Somatic Titration & The Inner Journey
Part 2 Demystifying Depth Hypnosis
Kristina Renée x Medicine for the Soul is an independent publication funded by real people, not advertisers or affiliate sales. Upgrade to a paid subscription for $8/month. Your subscription is immensely appreciated, allowing me to be of greater service to the world.
Depth Hypnosis is a spiritual counseling model created by Dr. Isa Gucciardi in the mid-1990s that helps people work through issues quickly and gain long-lasting results. By synthesizing key principles of shamanism, Buddhism, hypnotherapy, energy medicine, and transpersonal psychology, Depth Hypnosis brings the ancient healing wisdom of many cultures to the unique imbalances of contemporary Western society. Kristina Renée is a Depth Hypnosis Practitioner working with individuals, dyad and groups both locally and online.
This is Part 2 of a series of articles demystifying the highly effective therapeutic model of Depth Hypnosis. To follow along, you may want to read How Trauma Hijacks Us: Part 1 Demystifying Depth Hypnosis
"If you focus on the known, you get the known. If you focus on the unknown, you create a possibility."
Dr Joe Dispenza
We have been conditioned to pull away from things we do not understand, to retract from ideas and concepts that are different than what we know to be familiar. Societal parameters have been paved, whether we are aware or not aware, denoting that to step out into the open lands of the unknown is dangerous, or could cause us to no longer align to our spiritual beliefs. This closed off aversion veers us away from the vast possibility of our interconnectedness, shared humanity and to a greater understanding of our own relationships to begin with, which is an important aspect for our own self healing and inner peace. Allow me to demystify the space outside the parameters, for this is the place as a spiritual teacher and practitioner of Depth Hypnosis we work — the unknown. My hope is to offer some insight into the powerful healing value of the meditative inner journey and how it can become a resource to support the nervous system and spirit in our daily lives.
According to current scientific estimates, only a small portion of our mind is conscious, with most experts believing that around 5% of our brain activity is conscious while the remaining 95% is considered unconscious or subconscious activity. This means that the majority of the decisions we make, the actions we take, our emotions and behaviors, depend on the 95 percent of brain activity that lies beyond conscious awareness.
Carl Jung said,
“Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Read that again, slowly.
Sit with this for a moment.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
When we realize that we can learn how to connect more intimately in a healthy conscious relationship to our subconscious, entering our inner world where all things we have ever known, felt, sensed, imagined or dreamt (whether good or bad) is stored, we ourselves begin to bridge a wider capacity for our healing possibility. More so, we awaken to our own radical responsibility of what is driving our thoughts, actions, words and deeds. When the thinking mind takes a well deserved rest, the language of the body and the senses brighten, which hold great medicine singing the forgotten songs of our ancestors and the innate alchemical process beholden to the human timeline. As we remember on a felt sense that we are more than our thinking mind, we bring home to our hearts the power of our self healing potential.
The inner journey enhances the relationship to one’s subconscious, which is a part of the human experience. The subconscious is a state in which we reside in the land of our dreams each night, as well as in any altered realms of consciousness. These altered states of consciousness are vast and more common than many realize. We can access them beyond our dream state in daily life through practices and modalities like yoga, breathwork, sound healing, acupuncture, prayer, chanting, singing, dancing, plant medicine, hypnotherapy, sensory deprivation, bodywork, meditation, as well as with alcohol, coffee, drugs, etc. Our dreams are an artist expression of our inner world, our subconscious, that the rational mind can easily lose sight of its significance and meaning. When we begin to unpack a dream, we find information that the subconscious is revealing to the awake mind. Often, it is information that we are ready to receive, information that we need to become aware for our own realization and accountability.
The inner journey is similar. The inward journey is a very pivotal process in the method of Depth Hypnosis. It is used as a foundation to support the expansion of one’s relationship and connection to the sacred space of their own inner world though connecting to an inner guidance and wisdom, in whatever format that may express that is significant to an individual. The inner journey becomes a safe respite and anchor to strengthen one’s own innate wisdom, developing a nourishing rapport for self love, self compassion and self trust.
More importantly, the connection to one’s inner world through the inner journey offers a somatic titration in the therapeutic model of counseling in Depth Hypnosis, deeply supporting the nervous system for profound transformative healing in not only a safe, but a responsible way.
