In 2014 Jacqueline was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time, she was working in a highly stressful corporate environment, smoking 30 cigarettes a day, drinking a bottle of wine every night, and eating on the hoof. Frightened and thinking she was going to die, the cancer diagnosis was a catalyst for a complete lifestyle overhaul. A chance encounter with a hypnotherapist, led her to retrain as a Clinical Hypnotherapist herself. She then used hypnosis to quit smoking and drinking, change her diet, and stop eating sugar. Jacqueline now uses her expertise to support others around the world to use the power of their subconscious mind to get healthy and make positive changes to their lives.
Jacqueline Carson, International Clinical Hypnotherapist
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
I am a very eclectic person and I am interested in so many things. I get inspired by creative thinking but I’m also analytical and need to understand how things work. I have already packed so much into my life, I get quite exhausted looking back, and I’ve still got so much to do and experience!
I’m currently single and very happy about it. I have two grown up children and my daughter and her husband have just had their first baby. This kind of makes me feel old, but I firmly believe that age is just an illusion and getting older is a privilege. Just because we get older chronologically does not mean we need to withdraw from the world, give up on our dreams or become inactive. I feel fitter and stronger in lots of ways than I did when I was younger.
I live in beautiful wild countryside in the North East of the UK. It can get a bit breezy at times and we’re usually a few degrees cooler than the closest town, but the scenery is to die for. Think Heathcliffe. I’ve always been a country girl and have never lived in a town or city. I like visiting sometimes but I could never live there. I need the calm and the quiet and wouldn’t be happy with the noise of the city.
I have a passion for horses and started riding when I was three. When I was younger, I worked in horse-racing for a while. This was back in the eighties and I have fantastic memories of that time in my life when freedom and experimentation was the norm. I had the big hair, the fluorescent beads and eye shadow, the rara skirts. I also remember I had some tight leopard-skin trousers with chains and safety pins attached!! The despair of my parents was never my concern.
Now, I still ride occasionally, but I also take time out in the countryside with my Rottweiler Ollie. He absolutely is my main man. Don’t get me wrong, he can be a pain in the butt sometimes – Rottie’s are renowned for their stubbornness – but I love him. He is central to how I work and we fit walks in and around my business schedule.
Music is a big passion in my life. I love most genres but rock and roll is my favourite go to. I love upbeat music and am not a fan of slow sad love songs. I play the drums and practice as much as I can at home (that’s another reason for living in the middle of nowhere!!). I also have a piano and a couple of guitars but have never really mastered those. Years ago during a trip to the west coast of Africa with my children, I had a jembe drum made for my son and I had some lessons over there. Occasionally I get the drum out and play to my hearts content. It has an amazing sound.
I also love dancing too and go to classes and social events twice a week. Over the last couple of years I’ve learned more than 50 sequence dances, ballroom and Latin. There is no better feeling than music and dancing. Riding comes close, but the music and movement of dance combined releases all those happy hormones. Your chemical state literally changes, it’s like a euphoria.
I’m not sure if I was a performer of sorts in a past life but I definitely want to be in the next.
Travelling is also something I love. For someone who lives in the North East of the UK and who was born in the winter-time, I absolutely hate the cold. I’ve often said I should have been born in a hot country. I love the sunshine and the heat. It makes me feel so good and so healthy. I do like to see the change of seasons but I love the warmth of the sunshine and the light. Conversely, I also love the rain. Not the drizzly kind or the sideways stuff we get here at home sometimes, but that pouring down straight rain like you get in a thunder storm, or in the Lake District. Even in the tropics, where everything freshens up and you get that lovely smell.
The southern islands of Thailand is probably my most favourite place that I’ve been, followed closely by the Caribbean – I’m going back there in June. You can’t beat Mexico for marine life though. What a fantastic place for snorkelling and diving, amazing colours.
As a child I wanted to be an author. I love books and writing and I always excelled at creative writing at school. Over the years I’ve written children’s stories, screenplays, poetry and numerous short stories though I’ve not attempted to get any published. I do regard myself as a writer and now I have been published in several magazines talking about my journey and my work. I do also contribute to an online UK newspaper.
At the moment I’m in the middle of writing my first self-help book and I’m scheduled to have it finished and published this year.
I’m also vegan, teetotal and I gave up smoking seven years ago, all using hypnosis but more on this later.
What is your business name and how do you help your clients?
Jacqueline Carson Clinical Hypnotherapy and Meditation Services serves to help individuals discover the power of their subconscious mind in making positive changes to their lives. My mission is to teach as many people as I can how to take control of their subconscious to be able to improve their physical and mental well-being.
The way that we behave, the habits we form come from the automated programs in our subconscious mind. Sometimes these are for good, but sometimes these habits and behaviours do not serve us well. Oftentimes, our beliefs underpin those habits and behaviours and mostly these beliefs are unchallenged. Often, they’re not even our own beliefs but rather something that someone has told us at some time or another.
