Embark on the intriguing journey of Michelle Carbone, a seasoned traveler of both literal and metaphorical realms. In her exclusive MysticMag interview, Michelle shares her transition from a two-decade career in the travel industry to becoming a holistic healer, specializing in Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT), intuitive coaching, and mindfulness teaching.
What did your professional beginnings look like and what made you pursue this career?
I actually spent about 25 years in the travel industry, I was a travel agency owner (and agent) for most of that time. After Covid came along, the travel industry was hit hard. We would spend 8-12 hours on hold trying to help clients and got yelled at for things we had no control over among other things that were not so pleasant! After the first few months, I was crying every day and was absolutely miserable. My manager offered to purchase the agency from me and I was happy to sell! I then had to figure out what I wanted to do. As a teen, I wanted to be a psychologist and in college, I majored in psychology to start, then moved on to social work before taking a break from school and finding the travel industry. I was pulled back to my younger roots in a desire to help others heal. I explored various things in the healing world including ayurvedic medicine- helping others was always something I enjoyed, but I knew I didn’t want to do something super traditional.
When I found Marisa Peer and RTT, I knew I found what I was looking for. I had an RTT session myself and was hooked! It was so interesting to me how quickly I noticed a change within myself. I signed up for the training a few days later and was so happy I found my new path. Learning about how our minds work and what the subconscious is doing for us was so interesting (and still is, I continue to learn more and deepen what I know every day) Seeing my clients transformed and feel better is so fulfilling. In addition to training in Rapid Transformational Therapy, I also became a coach the following year – I did 2 intense training programs – I’m a Rapid Transformational Coach and an intuitive coach. Coaching is a great complement to hypnotherapy as I’m able to support my clients while in their conscious mind as well as their subconcious.
What is Rapid Transformational Therapy?
Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) is the Marisa Peer method of hypnotherapy, a solution-based treatment offering fast, effective, and long-lasting change.
RTT® is a therapeutic approach that uses powerful, evidence-based techniques to provide people with the tools they need to make positive change.
The roots of RTT® are drawn from within areas of traditional psychotherapy such as gestalt, solution-focused and cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnotherapy, and mindfulness.
Its personalized approach works with clients to help them reframe any negative beliefs, values, habits, and emotions – many of which they have carried with them since childhood.
Often, these have been so deeply buried in their subconscious that they are unaware of the past issues affecting them. By giving the client the potential to alter the way they think and put an end to negative self-talk, they can approach life in a positive way and move forward.
Can you walk me through one of your RTT sessions?
I start the session (which takes place a day or more after an approximately 45-minute long intake session) by confirming the issue we’re focused on and making sure the client is comfortable and doesn’t have any questions they’d like to ask before we start. The induction method I use is very fast because it’s a nervous system response to simple eye movements that I walk my clients through. The clients go into an alpha wave state, which is that brain wave state we all go into when we’re between being awake and asleep. If you’ve ever driven somewhere and don’t remember the drive, you were in this state! I like to think of a session as a conversation with your eyes closed. You have total control and could become fully conscious anytime you choose. After getting my client into this relaxed state, we start by directing the subconscious to help us understand the issue by first doing some regression to what we call a scene, which some think of as a memory, but we’re really connecting to the perception you had at the age you were then. While in different scenes, we look for feelings and beliefs and if the client decided anything about themselves during this time. If you’ve seen the movie Inside Out, it’s like we’re getting into those core memories – those memories that really had an impact. We look for the connection of what we saw in the scenes to the issue at hand. We also may do other processes while in the scene to dig deeper and to release emotions where needed, such as expressing anger or other emotions toward someone that hurt the client.
Each client has slightly different needs for the issue they have, so we may do some talking to their inner child, we will generally talk to the “part” that is responsible for the issue and after seeing what it thinks it’s doing for the client, we either get it to leave or give it a new job. These parts are very interesting and can present as if it’s a child version of the client or I have even had the part present itself as a past life or entity. It’s very interesting to speak with these parts that are responsible for the issue, generally these parts think they are helping the client in some way and sometimes we have to really negotiate with them to get them to see how they are not helping. Sometimes, they are happy to go as well, we never know what we’ll find!
After working with the subconscious, finding the root cause, doing some reframing, and letting go, we do a process to integrate the inner child into the adult so that the inner child now feels loved and taken care of, even if they didn’t when they were growing up. The end of the session is when we make a transformational recording. Our minds learn by pictures and words as well as with repetition. The recording is full of what my client wants (and not what they don’t want) – I include visualizations as well as statements supporting the life they want to experience. This is based on the intake session where we dig into what they want and what life looks like without the issue they have. Listening to the recording supports the changes they wish to create and supports them anytime should they feel the old issue returning. It’s helping to rebuild those highways of thought (AKA neural pathways) to recreate the life we’re experiencing because our thoughts are creating our reality.
What can people hope to achieve with your intuitive coaching?
My training in coaching is varied and allows me to adjust to help clients in many ways to support change in their lives. We start by looking at what my client wants to achieve and then take things step by step. I love working with relationships and those who need spiritual guidance.
Common ways I help my clients are by being a person that intuitively asks the tough questions they need to gain clarity, giving them processes to work through that can either be to gain clarity, shift perspectives, change the feeling and energy around a person or situation, or figure out why they are doing something (a lot of this is shadow work), I also act as an accountability partner, using my intuition to hone in on little things they say to dig deeper into what can become an A-ha moment, and working on emotional intelligence as well as attachment styles. I’d say generally my clients can achieve almost anything they desire from gaining clarity in a decision, reaching a goal in business, healing their inner child, having better relationships (romantic and otherwise), and just about anything else they desire.
Most of the clients I work with are healing from Ongoing Relationship Trauma Syndrome which can also be called Cassandra Syndrome, so we focus a lot on why they are in traumatic relationships and work on self-love, self trust, and having healthy boundaries among other things. I also support them when they are ready to move on to new relationships that are hopefully healthy so that they know the difference between fears from their past and actual red flags, healing from an insecure attachment style, or any other challenges that emerge as they get back into the dating world.
What does it mean to be a mindfulness teacher?
Mindfulness practices are really a foundational tool to so many other healing practices, so for me, it’s about giving my clients that really base knowledge that helps in other things we’ll do together. It’s simple and quite easy to do the practices and easy to incorporate into your daily life, yet so important for us to understand. I really enjoy helping people understand how it helps in many aspects of life.
Mindfulness helps us create neuroplasticity, which in simple terms means it can help in making our brains more pliable so we can change the “highways” of thought that are running our lives. Many people associate mindfulness with meditation and breathing exercises, and those are common mindfulness practices, but when you understand what mindfulness really is, you realize almost anything you do can be done in a mindful way. You can move mindfully with QiGong, walking or any other activity, eat or drink, and even sex can be experienced in a mindful way. That’s why it’s so easy to incorporate into your daily life!
To learn more about Michelle and her work, you can visit www.ZenMindMichelle.com
