Astrid Harms: Tinnitus, the Stress Cascade, and Why "Maybe" is the Most Powerful Word in Medicine

Astrid Harms: Tinnitus, the Stress Cascade, and Why "Maybe" is the Most Powerful Word in Medicine

Astrid Harms is a hypnotherapist, mind-body coach, single mom, former TV professional, and the person behind Soulessense Coaching and Hypnotherapy — and she has read somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 research papers on tinnitus. Not because anyone asked her to. Because someone told her it was impossible to treat, and her brain doesn't accept that answer. In this conversation, Astrid and Ryan start with tinnitus and end up somewhere in the neighborhood of epigenetics, the mind-body stress cascade, Ram Dass and his guru, nature gardens as stress management, and what single moms can actually do when the to-do list never gets shorter. It covers a lot of ground and none of it feels rushed. Astrid breaks down tinnitus in a way most people have never heard: not as a single condition but as a heterogeneous group of diseases with four distinct cause categories — auditory, somatosensory (neck, dental, cranial nerves), inflammatory, and psychological — that almost always appear in combination. Her approach works across all four. For veterans especially, she points out, tinnitus is one of the leading causes of disability, because it often arrives alongside trauma and the physiological aftermath of explosive sound, creating a stress-distress-sound loop that nobody has taught them to break. The key insight that changes everything for most clients: as long as you see the tinnitus as your enemy, it will behave like one. The moment you understand why it's there — whether it's a leftover alarm, a warning about inflammation, a nervous system signaling danger, or the mind's version of I don't want to hear this anymore — it often begins to quiet down on its own. She also walks through the cascade from thinking to emotion to hormone to cellular signaling, which lands for Ryan because he's been following the science of how chronic stress reaches the body at its deepest levels. Astrid confirms that stress — especially when it runs long enough to become chronic — changes how cells function and renew, and that this is one of the mechanisms behind why unaddressed psychological stress can eventually show up as physical illness. None of this is woo. Most of it just hasn't been fully investigated yet. Astrid's approach is to follow the chain as far as the research goes, and hold the rest as an honest maybe. She closes with future vision hypnosis — giving people permission to fantasize about a life with no constraints, and watching what surfaces when they finally stop arguing against their own desires. Most people, she says, already know what they want. They just decided a long time ago it wasn't for them. Three quotes from Astrid worth writing down: "As long as you see tinnitus as your enemy, it's going to bug you. As soon as you understand why it's there, it calms down — often all on its own." "Don't just rely on the single pill that will fix your life. Very often, the spark is in ourselves." "If you are doubting what your path is, either it's not the right one — or you still have too many limitations in your own mind telling you it can't work." Connect with Astrid Harms: Website: soulessense.co (or astridharms.com, which forwards there) YouTube: youtube.com/@soulessensecoaching Facebook community: Mind Explorations group Astrid works online only and sees clients internationally — discovery call required before booking. She also has courses coming — check her website for current availability. She presents at HypnoThoughts Live on Quantum or Quackery. Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]

Lori Donnelly: IEMT, the Golden Heart Exercise, and Why We Shouldn't Hold People at Their Worst

