Transforming Trauma: A Journey With Christina Cannes

This episode features an insightful conversation with Christina Cannes, a trauma-trained hypnotherapist, nutritionist, and creator of Belief Hacking. Cannes shares her personal journey of overcoming an abusive relationship and trauma through subconscious reprogramming, the importance of nutrition in dealing with trauma, and the concept of enlightenment as a continuous process of self-discovery and awareness.

She explains the role of dreams in healing, her approach to helping others through belief hacking, and offers advice on fostering creativity and avoiding the negative impacts of mainstream media. Cannes also touches on her upcoming book focused on creativity and past lives, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to trauma that addresses both mental and physical aspects.

Transcript

Welcome.

Today we have Christina Kan.

She is a trauma-trained hypnotherapist,

Nutritionist,

And the creator of Belief Hacking.

She helps entrepreneurs,

Business owners,

And creatives uplevel their life and business using subconscious reprogramming.

Welcome,

Christina.

Thank you.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to be here.

Yes.

I'm so glad to have you here.

I find what you do really interesting,

Your combination of trauma work with nutrition.

I feel like that combination is rare to find together,

And I can't wait to share that with our listeners today.

Yes,

It is.

It's funny that it's rare because it's actually really important and really impactful.

Yes.

Oh,

Yes.

And we will find out how much.

One of my first questions that I ask everyone is,

What does enlightenment mean to you?

That's a really good question because it's a very mysterious word,

Enlightenment.

For me personally,

I think enlightenment is,

I just consider it more awareness.

Based on what I know of life and why we're here,

It seems to be that we are all on or should be a mission of enlightenment.

And by that,

I mean,

Just becoming more aware and discovering more truth and opening up to more and more information.

And I think enlightenment is really important in regards to your own self and who you are.

I find that people who go on the journey of self-discovery,

Enlightenment is part and parcel of that.

So it's very exciting.

I think it's also a vibratory state.

If you look at the scales of consciousness,

It's at the top.

So I don't think it's an end.

It's not really a destination.

It seems to be a continuous journey.

So even though you reach this vibratory state of enlightenment,

I still think there's more and more and more.

I don't know if we can ever reach the end.

So that's what makes it fun.

Absolutely.

I couldn't agree more.

It is a journey.

It's not a destination,

But I do think it is also,

Like you said,

A state of being as part of being in that journey.

And I love also that you said it's about asking questions,

Because if you're not continually seeking,

It really is a part of,

I feel too,

Our existence,

Our purpose is to continually be seeking and continually be asking those larger questions,

Those more profound,

Deeper questions.

Like who am I?

Why am I here?

Yes.

Starting with those.

So let's share with our listeners about your enlightenment journey thus far,

But I want you to share a little bit about what brought you to do the work that you do as a trauma-trained hypnotherapist and nutritionist.

Sure.

I think like so many,

My,

I think my journey really kicked off when I got divorced.

I was in a very abusive relationship and I lost everything and I hit total rock bottom.

And the part that frustrated me so much was,

Is that I was highly aware that I had a very difficult childhood and I knew that I was dealing with trauma.

I didn't really have the vocabulary for it.

And so I was very consciously trying to avoid creating a similar situation for myself because I noticed even at a young age patterns,

Patterns within families,

Patterns within people,

People repeating things.

And so I was very consciously aware of these patterns and trying to do things actively in my life to avoid repeating those patterns.

Now,

The funny part is,

It's funny now,

No matter what I did,

I ate healthy,

I exercised,

I was educated.

I worked really hard.

I created what looked like,

Looked like a really perfect life.

I was very successful financially.

I had my own business,

Traveled home,

Beautiful pool,

Two beautiful kids,

But I was in a really abusive relationship.

And,

And I knew there was something wrong with me.

And I had gone to psychologists and they just couldn't really figure out what was up because from the outside,

I presented well,

And I was articulate and I understood the basics of psychology.

And so no matter what I did,

I could still see myself creating that childhood I had tried to escape.

And then finally it all,

You know,

Went very pear-shaped and became very dangerous.

And I had to just get out.

But once I was on the other side,

I remember saying,

I don't want to do this anymore.

If I can't figure out how to not create this again,

Because I was really scared that I would get into another relationship or put myself in situations that turned out to be really dangerous.

