Creative Communications Center

I recently held a 4 week weight loss class I taught with hypnosis and, optional, Isagenix is over and the results were great. Everyone lost weight, the most was 15 pounds with the combination of hypnosis and Isagenix and everyone lost their interest in sodas, sugary anything and other unhealthy foods. Impressive. I added other things to the class like tapping and Myers Briggs assessment. Great group of people…. already looking forward to the fall class.

You can read more about this and other hypnotherapy sessions here.

Susan/Susie/Suz

At this time of year when all emotions seem to be heightened for many of us, certainly for me, I am assessing what really matters to me – and what really doesn’t.

One thing that continues to matter to me is how I can make a difference…. one of those ways that speaks to my heart and to the heart of my clients is hypnosis.

In the last month, here are some highlights: a weight loss class with both Hypnosis and Isagenix (a fat loss/detox/cleanse product). One person lost 11 pounds in a month using just hypnosis and in addition she, and others in the class, reported no more cravings, calmer, happier, more focused.

And I have loved working with two teenagers: one is a skin picker who no longer, after just two sessions, picks at her face and her complexion is beautiful. And another, who is bussed from a private school to see me, couldn’t stop eating sweets even after she knew she was full. After one session, she had no more cravings except for chocolate and after two sessions, even that craving was gone.

My highest value (I discovered after a 4 hour session) is making a difference. I feel blessed that hypnosis has come into my life as a way to do that.

A question: what are the gifts you have this holiday season where you can make a difference? We all have them – and that means you. What are you doing about yours? How can you brighten the lives of others… and therefore yours… by giving them? I’d love to hear.

Susan/Susie/Suz

I have two upcoming workshops coming up that I wanted to let you know about.

1. New SOULutions for Old Issues

Are you interested in using current issues for personal and spiritual growth? This retreat is compatible with all religious beliefs and will deepen and enrich their meaning. Also for healers, therapists or counselors who want to add to their existing skills and expand their inner life.

Please join Jeffrey Douglass and me in this workshop in my Norwich, Vt home on Sunday April 28th. (Click here for more details.)

2. Would you like to be a Certified Holistic Life Coach?

Do you like to help people? Do you want to make a difference – for yourself and others?  If so, you may want to consider this opportunity.

The Essentials of Coaching Institute: The Art and Skills to Become a World-Class Coach is designed for those who want to become a Certified Holistic Life Coach and for those who already are coaches and want to sharpen their skills and/or get fresh new ideas.

This weekend was postponed last fall to the weekend of May 17 – 19. Please join me, and other like minded people,for the first phase of a seven month program if this resonates with you. (Click here for more details.)

With love and gratitude,

Susan/Susie/Suz

As we all know, Thanksgiving traditionally is a time of giving thanks, of expressing gratitude.  I am painfully aware of the millions of people who can’t wrap their hearts and heads around that idea this year and I am humbled knowing of so many broken hearts among us in the world.

At the same time, it deepens and accentuates the awareness of my own gratitude.

With that in mind, the purpose of this message is two-fold:
1)  to express my gratitude for you
2)  to share my  finale with you

My gratitude:  Having started my business in the 70’s with Parent Effectiveness Training, I have known some of you for decades, some of you I have just recently met with a hypnotherapy session.  Some of you have been workshop participants; some of you are colleagues, personally and/or professionally;  some of you are friends and family – again, some old, some new.

Whatever the relationship, I am grateful for the difference you have made in my life.  Thank you.

My finale: It has become clear to me that it is time to simplify my life further and to really live into semi-retirement.  The words have been there for a few years but the actions haven’t been.  Now they are.

I wanted to share with you how my finale is showing up – Read more here:
http://www.adifference.com/news-from-suz.htm

With love and gratitude,
Susan/Susie/Suz

Fall is here and though I’m sorry summer is over, I’m looking forward to all the fall is offering in so many ways – including my own Fall Offerings. In fact, this weekend is the first offical ad in my local paper about them all: Essentials of Coaching: the Art and Skils to Become a World Class Coach, the first phase of a 7 month certification program to become a Holistic Life Coach, Nov 2-4; Bagels and Balance, a small group hypnosis workshop to discover how to create more joy, happiness and balance in your life, October 20th, 9 -5; Parent Effectiveness Training because of a request to teach it still once again, October 13, 9-5. All will be held in my home. Details: www.adifference.com, shastings@creativecommunicationscenter.com, 802-649-1069.