Lori Donnelly is a hypnotherapist, IEMT certified practitioner and trainer, co-founder of Hypno LA, and someone who nearly drowned at age 10 jumping into a rip current to save a smaller child — and woke up on the beach to a man with white zinc on his nose and a halo of light behind his head. She's never been afraid of dying since. In this conversation, Lori and Ryan discover immediately that they're kindred spirits: two people who've been to the edge and come back with a fundamental trust that the universe loves them. They spend the first half in a beautiful, wandering conversation about gratitude, abundance, and the study where people who identified as lucky consistently found the $100 bill on the floor while the unlucky ones walked right past it. Lori's take: it's not luck, it's what you're open to seeing. Then they get into the tools. IEMT — Integral Eye Movement Therapy — was developed by Andrew T. Austin as a response to a simple question: why does EMDR work brilliantly for some people and not others? The answer turned out to involve the direction of eye movement, and the distinction between bilateral patterns and diagonals. IEMT watches where someone's eyes go when they access a memory and uses precise eye movements to fractionate the memory — moving it from present and overwhelming to past and distant, where it belongs. Lori works with complex war trauma, phantom limb syndrome, PTSD, abuse survivors, and people who don't want to talk about what happened. She doesn't need them to. She just needs their eyes. She also talks about building Hypno LA — a conference born from watching the community at HMI College of Hypnotherapy simply disappear after COVID moved everything online, leaving practitioners alone in their offices with no fishing buddies. And she closes with the Golden Heart Exercise, which she leads live on air: a simple, energetic practice of holding someone you're struggling with in their truest spirit rather than their worst moment. People who've tried it for 30 days consistently report that the estranged person calls. Three quotes from Lori worth writing down: "Don't hold people at their worst selves. Their human is suffering, but their spirit is perfect and healed." "Thank you, thank you, thank you — in advance. I don't care what it is. That's how I pray." "There's plenty of fish. And the people who walk through life feeling blessed are the ones who find the $100 bill on the floor." Connect with Lori Donnelly: Hypnotherapy practice: wolfcreekwellness.us IEMT training and certification: iemttraining.us Lori is presenting at HypnoThoughts Live (July 14–15, full IEMT certification course) and co-running Hypno LA in September Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]

Michael Watson: Evolutionary Hypnosis, the Three Principles, and Why Your Suffering Is Bogus

Michael Watson has been in the hypnosis world longer than most organizations have existed. As principal trainer for IACT and one of the field's quiet elders, he brings something rare: genuine perspective, zero ego, and a willingness to say what he actually thinks. In this conversation, Michael and Ryan cover a lot of ground without rushing any of it. Michael unpacks his concept of Evolutionary Hypnosis — the idea that every client already carries the answer, and that our job is closer to Anne Sullivan reaching through the darkness for Helen Keller than it is to following a protocol. He talks about why Milton Erickson would have failed the IACT certification exam, why AI will eventually replace any hypnotist who thinks in protocols, and why the field's infighting comes down to the same thing every other fundamentalism comes down to: someone decided they had the right book. He introduces the Three Principles — mind, thought, and consciousness — through the lens of a subway station. Thoughts are the trains. You don't have to board every one. The ones marked "to hell and back" can be let go. He learned this the hard way when the company he was training NLP for in the UK started falling apart and Jamie Smart told him, calmly, that he was just experiencing the effects of his thinking. He wanted to punch him in the mouth. He was also completely right. They close on Mother Teresa declining an anti-war rally — but offering to attend a peace rally — and a client from 40 years ago in San Francisco who looked at Michael mid-session and said: we're just all poor sons of bitches trying to get through it. Michael still calls it the most Buddha thing anyone has ever said to him. Three quotes from Michael worth writing down: "If you just wait a minute when things are at rock bottom — it has to get better. And as it gets better, you have more resources to make worthwhile decisions instead of catastrophic ones." "Experience is something that we do. Not something we're subjected to. Stuff happens, and it becomes good or bad after we've made a decision about it." "Being miserable is optional. Your suffering is bogus. You can stop doing this right now." Connect with Michael Watson: IACT: facebook.com/IACTNews Michael teaches stress management certification, master trainer programs, and board-certified hypnotist courses through IACT — reach out through the association for upcoming dates Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]

Chris Jones: Hypnotizing Howie, Bombing w/ Bublé, & Why the Psych Ward Was a Plot Twist Worth Having

