Welcome to the Aspiring Hypnobirthing Instructor podcast. I’m your host, Liz Stanford, Hypnobirthing instructor, Hypnobirthing trainer, hypnotherapist mindset coach, author and owner of The Calm Birth School. In this podcast, we get to explore all the reasons why you should train to teach hypnobirthing. You’ll understand more about what the training actually involves, what it’s like to teach hypnobirthing, and also what it’s like to run a business in the birth world. I can’t wait to take you on this journey and give you all the information you need.
This week, I thought I would take you through what it takes to be a great teacher with engaged clients. This is something that I know that a lot of people who are interested in training to teach hypnobirthing might struggle with. They might worry if they have no teaching experience, how they’re going to be able to stand up and deliver content for two and a half hours per week over four weeks, or even, you know, if they’re, if they’re delivering it over a weekend, that could be six hours in one day. So it can feel quite daunting to think, am I gonna be any good at that? Who’s gonna listen to me? And yeah, just, what if I invest this money and I’m actually rubbish at it? That is something that I hear from people quite often. So I thought in today’s episode, we would explore some of the things that you can do that will make you a really great teacher with clients that are listening and absorbing and implementing what it is that you are asking them to implement.
So at The Calm Birth School, we believe, and I firmly believe that we all learn much more easily through connecting and building relationships. So the more comfortable we feel with the people that we are working with, the people that we are teaching, and the more comfortable that they feel with you, then the easier it is to express yourself. And that’s both from teacher to student as well. So we also understand that we can learn from each other, and essentially, we are all teaching, supporting, and guiding one another. That’s true for the training in terms of when I am training people to teach hypnobirthing. But it’s also true as a Hypnobirthing teacher teaching pregnant couples, pregnant clients you won’t believe how much you learn from each person that you work with, that you teach Hypnobirthing to you. It just helps you to become a better and better teacher, the more experience that you get.
So you, you are not the final result ever. Like you are always learning and growing and developing. And the more sort of unusual clients that you are presented with, whether the unusual means that you know they’re different to you or they have a particular special circumstance in their pregnancy means that you get the opportunity to really grow and develop and, and learn from them as well. Like, it’s, it’s really wonderful to be able to experience that. So my guiding principle when I’m teaching, so when I’m training people, and also what I pass on to my instructors for them when they are teaching clients, is that to be a great teacher with engaged clients, you need to have an active approach to teaching a collaborative approach and also an inclusive one. There is an old Indian proverb, which actually I think it’s incorrectly thought to be the words of Benjamin Franklin, but as far as I can make out, it’s an old Indian proverb.
And I always have this in mind when I’m teaching Hypnobirthing to my Hypnobirthing clients, and also when I’m training people to become instructors. And that is tell me, and I forget, show me. And I remember, involve me and I understand. And that for me really says it all because when we are Hypnobirthing instructors, we are part teachers, part facilitators as well. So it’s really quite a dynamic role. So we are never, just always in that role of talking and lecturing and providing information in, you know, one format. We are encouraging people to get involved using different techniques to help them to understand our approach and, and what we are teaching them. And keeping in mind that the people in the room or the people that we’re working with, maybe auditory learners, visual learners, kinesthetic learners, those people might have some neurodiversity, which means that they learn differently from you.
So you need to also be inclusive and aware of that as well. And part of that comes as you learn and you grow and as you develop more and part of it can often be quite natural for people who are interested in this kind of work and, and love communicating and connecting with people. So when I say active, let’s just imagine that you are, you are a trained Hypnobirthing instructor now, and you are working with a group. So meaning that that group should be active and not passive the whole time. So not just sitting there absorbing the information that you are providing to them. At times, they will be, at times there will be opportunity for them to just sit and listen, make notes, or you know, be passive. But that shouldn’t be the whole sort of two and a half hour, or if we’re talking about a full course, you know, 10 hour experience.
So the group could move around and get up on their feet at different times. For example, you might create an activity, which could mean that they are, you know, getting into different positions in the room and collaborating with other people. It could be as simple as asking people to stand up and maybe practise the breathing technique that you’ve just shown them in a different position rather than sitting down. So you could, you could recommend or suggest that they get into a birthing position with their partners and practise the breathing technique that you’ve just taught them for a minute and a minute is the sort of average length of a surge. So you could do something like that, or even just getting the group to ask questions and to create discussion is also really active as well. So making it a safe place for them to, you know, to interject and to be part of the experience is, is also considered active, and that encourages your students, the people that you’re teaching to come to their own conclusions as well.
