Nia Thomas [00:00:04]:
Hello, and welcome to the knowing self knowing others podcast, where we discuss self aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. I'm your host, Nia Thomas. Join me as we talk to today's guest.

Nia Thomas [00:00:15]:
I'm delighted to welcome a really fascinating guest to the podcast today, Ravinda Taylor. She was born in India and raised in England, and Ravinda has experienced life through multiple cultural lenses. She studied microbiology in Wales, where she developed a deep appreciation for the Welsh culture and even learned a few words of Welsh, ar bair hog, Rabinde. But science was just the beginning. A chance encounter with a presentation on hypnosis and psychotherapy sparked a new passion. So after undergoing hypnotherapy herself, she trained in the field for three years exploring the power of the mind. And during that time, she met her husband, Eldon Taylor, who is a leading expert in subliminal communication. And together, they have explored psychology, neuroscience, and personal development.

Nia Thomas [00:01:04]:
She's now based in Washington, and Rabindra is dedicated to understanding how our subconscious minds shape our lives. Ravinda, it's really lovely to have you here. So tell us a little bit more about your journey from microbiology to hypnosis and psychotherapy.

Ravinder [00:01:20]:
It it was it was quite a journey. You know, I was very much the hard scientist. If science couldn't demonstrate it, I I wasn't really interested. But I was working in a path lab when there was a a presentation that was hosted by the by the hospital, the Leicester Oil Infirmary. They were hosting this presentation on hypnosis. And up until that point, I had thought hypnosis was a bit of a joke. It was done for entertainment, help people, you know, have people doing stupid things on stage, making the audience laugh. That that was as far as I took it.

Ravinder [00:01:59]:
But this presentation was really fascinating. And it so it had a quasi endorsement because it was being offered by the hospital, but there was also the fact that, you know, there were 70 people who work in my lab. And most people attended this presentation, but it was a huge auditorium, so they were sprinkled all over the place. And just coincidentally, the three subjects that the lecturer brought forward to demonstrate some of these techniques all came from my lab. So I knew that they weren't shills, that this was real, that Dawn really did forget the number six when she was counting from one to 10. And Martin really did have a pin stuck in his arm and not flinch, not anything. So that that was where it started. And based on some of the stories, I went on and had hypnotherapy.

Ravinder [00:02:53]:
So I experienced techniques like hypnotic drawing, which I found fascinating. What just briefly, what happened there was, you know, on one session, he put me under hypnosis. He'd already done regression to figure out where you know, what points in my childhood the triggering events had occurred. So he went back to that, and he said, okay. Now draw the experience. And so I did this drawing. I'm not the best artist by any means. But when I opened my eyes, all I saw were these squiggles on the page.

Ravinder [00:03:29]:
Like, okay. I have no idea what that means. But the following week, he took me back into hypnosis, had me look at the picture, and I remembered the the experience. There was a an event when I I would do an eight or nine. I was in junior school, and we used to go swimming in the summer. Our school had an above ground pool, and there weren't proper classes, but we would splash around and have fun. But there was one day I was in the pool, and I I have no idea why, but my feet couldn't find purchase on the ground. They were just scrabbling about, and I couldn't I couldn't get my footing.

Ravinder [00:04:06]:
And the teacher saw that, just reached over the edge of the pool, pulled me up by my swimming cap. But I locked the fear away. I didn't tell anybody how traumatic that was. I, you know, I barely acknowledged it to myself. You know, I just I locked it up, put it away. But under hypnosis, we had gone back to this situation, and this was something that was causing me stress, happened in the past, but was influencing my present. So I went on and did a three year course in hypnosis and psychotherapy, got introduced to the field of subliminal communication, and the rest was history. You know? I've just been spending the last thirty five plus years researching ways to understand the mind, but not only that, to find the practical applications to the research that I was I was discovering.

Nia Thomas [00:05:07]:
So you mentioned there that you were working in a micro microbiology lab at the time.

Ravinder [00:05:11]:
We were all hard scientists, and so I was watching this phenomena going on with three people that I knew. I knew. So therefore therefore, it was real. So you you had the two parts of it, the quasi endorsement from the hospital system and also the fact that I had witnessed my my friends, my colleagues undergoing the process.

