Priya Pinto helps clients re-examine patterns in their lives that hold them back while assisting them in managing their emotions and exploring their practiced resistances. She is a certified professional hypnotherapist, a certified medical support practitioner, and a fellow of the International Board of Hypnotherapy. Priya underwent 500 hours of professional training through the Hypnotherapy Academy of America in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A series of poignant realizations throughout Priya’s life guided her toward this profession and its ability to help others overcome challenges big and small.
The Healing Power of the Mind
“Even as a young adult and as far back as I can remember, I have always had an enormous interest in the mind and how it played into physical and emotional well-being. I was puzzled by the traditional medical model that seemed to bypass the mind in the person’s healing. I know that when my parents went to a doctor with a “symptom” they always came back with a prescription that promised to bring them back to complete and total health. And sometimes it did, but sometimes it didn’t. When it did, we celebrated relief of the symptom. When it didn’t, we chalked it up to the medication needing to be adjusted in some way. Sometimes that was the answer. And sometimes it wasn’t.”
What was the Missing Piece?
“The medical-mind connection became serious 12 years ago when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune eye disease with inflammation that could lead to permanent vision loss. I lost vision to the point where I had to discontinue my doctoral program (which I completed later.)
I was being treated by the best doctors in the world. I was put on steroid eyedrops that held the inflammation at bay, but never got rid of it. The eyedrops also caused serious side effects. During this journey, I visited a Chinese herbal doctor. When I told him about my eye problem, the first question he asked me was, ‘who are you angry at?’ I didn’t understand how anger could lead to vision problems. Although intuitively I knew that how we feel on the inside affects what we manifest on the outside, I hadn’t put that thought into form yet.
Eventually, my eye disease was resolved with traditional medical practice – and with energetic holistic work that dealt with layers of anger and trauma over various life situations that I had stored in my body for so long. This experience was an indication to me that there was something more to learn about this connection, but I didn’t know what. I began putting out an intention to the universe every day, and it was, simply, ‘show me the way.’ To show me what my purpose was. To make it clear. And then I would do it.
Little did I know that the most wrenching experience of my life would lead to my higher cause. My husband, Michael, a highly successful banker for many years and the most influential and loving person in my life, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in September 2013. He finally passed away in April 2014. During, after, and ever since I have tortured myself with questions. Could he have lived longer if he had engaged his mind? Was the chemotherapy and the treatment that he received enough? (Clearly, it wasn’t.)
Why did he die just one week after the chemotherapy was discontinued? Did he decide on a mental level that it was all over at that time? If he had decided something different would he have had a different outcome? After Michael’s death, I began a relentless search. I wanted answers to my questions. Although I could accept his death – and I did, with characteristic eastern pragmatism – I could not accept the role of the patient as the helpless victim of a bad circumstance. Although death is inevitable for all of us, I do believe that we can take an active part in our outcomes in many, many ways. Since then, this belief has grown a 100-fold.
My search to understand the mind and its role led me to the American Academy of hypnotherapy in Albuquerque New Mexico. I have never regretted that decision. To me the training at the Academy answered all my questions and opened and allowed access to all portals of information to teach me how to access the subconscious mind and to engage it, be it for something simple like attaining a goal (like improving your golf game), overcoming a fear, dealing with a habit that has us locked in place, or healing and wellness (both physical and emotional) and so much more.”