And from that moment on,

Things started to unravel.

So what I learned is that trauma is not something you can talk your way out of necessarily.

A lot of psychologists,

I'm not bagging psychologists.

I think they are important and necessary,

But cognitive behavior therapy isn't going to fix your trauma.

Trauma is stored in the body.

It's very much a physical manifestation as much as it is a mental manifestation and uncovering those,

What I call root cause issues.

So those moments in childhood or even in past lives that set up that pattern going back and recognizing that,

Oh,

That's what created this later on and clearing that.

And what I do is I reprogram it.

That's what for me had the biggest,

What I call return on investment.

Because in my opinion,

If you're spending the money and the time to go seek help,

To heal trauma and to really fix your life,

You want to return on that investment.

And there's a lot of things out there.

I'm not saying that there's one solution for trauma.

You kind of have to hit it from a variety of different angles and it's different for everyone.

But I found that using hypnosis and going back to that root cause issue and also combining that with really with very specific dietary,

The way I was eating made a big impact on,

On how I was able to process my trauma.

Let me just put it that way because a lot of the food we consume or that's considered normal will actually put us into a state of fight or flight.

It's really difficult to process trauma if your body is experiencing anxiety or in fight or flight.

So the more you can do to calm your body and actually learn what safety and calm feels like,

The better off you're going to be and the faster you'll be able to progress.

So that for me was the big aha.

Once I figured out that we're kind of like computers,

We're running these programs and these programs are not really helping us and they're creating problems for us and we can fix it.

We can go back and literally reprogram it.

That shifted everything.

And I just started learning as much as I could and going and seeing different practitioners.

And yeah,

It was,

It was amazing.

I mean,

I was able to turn a really bad situation into something really wonderful that's helped me and a lot of other people.

So while I am grateful for it,

I'm not a fan of suffering.

And I'm not one of those people that says,

Oh,

You need to suffer to learn.

I don't believe that.

So,

But for whatever reason,

That seems to be how it goes.

Right.

We are a product of our environment,

Obviously.

And sometimes we're driven to,

To seek those questions when we really do have to go through difficult times in our lives.

But when we can share those experiences with others,

I feel like that's really where the gift lies.

It isn't necessarily in the suffering that we went through,

But it's what we discovered as a result of that.

And then sharing that with others to help them through theirs.

For me,

I just think suffering is terrible and I don't want anyone to have to do that.

So if I can help you,

I I'm a hundred percent here to help ease that suffering in any way I can.

What people go on to do once they feel better,

You know,

It's up to them.

For me,

I'd rather I focus on creativity.

And so I think the more trauma you heal,

The more creative you can be,

You can become.

And the more easier it is to really tap into your creativity,

Creativity,

Meaning your ability to,

I guess,

Quote,

Manifest things.

So not just making a piece of art,

But creating anything.

So I just love seeing people tap into and lean into their intuition more and be able to really push forward and create what they want to create.

Because I think the people talk about flow or health and wellness.

I think being in that creative state is what feels the most healthy and natural.

And I think a lot of mental health issues could be resolved with that more creative,

That creative focus.

Like,

What do you want to make?

What are you here to make?

I think we're natural creators.

So yeah,

So that's my mission is just to turn on that creativity for everybody.

Yes.

And that's how you're sharing it.

And it's not so much in all being about your story,

Right?

It's more about what you've created as a result of that and sharing that,

Your program and your modality that you've discovered.

And I think that there's so much in functional medicine that really does look at both of those sides of the coin,

The childhood events,

As well as the gut health,

The two things really going together and the body not being able to process the nutrition without having that energetic alignment,

But also the subconscious wholeness.

And that's so much part of DreamWorks too,

Is unearthing those subconscious blockages that are very well there from past lives,

Childhood,

Or whatever we've experienced as spiritually along our path.

And it's latent,

But it's hidden and we're carrying it around in both our soul and our body and our mind.

And it really does block us from moving forward in so many ways that we don't realize.

And once we can uncover those blocks and transform them in a variety of ways,

Then we're able to move past that and to reprogram it and transform that block or that belief,

Which might not even have a basis in reality.

It might not even have a foundation,

But it's become so entrenched in our subconscious that it's controlling much more than we know.