In this episode of AWAKEN, Ryan sits down with Christopher Jones — Chicago's own, the only hypnotist ever to appear on America's Got Talent, whose clip hypnotizing Howie Mandel has over 22 million views, star of the Double Take series on Facebook Watch where he conspired with John Cena, Pamela Anderson, NeNe Leakes, and Steve-O to give unsuspecting superfans the surprise of a lifetime through hypnosis, and proud new father of a five-month-old who makes several unscheduled appearances throughout the recording. Chris came up from the South Side of Chicago, studied Sociology and Psychology in college, calling himself a "social engineer with deviant motives," was voted most likely to become a priest in his all-boys Catholic high school, went to college and promptly revised that plan upon discovering the gender ratio, got a master's in Therapeutic Recreation, watched a hypnotist on campus one night, chased him through the parking lot, got a book recommendation he had to scrape $60 together to buy, and never looked back. His mentor Fred Winters opened the floodgates. Then he drove 600 miles in a brand-new Prius with 17 miles on it to watch Salish perform in Southern Illinois, introduced himself while the man was eating pizza, and eventually made him the honorary uncle of both his daughters.  The Howie Mandel story gets a full breakdown here, and it is more interesting than the clip suggests. The suggestion wasn't some general command to shake hands — Chris built it entirely around Howie's specific comfort condition. Howie shakes hands when everyone is wearing gloves. So Chris framed it that way, and when Heidi Klum started screeching in Howie's face, it didn't matter. Howie still thought everyone was wearing gloves. The frame held. Heidi's volume was irrelevant. Howard Stern apologized to Chris afterward. Chris's voice cracked audibly when it worked, and he still sounds slightly amazed recounting it. Then there was Michael Bublé, who did not cooperate. Then there was the green room immediately after, where Chris swore into a chain-link fence while a show psychologist stood nearby with a clipboard. Then there was the bar afterward, where he sat between a Britney Spears lookalike and an Oprah lookalike, pretty drunk, eliminated from a national talent competition, thinking: I don't understand my life. Then there was Lawrence Fishburne saying "nice job, young man" in the green room on a different TV appearance, and Chris being so embarrassed by a bad set that he said God bless you and walked directly out the door next to a Rolls Royce. The conversation goes everywhere it wants to go. They talk about why framing a suggestion around someone's specific psychology is the whole game, in stage work and in clinical work alike — Chris is currently helping a smoking cessation client and describes his intake process in detail: listen, listen more, ask what you're not telling me, wait, then politely destroy every excuse still standing. They talk about the ethics of combining mentalism and hypnosis and where the line is between theater and manipulation. They talk about diversity in the hypnosis world and a people of color panel at HypnoThoughts where everyone disagreed with each other immediately, which Chris points out is entirely human and probably inevitable. They talk about Larry Garrett, who hypnotized Saddam Hussein's son's limp away before September 11th happened and then had a very interesting conversation with the CIA afterward. They talk about why the best magicians in history have disproportionately been Jewish, which spirals into Exodus and Moses and snake-eating snakes. Chris also shares that his wife told him he couldn't marry her until he had a therapist. He got one. He now tells people he will encourage his daughters, if they ever marry a man, to make sure he has a therapist too. He said it without drama and clearly means it. And then he closes with the thing that actually lit him up: get a passport. He went to Honduras as a chubby sixth-grader with a 36-inch waist, walked everywhere, ate rice and orange juice and cheese, came home with an eight-pack, and realized for the first time that he had muscles. He has been going back to the world ever since. Three quotes from Chris worth writing down: "I framed it around his comfort level. If she's screaming in his face, it doesn't matter — because he still thinks everyone's wearing gloves." "I'm gonna teach you how to hypnotize yourself. I'm gonna teach you how to get out of your own way. Look at the finish line. The hurdle's gonna be there — you just step over it." "Wherever you go, people are people. If God's giving you suffering, say thank you for the suffering. I'm sure I'm gonna learn a lot more from it than from pleasure." Connect with Chris Jones: Website: chrisjoneshypnotist.com Facebook: facebook.com/chris.jones.114372 Chris performs his live show "Yes, And... Hypnosis" at the iO Theatre in Chicago, combining improv games with real audience hypnosis, and is a regular at Zanies Comedy Club. He's also available for corporate events, college campuses, and private events nationwide — booking form on his website For therapeutic work (smoking cessation and more): reach out through his website or social channels — he works on a donation basis  Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]

John Launius: Fragrance Hypnosis, the Way of Incense, and Taking You from Woo-Woo to Wow-Wow