The somatic nervous system and energy body not only houses harmful and painful experiences, but can also transform, unlocking suffering and changing the way we are in relationship to aspects of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. By traveling into the deep relaxing brain wave states of the subconscious and allowing the thinking mind to find some breathing room from the story and etched coping mechanisms, a safe spaciousness is built offering more clarity, understanding and an opportunity to feel and live in new ways. In this relaxing place of one’s inner world, access to the unseen aspects of oneself are more readily available supporting the healing process of recalibrating the nervous systems, rewiring the thinking mind, and re-imagining emotional patterns. This process is similar to what one may experience in plant medicine, just simply slowed down. Indeed, creator of Depth Hypnosis, my mentor and elder, Dr. Isa Gucciardi, has shared that this work really is plant medicine slowed down.
The inward journey can often be misunderstood though, which is unfortunate because it has the potential to actually support one’s relationship with their life energy, personal agency and spiritual belief. There is a misconception and even a negative connotation to the meditative practice of the inner journey honored and rooted from the ancient lineages of the earth based healing methods of shamanism. The barrier is often created out of mis-knowings, attachments and aversions formulated from cultural indoctrination, religious ideology, and oppressive systems. Often, just the mention of the word shamanic or shamanism causes a retraction within people, no matter their belief and affiliations to faith or non-faith. As one who grew up in an extremely religious and very rigid household, I am familiar with the breath holding tension I witness that is ignited from fear of the unknown, attachments and aversions towards the inner journey derived from the ancient lineages.
Something to welcome into awareness is that we can build a strong and loving relationship to our inner world, deepening our understanding to the unknown, the unconscious parts of us, through the meditative inner journey and actually widen our belief and/or existing spiritual or religious practices.
To continue unpacking this, I feel it is relevant to shine light upon a very brief understanding of shamanism and what is a shaman. To begin, it needs to be said and quite loudly, I am not a shaman. I have not studied in tribes of indigenous elders whom carry traditional medicine of their generations in song and ritual. I have had the opportunity to work with, study and embody applied shamanism, offering a deep practice and insight into the realms of the journey practice, bridging the unconscious with the conscious, which fosters a rich relationship to the innate wise and compassionate Self within each human to support a more interdependent and healing relationship with the world and ourselves. That said there are traditional shamans, medicine people, whom reside in indigenous cultures, offering healing, aid and support to villages spanning back thousands of years and lineages, very much leading great work for the Earth and collective healing. The work I have come to learn would not be possible without the dedication, devotion and sacrifices of those who have paved the path before me. I bow to the elders and mentors whom I am always learning from and immensely grateful for this medicine.
Traditional shamanism is done in many ways, usually through the shaman entering an altered state of consciousness to connect with their helping guardians or parts of them that are wise and compassionate to support others needs. A shaman may take a journey to inquire about information and return with an answer expressed in a similar manner as a dream. These messages are often depicted in metaphor, poetic expressions of nature and through the elements. A traditional shaman has a responsibility to not just the people, but also the land and animals and a deep spiritual relationship to the elements, plants, herbs and weather spirits. They work in the unknown spaces, supporting life transitions, soul loss, power loss, removing energetic interferences and supporting souls who are caught in-between worlds, those whose souls have not left earth but their bodies have.
What is uniquely different from traditional shamanism to the modern application of Depth Hypnosis counseling honoring the ancient shamanic tools is that instead of a shaman journeying for you, you as the individual connect to your own inner guidance and learn how to deepen your own understanding to your inner compass with your own body, breath, and highest Self. In Depth Hypnosis, we understand that within each of us we already have the innate resources to connect to our highest good to retrieve and reclaim our own personal life force. In fact, we integrate a technique called insight inquiry to deepen one’s processing of their experiences to connect to themselves and their own inner guidance with greater clarity and embodiment. You are held in a safe container to learn how to widen your relationship to your subconscious and bridge your own meaning into your consciousness, wildly re-imaginging the percentage of your minds capacity. There is no one informing you of your experience or how you should be having an experience, which I find at this juncture in humanity to be extremely relevant in dismantling systems of oppression and for reclaiming one’s own life force and personal agency. This topic deserves a larger discussion that links to generational consciousness and healing that I will save for another article.