Nia Thomas [00:05:38]:
So it gave it a level of authenticity is what you're saying.

Ravinder [00:05:41]:
Yes. Yes.

Nia Thomas [00:05:44]:
So tell us, what exactly is hypnotherapy? I'm sure lots of people will have heard and watched people on the stage doing that sort of comedy hypnotherapy, but you're talking about something quite different, aren't you?

Ravinder [00:05:58]:
Yeah. Because on the stage, that's not hypnotherapy. They use hypnosis. Hypnosis is basically a technique to slow down brainwave activity. An analogy that we often use around here is if you look at the faster brainwave activity when you're alert, when you're excited, your brainwaves are going crazy. But if you picture that like a fence, and so information can't get through. You can't access deeper information. But when you slow down brainwave activity, the holes in the fence grow bigger and bigger, and you have the ability to access information that is normally buried.

Ravinder [00:06:37]:
Just think about it. You know, if you're if you're really upset or stressed, that tends to affect your memory. Well, in hypnotherapy, we are aiming to go back to memories that are stored in the subconscious mind. So you have to get even more relaxed in in order to get there. And hypnotherapy, you know, there's there's different techniques. You can go you can have someone put you under hypnosis and then just have you picturing an an upcoming experience, but picturing you doing it successfully. And you hold that in your mind so that when you actually come to it in real life, that stress doesn't build up and you relax. But the hypnotherapy that fascinated me most was about accessing memories in the subconscious mind, stuff that you don't remember, you've locked away, but it has an influence on your life experience today.

Ravinder [00:07:33]:
It's guiding you even though it you've forgotten all about it. It's it you know, you're like a puppy on a string. You're being controlled by old beliefs, old memories, things that don't serve you today, but that but they're affecting your present.

Nia Thomas [00:07:51]:
Interesting that, yeah, and then you're talking about things that we don't really accept or are aware of. And when we talk about self awareness, it's really it's about bringing those things to the surface. So if we want to develop our self awareness, how might we use the tools and techniques that you're able to help us with?

Ravinder [00:08:11]:
My work goes well beyond hypnosis. My work is all about understanding the mind, understanding how it gets programmed, how easy it is for us to be tweaked to do somebody else's bidding even without aware awareness of it. So for example, there's been lots of research done on, like, compliance principles, defense mechanisms, all all in that area. So one example that I would have for you is if you're in a restaurant and the waitress is serving you, in America especially, it's customary to to tip. If the waitress is wearing red, she will receive more tips from both men and women just because exactly. I found that fascinating too. But just because she's wearing red, why what that tweaks in the subconscious mind? I don't know. But there is research going on everywhere about how to how our our minds work and how to tweak it.

Ravinder [00:09:13]:
And this information is getting used. Who do you think is using that information? It's gonna be advertisers, the media, the politicians. They're gonna be using this information against us constantly. So I think it's incumbent upon us to learn some of how it works. You don't have to learn every single technique, but you do have to have a solid awareness that these things are happening. And to become your own self, to become aware of who you are, you have to figure out who you're not. And so you have to start cutting those puppet strings. So it comes first by learning how your how your mind works, learning how information gets programmed into your subconscious mind.

Ravinder [00:10:02]:
It's about understanding that most of our choices come from the subconscious mind. We don't stop and think everything through. You know? If you ask me a question, I give you an answer. If you ask me an opinion, I'll give you an answer. But I'm normally pulling on information from the subconscious mind. There's research that has been done repeatedly that shows there's activity in the subconscious mind up to seven seconds before you make a choice. So in in the experience, the kind of thing they're doing is, you know, are you gonna use your right hand or your left hand to press the button? You you tell when you made that choice, but a technician looking at the information can predict what choice you're gonna make up to seven seconds earlier with a 60 to 80% accuracy rate. So Wow.

Ravinder [00:10:54]:
If your choices are being made by information in your subconscious mind, and your subconscious mind is a repository of all of your experiences, your all of your life experiences, a great deal of that information is old. Wow. It doesn't it doesn't work for today. So you were embarrassed as your child doing some public speaking. That doesn't mean that you need to, you know, constantly avoid public speaking today because it's it's old information. We've changed. We've grown. We've matured, but we're still being tweaked by, as I said, the old programming.