In this episode of AWAKEN, Ryan sits down with John Launius — certified hypnotist, Komoto (Master of Ceremonies in the Japanese incense tradition), martial artist of 44 years, fragrance expert of equal tenure, and one of the most genuinely original practitioners in the hypnosis world — for a conversation that moves from Nobel Prize-winning olfactory research to $660 half-grams of wood that produce the mental clarity of a month-long meditation retreat in a single breath. John is presenting at HypnoThoughts Live this year on Scent in the Subconscious, and by the time this conversation is over, you will understand exactly why that room is going to be full. John's origin story starts at age nine, with a bloody nose earned defending his brother, a martial arts teacher burning what he now calls bad incense, and a mother who kicked his door open when she smelled smoke coming from his room. Four years of studying world religions and incense later, a chance encounter at a childhood friend's house — going downstairs for a glass of water in a 19th-century three-story home — put him in front of a Japanese incense master who asked him what he knew about the tradition, liked his answers, and offered to teach him. For the next ten years, John studied under her formally. About a year before her death, he earned the title of Komoto. He has been working at the intersection of fragrance, healing, and consciousness ever since. The science underneath the work is real and growing. Scent is the only one of our five senses that does not filter through the thalamus before reaching the limbic system — the seat of memory and emotion. That direct line is why a single inhale can unlock a feeling from thirty years ago before the thinking mind has time to intervene. Buck and Axel won the Nobel Prize in 2004 for identifying where human olfactory receptors actually are and how aroma signals travel into the brain, and the research has been accelerating ever since. John came across a poster in a jetway at a UC San Diego research station asking whether smell might be a cure for Alzheimer's. He wasn't surprised at all. His practice, which he calls fragrance hypnosis, starts with a Natural Preference Survey — a document that maps the client's scent library based on their background, culture, and lived experience — before a single fragrance is introduced. He uses the survey to identify which molecules are already encoded in the client's nervous system as comfort, safety, and resource, then builds the session around those, layering in additional fragrances based on the presenting challenge. For veterans and first responders dealing with PTSD and TBI, the work often involves the inverse: identifying the trigger fragrances (diesel, burning hair, medicinal smells) and carefully building new associations around the pre-trauma scent memories that can serve as anchors for re-regulation. He was sent a veteran who came in openly skeptical — told John directly that the whole thing was two letters — and who by session three was apologizing. The crown jewel of the personal incense journey is Agarwood, the rarest and most expensive incense wood in the world, running between $1,500 and $3,500 a gram. John recently paid $660 for half a gram from a trusted vendor, which he considers a deal. A thirty-minute session with Agarwood, he says, produces the mental clarity of a thirty-minute meditation in a single inhalation — not a high, not a sedative, but a genuine quieting of extraneous thought that takes most practitioners years of sitting practice to access. A transcendental meditator of twenty years who traveled seven hours to work with him described the experience in about forty-five seconds and couldn't find a longer sentence. John closes with the phrase he's been using for thirty-five years when someone calls what he does woo-woo: his job is to take you from the woo-woo to the wow-wow. And as a Komoto, he makes a promise he takes seriously — to lead without imposing his will. Hypnosis, he says, makes the weak stronger and the strong stronger. All he needs is a powerful yes or a powerful no. Everything else follows from there. Three quotes from John worth writing down: "Scent is the only sense that does not filter through the thalamus. It goes directly to the seat of memory and emotion. That's why fragrance can have a more immediate impact on the subconscious than almost anything else." "Your entire life, you have a whole library of fragrances related to your memories and emotions. Every single one of them is in there, waiting." "My job is to take you from the woo-woo to the wow-wow. Once I do that, you've integrated it." Connect with John Launius: John presents at HypnoThoughts Live 2026 on Scent in the Subconscious — additional links and resources will be in the Whova app before the conference Free 45-minute hypnosis consultation: reach out through his social channels or conference presence to schedule John works with individuals, veterans and first responders through the Special Operations Charity Network, and high-profile clients in business and entertainment privately — in person in St. Louis and remotely with clients who source their own fragrance supplies in advance website: www.Shihan-Wellness.com [http://www.shihan-wellness.com/] Connect with Ryan DeJonghe / TranceWell: Website: trancewell.help Email: ryan@trancewell.help [ryan@trancewell.help]