So I love your book,

Healing Trauma with Food.

I think that that's a fabulous combination that's so not approached in Western medicine.

And I love what you talked about with the DNA methylation.

And I don't know if you could say a little bit more about that and the impact that nutrition can have on the healing capability.

Yeah,

Sure.

I think with methylation,

It's funny now because everyone's talking about longevity and living forever and methylation and how important that process is to longevity.

And that's so true because if you do what's called an ACE survey,

Which is Adverse Childhood Experiences,

If you've taken that and your score is high,

Then the likelihood of you having a disease or experiencing ill health is also high.

There's a correlation.

So I took that and I scored high and it scared me.

And based on what I've researched and the way that I eat and approach food is I try to only consume foods that support healthy methylation.

So whenever you're dealing with trauma or even just bad food or negative experiences,

They can,

Your DNA is highly reactive.

So it can,

It can flip on the good stuff or it can flip on the bad stuff.

And so to put it really simply,

The food that I lay out in my book is really there to support the good switch.

So it's supporting the body to function healthily,

To age well,

To avoid those diseases as much as we possibly can.

And to really calm the nervous system,

There are a lot of nutrients and different minerals that you really need in order to support your nervous system and keep it calm.

I think for me,

When I do work with clients,

The biggest things that people can do to improve their mental health with diet are to stop consuming caffeine,

Because that just activates your nervous system.

Stop consuming alcohol because that will create so many mental health issues and to give up sugar.

Cause again,

It's an,

It's a nervous system stimulant.

It's going to make you feel unwell.

It's going to turn the bad switch on.

So I know it's hard because our entire society is built on those three things,

But if you can let those go and it's easy,

It's basic,

It's the nourishing foods.

It's all about finding what works best,

What supports the body,

What nourishes the body and what flips the good switch on so that the DNA is not creating disease.

Yes.

Well,

I love that approach.

I'm a huge nutritional advocate myself.

And of course,

I'm also a really big advocate of personal transformation.

So I wholly support the combination of those two things.

I think it's so often overlooked.

It's hard enough to get people to want to do that difficult work of uncovering the things that are causing challenges in their lives,

But it's a whole nother thing to get them to talk about the food that they're consuming or their lifestyle choices.

And,

And those things don't exist in a vacuum.

And they're also not usually discussed in a,

In a medical environment.

So combining those things is really holistically beneficial and just in general,

The Western way that mental health is approached and the different either medications they try and throw at it or the different approaches that they take.

And you're just so vacuum focused on one thing that you're never looking at the rest of the picture that is influencing it.

So you really need to have a more integrative approach like that to get over those humps.

Yeah.

It's funny because the body is a system.

So isolating different parts of the body in exactly what you said,

This,

It just makes no sense.

It's a system.

There's no one part without the whole.

And the next question is what is a commonly held misconception that you disagree with in terms of this work?

The most common,

There's two questions or two concerns that I get hit with a lot.

When I talk about what I do,

It's very simple.

I created something called belief hacking and it goes into your subconscious and identifies the root cause issue and we clear it and then reprogram it.

And then we support that with aligned action and repeating that new belief.

So a lot of people think,

Oh my gosh,

That sounds too hard.

And it's really not,

It's really,

It's about letting go.

And my clients come to me and it's literally just popping in some earphones,

Laying down,

Being in a dark,

Quiet place.

And I guide you through everything.

We go through a,

It's a guided meditation.

And then we just open up the subconscious because the subconscious can be accessed by a drop of brainwaves.

So all we're doing is dropping your brainwaves,

Similar to falling asleep,

Just getting you really relaxed so that when we ask the subconscious questions,

The answers are given.

You don't really have to do anything,

Just providing answers.

And,

And so it's funny to me when people were like,

That sounds too hard.

I'm like,

No,

It's really not.

And once people get the hang of it,

They didn't know that that was associated with whatever it was presenting in their life now.

And the other thing people say a lot,

Which,

Which makes me laugh too is,

Oh,

I haven't experienced any trauma.

And I'm like,

Huh?

Okay.

So our society is pretty much a trauma factory.

We just live in like a trauma factory.

And I mean,

COVID for example,

Was the biggest,

I mean,

We all have PTSD from that alone.