Nia Thomas [00:11:32]:
I'm interested if you put that into a workplace context, I've been thinking about gaslighting as you were talking about that and how people have the ability to manipulate. What are your experiences or information that you've gathered around work place behaviors and and whether gaslighting is something that you've come across and you you know more about than I do?

Ravinder [00:11:57]:
No. I don't tend to think too much about gaslighting. Gaslighting happens everywhere. That's not just to do with the workplace. There is a great deal of the information I cover in mind training that will apply in the workplace. Whether you are a team leader and you've got people working under you, how can you get the best out of them? Well, some of that comes down to, again, understanding how your brain works and so what someone's proclivities are, where their strengths and weaknesses are. And when you understand, you know, some people are more left brained, some people are more right brained, that's not an actual fact. But we do have, you know, this idea that the left brained person is more logical and rational, and the right brain person is more artistic.

Ravinder [00:12:50]:
Well, again, somewhere in our past, we will have decided where we fall on that spectrum. And by deciding where we fall, we can restrict our further opportunities. So as I said before, I'm not the best artist. So for years, I didn't do any art at all. It's only as I've been encountering this kind of information that I go back and and rethink that. And then I start you know, you can reassess the information. So my early artistic attempts weren't very good. Art, when I when I was a kid, it was one of those subject areas that was being phased out.

Ravinder [00:13:30]:
So I had very little actual instruction. Where I did have good instruction, I produced some things that I was kind of proud of, but it was very limited. It was very little. So today, I look at that and thinking, why do I block myself? So I did. I did a teach yourself to draw in in thirty days course. And I was so impressed with what I turned out. So when you're bringing this back to the workplace, you know, there are some people who are better at organizing. There are some people who are better at following, trying to maximize the abilities of your team, you need to pay attention to this.

Ravinder [00:14:12]:
And then you also bring in, like, the Pygmalion effect. You know, the research was originally done in an elementary school where they were looking at children. And by by getting the teachers to think that certain students in their class were particularly gifted, they found, you know, that that those children actually performed a whole lot better. In the first grade, it was, like, 15% better. In the second grade, it was, like, 7% better. As the kids got older, the effect wasn't as strong, but that you know, you can explain that away because the teachers have an idea of what the other kids are like. They'll have spoken to other teachers, and the kids will also have an idea of where they stand in the class in the class ranking. But this hasn't only been done in schools.

Ravinder [00:15:00]:
This has been done in the military, in workplaces, in sales teams. So believing in the people that you are leading will go a long way, a huge way, to helping them perform their best. But bringing this down to a personal level, we've all experienced when you've got that authority figure who's standing over you and they're glaring at you, and you can forget the most basic things. You can forget how to spell when someone's glaring at you and rushing you and and you're and you're feeling all tense. But if you can build up your own self belief, then the Galatea effect comes into it comes into play. So it doesn't matter what someone else believes. There was one research study. They were looking at different sales teams, and they they grouped the people into three groups.

Ravinder [00:15:55]:
They had the the high achievers, and they were told to strive even higher. And they did. They they did wonderfully. You had the bottom group. Because they were in the bottom group, the attrition rate was huge. They quit. They gave up. But what was fascinating was the middle group in this one research study where the leader of the group refused to believe that they were less than.

Ravinder [00:16:24]:
She had that inner belief, and she inspired her people to have that inner belief. They did not do as well as the top group, but they had a significant increase. So in the workplace, you know, having an understanding of these of these mechanisms, how they work, how the programming gets in, how significant it is that if you're a team leader and you get an award, acknowledge your team. Yeah. Because that will make your team work better. And if you are just a team member, acknowledge your leader because that will just tighten tighten those bonds, and you will all just perform better. And the workplace environment just gets better when everyone believes when when you focus on the positive, all got good good aspects to our personalities. We've all got our weaknesses.

Ravinder [00:17:23]:
You can focus on the weaknesses only, and you'll watch someone's performance crash and burn. But you focus on their strengths, you will bring out the best.