So collaborative means, perhaps, like I’ve just already mentioned, that the group of people that you are working with may work together at times. So it could mean splitting your Hypnobirthing group into two smaller groups. Or it could mean if you’re teaching privately that you are asking the birth companion and the pregnant woman or pregnant person to work on something together to discuss something. So it might be that you’ve given them a scenario they might be presented with and, you know, given them some time to discuss, well, how would we deal with that? What questions would we ask? How would we approach it? What techniques might we need to employ to navigate this potential scenario? In terms of a larger group, it might be that you are teaching about where you are, where your clients might want to give birth. And so perhaps you might be asking them to come together to consider the pros and cons of different environments.
And you could split them into groups and they, and one group could look at two environments and the other group could look at another two environments that could potentially be where they might give birth. And they’re kind of feeding off each other, they’re learning from each other, and they’re also drawing upon what you have been teaching them already. So it becomes a dynamic class where they are sitting and listening for sometimes asking questions. Then they’re also doing activities and, and getting involved. And then it’s important to be inclusive as well. So it’s important that everyone who you are teaching hypnobirthing to feels involved and, and in a non-threatening way to them. So it might be that you have somebody in your group who’s shy, for instance, and you know, they’re just not vocal in the group. Like the, the worst thing you could probably do is like to keep picking on them and asking them to answer questions, but you can always check in with them outside of the lesson or give them something to do collaboratively that isn’t necessary doesn’t necessarily involve them kind of speaking up and speaking out in front of in front of a group and always checking in with them to like what, you know, to understand sort of what feels good.
And in terms of inclusive teaching, it’s really important to consider the different types of people that you will come across as a Hypnobirthing instructor. And that’s one of the amazing things about being a Hypnobirthing instructor, is that you’ll meet people who aren’t like you, and that’s so good. Like people from different cultures, different religious backgrounds, different races, people who have just had totally different upbringings to you, people who live in different countries or you could be working on Zoom. And so their lived experiences are different to yours, and that always provides opportunities for you to be able to learn, but also it’s important to be prepared to be able to safely work with those people. And so that’s why at The Calm Birth School, we organise training. Once you’ve completed your Hypnobirthing training, we organise annual training sessions that will help you to work with all kinds of different people with different life experiences.
So for example in the past we have run LGBTQ competency training with the Coya birth club. We have run, we do annually run The First Steps To Anti- Racism training with Lorna Phillips. And we are also in the process of organising a training with Neurodivergent birth so that my instructors can feel equipped to be able to support people who have neuro people who identify as neurodivergent. And of course, those opportunities are optional. There is an additional cost because we are collaborating with instructors and outside companies who have the expertise to deliver those kinds of training, but it is optional, but advised that at some point you take those additional trainings so that you can further your knowledge, your teaching skills and your experience. And at the end of those training sessions, you also get a certificate, but you also get what we call a button or like a logo from those different businesses that you can put on your website or you can put on your social media platforms.
We add them to your listing on the directory as well. So anybody in our school instructor directory, so anybody looking for an instructor they can see the additional training that they’ve done, which are indicated by those badges. And there’s a little explanation about that as well which can be really helpful for clients looking for a certain type of teacher. So other things to consider when we are thinking about being a great teacher with engaged clients is the expertise. So the understanding of Hypnobirthing, which you will get from tea, from doing the K school Hypnobirthing training level three diploma training course. I can understand right now thinking how am I ever gonna be able to teach Hypnobirthing? I don’t know anything. But that’s what, that’s what we are for, that’s what the training course is for. And the way that we’ve designed the training is so that you are, it’s in, it’s very flexible.
It’s in short bite size chunks, which is great for busy people or parents, so that you are not kind of having to sit there and absorb like hour long videos. It’s broken down. There’s a mix of audio, a mix of video with slideshow or PowerPoint presentation. There are workbooks and then there are, you know, written versions of what, what you would get in the audio or in the video as well. So there’s a lot of different ways to access the information that I am teaching. And there’s lots of ways to embed that learning with quizzes, with written assessments and with live videos as well, where we’re asking you to actually articulate what it is that you are learning. So by the time you come to actually teach somebody, you have got a really clear idea of the concepts within Hypnobirthing and you can an, you’ll be able to answer questions in a way that really will demonstrate your knowledge and your expertise.
And we, we give you a real depth of knowledge, but your clients don’t need to know absolutely everything that you are learning that’s going in your brain. We are giving you the depth of knowledge so that you are able to understand what you are teaching and answer questions that might come up for you as well. So a good teacher or a great teacher should be enthusiastic and really passionate as well. And if you are, you know, wanting to teach Hypnobirthing, I know that you’re gonna be a passionate person. And so conveying that enthusiasm to the people that you are teaching is really important. And when you are excited about what you are teaching, that’s infectious, so your clients will be more engaged and motivated and inspired by you as well. So it’s important, like I was saying in terms of inclusivity, that’s also really comes down to being able to adapt.