So that's going to trigger up all kinds of things that,

That need to be looked at and healed.

And,

Oh my gosh,

Are we,

We're dealing with some hardcore PTSD.

So I,

You can see it out there in the world,

You know,

People are struggling,

They're just overloaded.

And so I don't want people to think of themselves as these traumatized broken people,

But I don't think people understand what trauma is.

They think it's like a big thing,

Like a plane crash or a car crash or death.

It's not,

It's little things.

It's how you interpret an event.

So it's your interpretation of an experience.

And then that experience locks in a belief and that belief then creates or manifests in your life.

So we have all experienced trauma.

We live in a trauma factory.

Once you understand that,

And you can just look at the world and go,

Oh,

Trauma factory.

Hmm.

And you can figure out ways to,

I guess that's what we could call enlightenment,

Deal with that and manage that and take that apart and make it work for you in a better way.

That's what I try to help people do.

So yeah,

We've all experienced trauma and that's okay.

It's just about transforming it.

I'm glad you quantified that because I do think that there is a common misconception about what qualifies as that,

Or that term has a loaded perception to it.

And I think it's similar to loss.

Many people think that loss is just someone dying that's close to you and don't realize that there are so many different kinds of loss and similar to so many different kinds of trauma.

And all of those things have to be processed,

Have to be dealt with and they range.

There's a spectrum,

Right?

And it's not necessarily what a lot of people perceive it being.

And so they skip over it and they gloss over it and they simplify it.

And they don't think that that needs to be dealt with and that,

That that could be affecting them.

And that's many times the thing that is because you're pushing it down and you're keeping it in the back room,

So to speak,

In the subconscious.

Yeah.

It's really frustrating because we're really not taught anything about any of this.

We're really just walking around blind.

We start to dig deeper and the experiences you had as a child between the ages of zero and seven with them.

And,

You know,

People don't realize that's the link.

I mean,

Some people do,

But you know,

And it's all about identifying those patterns and the patterns will reveal the trauma or whatever the root cause issue or whatever you want to call it.

I just call it trauma because for me,

I mean,

To me,

That that's what it is.

It's just a belief that gets locked in from an experience that wasn't great.

So as a woman,

What role have dreams played in your journey,

If at all?

Well,

Dreams have always played a major character in my life ever since I was little,

I've always had very vivid dreams,

A few that were quite psychic.

So I always paid close attention to them.

And when,

After my two boys were born,

I went on a bit of a journey to find help because I knew I needed help with trauma.

And I worked with a few different psychologists,

But that was mostly,

You know,

CBT type therapy.

And I didn't find it beneficial until I found a Jungian psychoanalyst who specialized in dream therapy.

And I was into Jung for quite a while.

I read a lot of his books and I really liked the way he approached the understanding of our minds and working with her was wonderful because it allowed me to dive.

That was my first sort of foray into the subconscious and understanding the language and the symbols that I use to communicate to myself,

Because in my dreams,

You know,

As I assume in everybody's dreams,

We're talking to ourselves.

We're revealing truths about our own experiences and our traumas and what's going on subconsciously within us that we aren't consciously aware of.

So she really helped me understand my own personal dream language and,

You know,

How the events in my life were being told or interpreted through my dreams in a way that allowed me to process and heal aspects of myself.

And again,

Shed more light and give me more information around what was good for me and what was not good for me.

And the thing I loved most about my dreams is it's a very gentle revealing.

So you are revealing truths to yourself in a very gentle,

Beautiful way so that you aren't actually,

Because sometimes if you find out the truth,

That can be traumatizing in itself.

So by gently sort of unraveling the truth through your dreams,

It's a better way to process.

I'm so glad that you've had that experience because I feel like that is part of my whole message is how important it is to harness your own dream language and to understand that your dreams are a story that are really just compiled from your subconscious and it's all you.

It's not just some random regurgitation of a TV show you watched or something that you put in that then just kind of flopped out.

It's all part of your conception and your perspectives and your judgments and your beliefs and your emotions and your blocks and your hopes and your dreams and your fears and it's everything.

And then it's just such a beautiful puzzle story parable sometimes that is really trying to show you a path,

Show you a solution,

Show you an alternate way to deal with something.