Nia Thomas [00:17:33]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And, we often talk about that, how how that praise and how that acknowledgement has such an impact on somebody's self belief I, because of that. I'm interested in how you think that self awareness fits with all of this because a lot of what you talked about is about subliminal and the messages then and things that happen in your brain seven seconds before you act. Where does self awareness fit in all of that?

Ravinder [00:18:05]:
It overlies the whole thing. Self awareness is learning about why you do what you do and then choosing differently. My life philosophy can be sub summed up by live consciously, choose wisely, love passionately. You cannot live consciously when all of these forces and it's not it's not always deliberate programming attempts at all. So for example, you look at the placebo response. Mhmm. Placebo response is a wonderful example of the power of the mind. You know? People can be given a sugar pill, and if they handed the sugar pill correctly, they can cure themselves.

Ravinder [00:18:51]:
That that's wonderful. But one thing that I found really fascinating when you looked at global effects, what they found was that for hypertension, the placebo effect in Germany was low. But when they look at gastric ulcers, they found that the placebo effect in Brazil was really low. In Europe, it was higher. And in Germany, it was even higher. Now I don't know the answers to this, but what it does tell you is that our enculturation, the information we are taking in subliminally, it's all around us. We're not thinking about it. We're not, you know, thinking about placebo responses and blood pressure and gastric ulcers, but it has an it has an effect.

Ravinder [00:19:43]:
What is there in our environment that does that? I don't know. When it comes to health and wellness, my work will focus on bolstering up that belief that we do have the ability to heal ourselves, that frequently, not always, you know, I'm a strong proponent on being kind to yourself. This is an opportunity to judge other people. But in my own experience, I had the same thing. After my second child was born, I developed rheumatoid arthritis. It was a really ugly situation. It was really scary. When my son was three months old, I was having problems changing his diaper because I couldn't hold his his legs up with my left hand because my shoulder didn't work.

Ravinder [00:20:31]:
So there were lots of those kinds of experiences. But when you take self responsibility out to its limits, which I did in this, and I start to say, well, why am I doing this to myself? Alright. Now it could be that the answers that come up, you know, what you wanna ask yourself is what do I get out of this? And, you know, so some possible examples can be the the I get extra attention for it, or I don't have to participate in something, or I get my partner to do what I want them to do. These are just some random things. You know? So I went in, and I did that to myself, and you allow some of that free thinking to to go up go on. So some of the answers that are gonna come up are gonna be ridiculous. But it could be that one of those ridiculous answers is the actual answer. But you open up possibility.

Ravinder [00:21:31]:
I did all of that. I looked at all of the things. And the beauty is you don't have to share the information with anyone else. You know? Got it. So I I did all of that work. And then fifteen months afterwards, I you know, so I was bolstering up my self belief. We have this inner talk line of programs. These are subliminal self help programs that can program the subconscious mind automatically to it's like positive affirmations just on a much higher level.

Ravinder [00:22:01]:
So I was using an inner talk subliminal program for accelerated healing and well-being. I played that every night, all night for fifteen months. And the affirmations there are, you know, my body works perfectly. My mind knows how to heal itself. You know, all of these kinds of stuff. I just inundated myself with those beliefs. I went through the the self responsibility part of it. Why am I doing this to myself? And then I came across a supplement, CMO.

Ravinder [00:22:30]:
It's an extract of beef. It's a simple extract. An interesting aside is I am vegan. Three weeks after I've completed this course, I never went back and used my RA meds again. Now I had tried to get off them before, but it wasn't pretty. It just it regressed really, really fast. But after using these course of this course of supplements, I was cured. Now was it the supplement? Was it the fact that I had done the psychological work behind it, looking at self responsibility, and I just needed that extra push? Was the CMO a placebo? You know? If it was so strong, it would be sold to everyone as a cure for RA.

Ravinder [00:23:21]:
I can tell you that it worked for me, but that wasn't the only thing that I did. I did all of this work, you know, looking at my subconscious beliefs, trying to fig figure it out. I did everything in my power to make the placebo response work for me, and it did. I've not taken any RA meds now for, what, twenty five years, twenty four years, something like that.

