Paul Aurand’s journey into hypnotherapy began in his early 20s when he ventured to Japan to explore energy healing and natural medicine, a decision that eventually led him to leave his psychology studies behind.
After years of practice, he discovered the transformative power of hypnosis, helping clients access their inner wisdom and heal deeply rooted traumas. His approach, known as Essential Healing, integrates hypnosis with expanded states of consciousness, enabling profound personal growth and emotional release.
In his interview with MysticMag, Paul shares how techniques like past life and Life Between Lives regression offer clients a unique path to healing and self-discovery.
How did you become interested in hypnotherapy and what drew you to this field?
In my early 20’s I became interested in alternative healing methods and I had the opportunity to go to Japan to learn a form of energy healing and natural medicine. I left my psychology studies and embarked on an adventure of a lifetime. After two years of study and fieldwork, I returned to the United States to continue my studies and begin my energy healing practice.
While working on clients I saw them enter into deeply relaxed altered states where they accessed inner wisdom and released stored trauma. But It was not until I learned to more intentionally induce deeper states of consciousness through hypnosis that I could help clients more effectively access their own inner world and their natural healing capabilities.
There are two primary therapeutic phenomena that occur while one is in hypnosis. The first is that one becomes more highly suggestible. This is the most used aspect of hypnosis. In a hypnotic state, one is much more able to receive, accept, and act upon desirable suggestions offered by the hypnotherapist to facilitate change. You cannot be made to do anything you don’t want to do but once the subconscious mind is onboard with desired change, it will support that change, often with little or no effort.
The second phenomenon that occurs in hypnosis, which I use on a daily basis, is achieving a higher, more objective state of consciousness. It is really a greatly expanded state of awareness. In this altered state, you can observe and interact with various parts of your psyche almost as though you are observing another individual. We call this part therapy. Once in this expanded state, the hypnotherapist can facilitate a dialogue between different parts of the client to explore and resolve inner conflict as well as access an inner wisdom that goes far beyond intellect. In this expanded state it is also possible to be regressed to recover memories and experiences from childhood, in-utero, past life, and even between lives.
Can you explain the key differences between Essential Healing and traditional hypnotherapy?
Essential Healing is a process that I have developed over thirty years working in this field. It uses hypnosis to achieve expanded states of consciousness and facilitate an inner journey to explore and release stored emotions, replace limiting beliefs, and change ineffective survival strategies. Once some of these are resolved through Essential Healing sessions the client can more easily access their core self or what I like to call Soul Essence and live life in a more authentic way. My book, Essential Healing, is full of over fifty practices that you can use to do much of this on your own.
What are some common misconceptions about past life regression that you encounter?
I first encountered past life regression quite accidentally. I was working in a pain clinic with patients suffering from chronic illness and chronic pain. I was mostly doing hypnoanesthesia but I was unhappy with this symptomatic approach of anesthetizing pain only to have patients return in a few weeks or months for more treatments. As I took a new approach, that I came to call Body Wisdom, I began to help patients dialogue with their pain to learn what its message to them was. Once they got the message it was not only easier to resolve the pain, but it also helped patients to make the necessary changes in their lives that were behind the pain.
During these Body Wisdom sessions, I had a few patients spontaneously regress to past lives. They told stories of the past that shocked both of us. And, much to our surprise, there long-standing pain or illness was resolved. After this happened a few times, I knew it was time to learn these more advanced techniques for regression therapy and add them to my practice.
I think the most common misconceptions about past life are that you have to believe in it for it to work and that you are going to have to try to remember. My first patients who regressed to past life didn’t believe in reincarnation or past lives. And, although I had read some about past life, I wasn’t so sure about how real or authentic the stories were. At first my position was, I don’t know if what you remembered really is a past life. Maybe it is a metaphor. Maybe it is a fantasy. But your long-standing pain or chronic illness has been resolved. Isn’t that what is most important?
Actually, trying to remember the past is quite different than simply letting memories come. When you try to remember, the mental mind remains engaged and actually slows down or prevents the natural flow of memories that arise from the deeper (subconscious) mind and soul mind. It is really learning a new skill to let memories come rather than trying to remember and trusting the memories as they come, reserving analysis of the content until after the regression.
How does your approach to Life Between Lives therapy enhance personal growth and healing?
Life Between Lives regression, based on the work of Dr. Michale Newton, is one of the most direct methods I know of not just remembering but fully experiencing ourselves as the limitless eternal beings that we truly are. An LBL not only reconnects us with our own soul self but with our loved ones in spirit and our guides. We can remember and recover lifetimes of lessons learned to get an overview of our soul lessons and purpose for our current life. Once these connections and awareness are renewed through an LBL they last a lifetime.
Just as in psychotherapy, you work to resolve difficult emotions, limiting beliefs, and troublesome ways of getting love and staying safe, LBL regression helps resolve these same things that your soul has carried through and repeated for lifetimes! And, remembering that you are much more than your human self and personality is profoundly transformative.
Can you describe a particularly memorable case where Body Wisdom played a crucial role in a client’s healing?
Yes, one of the most dramatic cases I had soon after developing Body Wisdom was with a professional tennis player who had been diagnosed with a tumor on one of his adrenal glands. He came for a Body Wisdom session hoping to heal the tumor and avoid surgery.
After inducing hypnosis, I guided him on a journey inside his body to the site of the tumor. Once there, I facilitated a dialogue between him, the tumor, and the adrenal gland. Much to his disappointment, the affected area told him quite emphatically “Have the surgery! It will save your life!” This really was not what he wanted to hear. But it was exactly what he needed to hear. I then worked with him to prepare his body for the surgery.
You know, the body perceives a surgical procedure as a trauma, a dangerous invasion. And it reacts to this perceived threat with fear and flight or fight response. If you prepare the body to welcome the procedure as helpful or in this case life-saving assistance, the body responds in a much more receptive way. In his case, he needed about half the anesthesia usually required for the procedure. He required no pain medication after the kidney was removed. He was discharged from the hospital in about half the usual time needed for recovery. All this because he listened to his body’s own wisdom and worked with his body to welcome the procedure.
I have also had a number of cases where medical imaging (x-ray, CT, or MRI) results did not show any conclusive evidence of injuries but doing a Body Wisdom scan revealed undiagnosed fractures or injuries that were then discovered upon repeating the medical imaging!
What can clients expect from their first session with you, and how should they prepare?
First, we identify what it is you most want to work on or achieve from your session. Is it something of a clinical nature? A habit, fear or anxiety, pain or illness or is it more for personal growth or spiritual development? Then we would decide how to approach that issue. I usually like to begin with a 1 ½ hour Essential Healing session to help someone learn to move out of their mental mind, into their heart center, the doorway to their inner world, and then access their inner wisdom or interact with various parts.
This can be the inner child, the wise one within, the protector, or even the soul self. From there, we have easier access to soul memories including past lives and life between lives. I like to say, release the pain of your past to find inner wisdom, healing, and joy!
Find out more at: www.paulaurand.com
