Daniel Browne: The Hypnotic Rainbow, LGBTQ+ Affirmative Therapy, and Why Allies Need to Step Up Now

Daniel Browne: The Hypnotic Rainbow, LGBTQ+ Affirmative Therapy, and Why Allies Need to Step Up Now

In this episode of AWAKEN, Ryan sits down with Daniel Browne — hypnotherapist, counsellor, coach, author, trainer, and the man behind The Mind Bender Method — joining from Royal Leamington Spa in the UK. Daniel is internationally recognized as the leading authority on LGBTQ+ affirmative therapy in the hypnosis world, has trained thousands of practitioners across the globe, and is heading to HypnoThoughts Live with not one but two presentations: a full-day pre-conference workshop on the Mind Bender Method, and a main stage talk called The Hypnotic Rainbow: Tailoring Trance to Every Identity. Daniel came into hypnosis the same way a lot of people do — sideways, skeptically, and through a backdoor. His background was mental health care, supporting people with schizophrenia transitioning back into the community. He trained as a counsellor and psychotherapist, stumbled into a hypnosis qualification almost by accident, and was hooked from the very first class. Seventeen years later, roughly 60-70% of his clients are trans, and anxiety has replaced smoking cessation as the number one thing people come to see him about. The conversation goes deep and stays honest. Daniel talks about what identity crisis actually looks like — not just for LGBTQ+ people navigating gender and orientation, but for anyone who has lost the role that defined them: the mother whose kids just left home, the executive who got laid off, the person coming out of a decades-long marriage asking who am I now? The Mind Bender Method's three core outcomes — confidence, resilience, and clarity — turn out to be universal, even if the protocol was built specifically for queer communities. Daniel also opens up about his own internal work: a period where he was so uncomfortable around straight white men that he stopped going to networking events entirely. He talks through what self-awareness actually looks like in practice, why most people have buried prejudices they don't know they're carrying, and why the answer isn't shame — it's curiosity and doing the work. Ryan shares his own audit, wondering whether he might have biases he can't yet see. Neither of them pretends to have it fully figured out. And Daniel ends with a direct call to action: LGBTQ+ communities are in crisis right now — in the US, in the UK, globally — and the people who can help most are the straight, cis practitioners who are willing to get educated, stay open, and show up as vocal, visible allies. You don't have to be queer to do this work. You just have to be willing to learn. Three quotes from Daniel worth writing down: "You don't have to be part of this community to work with our communities. You just need to be open-minded, willing to listen, willing to learn, and accepting." "We know what it feels like to be on the outside — and I think that's exactly why LGBTQ+ communities tend to be so welcoming to everyone who's a bit different." "Now is the time to step up and be a visible ally and a vocal ally, and just realize how much good work you can do with your skills for this community." Connect with Daniel Browne: daniel-browne.co.uk  Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]

Simon Bartholome: Consciousness, Non-Duality, and the Illusion You Never Really Lost

In this episode of AWAKEN, Ryan sits down with Simon Bartholome — a quietly profound German thinker, writer, and longtime student of non-dual spirituality who Ryan first discovered through his Facebook page, where nearly every post distills the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, Osho, and others into something clean, universal, and free from religious baggage. Simon lives in Hirschbeck, Germany, surrounded by soccer posters, and is about as regular a guy as someone who casually talks about the nature of consciousness for an hour can be. The conversation moves from Bruce Lee and Triceratops boxing matches to Sanskrit, Charlie Brown and Lucy, Michael Jackson, near-death experiences, the difference between Ramana Maharshi and Neem Karoli Baba, why Christian theology accidentally puts God on a pedestal instead of pointing you inward, and why Simon thinks the word consciousness is more spiritually useful than God — because it carries no conceptual baggage and nobody puts up their shield when they hear it. Simon's central thread is disarmingly simple: you are not the thoughts, not the emotions, not the body — those are all objects appearing in awareness. What you actually are is the awareness itself. And that awareness, your true nature, has never been afraid, has never been separate, and has never really been lost. The path home is just uncovering what was always there — removing the conditioning, not acquiring anything new. Ryan shares his near-death experience. Simon talks about Ramana Maharshi surviving cancer surgery without anesthesia. They explore why 95-99% of our fears are about things that never actually happen, why joy and love aren't the opposite of fear but rather what remains when fear is seen through, and what it means that even hate — properly understood — is an expression of love. Then Ryan thinks he forgot to hit record. Simon laughs. Everything is fine. They roll with it. This one is for the quietly curious — people who sense there's something underneath all the noise but haven't found words for it yet. Simon is excellent at finding the words. Three quotes from Simon worth writing down: "Fear is just a thought. It is impossible to be afraid without thoughts. So your deeper, true self is always inherently free from fear." "95 to 99% of our fears refer to something that is not really there. In most cases, that which we are afraid of never really happens." "You are nothing special. You are just the infinity — that which is." Connect with Simon Bartholome: Facebook: facebook.com/simon.bartholome  Simon posts daily in English and German — quotes, reflections, and excerpts from spiritual teachers across traditions Books: Currently in German only, available on Amazon.de — two more in progress (one on Bruce Lee, one on animals). English translations are being considered for the future. Search "Simon Bartholome" on Amazon.de to find his current titles. Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]

