Our session began like any talk therapy appointment as she listened to me relay an abridged version of my trauma, in between my dry-heaving — how it had been seven years since I had been in the throes of anxiety-induced insomnia, how my medication stopped working, how the weight of my body was crushing me and how losing my job and going freelance had imprisoned me on a hamster wheel of worry.

Near the end of our conversation, she asked me to lie back in a red leather recliner and “relax” — a word truly no person with anxiety fully comprehends.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

“Yes, but I’m worried hypnosis won’t work on me. Or that this is some kind of fake energy thing.”

“I get it,” she said. “But in a few sessions, you’ll believe in it.”

Soon enough, musical chimes rang in my ears as my eyes fluttered shut. For 20 minutes, my mind floated in darkness as Joanne read a nonsensical script full of “suggestions” — straightforward statements that create a hypnotic state — for my overworked thoughts. As she recited a slew of jumbled words, it felt as if a magic wand was sprinkling tranquillity around me like glitter. A tingling overcame my body as the chimes circled my brain like waves. And with that, a small part of my unease was sucked out of my body. By the end, she counted to five and my eyes struggled to open from what felt like a deep meditation. My mind didn’t feel controlled but slightly calmer.

Joanne told me I’d notice the changes in two to three days; they would be small, but the anxiety and depression would begin gradually lifting, and sleeping wouldn’t be as much of a chore. I was to visit her two to three times a week and listen to a 30-minute hypnosis recording nightly before I went to bed.

Despite having done reiki and meditation, the stigma of hypnosis stuck with me at first. But I listened to Joanne and followed the simple instructions given to me.

The first night I listened to the recording, my body tightened at the mere sound of the woman’s voice. The words filling my ear felt like a 30-minute prison sentence: I forced myself to keep my eyes shut while trying to quiet the stifling anxiety in my body. Weeks went by, and I didn’t feel anything, but Joanne encouraged me to keep with it. After two months of doing so, I felt something shift. As if a string of yarn was slowly spinning off a spool, I became slightly more at ease.