Nia Thomas [00:23:45]:
You talk about subliminal communication, which makes me think about microinteractions. It feels like they are two sides of of a coin, but they are very, very close together. I recently had a conversation with Sarah Langslow who talks about microinteractions, and I'm quite interested in microaggressions and civility and respect in the workplace. Where does subliminal communication and hypnosis and psychotherapy and the work that you do, what are you learning about civility and respect in the workplace, especially when we're talking about those micro behaviors?

Ravinder [00:24:23]:
It the micro behaviors have have a huge effect on us, the ones that we exhibit to to other people. There was some research that was done with dogs that were trained to smell drugs. They they they were trained for that. And the handlers were told that certain places were marked, and there were some decoy sausages, you know, to try and get these dogs off track. What they found was when the the handlers knew where the stuff was planted, even if it wasn't, because they marked the wrong places, the dog still responded. When it comes to the Pygmalion effect, they've actually filmed lecturers or teachers, and it's the microexpressions. You know, so this the student can tell whether the teacher likes them or not. Even if they're not aware of it consciously, they can tell.

Ravinder [00:25:21]:
And if the teacher doesn't like them, they don't do as well. If the teacher likes them, they do, which is why the Pygmalion effect worked because the teachers were told that a, b, and c student were, you know, were were the most likely to be successful. So they gave them more attention. They smiled at them more. The the best way out of dealing with this is comes back to the Galatea effect. Build up your own self belief. Understand that we do intake this information. And so after a bit, you learn to take it with with a with a pinch of salt.

Ravinder [00:26:00]:
You know, there are people. We we can't change the people around us. You know? We are aware of those people. Even if we're not aware of the microaggressions specifically, we're aware that that person doesn't like me. That person looks down at me. That person doesn't respect me. We know it. Yeah.

Ravinder [00:26:20]:
Just understand that this information is coming in that way. You can try reframing it. You know, one of the classic example is that the bully in school can often be the child who's being bullied at home. Yeah. So if you can meet that with compassion, you don't have to say, this person's mean to me, so I'm gonna be mean back. I actually have an interesting example of that. I had to see a specialty dentist at one point. And every time I went, I just felt like he didn't like me.

Ravinder [00:26:55]:
He was off. I just felt really off. He was a really good dentist, but it always left me feeling less than.

Nia Thomas [00:27:05]:
Right.

Ravinder [00:27:05]:
I remembered an example that my husband had shared with me. And he says rather than responding to the subconscious subliminal microaggressions that are coming out, change your response back. So I did. So I went in and rather than being, you know, timid and small and, yes, whatever you want, doctor, whatever, you know, that type of stuff, I went in with a smile. Hi, doc. How are you? Have a good day. Thanks so much. I really appreciate this.

Ravinder [00:27:39]:
And you should have seen him blossom.

Nia Thomas [00:27:42]:
Wow.

Ravinder [00:27:43]:
He blossomed. You know? He was uplifted by it. So don't think that these microaggressions that are going on around you that they that they mean anything bad about you. They are more talking about the individual. And what can you do to change that by not responding in kind?

Nia Thomas [00:28:07]:
Yes.

Ravinder [00:28:08]:
Changing the script? By being by being friendly? I have seen this happen time and time again when I thought there was someone that didn't like me. If I was really friendly back, I would discover, no. There's some other explanation for it. I don't know what it is, but I'm not gonna reflect the microaggressions back, you know, whether I reflect it in a microaggression or I reflect it in, you know, being small and weak and meek and silly. I'm not gonna do that. You claim your power. You claim your power and you spread the joy. That sounds really twee, but it is about spreading it.

Ravinder [00:28:50]:
It's about being the change that you wanna see in the world by having an understanding of other people. They all have their long bags of subconscious information, all of the negative experience. You know? We have a bias towards the bad. The negativity bias is so strong, and we all have it. So you can help someone overcome theirs. You know? You just when you understand it, it empowers you, and then you're not subject to it so much.