I recently returned from the National Guild of Hypnotists convention where I learned some great new skills for my hypnotherapy practice – where I can combine hypnosis with my usual therapy and coaching. One skill I am using with amazing results is talking to the conflicting parts of a person when they’re in trance and coming up with insights that lead to positive action. For example: wanting to lose weight. There’s a part that wants to but there’s another part that doesn’t..or a smoker that wants to give up smoking but there’s a conflicting part that doesn’t want to. And I’ve also worked with a couple of clients who just know they have a block but they don’t know what it is …this process will discover the blocked part. What emerges is truly amazing! And what is additionally wonderful is that one of the two sessions that I did with discovering the blocks was over the phone!

I’m watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics right now …brings back happy memories of the two I have attended when my two sons were in the winter Olympics –  Sarajevo in 1984 when Jeff competed and Canada in 1988 when Chris did.  Such a wonderful event – I remember being glad for sun glasses as tears streamed down my face, knowing that everyone marching was someone’s son, daughter, husband, wife, father or, mother and believing that if everyone in the world could take a note from the Olypians on how to transcend ccompetition into friendship, there would be no more wars.

I am thrilled to share with you an article that ran in the summer issue of the Norwich Times.  Below is an excerpt.

Elder Profile: Susie Hastings
Village Green Publishing, LLC/Norwich Times

Susie Hastings with her dog Bella

“Vibrant. Alert. Fully present. Zingy. These are words that leap to mind when you meet Susie Hastings. Without loud speech or dramatic gestures, she commands attention and interest. And she gives attention and interest to someone speaking to her, that serious attention that makes you feel your words and even your thoughts are being absorbed. How does she do it?

Susie wasn’t always a cheerful center of focus. She does not consider that she was a shy child, but she spent many years being completely unwilling to speak in any kind of public gathering. “The fear of speaking was controlling my life,” she says. “Even at Bible study, I wouldn’t speak aloud, and these were my friends!” The cause of this lockdown was a trauma in high school. Susie had gone to boarding school as a sophomore – “everyone else already knew each other, and I felt like a ship out of water” – and was extremely homesick. In fact, she was the most homesick girl that the assistant headmaster at Northfield School for girls had seen in her 26 years of tenure. Answering a question in class, she gave a wrong answer, and everybody laughed. That the teacher was one of her favorites only heightened her mortification. Though many people have found themselves momentarily discomfited in this way, for Susie the embarrassment made a perfect storm with her loneliness and homesickness that was enough to silence her for the rest of high school.

A similar experience in college reinforced the habit of silence. Susie told her professors that questions made her freeze and go blank. They accommodated her, and her solid written work proved her skills and knowledge so that she graduated Phi Beta Kappa.”

Click here to read the full article.

Susie

When I reread my past blogs, I realize I’m even more inconsistent than I thought!
 
Last time I wrote about Hilton Head Island, I was just leaving.  This time, I’m just coming!  I’ve been here for two weeks and am enjoying connecting with family and friends – and lots of beach walks with Bella (my Maltese therapy dog).  The weather has been unusually great for February, whereas home in Vermont, it’s been very erratic from below zero to rain to sleet.
 
But home is home and here I am in Hilton Head, my second home – but sending love to those at home where the home fires are burning.
 
I’m getting ready for my workshops here on the Island.  If you’d like to see what they are, click on here. 
 
Wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great winter!

Susie

Had a wonderful time with Melanie Podolec’s Psychology class in Claremont last evening. I gave a talk about hypnosis to 22 students and hypnotized them on finding balance in their life. Interesting statistic: 600 sessions of psychoanalysis – 38% improvement; 22 sessions of Behavior Therapy – 72% improvement; 6 sessions of hypnosis – 93% success. American Health magazine. No wonder I’m such a believer!