- Interview with Trine Åldstedt in Cafe MAGASINET by Anne Zetterdahl
The origin of the word unconscious is unknown. It has become increasingly popular according to the media. Coaching is about motivation, guiding, learning and training. The people who decide to get coaching are perceived as independent individuals able to choose their path in life consciously. They undergo a professional and personal development through the process.
Meta Resource is one of several enterprises working with coaching. They work with communication, and develop resources and competence. On their website you can read about an international network, and both owners have a long and broad experience with NLP (the subject on how to get out the best resources in yourself) and coaching. It also states that they are among the first professional coaches in the country! One of them is Trine Åldstedt. After reading her merits I picture her as at least 60 years of age according to the amounts she has done. She has skills in healing, astrology, tarot, Reiki, project management, data, management, journalism, communication, sales and IT. But then again no, she’s 20 years younger than expected, looks strikingly good and bobbles with energy.
How did you get the business idea?
- It came to me some years ago while I was taking a bath. I lied there meditating on my own and traveled in my mind to my future, and then I saw this concept I then called the Powercenter. I have worked with self development since the mid 80-ties, and at the time I'd already had a company dealing with courses and coaching for some years. From that moment I have manifested bit by bit and developed the company further.
What kind of people come to you?
- Our courses and educations are for all who wants to develop and learn more. All kinds of people come to us, from leaders who want to develop as a leader to people who undergo retraining or want to become coaches themselves. We have women, men, young and old. Our youngest student is 24, our oldest 63, and the average lies between the ages of 35-45.
"NLP is short for Neuro Linguistic Programming. In NLP we think that the brain has a structure that can be changed through among other things hypnotic therapy. NLP is a registered trademark."
Trine says it has been a lot of men in contact with them lately. But she has to admit women outnumber the men. Without generalizing too much, she says maybe women are more open to self development. When life's hard or stuck, they often do something about it. Women also do it thoroughly, when they first put their mind to something. She elaborates further that the education at Meta Resource are thorough and comprehensive, and the students have a solid competence when they graduate. She thinks this suits women well. Trine also believes women often dare to break new ground first. Even if NLP and coaching has existed for many years in the USA, it still is perceived as fairly new in Norway. NLP based coaching includes hypnosis.
What is really hypnotherapy?
- In Hypnotherapy the body and mind are balanced. Through relaxation and calm, your're guided to get your focus inward. In this way you will find natural connections in yourself which able you to solve problems, release resources or heal ailments. In Hypnotherapy the process is tailor-made to the client, while in Hypnosis the therapist often reads a script premade for all situations of a kind.
I have read that hypnotherapy can be helpful for different problems, among other things give better health. It sounds too good to be true, I think. Trine understands this very well. The human is perfect in its whole and in its composition she explains. The body knows automatically when to renew the cells, when to fill up with oxygen, when to blink your eye and so forth. When we have cut our finger, our body knows exactly for how long and in which way it will heal it until the process stops.
- That's a good thing, Trine says with a smile. Think about the mess if another finger or ear lid for that matter had grown out instead! The thing is that humans and the body in its natural state have got everything it takes to live in balance. But our everyday lives are in such a way that we live with stress, disturbances and chaos, which leads to imbalance.
I think many can recognize themselves when Trine talks about a busy daily life. For most of us our everyday life is about getting and bringing kids to the kindergarten, follow-up on school and homework, attend parents meetings and hopefully the Parents Council Working Committee (FAU), drive the kids to a football match and arrange a cake lottery for the school brass band. In addition we must also have time to make nutritious dinners without the help of precooked food, invite friends and be the perfect spouse. No surprise we haven't got enough time for this. Trine describes it as being on autopilot. You act on the feelings of must do or should do things, and often you don't own theses factors yourself. She adds that different illnesses can stem from this way of living. With the help of hypnotherapy you can get help in focusing inwards, in deep relaxation. This helps the body return to a perfect balance. It also gives expanded contact with yourself and your feelings, and this gives you in turn better insight. Confusion becomes clarity and chaos becomes calm. Trance is a natural state, says Trine, and we use other parts of us when we are in balance.
It sounds very nice to create calm from chaos and clarity from confusion. That's something everyone could gain from. I feel incredibly excited by what she's talking about and fire more questions.
"If our conscious mind had the responsibility to handle everything, it would shut down after a short while."
What have you used hypnotherapy for yourself?