Melissa Boher Jacobson: Neurodiversity, Unshakable Self-Esteem, and the WIN Method

In this episode of AWAKEN, Ryan sits down with Melissa Boher Jacobson — hypnotherapist, coach, Bunny Talk certified trainer, and four-time presenter at HypnoThoughts Live — for a warm, practical, and genuinely useful conversation about what it takes to help people get out of their own way. Melissa joins from Mexico, where she now lives, and where she says the culture of open creativity and celebration is one of the reasons she stayed. Melissa spent over 25 years coaching performing artists before stumbling into hypnosis — skeptically, she'll tell you — and having a moment with a balloon and a bucket that changed everything. She became a devotee almost immediately. Since starting her practice in 2018, she's built a specialty working with families, kids, teens, and neurodiverse clients, and she's quick to reframe the whole conversation: ADHD and autism aren't deficits. They're different brains with different gifts — and often, extraordinary ones. In this conversation, Melissa and Ryan dig into why 85% of humans struggle with self-esteem, why narcissism is actually rooted in low self-worth, why neurodivergent people are disproportionately drawn to the arts and entrepreneurship (oasis of competence, she calls it), and why fear isn't a useful tool for anyone running a business or a life. The antidote, she argues, isn't confidence — it's trust. Specifically, self-trust. And she has a whole ladder for that. She shares two client stories that stop you in your tracks: a young man who was never expected to live independently and is now applying for scholarships and heading to college, and a 7th grader with crippling social anxiety and a mathematical genius-level mind who eventually flew to South Korea at 14 to speak at an aerospace conference — and who just messaged Melissa recently to say she's finally enjoying singing. Then, as a closing gift, Melissa walks Ryan through the WIN method live on air — What's Important Now — and dissolves his overwhelm in about four minutes flat. This one is practical, warm, and quietly profound. Come with your to-do list. Three quotes from Melissa worth writing down: "Failure is definitely an option as an entrepreneur. Lots of it. But here's what is not an option — and that is fear." "85% of humans have low self-esteem. And pretty much every single client I work with has some level of I'm not enough, or I'm not worthy." "We're born with self-esteem. It's a human right to feel good about yourself. So let's restore it." Connect with Melissa Boher Jacobson: Website: melissaboherjacobson.com Skool community (Self-Hypnosis for Success): skool.com/exceptional-you-8143 Facebook group: Change Work for Therapists and Coaches Melissa presents at HypnoThoughts Live in July — her talk is titled The Intersection of ADHD, Hypnotherapy, and Executive Function Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]