And there's just so much information in there that is available to people and they just don't know how to tap into it.

So I'm glad that you've experienced that.

The thing I love most about dreaming is like art,

It's really a masterpiece because it's all of you but the way you're communicating to yourself is in these really can be in these really beautiful metaphors.

So I encourage people to look at their dreams like they would a painting or any piece of art and know that there's way more going on than just a surface appearance.

Absolutely.

So if you had a couple things that people should stop doing or people should start doing,

What would those things be?

What people should start doing?

I think people should start getting curious.

I think everyone should see themselves as a creator.

So the sooner you realize that what's happening to you,

I mean,

Not all of it,

But a lot of it is your own creation and trying to find ways to create differently or create better outcomes for yourself,

The better.

So take responsibility for what's happening.

Again,

Not all of it.

I'm not saying for example,

Domestic violence,

I created that in the sense that I'd experienced that as a child.

So therefore my marriage that also presented,

I'm not excusing the abuse or the violence.

I was able to put myself in that situation because of what was going on in my subconscious,

But that person is not absolved from that because of that.

So it's just about taking responsibility for your part in the creation of that which you are experiencing and doing the best you can to create a different outcome for yourself that you're happy with.

And so just getting curious and tracking your patterns and trying to understand,

It's like the hypothesis formula,

If then what?

And then once you understand those patterns,

Then you'll be able to go back into the subconscious and kind of change things around.

And I would tell people to stop watching mainstream media and consuming anything political.

Like I think I just see so much energy going out into the realm,

Especially in the US of so much energy being put towards politics and mainstream media and all this stuff and just a silly bunch of lies.

So once you recognize that we literally live in a trauma factory and that that is all make-believe silly money power control over you nonsense,

Both sides,

Just stop giving it your energy.

So that's my advice in terms of stopping.

And the constant stress that that puts you under just keeps us from really being able to be enlightened.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's just a constant state of fight or flight.

You know,

You're activating your nervous system all the time by engaging in that.

And then another great way to heal trauma is through healthy,

Secure attachment and connection.

It's really hard if everybody's fighting each other.

Right.

So I just encourage everybody to turn all that stuff off and go outside and get some sun.

Yes.

Yes.

And meditate.

That'd be great,

Too.

Yeah.

Oh,

My gosh.

Yes.

That's like it's that's a winner if you can get there.

So what's next for you on your journey?

I wrote a book,

Published a book in 2016,

A novel.

So I'm gearing up to write another one.

And yeah,

I just keep doing my work,

Helping folks.

I've been getting a lot of downloads or having a lot of chats with usually I'm somewhat of a psychic medium.

So a lot of times when dead people come through,

It's usually to talk to people I know directly,

Like friends or family,

And they want to share messages.

And I don't do that for work or anything.

I just do it.

Because I can and I help people.

But recently,

Well,

Since last year,

People have been coming through like famous people we all know and chatting to me and telling me things,

Information that I think will help people understand the world and their place in it a little bit better,

Because people on the other side,

They have a really funny sense of humor.

And it's just so much love that comes through.

It's this really amazing vibration,

Nothing I've experienced here in this dimension.

So yeah,

So I'm going to start sharing more of that.

I'd love to hear that.

And that would make a fabulous book.

Yeah,

My book is going to be more about creativity.

And I know for a fact that past lives are real.

And,

And people operate on the assumption that we just are dead and nothing happens.

And we only get this one life,

Which is not true.

And so I'm really writing this book in the hopes to explain how that all works in a different way.

But also,

I do end up here again,

And another lifetime,

I can remember faster how it all works,

Because it's a lot of work digging through all this stuff.

And if we have to do this lifetime after lifetime,

And that's just exhausting.

So I think with me,

For me,

The enlightenment journey I'm on is,

How do I wrap this up?

Move on.

Awesome.

All right.

Well,

Thank you so much for being here today,

Christina Khan.

I know my listeners will love hearing your approach and your story.

And I really appreciate you sharing it with us today.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Reviews

Interesting—would love to hear more on the healing of trauma…❤️🙏🏼
Thank you so much for listing those out! I can’t seem to cut and paste from that, would you even be able to give me a couple titles? I could look them up that way… thank you so much!