Nia Thomas [00:29:24]:
Yeah. I just I was thinking exactly the same, but it's about we don't realize how much power we have. And we we often take that stance of it's it's negative towards me, but, actually, it might just be that somebody else's situation is very negative, and we need to use our power to bring them out of their shell or to make their day better. And as they say, be kind to unkind people because they are the ones that need it most. And that seems to be

Ravinder [00:29:48]:
exactly what we say. Yeah. Very well said. They they invariably do need it the most. Be the example. Be that person that that reaches out. It does make a huge difference. And then when you start talking about the whole argument about free will, there's so much work that has been done.

Ravinder [00:30:08]:
There are many of the world's brightest minds will tell you totally there is no such thing as free will. We're a product of our genes, our nurturing, our life experiences. Everything that we do has a precursor to it. My belief about this is free will is limited. It's up to us to to take that. So you take that first by, you know, taking charge of how your subconscious mind is programmed. You start making changes in your life. And the beautiful part of it, Nia, is that you become part of somebody else's experience.

Ravinder [00:30:49]:
So maybe you've got family members or friends who are just constantly negative. I'm not talking about preaching to them. I'm talking about just focus on yourself, improve your life, start, you know, building up your optimism reserve that's gonna hold you in such good stead. You know, optimistic people have been shown to have better relationships, more friends, greater financial security, better health, you know, across the board. So you build up your optimism quotient, your life improves, and the people around you see that.

Nia Thomas [00:31:31]:
And if That feels like another way of describing my definition of self awareness, reflection, recognition, regulation, which is all about making those choices about change. As you've been talking about behavior, so modeling behavior is one of the directions of my self aware leadership compass, but I'm now starting to wonder about micro behaviors. That's probably a whole different podcast, but really interesting. Ravinda, before you go, tell us about your book.

Ravinder [00:32:00]:
Mind training, the the book title is Mind Training, the Science of Self Empowerment. It is totally science based. I have a spiritual background, but I wanted to keep this book very, very down to earth, very solid. So I've drawn on, like, 200 independent research studies in order to put together the mind training protocol that I have. Each chapter of the book has a summary at the end that tells you why the information was important. Sometimes the information can be a bit dry. When you're looking at defense mechanisms and shortcuts and fallacies and compliance principles, I don't list them all. It's not possible to list them all.

Ravinder [00:32:42]:
But you have to have a solid enough grounding of the awareness of this. But so what I did to to make it a little bit easier for those people who maybe aren't as scientifically inclined, You need to read the material, but at the end of each, I have a section that will summarize why it's important. But then I also include exercises.

Nia Thomas [00:33:04]:
Okay.

Ravinder [00:33:04]:
You know, there is a difference between having an awareness of this information and truly knowing it in your heart of hearts, knowing it inside, making it a practice. So the end of each chapter will have exercises that you can start putting into practice. They're not difficult. Some of them are incredibly simple. I think the longest exercise that I have in there will take you twelve minutes. And it's an exercise that has been shown to alleviate dementia, you know, improve cognitive abilities, improve health and vitality, and it's a simple twelve minute exercise that that you can do. But not only do I give you the exercise, I tell you how it works, how some of the common explanations out there are not real. But when you know how it works, then you can customize it for yourself.

Ravinder [00:33:59]:
You can turn it into a language that that speaks to you. You are empowered. As I said, it's the science of self empowerment.

Nia Thomas [00:34:09]:
Amazing. Where will we find your book?

Ravinder [00:34:11]:
Anywhere good books are sold. So you can get it Amazon, Barnes and Noble. I'm actually forgetting the main bookstores in Britain, but they are available.

Nia Thomas [00:34:20]:
We will make sure that there is a link to your book in the show notes so that listeners and watchers can go and grab their own copy. Ravinda, it's been really interesting talking to you. Thank you so much for joining me. I think I really do need to read up more about subliminal and this idea of micro behaviors. It it could be a whole new book. It's been brilliant to have you here. Thank you for joining me.

Ravinder [00:34:43]:
Thank you, Nia. I've totally enjoyed it, and I've absolutely loved hearing the Welsh accent again. It's such a pleasure. I miss my time at Westworth.

Nia Thomas [00:35:08]:
Relationships through reflection, recognition and regulation. Head over to my website at knowingselfknowingothers.co.uk to sign up to my newsletter to keep up to date with my blog, podcast and book. Looking forward to having you on my learning journey.