So a good teacher should be able to adapt their teaching style to meet the needs of the people in their room that they’re the people that they’re teaching. So understanding if there are any specific learning needs and being able to adjust your approach, which does come with, you know, experience and practice. So we’re not expecting you to start out and be the best teacher ever for everybody. You know, you have a case study, which is your first client, and that case study really allows you to go through the content and under because they know that they’re your case study and understand like, where could I maybe make this more in interactive or collaborative or, you know, have I conveyed that in a way that really helped them to understand? So you can really reflect upon your case study and your case study provides some reflections as well, which is always really helpful.
It’s really useful as a Hypnobirthing instructor to be empathetic and to be able to connect with the people that you are teaching is so important to build that know, like trust factor and to build rapport with your clients as well, because that really creates a positive learning space and it really creates motivation for your clients. So often if your hypnobirthing clients aren’t participating in they’re practice, which, which is what we essentially call, you know, when they’re practising the breathing techniques we’ve taught them or the relaxation techniques, or they’re listening to their affirmations or their MP3s, if they’re not doing those things or they’re not doing any tasks that you set them, then they, it could be that you are out of rapport with them. So we do, we do talk about neuro linguistic programming of which rapport is one element within the training.
So that helps you to get an understanding of how important that is. And if you are out of rapport with somebody, like it doesn’t it doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong or they’re a bad person or, or anything like that, it’s just becoming aware of it and thinking, oh, how can I, how can I connect with this person? How can I help them get the experience that they want? How can I help them learn if, you know, if they are having any issues or, or difficulties? It’s important for a Hypnobirthing instructor to be a good communicator as well. This is definitely one of the top characteristics that we have cuz like I’ve said before, you’re gonna meet so many different types of people, which is one of their most amazing things. Being able to communicate clearly and effectively is important and does make a good teacher that enables you to be able to explain things properly and clearly and offer any guidance as well.
So a good teacher should also, like I’ve said before, have some interactive teaching methods, discussions, group activities, hands-on learning experiences even, but also provide self-led learning for clients as well. So with Hypnobirthing, we are working to empower our clients to make the right choices and decisions for them. You know, we are not making choices and decisions for them. We’re not picking and choosing what information they consume or we’re not telling them, this is good, this is bad, you shouldn’t do this, should, shouldn’t do that. We are presenting them with information and helping them to find the information and resources that they need to make the decisions for themselves. So often with signposting people to do their own research for things that might specifically pertain to them. And so encouraging them to do that. Self-Led learning is important as well. And when your clients are engaged, then you know, it keeps them interested, it keeps them coming back to the sessions, which they, I’m sure they would anyway cuz they paid for them, but it also keeps them motivated.
And if they are really invested in what you’re teaching them and coming to your lessons, your sessions, then they’re more likely to practise and more likely to really have that positive experience from coming to your course. And hopefully that translates into a positive birthing experience as well. And one thing about Hypnobirthing, because it is such a new, for many people, it’s such a new concept or some of the elements of it might feel very new or, or alien to them. It’s really important that as teachers we normalise it and we don’t overcomplicate it and we make it really easy, accessible, relatable, practical so that our clients just find it easy to get on board with. It is essentially, hypnobirthing is based in science and he is incredibly practical. It’s just that from the outside it sounds a bit woowoo. I’m not saying there’s no woowoo.
I mean we all love a little bit of woo well I do anyway, but it doesn’t have to be this sort of airy fairy approach to birth that many people think that it is. So I hope that that was helpful and gave you some good information to go on. As you are training with The Calm Birth School, if you decide to do so, we help you to become that kind of teacher by providing you with opportunities to actually prepare to teach. So the live videos that we ask you to do throughout the training, which we watch and feedback to you on we that is helping you prepare yourself to articulate the information that you are learning to your clients. We ask you to prepare and deliver presentations at our live sessions, which can either be face-to-face in the UK or online over Zoom as particularly if you are overseas. You also get an instructor’s manual, which has got all the lesson plans in it, which has got activity ideas and equipment ideas. And we really encourage free will as well. We encourage you to be unique, to be you we’re not prescriptive in terms of how you teach or how you communicate with people because we want you to bring your own beautiful, unique self to your teaching because that is what’s going to help you to stand out from everybody else.
And so all that’s left for me to say is thanks for listening to the episode this week. I will be back next week with another little tidbit for you to absorb to help you understand more about training to teach Hypnobirthing and understanding more about what it is like. So if you have any comments or thoughts about my podcast, then feel free to head over to Instagram. I’m at The Calm Birth School, send me a dm. I’d love to connect with you or if you would like to learn more about my training course, I will put a link in the show notes so that you can check it out. And from that page you’ll be able to apply for the course or book a call with me. So it would be great to be able to speak to you soon. Have a great week.