- I use all my knowledge and techniques on a daily basis, according to my needs and the situation I'm in at the moment. I use the hypnotherapy to remain anchored in myself, so I can both distinguish what is "mine and yours", and have access to all of my knowledge, in addition to the gut-feeling. In this way I keep my calm, clarity and health in a stressful daily life.
She looks incredibly healthy sitting there. A vacation in Greece explains the nice tan, but the energy she's got to get from elsewhere. Trine also says that she recently has made a new double CD with trances in addition to everything else she's up to. She produced it for her own good. On special occasions she yields great benefit from indulging in them.
How many times do you need hypnotherapy to get an effect?
- This varies from person to person and with subject. My experience is that it's an instant effect after the first time, sometimes exactly the effect the client wants, other times it takes more.
While listening to Trine, I think about the kind of society we live in. People are stressed out. In the newspapers you can read about teachers experiencing small children that seem stressed in school. They engage in different activities, and the life pass by in a breakneck pace. What is stress really doing to us? I think stress is the root to a lot of our life style diseases. I ask Trine and get the following answer:
- Yes, as I mentioned earlier, this is a big problem and the cause of many diseases and disturbances. We can easily compare our body and system with a chemical factory. When we smile, laugh, relax and have a good time, we generate a certain kind of chemistry. When we rush, strives, nag and feel that we don't manage, we generate a completely different type of chemistry. The first is good, uplifting, harmonious and rewarding, the other is disruptive, costly and destructive. Our body is a fantastic device which is able to adapt to, align and restore large amounts of challenging, disruptive chemicals. But as Trine adds, at some point it gets too much and then the body "hurts" and fears, problems and illnesses becomes a reality.
"What if it had grown a new finger or ear lid instead, Trine says with a smile."
When I read about Trine it says she is very concerned with the unconscious mind. I wonder what she really means when she talks about it
- The unconscious mind is the part of us that takes care of the whole. Imagine what it would be like if your conscious mind, your thoughts, should take care of everything happening in your body all the time. The heart shall beat, there is food to be swallowed and digested, the hand moving to scratch your ear whilst your foot is stepping on the exact right place to avoid tripping over. It is absolutely impossible for the conscious mind to deal with all this information, and it is here the dependable unconscious mind comes in to take care of all our internal organs and functions. In addition, it also handles all the information we need to relate to, for example, that you will automatically downshift and comply with the obligation to give way while driving, even if your mind is at work and process the impressions of an important meeting. In this meeting you sorted the information and acted according to your beliefs and values. On this basis your act automatically in the way which is right for you and answers and relates in accordance with all codex's which fits in the communication. All this takes place in the unconscious mind, along with a lot more. All our habits and reflexes live in our unconscious mind, Trine says. Together with everything we have ever perceived. In a short glimpse I picture all that is in my own unconscious mind. It must be short of space after a while?
Trine tells that you through hypnosis can go back in time and relive experiences from the past. The intuition and gut feeling are also products of the unconscious mind. If our conscious mind had the responsibility to handle everything, it would shut down after a short while. Put another way, the conscious mind is very limited, while the unconscious mind is enormous, present and fully capable to understand and act according to the whole.
Most of us do things unconsciously from time to time. When people you know are not so good in saying things straight out, you may as well have a different effect on other people than you think yourself. Are you at an early stage aware of how people who come to you are?
- Yes. But what you mention here is interpretations. People need to see a whole to understand, and therefore we put things in a system and context for it to make sense. In a meeting the conscious mind relates with ease to what's being said, and the unconscious also gets what's not being said. When people in addition interpret on the basis of what they think the person is trying to say or hide, a lot of misunderstandings are created. Trine tells that she in her meeting with others senses many layers of the person or subject they are working with. She choose however to relate to the persons' own truth.
It is unnecessary to ask whether you've become good at reading people. But do you think everyone would like to get to know their unconscious?
- "If people knew what a resource it is and what amount they will have access to in terms of resources, emotions and experiences, then yes, absolutely," Trine says with a smile. Imagine attending an exam and have access to everything you've read, heard, thought and learned about the subject? Or you have to make a difficult choice and find clarity of the kind that gives you the best possible outcome? Or getting or experiencing true relationships that take you far beyond what you have experienced until now? Or having a rock solid calm when it's at it's most chaotic. Or getting great ideas when you are searching for solutions to a problem. What do you think? Is this interesting?
