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Welcome to All Things Retreat Podcast.
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I'm Holly Porter, your host and CEO of Retreat R and R.
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With over 25 years of experience in designing transformative retreats.
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I'm here to share insights and inspiration to help you create extraordinary experiences.
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Whether you're a pro or just starting out, you'll find valuable ideas here.
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Enjoy the ride.
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Let's dive in.
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Hey, welcome back to All Things Retreat Podcast, where we talk about the people, ideas, tools, and trends shaping transformational retreats and experiences around the world.
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Today we're talking about something I believe is incredibly important.
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What happens after the retreat?
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It's one thing to create an amazing experience where someone feels inspired, clear, connected, and ready to change their life.
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But what happens when they go home?
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They get back into their normal routine, and all those old patterns start showing up again.
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My guest today, Ollie Christos, a speaker, author, meditation teacher, coach, and quantum hypnosis practitioner.
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He has more than 15 years in business, real estate and coaching, a difficult divorce, and years of meditation redirected Ollie's path toward understanding the subconscious mind.
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So today he facilitates deep quantum hypnosis sessions designed to help people access greater clarity, healing, and lasting change.
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He's also the founder of Conscious Practitioner Network, a community supporting practitioners who want to build transformational businesses without burning themselves out in the process.
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So I'm excited to explore the part of transformation that often doesn't get enough attention, making it and making the change last.
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So, Ali, welcome to the show.
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Thank you for having me, Ollie, and thank you to the listeners tuning in.
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You bet.
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Well, let's start with your story.
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I think that's a pretty good spot.
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You spent many years in business.
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We talked about real estate, coaching, what happened in your life that started moving you towards meditation and the subconscious mind and the work that you do today.
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Well, similar to yourself, I had a couple of NDE experiences, near-death experiences that led to my awakening to who I am becoming.
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And I say that because we're all in the state of becoming.
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The moment that I say I am this, things start to change, and then you know I might have another thought.
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Okay, maybe I want to, I don't know, be a woman.
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I'm being facetious, but I I'm giving an example.
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But what I'm saying is that change is the is the one thing that is inevitable.
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And so uh for me, it was a series of events.
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It was the NDEs, it was um meetings with certain uh spiritual people in my life, and my own yoga training that I went through that also brought me to India, to a retreat, incidentally, there that was incredible.
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And um then this divorce that you touched on.
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After 15 years of marriage, three beautiful children, uh, I found that I was spending a lot of time on the external material world, if you will, um, investing a lot in uh real estate, in businesses, in um things, cars, homes, art.
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Um, but I wasn't feeling fulfilled.
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And when these near-death experiences happen, as you know very well yourself, that you're left with uh questioning, questioning what is important.
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And for me, that was uh a very big experience because uh I came to an understanding after one of my ND experiences, which happened to be a car accident on Christmas Eve of 2011, left me bedbound for eight months.
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And as we discussed earlier, uh, you know, both not only do we have in common that we've had NDEs, but the real estate background, the hypnosis background, so much in common, the two of us.
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Yeah.
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Which is so, so interesting.
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And so you can relate to this, I'm sure a lot of the listeners can, that when you do have an experience like that, that really just feels like takes the rug from underneath you, and I I had what I would term the dark night of the soul, if you will, because I was crying, I was depressed, I was angry, I was angry at life, angry at God, angry at myself.
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That here I am, um, you know, a young man, just got married, have these two beautiful children, and I can't even hold them.
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I can't provide for my family, I can't work, I'm bedridden, I've been an athlete my whole life, and so I was very angry.
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And um the next morning I get a call from Ireland, and I was just like, Who do I know in Ireland?
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Right, and it's this lady, and I'm like, and I I recognize the voice.
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It was this lady by the name of Lorna Byrne.
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I don't know if you ever heard of her, but we were speaking of uh dyslexia.
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She's highly dyslexic, she's been so ever since she was a child.
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Um, and what's interesting is that she has been seeing the spiritual realm, the non-physical realm, as you and I are able to see each other.
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And she was told one day there's gonna book, be a book written about her, it's gonna help a lot of people, and she would laugh because she's like, My own mother thinks I'm retarded, wants to put me in an institution.
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I don't know how that's gonna happen.
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And they said it's gonna come to pass.
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And sure enough, one day someone came to her when she was an adult and she dictated her life story.
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They recorded it, got it published.
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It became a bestseller, translated into multiple languages.
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It's called Angels in My Hair by Lorna Byrne.
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Um, and now, many books later, she has a children's foundation based out of Ireland, and one of my clients right now is at her retreat.
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Um, so this woman is, you know, some people call her a living saint, uh, an angel in human form.
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Uh, they have many names for her, but um she happens to be a grandmother, and she happens to be one of my spiritual guides, if you will, and people someone who really helped me to awaken out of the darkness of the material world that I was immersed in.
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And without getting too much off topic, because we know what we're here to do, um uh I would say that one of the things I wanted to talk about is is that one retreat that we all need, which is retreating back to ourselves, right?
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Socrates says this, a lot of Eastern traditions talk about knowing thyself.
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And if many of the people that listen to this are retreat leaders, and as leaders, we're the ones who are leading the uh the transformation for the people that come to our retreats.
