A few months ago, I attended a hypnosis workshop on Attraction. One of the guest speakers was a pick-up artist who shared with the audience his technique. He got so good at picking up women that he was juggling 38 girlfriends at one point. This guy was different from the smooth-talking, gold chain-wearing type you'd expect. He was an average-looking guy, balding and a bit overweight. But it wasn't his system on how he wooed women that struck me; it was what he looked for in a woman. He looked for three things: a love of children, animals, and a healthy relationship with her father. The first two showed she was nurturing. The third demonstrated that she was used to being treated with respect and would likely treat him similarly.

For the past four years, I've been learning how to "leviwand" and "spin poi." Leviwand, if you've never seen one, is a baton with a string that you hold on to with a finger loop or a ball handle. Poi is two balls (or other objects) on a line or cord, also held with a finger loop or ball handle.

My last real vacation was in October of 2019. A real break, as in I didn’t have to perform, see clients, take classes, teach classes, or be accountable to anyone but myself. Every trip I’ve been on in the last four years has been work-related. I may have done lots of fun things on those trips to break up the monotony of work, but it was never a clean break from work. Even on my “excursions,” I answered phone calls, met with staff, took appointments, and did what I needed to keep my business going. It’s one of the “perks” of being self-employed.

A little over a year ago, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism. It seems weird to think that 30 years of my body doing strange things were easily answered in a simple blood test from Quest Diagnostics. Hypothyroidism is becoming very common in women my age, however, a proper diagnosis of hypothyroidism can take 20-30 years. Hypothyroidism mimics many other auto-immune conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, menopause, acid reflux, and ADHD. Even the best-trained doctors may miss all the signs of the disease only treating the obvious symptoms they see. My doctors missed it, even when I had a cyst on my thyroid eight years ago.

It was a beautiful weekend here in Florida…and I spent 99% of the weekend inside. My husband is on antibiotics for an infection, and I’m recovering from a fall the previous weekend that left me with a skinned knee. We decided to make the most of our weekend by being productive. We moved into this condo a year ago and had 2 closets that were not being utilized properly. Doug made shelves for the closets and went through the garage and storage unit, and I went through drawers and bins in the kitchen, bathroom, and craft room, and began pitching stuff we no longer had a need for.

Last year, I blogged about my mother being "my first hypnotist." I shared this concept with a friend of mine who is the mother of a three-year-old. A light bulb went off in her head. She said, "Holy sh*t, do you mean I am my son's first hypnotist?"

That's correct! If you're a mother or a caregiver, everything you do, don't do, say, and don't say has the power to go right through the "critical faculty." The "critical faculty" is part of the brain that evaluates all the information presented and decides what gets through to the unconscious mind and what gets kicked out.

A year ago, I was in bad shape. To make it worse, I had symptoms that seemed to have no connection to each other. I was having trouble walking up and down steps due to severe joint pain. My arms hurt when I drank whiskey. My nose got all stuffed up whenever I ate sweets. I was experiencing severe reflux. My hair was dry and brittle, and at times enough of my hair would fall out that I had enough to make a donation to “Locks of Love.” I put on 30 or 40 lbs very quickly. I had brain fog, was easily confused, and my attention span was short. In the few lucid moments I had, I knew something was wrong, but couldn’t figure it out. All of my blood work was normal.

The next blog in April, our month of Foolishness and Forgiveness, is about doing the WRITE thing. That’s right…errr…write!

Doing the WRITE thing is about writing a letter. It’s a letter where you dig deep into your soul, get in touch with your feelings, and pour your heart out into a letter. There are two kinds of letters you can write, and I recommend you write at least one of each.

Hello, my name is Traci, and I’m a huge procrastinator. And if you’re reading this, later, because you know, you put off reading it…it’s because you’re a procrastinator too. I wish I could wave my magic wand and make all of the things I’m putting off doing would just go away, but they persist. And then they compile. And compile. And compile. And then the feeling of overwhelm hits me like a ton of bricks

We continue with our April blog theme of Fools and Forgiveness. Last week I wrote about forgiving yourself…and this week will be on forgiving others.

One of the hardest parts of my job is encouraging my clients to “forgive” the other person for the horrible things they caused in the lives of my clients. I’ve heard many awful, horrific, painful things that my clients have suffered through. They often opt not to tell me what those things are…but I can see the tears stream down their face as they begin to process or re-process the memories in order to let go of the crap memories that hold them back. One step on the road to healing within is to “forgive” the other person(s) for what they’ve done.

It is April…and my theme for this month is “Foolishness and Forgiveness.” This week’s topic is “Forgiving Yourself,” because if there’s a common theme I see in all of my clients, it’s the inability to forgive ourselves for past mistakes, those stupid and horrible things we did to others, those stupid and horrible things we did to ourselves. Sometimes our past mistakes include not standing up for ourselves when we needed to, or not standing up for someone else when we should have. Often times these incidents will re-occur and the feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment, or anger will resurface, magnified and intensified, because they were never properly processed to begin with. People who haven’t fully processed their issues, often find themselves sick. The unprocessed feelings that go with these mistakes is energy, and that energy can become stuck in the body and wreak all kinds of havoc. Many of my clients have heard me read from Yvette Rose’s book, Metaphysical Anatomy. I learn about their symptoms, find the corresponding chapter, and we both discover they have unprocessed emotions which may have contributed to what they’re experiencing medically.

Last week I wrote about The Secrets of Sabotaging Your Success, which is basically “Where Focus Goes, Energy Flows.” What you think about, is what you become. If you focus on “bankruptcy” or “don’t lose a turn” like my husband did when he was on Wheel of Fortune 14 years ago…then that is exactly what you’ll receive. The trick is to change your self talk!