creativechangeshypnosis.org
Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday; after-hours/Saturday by request
Want to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce pain, rewire your brain after a stroke? Pat Coughlin Mawson, a certified professional hypnotherapist believes it’s all mind over matter — the subconscious mind, that is.
With 16 years of experience in the field, she’s seen some amazing transformations in her clients but says the power of hypnosis not a mystery. Mawson opened her private practice Creative Changes in Sequim last year.
“Hypnosis is nothing more than relaxation and repetition. The process is to relax the body and conscious ‘monkey’ mind so that positive suggestions can be offered to the subconscious mind,” Mawson said. “With repetition, the subconscious mind soaks up new ideas like a sponge that affect thinking, attitude and behavior.”
Mawson said she doesn’t put her own words in clients’ mouths but rather through hypnosis puts them in a state where they become more receptive to their own written wishes and desires.
“Hypnosis can help with more than 200 issues from stopping smoking, to weight loss, to reducing chronic pain and pre- and post-surgical pain, to rewiring the brain after a stroke,” Mawson said.
“You can eliminate fears and phobias — any pattern you want to change. There’s nothing magical to it. When you’re under hypnosis, you don’t feel pain and there’s a time distortion, so there’s no fear.”
Mawson records each client’s session of her speaking positive suggestions and makes a CD of it to take home for reinforcement.
“It takes six weeks to change a behavior so each time the client comes, I make a new CD and I recommend listening to it daily until the next appointment. Some issues require more time to change, such as weight loss, but getting over a phobia can be a one-time session.”
Addictions to alcohol or drugs can be the most challenging and require a period of sobriety before beginning hypnotherapy — and an openness to remaining sober.
“How effective hypnotherapy is is how open you are to change,” Mawson said. “It’s not brainwashing, it’s not mind control. It depends on the person’s openness to change. It can be very helpful in those cases with some other type of (sobriety) support,” she added, noting that overcoming overeating also is more successful with hypnotherapy in tandem with counseling.
Mawson also teaches her clients self-hypnosis techniques such as visualization and breathing — for example, having a cancer patient picture his tumor with a color and shape and envision it shrinking or being gobbled up Pac-Man style.
“Many different things can be done with this mind of ours. Hypnotherapy gives it a new job and helps you figure out what your core issue is,” she explained.
The healing properties of sound
Mawson and her husband, Charles, also employ another modality they feel is very healing — the intense sound and vibrations of quartz crystal singing bowls. The bowls are molded from fused quartz powder and have a crystalline structure — and the body does, too, in its bones, DNA and blood, Mawson explained.
“These structures have a natural resonance with quartz and that makes these crystal singing bowls naturally healing to our bodies.”
Each bowl is tuned to a musical note — the Mawsons have a 12-inch “F” bowl and a 20-inch “C” bowl and they are played with wands covered in suede in sweeping circular motions to the rims and sides that raise the tone, volume and vibrations. As Mawson increases the volume, the vibrations become palpable and hang in the air.
“The body is 60 percent water and the sound has an effect on the cells. It puts people into a meditative state. I do think the bowls heal,” Mawson said. “If you’re open to change, the bowls will help.”
Every Friday from 10-11 a.m. at the Shipley Center, 921 E. Hammond St., the Mawsons bring their bowls for a session of energy and sound and they invite other bowl owners to join them. The fee is $3 for members and $4 for non-members.