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It's very important that we are able to find that within ourselves where we come from a place of understanding who are we, why am I doing this, and why does it matter to the people that come to my retreat?
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And for me, uh I began questioning my life, my own identity that, you know, is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?
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And when I got divorced, I decided to scrap my social media with which had thousands and thousands of followers, but it was very ego-based.
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And I just said, you know what?
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I don't want this to define me anymore.
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I don't know what's going to define me, but definitely not that, because I was disgusted with who I had become.
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Yes, I had all the trappings and I had a lot of wealthy friends, um, but I didn't feel satisfied.
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And I felt really deeply troubled because, you know, I had created this incredible life and this uh life that from the outside looks so perfect to so many, uh, but yet it resulted in not only the divorce, but in these NDEs.
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And I was really questioning everything and wondering what is my purpose going forward.
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And ultimately it brought me to this path of quantum hypnosis uh in the last few years where I've been helping people answer their deepest uh questions.
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And what's beautiful about this as it relates to retreats is that we're able to do past life regressions in a group environment as well.
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Um, I'm able to take people on past life experiences as a group, and in fact, as a group, we can even go into one client's past life experience with permission, of course, altogether.
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So this is completely, I'm getting goosebumps, but uh a realm that we didn't think was even possible just 10, 15 years ago.
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But now with uh the development of quantum hypnosis and spiritual hypnosis, we've progressed beyond just clinical hypnosis where we were helping people with weight loss, with addictions, with phobias, with PTSD.
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We're now able to look at the person in a more holistic way.
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And, you know, talking about retreats, I have many friends that go to retreats and are also uh lead retreats when it comes to like plant medicine, uh DMT, different things.
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I'm about to go to Peru myself.
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Um, but what's very, very interesting about quantum hypnosis is that you don't need to go somewhere.
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You're actually it's your consciousness that gets to travel.
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It's almost like remote viewing or astral projection.
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That's number one.
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Number two, it's super safe.
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Um, you're it's it's a process that's been proven over thousands of clients of my teacher, who's Dolores Cannon, um, the late Dolores Cannon, and then also from the tens of thousands of practitioners around the world that are doing this on a regular basis.
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We know that it's very safe, it's tried, it's tested.
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And you know, not to knock plant medicine or any other processes of reaching transformation and and uh growth.
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Uh, but what I really, really love about quantum hypnosis is that it is safe and it is uh tried and tested, and it's uh it's a very controlled environment.
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You don't have to worry about uh, for example, another entity entering the person or or um you losing control, the person not coming back.
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Uh the per the client is very much in aware of what's going on.
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It's it's a very natural state.
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We bring them into a theta state of brainwave, which is the same state we're in prior to sleep.
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Right.
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And we were talking about how you're uh right brainer, a creative person, just like I am.
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And so for most of us, right hemisphere people, um, we can visualize very quickly.
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We can uh we have those creative juices flowing uh quite readily.
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However, when it comes to left brain folks, they're a little bit more, um, they tend to be a little bit more grounded, more uh want to be in control of things.
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So we find that they can be a little bit more, it can be a little bit more challenging for them to get visual, but once they start to relax and get into the process, it starts to flow beautifully.
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And so in a nutshell, I I explained what I do without you asking, so I apologize for for taking the sound waves, but I know we have you have questions, but that essentially is what brought me to the work that I'm doing.
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Yeah, no, I love that.
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And I love how it's so relatable to retreats and so many people listening, I'm sure.
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So I appreciate that.
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I know that we hear about people having they're describing having these incredible mountaintop moments, okay, in retreats.
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And why do you think that someone can experience this huge breakthrough at a retreat and feel completely changed?
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And then they come home and they find themselves falling back into all the same patterns that they had before.
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Like what would what would be your reasoning for that?
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My perspective is that we're living at a time, I call it uh like we're we're a microwave society or a TikTok society.
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We were talking about this just prior to the podcast, that our attention span is has been shrunken by so much.
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And you know, you're probably uh the same as young as I am.
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Um, we remember a time pagers and and dial up, you know, like the phone, like it would you would turn the and it would go tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and then even my television would like it would it would click.
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It would literally you would hear like a click, like something in the mechanism, you would hear it moving inside the television.
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And it was so heavy it took like four people to just move my TV.
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So I remember those times, right?
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And now to contrast, where we've come in such a short period of time where information is readily available, the value of information has dropped to zero because even a five-year-old can use chat GPT and get answers.
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Yeah.
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I remember that back in the days we'd be buying encyclopedias, people would be coming door-to-door.
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And I'm like, I have Encyclopedia Britannica, the latest edition.
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And I was like, you know, now compare that to like the latest ChatGPT or Claude.
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It's incomparable the the amount of information that we have access to.
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So to answer your question, I feel like a lot of people today expect, you know, uh a magic pill and everything will be okay.
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And so many people uh come naively to retreats wanting a transformation and expecting that that transformation is gonna lead to happy ever after.
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You know, it's that I hate to say this, but it's that Disney princess mentality that's been fed to us um about how you know someone's gonna save you, and that once you're saved, everything is gonna be, you know, hunky-dory forevermore.
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And I I hate to say the life is not that way on earth, unfortunately.
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You know, it's and if you talk to anyone who's been through transformative experiences, and a lot of the people that are listening are leaders of this, so they know, and you know that um you'll find that clients will go home and and if anything, they'll be complaining about I thought my life would change, I thought this would happen.
