Sometimes hypnosis doesn't come into your life with smoke, streamers or a mysterious pendulum. Sometimes it just comes via Google. Through a hunch. Through one of those moments when you think, wait a minute, if I have another chance, what do I really want to do with my life?
For Anne-Marie Bosman from Terneuzen, hypnotherapy became exactly that: a new chapter after a life-changing period, a deepening of everything she already knew about people, and a way to help others stop carrying their past stories into the present.
"Don't live your past in the present," says Anne-Marie. "We all have a story. But how can you leave your past in the past and live again toward your future now?"
From pedagogy to NLP and hypnotherapy
Anne-Marie Bosman is a hypnotherapist working out of her home practice in Terneuzen. Yet her interest in people begins much earlier. She once studied Pedagogical Sciences, later took courses in NLP, became a (children's) coach and worked for years with students in the field of learning to learn. Concentration, mindset, motivation, planning and ways of learning ran like a thread through her work.
"I think that interest in people has always been there," she says. "I also enjoy continuing to develop myself and keep learning. New things, challenges, expanding my own field of vision."
In 2016, she co-founded Ik Leer Leren Zeeuws-Vlaanderen with a colleague. With it, she provided training to grade 8 and high school students. That business has since stopped, although they are still sometimes asked by schools. The common thread remained: helping people to look differently, learn differently and deal with themselves differently.
A profound turning point
Although hypnotherapy had long been somewhere in the back of her mind, it only really came her way after a profound period. In 2021, Anne-Marie became seriously ill. An event that put her life on edge and made her reflect on questions that many people only admit to when life forces them to.
"An illness like this is really such a benchmark in your life," she says. "Then you think: what is really important? What do I still want?"
Fortunately, things went well, but the period had a lot of impact. Anne-Marie felt sick, spent weeks on the couch and had to recover from surgeries and complications. Yet something else emerged after that: decisiveness. The realization that she was alive. That she was still here. That she wanted to do something with the time she had.
"At one point I was like, I'm still here," she says. "I'm alive. What do I still want to do with my life? And I'm going to do that, too."
“It has brought me so much in my own life,” she says. “I liked being able to find some kind of meaning in it. Suppose that illness is trying to tell me a message—what should I change in my life?”
Hypnosis as a meaningful step
In 2022, hypnotherapy once again came to her mind. Not as a vague idea, but as something she actually wanted to do. That year, she started training at the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands. For Anne-Marie, this was not only a professional choice, but also a personal one.
The training also changed her perspective on health. Not in the sense that everything is within our control, she emphasizes. Health depends on many factors, such as genes, environment, and nutrition. But she did learn to look differently at the influence you yourself might have—at what your body, your subconscious, and your symptoms might be trying to tell you.
"Hypnotherapy has helped me look at things differently," she says. "I also don't think it's a process that's ever quite finished. And it doesn't have to be."
Starting online at HIN
Anne-Marie started HIN' s 1.0 during the corona period. For her, the online offerings were decisive. Terneuzen is not exactly next door to Assendelft, and the travel time would have been nearly three hours. Because the training was offered online, the step suddenly became feasible.
"The fact that it was online was really the deciding factor," she says. "Terneuzen to Assendelft is just about a three-hour drive. Online was really a godsend."
After completing the 1.0 course, she founded her own company almost immediately. She registered with the Chamber of Commerce and decided to just get started. She then moved straight on to 2.0. There, she discovered that two of her fellow students lived right in her neighborhood. That turned out to be the beginning of something wonderful.
"Every week the three of us would meet to practice and discuss things," she says. "Then it started living more and more. That was just super fun."
A shared passion in Zeeland
Such a strong click developed with one of her fellow students that together they founded Hypnoflow Netherlands. With this they give monthly hypnomedications in Terneuzen. Among other things, they also organized a virtual firewalk for twenty men and are working on workshops on hypnosis. Perhaps there will even be retreats in the future.
"It's just so nice to be able to do that together with someone who is on the same level," says Anne-Marie. "The same interests, the same passion. That makes me very happy."
She also has her own practice, Bosman Hypnotherapy, in which she counsels people who are stuck in an "old" story and therefore unable to live freely in the here and now.
People who are constantly on. People who learn to be able to turn themselves off for a while. She finds that her target audience is broader than she thought beforehand. She expected mostly people over 50, but now sees many younger people in her practice as well.