For now, think about when you need or are seeking for an answer about something valuable and important in your life. What gives you more empowerment and confidence — when someone tells you the answer or when you are able to find it yourself? And if someone gives you that answer and it doesn’t work out, how do you respond inside? What happens to your inner relationship? What happens to your own understanding about yourself? And when the answer you found by yourself may not unravel as you planned, what happens to your understanding of yourself? What thoughts arise? Are they negative or positive ones? What happens to your own understanding of self trust when you seek outside yourself for answers? What happens to your own understanding of self trust when you go within and learn how to sit with yourself and all the uncomfortable aspects and barriers that need your tenderness and love with your own compassionate wisdom?
While there can be good in having information at our fingertips, the magic of self discovery is a wisdom fostering a profound inner trust to our own experiences. Another example, think about when you were a child. Was it more impactful to be told about bubbles or rainbows or fireworks or to experience them? Now think as an adult, is it more impactful to read about meditation, singing in church, attending a concert or baseball game or to experience them in your body, heart and mind? The inward journey offers a similar impact of an inner experience entering the unknown parts of ourselves, to bridge the unseen to the seen, the unfelt to the felt, the unknown to the inner knowing.
"Each one of us has our own truth inside ourselves. The quest of the shaman is to find, live, and express it. When you no longer rely on others to tell you what kind of person you are, your love for yourself stops being conditional."
don Jose Ruiz
Using our senses and gifting the thinking mind a rest, allows us to open up to the grand possibility of the other 95% of ourselves, a possibility that the rational mind and colonized culture have crushed. Frankly, to me this work is a rekindling of our deepest timeline, the medicine of our soul, returned and re-imagined, becoming our own beacon of inner peace and light. Gucciardi says “that any process of opening to the sacred encounter with the Self involves quieting the conscious mind.” The inner journey is the experience and a healing practice of this possibility.
So, How Does The Inner Journey Work?
In Depth Hypnosis, the practitioner, who has a dedicated and disciplined practice of their own, will create and maintain a safe container, guiding a person into their own experience of their inner world and inner healing journey. The compassionate and loving parts that the person meet within themselves can express in ways that have meaning and significance to the person. This inner guidance may present as a beautiful light, a sound, an angelic or mythical being, a guardian in plant, animal or human form. For some clients I have been blessed to meet wise parts that have presented as Green Tara, Jesus, Arch Angel Michael, while for others this part of them appeared as an element like the sun, or an animal or plant.
Once an established relationship to the inner journey has been made this process supports the continued work unravelling, understanding and healing the parts within that are harmful, such as addiction, inner critic, shame, anger, fear, depression, regret, resentment, jealousy, anxiety, trauma, suicidal ideation, etc. The inward journey serves as a means to restructure the nervous system from trauma, stress and soul fragmentation, and for maintenance from the throes of the daily modern life. It is a somatic titration deeply supporting the entire being on every level, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, for profound healing done with radical responsibility and integrity. This process offers a safe landing pad for the nervous systems to return, learning how to trust and love more intimately in connection to ourselves on the healing path.
“Safety is not the absence of threat. It is the presence of connection.”
Gabor Mate
However one may define or not define, pray or praise the goodness of life, the inner journey is a foundational and interwoven thread, creating a deeper connection to one’s higher Self and conscious path of awakening, and thus, healing. It can offer insights into existential questions that leave one feeling uncertain and at unrest, and it can heighten one’s existing relationship to religion and spirituality, to nature and to the earth, to other beings and animals and to our shared humanity. Just as repetition to our muscles strengthens with our practice in any physical activity, so too does our mind, heart and spirit. As we learn to understand and harness the potential and opportunity of strengthening our own relationship to our inner world, bridging our subconscious and unconscious to consciousness, we begin to realize that we can enhance our connection to our highest timeline more readily in all areas of our life, learning how to embrace whole hearted living, learning and loving in action.
“As above, so below; as within, so without”
Thank you for reading your free edition of Kristina Renée x Medicine for the Soul. If supporting monetarily doesn’t align right now, there are other ways you can do so. If you found this article valuable, don't keep it to yourself - spread the word! You may click the “heart” button, leave a comment or restack so more people can discover it on Substack.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve you.
Take care of you.
Take care of one another.
Much Love,
Kristina Renée