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But guess what?
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Uh, when they go back to their regular Monday or Tuesday, uh, they're back in the same environment, the same relationships, the same uh atmosphere, and they have the same mindset.
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And not much has changed except you've given them this high of an experience that they thought would change their life forever.
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And maybe in some ways it will, but the integration hasn't taken place.
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And that's the key here.
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And that's what I've learned from my work.
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If you take what I do in a session, it's it's four to eight hours in one day.
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I take that as a mini retreat.
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In fact, it's it's a private one-on-one retreat because the client is spending those four to eight hours with me.
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In the first couple of hours, we're talking, getting to know their life, and then we take them through an experience of hypnosis, which is uh, you know, in in lack of other words, outer worldly, right?
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So they're experiencing things that perhaps they've only experienced in a dream realm.
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And so for those people that come to us, be it in a retreat or come to me in quantum hypnosis, that are, let's say, depressed or have, you know, in a home environment that is or a work environment that is quite negative and has a hold of them.
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When they have this incredible high with us, they go back to their life, their nervous system is like a pendulum swing, right?
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It goes from here and it wants to swing all the way back.
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And now they're just like feeling worse than they did perhaps before they came to the retreat because now they don't know what to do with the transformation that they thought they received.
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And so this is where integration really matters.
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And as retreat leaders, uh, and today more than ever, we care about reviews, we care about testimonials, we care about word of mouth, and the same goes with my business.
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So it's very, very important, I feel, that we have concern for the clients after the retreat.
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Because after the retreat is when they're sitting with that and being like, wow, you know, did that actually happen?
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And did anything really change?
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Did this retreat actually help me?
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Was it worth the five, 10, 15, 20, 30 grand that I spent and the time that I spent?
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Or was it just, you know, like uh an excitement that I everyone was in?
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And some retreats are like that, for good or for bad.
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I'm not here to judge.
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Some retreats are like that.
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That when you're in a group environment, you feel this incredible like momentum and you feel this high, and everyone's walking on on coal, everyone's swallowing fire, everyone's like, you know, doing these crazy things, and I'm calling them crazy because but I I'm I'm saying that tongue in cheek because my work is considered crazy by many, and I understand that I consider it crazy too.
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So it's all a matter of perspective, but the point being that the retreat isn't the transformation.
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The retreat isn't the transformation.
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So I don't mean that the retreat isn't transformative, there's a big difference.
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Right.
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It it absolutely can be.
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What I mean is that the retreat is often just the opening.
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So integration is what determines how much of that opening uh becomes a life.
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So you can have a profound experience on a mountain, let's say in Costa Rica, uh, feel like you understand your entire life from a perspective you never understood before, and then three days later you're back in traffic, your kids are fighting, your boss sends an email, your partner triggers you, and the old nervous system and old habits know exactly what to do.
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So they do, you know, so so this is it, right?
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So uh we think we tend to think that okay, we provided that experience, and they, you know, we got great photos, great social media out of it, maybe even a great testimonial, and the job is done.
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Right.
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And in some ways it can be, but you know, I I would suggest you think bigger than that because uh the person will still be going back to their same environment, right?
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And although that experience that they had in your retreat becomes like an onion, it starts to peel away and they start to see things maybe the in their dreams, maybe in their meditations, maybe they start to become more mindful, maybe they reflect on what they experience in the retreat, but they're still back to their day-to-day, right?
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So unless, unless they they understand that the transformation is not just about the retreat, but it's gonna take place afterwards in the choices that they make day to day, then the they put the onus on you and that experience that they have in those days that they're at the retreat.
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And I don't think that's fair to you as a retreat leader, and I don't think it's fair to them to for them to put that on the experience itself, because really it's about personal responsibility.
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They have to understand, they need to understand that it's about the integration, the daily choices that they make on any given Tuesday, for example, right?
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When their boss asks them to stay over time for another hour, but they know they want to get home and be with their children or their partner, and they say yes, anyways, they don't set the boundary, or or you know, or they're back into that relationship that they know that they should not be in, you know, but they're like, you know, maybe this is what I deserve, you know.
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So um the integration becomes very, very important.
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And this is why I urge people that have retreats and people that do healing that they should set up some sort of um way for people to integrate afterwards.
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And for me, if I can give an example, uh what I do is I create an 11-page PDF.
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I call it a session reflection PDF that includes three to four key lessons that came up in their session and how to integrate that.
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Then the other thing that I do is I connect them to a Facebook group of people.
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This could be your Facebook group of past people that have attended your retreat that have had a good experience.
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Create community.
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So, you know, sometimes these people they'll have a high, but then what do you do with it, right?
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Yes, you're gonna stay in touch with the people that were there for so long, and maybe they're on a WhatsApp group or a Facebook group or a telegram group, but that can feel limited, right?
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And you also want that excitement to stay and grow, and you want to build community around that beyond just the retreat.
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Yeah.
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So there's another idea, and then um looking to perhaps bringing those people back to the retreat and and having them as leaders or having them as speakers uh to be like, yeah, I took this retreat 10 years ago, and here's what happened afterwards, and here's how my life transformed over time, because that's the reality of where we're living, is we're moving through time.