"Those may have a slightly shorter story, but they still run into the same things as older people," she says. "I really like the idea of also helping younger people to go into the future free from their past. They still have a whole future ahead of them."
The power of the unconscious mind
What really resonates with Anne-Marie about hypnosis is the power of the subconscious. She was already familiar with NLP and certainly sees the overlap, but hypnosis added another layer for her. She believes that when people enter a trance, it creates a different way to access inner processes.
"I truly believe that our unconscious mind has so much to tell us and can help us so much," she says. "Because you put people in a trance, somehow so much more is possible."
In her practice, Anne-Marie sees that many complaints and patterns have originated somewhere at some point. Not because someone is weak, but because the brain is doing what it was designed to do: protect.
Except that an old protective mechanism can actually get in the way later in life. Old beliefs can repeat themselves for years, without realizing how much they affect your choices, your emotions and your behavior.
"Many people have already tried all kinds of things," says Anne-Marie. They often rationally understand their problem very well, but understanding is not always the same as changing.
Hypnotherapy works at the level where the problem often originated: the unconscious. That is where patterns, beliefs and automatic reactions are stored. And precisely there, therefore, lies the entrance to change.
Going inward creates space for true freedom. This is how you change your reality and create a new future.
Anne-Marie does not work with standard programs. She uses hypnosis, but also techniques from NLP, EFT and psychosensory methods. The question is always: what does this person need right now to achieve the greatest result?
"Standard pathways, I don't really believe in that," she says. "Everyone is different. It's just who you have in front of you and what works best for that person."
That personal approach fits with how she looks at people. Not as someone who needs to be fixed, but as someone who is allowed to discover why certain patterns were once created and how things can be done differently from now on.
The 3.0 as a floor
About the 3.0 (hypnosis pathfinder) , Anne-Marie was hesitant at first. She had already learned a lot and wondered if it was still necessary. In the end, she decided to go anyway, partly because people she knew were also taking the course. In retrospect, she is very happy about that. The 3.0 was the only training she attended live, and that made a big impression.
"After the first block, I thought: now I know why I'm doing this," she says. "I myself have grown very much in my state as a hypnotherapist and have learned techniques that I now use almost in every course."
The training brought her not only professional depth, but also personal growth. During a practice session in the 3.0, she underwent a self-image session herself. That touched her more than she expected.
"Somewhere I thought I was kind of done," she says. "But through that session I noticed that there are always pieces that may be looked at again. The emotion and relief afterwards really touched me."
Friendships for life
One of the greatest things the HIN has brought Anne-Marie is the contacts. During the 3.0, she and two fellow students stayed at a bed and breakfast for three days each training month. Together they stepped into a bubble of learning, practicing, laughing, playing games and having conversations.
"It has really enriched me as a person," she says. "I have friendships for life thanks to the HIN. I find that very special."
Live more from feeling
When Anne-Marie looks back on her life before hypnotherapy, she sees that she lived a lot from her head. Life was okay, but there was also a kind of wall around her, she tells herself. Through the training and her own processes, she learned to sink more into her body and feel more.
"I was living very much from my head," she says. "Through hypnotherapy, I started looking at my own challenges much more. I have come much more to myself."
That doesn't mean everything is always easy. Anne-Marie calls herself rational and finds that she has to consciously take moments of rest. Meditating, swimming in natural waters, resetting her nervous system, letting off the gas pedal. Since corona, she starts her days by swimming in the creek near her house, summer and winter.
"While swimming, I consciously reflect on all the wonderful things in my life that I am grateful for," she says. "I'm much more aware of that than I used to be."
Writing a new story
In fact, what Anne-Marie brings to others is also what hypnotherapy has brought to herself: the ability to look differently. At yourself. At your past. At your body. To what is possible when you no longer live from your head alone. Not as a trick, but as an attitude to life.
"Change how you look at the world and the world changes," she says. "When people have a problem, their field of vision is often completely focused on that problem. If you can expand that field of vision, the solution becomes more visible as well."
From her practice in Terneuzen, Anne-Marie helps people stop getting stuck in old patterns, stress or stories from the past. She works with the unconscious, with attention to what someone needs and with great confidence in what becomes possible when someone reconnects with themselves.
"Stop living from your past," she says. "If you can break through what you keep doing, it's so beautiful to notice what's possible."
Anne-Marie can be found at bosmanhypnotherapy.co.uk.
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