I help my clients to challenge those beliefs, to get rid of what they don’t want and find out what it is they do want. I then help them to re-program their subconscious mind to achieve their desires.
Improving overall well-being affects how we show up in the world, our performance at work, how we manage conflict, social interaction etc. Sometimes a simple mindset shift is all that is needed to increase confidence and self-belief whereas sometimes deeper work is required to address trauma and fear.
What kind of audience do you target your business towards?
Most of my clients are women aged between 30 and 55. They have very often found themselves at a place in life where they are re-evaluating their lifestyle. Very often they are self-medicating with alcohol and/or self-soothing with food, sugar in particular. They find it hard to stick to a healthy diet and then suffer the consequences of brain fog, sluggishness, poor sleep etc. They may also use other illicit substances.
Some of my clients have experienced a health scare or are conscious about weight gain, whilst others are struggling with confidence, low mood and anxiety issues.
My clients are high achievers, successful and from the outside look like they have everything, however, their work/life balance is tipped in the wrong direction and their general well-being has been low on their list of priorities until now.
What are your current goals for your business?
The main goal for my business is to educate as many people as possible on how to use the most fantastic resource they have – their minds.
This year I want to see the development of my one-to-one coaching program, helping individuals to overcome not just one but several problems over the course of 6-12 months.
I’m also scheduled to have my first book published by the end of the year and I’m aiming to re-launch my podcast.
What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future?
Whilst I love working one to one with clients, I would also like to develop online courses and programs. This will enable me to reach more women making the service accessible to those who are not able to undertake one-to-one work.
Who inspires you to be the best that you can be?
There are many people who inspire me and the work that I do. I read a lot about people who have overcome illnesses using the power of their mind, specifically individuals who have cured themselves of terminal diagnosis. Reading their stories reinforces my own beliefs and inspires me more to share my knowledge with the world.
What is your work inspired by?
My work is inspired by the clients I work with. Seeing their transformation is instrumental. Their amazement when they realise they have no cravings to drink alcohol, when their desire is for fruit not chocolate, when they are motivated to exercise, when their clothes feel loose, when thein skin is radiant and they sleep soundly through the night, is priceless.
If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?
There is a general scepticism within the mainstream public about what hypnosis actually is and whether it works. Hypnosis is sometimes linked to trickery or being a con most likely due to T.V. and stage shows where it is used as entertainment.
It is not helped by conflicting studies about whether hypnotherapy is effective or not. Some suggest that it is, however there are more that at best sit on the fence or worse argue that it is not effective at all. The problem with a lot of these studies is that it is not an exact science and as with all things that are not fully understood, they are quickly dismissed.
I am passionate about dispelling the myths about hypnotherapy. I would like to see it given more kudos in the medical profession.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
On 1st April 2014, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was also the day I started a new job as a Team Manager for a Local Authority managing a team of child protection social workers. I had to tell my employers about my diagnosis on my very first day. I had qualified as a social worker twenty years earlier and during that time experienced a tremendous amount of stress in a frequently toxic environment.
I was that person who was self-medicating to cope with the stresses of my job and my life. I was smoking 30 cigarettes a day and drinking a bottle of red wine every evening. I was working extremely long hours and as a single parent, single handedly raising my children and supporting them financially. I had also recently lost my father unexpectedly. My mother died when I was young.
Being diagnosed with cancer was the most scary thing in my life. I had quite a few family members die from various cancers including two who were younger than me. I was scared for my children, both of whom were still grieving the loss of their grandfather. My daughter was in university at the time studying to be a teacher and I was worried this would affect her studies. I was on my own, alone with no back-up.
This diagnosis made me face up to a few things in my life. I re-evaluated my whole lifestyle, questioned what I was doing with my life and to myself. I was deeply unhappy and I believe this, grief, stress and trauma contributed to my cancer in addition to the toxins from cigarettes and alcohol. So, I made a plan. I decided things had to change and the first thing I needed to do was to get rid of the stress in my life and the biggest stress was my job. I then needed to get rid of the toxins – the smoking and drinking had to stop.
Part of my cancer treatment included hypnotherapy. This was arranged to help me to cope with the diagnosis, to process what was happening and to manage my emotions. I was so impressed that I decided to re-train as a Clinical Hypnotherapist and I qualified in 2016.
I then used hypnosis to quit smoking also in 2016, and then quit drinking in 2019. Following quitting drinking I discovered that I had a sweet tooth, most likely this was disguised by the sugar contained in the wine. With my knowledge that cancer cells love to consume sugar, I knew that this was an issue so once again I used self-hypnosis. Now I don’t eat any sugars or processed foods. I also do not eat any animal products and am completely plant-based eating only whole foods.
This whole experience has led me to where I am today, running my own business, helping others to realise their own limitless potential. All of your power is in your subconscious mind, all you need to do is to learn how to program it.