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And we, you know, we may think, we may want one experience to be so magical that it it permanently transforms our life, and everything is perfect, our finances, our relationships, our our home life, everything is perfect, but that's not the case.
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It's rarely ever the case.
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So if when we realize that, it's better for us to plan accordingly and to create systems so that people can feel uh carried even beyond the retreat.
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Yeah, I agree.
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Okay, you ready for some rapid fire?
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Yes, ma'am.
00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:10.720
All right, these are just quick one answer, one sentence or less.
00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:13.279
Uh meditation or journaling?
00:20:13.519 --> 00:20:14.000
Meditation.
00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:16.240
Morning practice or evening practice?
00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:17.279
Morning practice.
00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:18.640
Silence or music?
00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:20.079
I love both.
00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:20.720
Silence.
00:20:20.799 --> 00:20:21.440
You can say both.
00:20:21.599 --> 00:20:22.240
I I allow it.
00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:27.519
Silence while listening to music and silence and listening to the music of the universe.
00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:29.920
Yeah, I feel like they can go together.
00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:32.000
They don't have to be mutually exclusive.
00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:35.039
What's one word that you would associate with transformation?
00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:35.920
Compassion.
00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:42.000
What's one belief that you can think of that you had 10 years ago that you no longer believe?
00:20:42.319 --> 00:20:43.920
That I'm unworthy, I'm unlovable.
00:20:44.319 --> 00:20:45.359
That's a good one to learn.
00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:46.240
I love that.
00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:52.480
Well, I've got all your information for the show notes that people can get a hold of you, and we'll list your website in there.
00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:55.039
Um, any last words for our listeners?
00:20:55.440 --> 00:20:55.839
Yes.
00:20:56.079 --> 00:21:00.480
Um, I would say design your retreats beyond the experience.
00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:12.000
Ask yourself not only how do I want people to feel while they're here, but who do I want them to be able to become when they're back inside the exact life that they left to come to your retreat?
00:21:12.240 --> 00:21:16.720
So uh give them something beautiful to experience, absolutely, right?
00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:27.519
But also give them a bridge home because the retreat can create the opening, as I said earlier, but the transformation is what they do differently on an ordinary Tuesday because of it.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:31.680
I love that great wise words from Ali here.
00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:34.960
Okay, well, thank you again for being a guest here on the show.
00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:37.759
And I hope y'all got some words of wisdom.
00:21:37.839 --> 00:21:38.720
I'm sure you did.
00:21:38.799 --> 00:21:48.640
I did, and and uh go check Ali out on his website and see what else you can learn from him by because he's he's got more, I'm sure.
00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:51.680
Yes, and until next time, bye for now.
00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:52.640
Thank you very much.
00:21:53.599 --> 00:21:56.799
Thanks for joining us on this episode of All Things Retreat.
00:21:56.960 --> 00:22:03.440
We hope you're leaving with new ideas, fresh inspiration, and the motivation to take your retreats to the next level.
00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:06.400
Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review.
00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:09.359
It helps us grow and reach more retreat leaders like you.
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:16.960
And if you have any questions, topics you'd like us to cover, or just want to say hello, send us an email at infobreretreatrnr.com.
00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:21.359
Follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all the latest updates.
00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:23.039
Until next time.
00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:27.200
Remember, great retreats are great retention.
00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:31.119
Let's make them extraordinary, one step at a time.
00:22:35.359 --> 00:22:36.400
45 minutes.
00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:37.839
Let's make sure you really ready.
00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:02.879
Welcome to All Things Retreat Podcast.
00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:07.440
I'm Holly Porter, your host and CEO of Retreat R and R.
00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:12.080
With over 25 years of experience in designing transformative retreats.
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I'm here to share insights and inspiration to help you create extraordinary experiences.
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Whether you're a pro or just starting out, you'll find valuable ideas here.
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Enjoy the ride.
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Let's dive in.
00:00:26.079 --> 00:00:37.520
Hey, welcome back to All Things Retreat Podcast, where we talk about the people, ideas, tools, and trends shaping transformational retreats and experiences around the world.
00:00:37.679 --> 00:00:41.520
Today we're talking about something I believe is incredibly important.
00:00:41.759 --> 00:00:43.679
What happens after the retreat?
00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:51.439
It's one thing to create an amazing experience where someone feels inspired, clear, connected, and ready to change their life.
00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:53.200
But what happens when they go home?
00:00:53.359 --> 00:00:59.039
They get back into their normal routine, and all those old patterns start showing up again.
00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:07.840
My guest today, Ollie Christos, a speaker, author, meditation teacher, coach, and quantum hypnosis practitioner.
00:01:08.079 --> 00:01:20.159
He has more than 15 years in business, real estate and coaching, a difficult divorce, and years of meditation redirected Ollie's path toward understanding the subconscious mind.
00:01:20.319 --> 00:01:29.120
So today he facilitates deep quantum hypnosis sessions designed to help people access greater clarity, healing, and lasting change.
00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:40.400
He's also the founder of Conscious Practitioner Network, a community supporting practitioners who want to build transformational businesses without burning themselves out in the process.
00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:49.280
So I'm excited to explore the part of transformation that often doesn't get enough attention, making it and making the change last.
00:01:49.599 --> 00:01:51.439
So, Ali, welcome to the show.