Pablo Amira: Mentalism, Alchemy, and the Mystery Inside Every Moment

In this episode of AWAKEN, Ryan sits down with Pablo Amira — psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, mentalist, musician, and the mind behind Metanoia — for one of the most philosophically layered conversations the show has produced. Pablo joins from Chile, surrounded by at least five guitars, a shelf of books, pendulums made from amethyst and quartz, and what may or may not be coffee in an old bottle. The vibe is immediately clear: this is someone who lives what he teaches. Pablo moves through the world guided by two Greek axioms he keeps close — know yourself, and everything in moderation. He works with clients not by chasing more of them, but by trusting that the relationships he cultivates naturally draw the right people. His intention isn't more business. It's deeper presence with the people already in his life — his wife, his three-year-old son Gael, his friends. Everything else, he says, follows from that. The conversation opens with pendulums and the ideomotor response, winds through Jungian alchemy, Greek philosophy, Ericksonian utilization, the spiritualist roots of mentalism, Chile's unresolved grief from dictatorship-era disappearances, and why the three stages of alchemical transformation — nigredo, albedo, rubedo — matter more to him than "mental health" as a concept. Pablo's framework isn't about removing what's dark. It's about transmuting it. Fear becomes courage. Grief becomes meaning. The symptom becomes the doorway. Then he performs a card effect live — the Ace of Diamonds, predicted in Spanish before the session even began — and uses it not to impress, but to connect. He follows it with a pendulum demonstration using Ryan's sock and a pen. Then he closes the episode with a spontaneous induction so quiet and clean that Ryan admits he was gone before he noticed. This one is for anyone who thinks therapy and mysticism are opposites. Pablo makes the case they are the same thing, in different costumes. Three quotes from Pablo worth writing down: "That person already knows. But they don't know that they know. I am the one that shows — look, something is happening. I am the one that points." "Courage is not a feeling. Courage is the trust that I have the seal of the future me — I can do this." "Life is not just about being mentally stable. Life is to be full, to be crazy, to be fun, to enjoy, to serve others, to love others. Let's inject life." Connect with Pablo Amira: Blog & writing: metanoiapabloamira.blogspot.com Full site & services: pabloamira.com Email: contacto@pabloamira.com [contacto@pabloamira.com] Pablo works in Spanish and English, offering psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and mentalism — and is an excellent referral for Spanish-speaking clients seeking deep transformation work Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]

Allan Hassoun: Dowsing Rods, Energy Alchemy, and the Mind's Ability to Bend Reality

In this episode of AWAKEN, Ryan sits down with Allan Hassoun — hypnotist, Reiki master, energy worker, and the Mind Alchemist himself — for one of the most wide-open, down-the-rabbit-hole conversations the show has ever had. And that is saying something. Allan came into Ryan's orbit the way the best connections do: Ryan posted a video on Facebook playing with dowsing rods made from coat hangers, and Allan messaged him immediately. Turns out Allan has been working with dowsing rods and pendulums for decades — using them to measure belief, track resistance, clear energy fields, and even attempt to alter the frequency of water. And yes, he has stories. In this conversation they cover a lot of ground: a man named Raymond Grace who reportedly purified a cyanide-contaminated well using nothing but his mind, children bending spoons at a picnic while adults stood there baffled, a spoon that cracked in half on the highway because Allan finally stopped trying, the Abraham Hicks Money Game, inherited trauma encoded in DNA, a mass on an x-ray that disappeared before surgery, using Pac-Man to visualize healing, time distortion for a client in an MRI machine, and why Allan quietly raises the energetic frequency of his entire neighborhood without telling anyone. Oh, and they do a live pendulum demonstration — including a silent yes/no test that Ryan couldn't have influenced even if he wanted to. This one is firmly in woo territory and neither of them apologizes for it. Come curious. Three quotes from Allan worth writing down: "The resistance is the stuff that pulls the cork down. Every time you do some hypnosis and you feel better, you let go of some of that programming, and you start moving up. The higher you move, the more effortless life becomes." "Whether I actually did something or not — there's no way of telling. But I know the power of the mind." "Things are okay. When you look from a bigger perspective, everything is working out, and everything will come back to balance. Don't worry so much." Connect with Allan Hassoun: Website: mindalchemist.ca YouTube: youtube.com/@mindalchemists Phone: (647) 699-2204 Free 5-minute anxiety audio: available on his website Free complimentary session: Allan is offering a free hour to anyone who reaches out before July 10th — link in the show notes Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]