00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:54.560
Thank you for having me, Ollie, and thank you to the listeners tuning in.
00:01:54.799 --> 00:01:55.439
You bet.
00:01:55.599 --> 00:01:57.040
Well, let's start with your story.
00:01:57.120 --> 00:01:58.560
I think that's a pretty good spot.
00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:00.480
You spent many years in business.
00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:10.240
We talked about real estate, coaching, what happened in your life that started moving you towards meditation and the subconscious mind and the work that you do today.
00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:22.240
Well, similar to yourself, I had a couple of NDE experiences, near-death experiences that led to my awakening to who I am becoming.
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And I say that because we're all in the state of becoming.
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The moment that I say I am this, things start to change, and then you know I might have another thought.
00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.439
Okay, maybe I want to, I don't know, be a woman.
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I'm being facetious, but I I'm giving an example.
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But what I'm saying is that change is the is the one thing that is inevitable.
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And so uh for me, it was a series of events.
00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:59.280
It was the NDEs, it was um meetings with certain uh spiritual people in my life, and my own yoga training that I went through that also brought me to India, to a retreat, incidentally, there that was incredible.
00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:04.479
And um then this divorce that you touched on.
00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:23.439
After 15 years of marriage, three beautiful children, uh, I found that I was spending a lot of time on the external material world, if you will, um, investing a lot in uh real estate, in businesses, in um things, cars, homes, art.
00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:26.479
Um, but I wasn't feeling fulfilled.
00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:36.159
And when these near-death experiences happen, as you know very well yourself, that you're left with uh questioning, questioning what is important.
00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:50.560
And for me, that was uh a very big experience because uh I came to an understanding after one of my ND experiences, which happened to be a car accident on Christmas Eve of 2011, left me bedbound for eight months.
00:03:50.719 --> 00:04:00.879
And as we discussed earlier, uh, you know, both not only do we have in common that we've had NDEs, but the real estate background, the hypnosis background, so much in common, the two of us.
00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:01.280
Yeah.
00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:03.599
Which is so, so interesting.
00:04:03.919 --> 00:04:25.519
And so you can relate to this, I'm sure a lot of the listeners can, that when you do have an experience like that, that really just feels like takes the rug from underneath you, and I I had what I would term the dark night of the soul, if you will, because I was crying, I was depressed, I was angry, I was angry at life, angry at God, angry at myself.
00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:32.560
That here I am, um, you know, a young man, just got married, have these two beautiful children, and I can't even hold them.
00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:38.879
I can't provide for my family, I can't work, I'm bedridden, I've been an athlete my whole life, and so I was very angry.
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And um the next morning I get a call from Ireland, and I was just like, Who do I know in Ireland?
00:04:47.279 --> 00:04:50.160
Right, and it's this lady, and I'm like, and I I recognize the voice.
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It was this lady by the name of Lorna Byrne.
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I don't know if you ever heard of her, but we were speaking of uh dyslexia.
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She's highly dyslexic, she's been so ever since she was a child.
00:05:00.319 --> 00:05:08.959
Um, and what's interesting is that she has been seeing the spiritual realm, the non-physical realm, as you and I are able to see each other.
00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:18.480
And she was told one day there's gonna book, be a book written about her, it's gonna help a lot of people, and she would laugh because she's like, My own mother thinks I'm retarded, wants to put me in an institution.
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I don't know how that's gonna happen.
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And they said it's gonna come to pass.
00:05:21.759 --> 00:05:27.279
And sure enough, one day someone came to her when she was an adult and she dictated her life story.
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They recorded it, got it published.
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It became a bestseller, translated into multiple languages.
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It's called Angels in My Hair by Lorna Byrne.
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Um, and now, many books later, she has a children's foundation based out of Ireland, and one of my clients right now is at her retreat.
00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:49.680
Um, so this woman is, you know, some people call her a living saint, uh, an angel in human form.
00:05:49.839 --> 00:06:02.240
Uh, they have many names for her, but um she happens to be a grandmother, and she happens to be one of my spiritual guides, if you will, and people someone who really helped me to awaken out of the darkness of the material world that I was immersed in.
00:06:02.399 --> 00:06:14.959
And without getting too much off topic, because we know what we're here to do, um uh I would say that one of the things I wanted to talk about is is that one retreat that we all need, which is retreating back to ourselves, right?
00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:19.199
Socrates says this, a lot of Eastern traditions talk about knowing thyself.
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And if many of the people that listen to this are retreat leaders, and as leaders, we're the ones who are leading the uh the transformation for the people that come to our retreats.
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It's very important that we are able to find that within ourselves where we come from a place of understanding who are we, why am I doing this, and why does it matter to the people that come to my retreat?
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And for me, uh I began questioning my life, my own identity that, you know, is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?
00:06:54.399 --> 00:07:03.199
And when I got divorced, I decided to scrap my social media with which had thousands and thousands of followers, but it was very ego-based.
00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:04.480
And I just said, you know what?
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I don't want this to define me anymore.
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I don't know what's going to define me, but definitely not that, because I was disgusted with who I had become.
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Yes, I had all the trappings and I had a lot of wealthy friends, um, but I didn't feel satisfied.
00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:33.360
And I felt really deeply troubled because, you know, I had created this incredible life and this uh life that from the outside looks so perfect to so many, uh, but yet it resulted in not only the divorce, but in these NDEs.
00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:38.800
And I was really questioning everything and wondering what is my purpose going forward.
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And ultimately it brought me to this path of quantum hypnosis uh in the last few years where I've been helping people answer their deepest uh questions.
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And what's beautiful about this as it relates to retreats is that we're able to do past life regressions in a group environment as well.
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Um, I'm able to take people on past life experiences as a group, and in fact, as a group, we can even go into one client's past life experience with permission, of course, altogether.
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So this is completely, I'm getting goosebumps, but uh a realm that we didn't think was even possible just 10, 15 years ago.
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But now with uh the development of quantum hypnosis and spiritual hypnosis, we've progressed beyond just clinical hypnosis where we were helping people with weight loss, with addictions, with phobias, with PTSD.
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We're now able to look at the person in a more holistic way.
00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:46.159
And, you know, talking about retreats, I have many friends that go to retreats and are also uh lead retreats when it comes to like plant medicine, uh DMT, different things.
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I'm about to go to Peru myself.
00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:54.559
Um, but what's very, very interesting about quantum hypnosis is that you don't need to go somewhere.
00:08:55.200 --> 00:08:57.840
You're actually it's your consciousness that gets to travel.
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It's almost like remote viewing or astral projection.
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That's number one.
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Number two, it's super safe.
00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:17.840
Um, you're it's it's a process that's been proven over thousands of clients of my teacher, who's Dolores Cannon, um, the late Dolores Cannon, and then also from the tens of thousands of practitioners around the world that are doing this on a regular basis.
00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:20.960
We know that it's very safe, it's tried, it's tested.
00:09:21.120 --> 00:09:29.279
And you know, not to knock plant medicine or any other processes of reaching transformation and and uh growth.
00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:38.000
Uh, but what I really, really love about quantum hypnosis is that it is safe and it is uh tried and tested, and it's uh it's a very controlled environment.
00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:46.480
You don't have to worry about uh, for example, another entity entering the person or or um you losing control, the person not coming back.
00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:51.039
Uh the per the client is very much in aware of what's going on.
00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:52.559
It's it's a very natural state.
00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:57.360
We bring them into a theta state of brainwave, which is the same state we're in prior to sleep.
00:09:57.600 --> 00:09:57.679
Right.
00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:02.159
And we were talking about how you're uh right brainer, a creative person, just like I am.
00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:07.600
And so for most of us, right hemisphere people, um, we can visualize very quickly.
00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:12.320
We can uh we have those creative juices flowing uh quite readily.
00:10:12.480 --> 00:10:20.879
However, when it comes to left brain folks, they're a little bit more, um, they tend to be a little bit more grounded, more uh want to be in control of things.
00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:30.399
So we find that they can be a little bit more, it can be a little bit more challenging for them to get visual, but once they start to relax and get into the process, it starts to flow beautifully.
00:10:30.639 --> 00:10:40.879
And so in a nutshell, I I explained what I do without you asking, so I apologize for for taking the sound waves, but I know we have you have questions, but that essentially is what brought me to the work that I'm doing.
00:10:41.120 --> 00:10:42.480
Yeah, no, I love that.
00:10:42.559 --> 00:10:46.720
And I love how it's so relatable to retreats and so many people listening, I'm sure.
00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:48.080
So I appreciate that.
00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:57.039
I know that we hear about people having they're describing having these incredible mountaintop moments, okay, in retreats.
00:10:57.120 --> 00:11:05.120
And why do you think that someone can experience this huge breakthrough at a retreat and feel completely changed?
00:11:05.279 --> 00:11:10.639
And then they come home and they find themselves falling back into all the same patterns that they had before.
00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:13.519
Like what would what would be your reasoning for that?
00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:21.200
My perspective is that we're living at a time, I call it uh like we're we're a microwave society or a TikTok society.
00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:28.320
We were talking about this just prior to the podcast, that our attention span is has been shrunken by so much.
00:11:28.559 --> 00:11:33.200
And you know, you're probably uh the same as young as I am.
00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:44.000
Um, we remember a time pagers and and dial up, you know, like the phone, like it would you would turn the and it would go tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and then even my television would like it would it would click.
00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:49.279
It would literally you would hear like a click, like something in the mechanism, you would hear it moving inside the television.
00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:52.639
And it was so heavy it took like four people to just move my TV.
00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:54.399
So I remember those times, right?
00:11:54.559 --> 00:12:06.320
And now to contrast, where we've come in such a short period of time where information is readily available, the value of information has dropped to zero because even a five-year-old can use chat GPT and get answers.
00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:06.639
Yeah.
00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:11.840
I remember that back in the days we'd be buying encyclopedias, people would be coming door-to-door.
00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:15.919
And I'm like, I have Encyclopedia Britannica, the latest edition.
00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:20.559
And I was like, you know, now compare that to like the latest ChatGPT or Claude.
00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:25.440
It's incomparable the the amount of information that we have access to.
00:12:25.519 --> 00:12:33.519
So to answer your question, I feel like a lot of people today expect, you know, uh a magic pill and everything will be okay.
00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:46.159
And so many people uh come naively to retreats wanting a transformation and expecting that that transformation is gonna lead to happy ever after.
00:12:46.320 --> 00:13:00.000
You know, it's that I hate to say this, but it's that Disney princess mentality that's been fed to us um about how you know someone's gonna save you, and that once you're saved, everything is gonna be, you know, hunky-dory forevermore.
00:13:00.559 --> 00:13:07.200
And I I hate to say the life is not that way on earth, unfortunately.
00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:23.679
You know, it's and if you talk to anyone who's been through transformative experiences, and a lot of the people that are listening are leaders of this, so they know, and you know that um you'll find that clients will go home and and if anything, they'll be complaining about I thought my life would change, I thought this would happen.
00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:24.720
But guess what?
00:13:24.879 --> 00:13:34.000
Uh, when they go back to their regular Monday or Tuesday, uh, they're back in the same environment, the same relationships, the same uh atmosphere, and they have the same mindset.
00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:40.399
And not much has changed except you've given them this high of an experience that they thought would change their life forever.
00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:44.080
And maybe in some ways it will, but the integration hasn't taken place.
00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:45.440
And that's the key here.
00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:47.840
And that's what I've learned from my work.
00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:51.919
If you take what I do in a session, it's it's four to eight hours in one day.
00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:53.519
I take that as a mini retreat.
00:13:53.679 --> 00:13:59.120
In fact, it's it's a private one-on-one retreat because the client is spending those four to eight hours with me.
00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:10.399
In the first couple of hours, we're talking, getting to know their life, and then we take them through an experience of hypnosis, which is uh, you know, in in lack of other words, outer worldly, right?
00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:14.080
So they're experiencing things that perhaps they've only experienced in a dream realm.
00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:27.919
And so for those people that come to us, be it in a retreat or come to me in quantum hypnosis, that are, let's say, depressed or have, you know, in a home environment that is or a work environment that is quite negative and has a hold of them.
00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:34.559
When they have this incredible high with us, they go back to their life, their nervous system is like a pendulum swing, right?
00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:37.519
It goes from here and it wants to swing all the way back.
00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:46.399
And now they're just like feeling worse than they did perhaps before they came to the retreat because now they don't know what to do with the transformation that they thought they received.
00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:49.120
And so this is where integration really matters.
00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:59.200
And as retreat leaders, uh, and today more than ever, we care about reviews, we care about testimonials, we care about word of mouth, and the same goes with my business.
00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:06.399
So it's very, very important, I feel, that we have concern for the clients after the retreat.
00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:12.320
Because after the retreat is when they're sitting with that and being like, wow, you know, did that actually happen?
00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:14.159
And did anything really change?
00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:15.919
Did this retreat actually help me?
00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:21.600
Was it worth the five, 10, 15, 20, 30 grand that I spent and the time that I spent?
00:15:21.759 --> 00:15:26.159
Or was it just, you know, like uh an excitement that I everyone was in?
00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:28.879
And some retreats are like that, for good or for bad.
00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:29.919
I'm not here to judge.
00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:31.279
Some retreats are like that.
00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:51.200
That when you're in a group environment, you feel this incredible like momentum and you feel this high, and everyone's walking on on coal, everyone's swallowing fire, everyone's like, you know, doing these crazy things, and I'm calling them crazy because but I I'm I'm saying that tongue in cheek because my work is considered crazy by many, and I understand that I consider it crazy too.
00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:57.440
So it's all a matter of perspective, but the point being that the retreat isn't the transformation.
00:15:57.679 --> 00:15:59.679
The retreat isn't the transformation.
00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:04.080
So I don't mean that the retreat isn't transformative, there's a big difference.
00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:04.480
Right.
00:16:04.879 --> 00:16:06.480
It it absolutely can be.
00:16:06.639 --> 00:16:10.480
What I mean is that the retreat is often just the opening.
00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:15.519
So integration is what determines how much of that opening uh becomes a life.
00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:37.759
So you can have a profound experience on a mountain, let's say in Costa Rica, uh, feel like you understand your entire life from a perspective you never understood before, and then three days later you're back in traffic, your kids are fighting, your boss sends an email, your partner triggers you, and the old nervous system and old habits know exactly what to do.
00:16:37.919 --> 00:16:41.360
So they do, you know, so so this is it, right?
00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:53.759
So uh we think we tend to think that okay, we provided that experience, and they, you know, we got great photos, great social media out of it, maybe even a great testimonial, and the job is done.
00:16:54.080 --> 00:16:54.399
Right.
00:16:54.639 --> 00:17:04.079
And in some ways it can be, but you know, I I would suggest you think bigger than that because uh the person will still be going back to their same environment, right?
00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:21.440
And although that experience that they had in your retreat becomes like an onion, it starts to peel away and they start to see things maybe the in their dreams, maybe in their meditations, maybe they start to become more mindful, maybe they reflect on what they experience in the retreat, but they're still back to their day-to-day, right?
00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:38.240
So unless, unless they they understand that the transformation is not just about the retreat, but it's gonna take place afterwards in the choices that they make day to day, then the they put the onus on you and that experience that they have in those days that they're at the retreat.
00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:48.960
And I don't think that's fair to you as a retreat leader, and I don't think it's fair to them to for them to put that on the experience itself, because really it's about personal responsibility.
00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:57.200
They have to understand, they need to understand that it's about the integration, the daily choices that they make on any given Tuesday, for example, right?
00:17:57.519 --> 00:18:16.079
When their boss asks them to stay over time for another hour, but they know they want to get home and be with their children or their partner, and they say yes, anyways, they don't set the boundary, or or you know, or they're back into that relationship that they know that they should not be in, you know, but they're like, you know, maybe this is what I deserve, you know.
00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:19.680
So um the integration becomes very, very important.
00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:30.319
And this is why I urge people that have retreats and people that do healing that they should set up some sort of um way for people to integrate afterwards.
00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:36.319
And for me, if I can give an example, uh what I do is I create an 11-page PDF.
00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:45.119
I call it a session reflection PDF that includes three to four key lessons that came up in their session and how to integrate that.
00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:48.720
Then the other thing that I do is I connect them to a Facebook group of people.
00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:53.279
This could be your Facebook group of past people that have attended your retreat that have had a good experience.
00:18:53.519 --> 00:18:54.400
Create community.
00:18:54.559 --> 00:18:58.799
So, you know, sometimes these people they'll have a high, but then what do you do with it, right?
00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:07.279
Yes, you're gonna stay in touch with the people that were there for so long, and maybe they're on a WhatsApp group or a Facebook group or a telegram group, but that can feel limited, right?
00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:13.680
And you also want that excitement to stay and grow, and you want to build community around that beyond just the retreat.
00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:14.079
Yeah.
00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:38.319
So there's another idea, and then um looking to perhaps bringing those people back to the retreat and and having them as leaders or having them as speakers uh to be like, yeah, I took this retreat 10 years ago, and here's what happened afterwards, and here's how my life transformed over time, because that's the reality of where we're living, is we're moving through time.
00:19:38.559 --> 00:19:52.160
And we, you know, we may think, we may want one experience to be so magical that it it permanently transforms our life, and everything is perfect, our finances, our relationships, our our home life, everything is perfect, but that's not the case.
00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:54.079
It's rarely ever the case.
00:19:54.240 --> 00:20:02.799
So if when we realize that, it's better for us to plan accordingly and to create systems so that people can feel uh carried even beyond the retreat.
00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:03.759
Yeah, I agree.
00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:05.599
Okay, you ready for some rapid fire?
00:20:05.839 --> 00:20:06.480
Yes, ma'am.
00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:10.720
All right, these are just quick one answer, one sentence or less.
00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:13.279
Uh meditation or journaling?
00:20:13.519 --> 00:20:14.000
Meditation.
00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:16.240
Morning practice or evening practice?
00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:17.279
Morning practice.
00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:18.640
Silence or music?
00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:20.079
I love both.
00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:20.720
Silence.
00:20:20.799 --> 00:20:21.440
You can say both.
00:20:21.599 --> 00:20:22.240
I I allow it.
00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:27.519
Silence while listening to music and silence and listening to the music of the universe.
00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:29.920
Yeah, I feel like they can go together.
00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:32.000
They don't have to be mutually exclusive.
00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:35.039
What's one word that you would associate with transformation?
00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:35.920
Compassion.
00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:42.000
What's one belief that you can think of that you had 10 years ago that you no longer believe?
00:20:42.319 --> 00:20:43.920
That I'm unworthy, I'm unlovable.
00:20:44.319 --> 00:20:45.359
That's a good one to learn.
00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:46.240
I love that.
00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:52.480
Well, I've got all your information for the show notes that people can get a hold of you, and we'll list your website in there.
00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:55.039
Um, any last words for our listeners?
00:20:55.440 --> 00:20:55.839
Yes.
00:20:56.079 --> 00:21:00.480
Um, I would say design your retreats beyond the experience.
00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:12.000
Ask yourself not only how do I want people to feel while they're here, but who do I want them to be able to become when they're back inside the exact life that they left to come to your retreat?
00:21:12.240 --> 00:21:16.720
So uh give them something beautiful to experience, absolutely, right?
00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:27.519
But also give them a bridge home because the retreat can create the opening, as I said earlier, but the transformation is what they do differently on an ordinary Tuesday because of it.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:31.680
I love that great wise words from Ali here.
00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:34.960
Okay, well, thank you again for being a guest here on the show.
00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:37.759
And I hope y'all got some words of wisdom.
00:21:37.839 --> 00:21:38.720
I'm sure you did.
00:21:38.799 --> 00:21:48.640
I did, and and uh go check Ali out on his website and see what else you can learn from him by because he's he's got more, I'm sure.
00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:51.680
Yes, and until next time, bye for now.
00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:52.640
Thank you very much.
00:21:53.599 --> 00:21:56.799
Thanks for joining us on this episode of All Things Retreat.
00:21:56.960 --> 00:22:03.440
We hope you're leaving with new ideas, fresh inspiration, and the motivation to take your retreats to the next level.
00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:06.400
Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review.
00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:09.359
It helps us grow and reach more retreat leaders like you.
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:16.960
And if you have any questions, topics you'd like us to cover, or just want to say hello, send us an email at infobreretreatrnr.com.
00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:21.359
Follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all the latest updates.
00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:23.039
Until next time.
00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:27.200
Remember, great retreats are great retention.
00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:31.119
Let's make them extraordinary, one step at a time.
00:22:35.359 --> 00:22:36.400
45 minutes.
00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:37.839
Let's make sure you really ready.
