Sometimes a new life begins not with a plan, but with a moment. An experience that sticks. A sentence that sticks somewhere and only becomes meaningful years later. For Remi Terhorst, it all started at an amusement park in Germany, where he saw a hypnosis show that didn't let him go.
"I saw things that I thought: you can't fake this," he says. "That moment awakened something in me."
Today, years later, Remi is a full-time hypnotherapist, and from his practice in Silvolde, he helps clients from all over the Netherlands and even from Belgium people come there. He does work that makes him deeply happy, but that path began in a place where he never expected it himself.
First encounter with hypnosis: "I knew something special was happening here"
Remi was still young when he went to MoviePark Germany with a comrade. There was a hypnosis show there, and although he did not participate himself, he sat fascinated in the audience. "The hypnotist asked people on stage," he recalls. "But you had to speak good German. That wasn't good enough, so I stayed seated."
What he saw next made a deep impression.
"There was a big man on the stage. The hypnotist had him drive around in one of those toy cars and gave him the suggestion that he was in a Ferrari. That man reacted as if it were real. He was steering, looking around, everything made sense."
Then the hypnotist pretended to scratch the Ferrari with his microphone.
"I just saw the tears appear in his eyes. That moment ... I'll never forget that. That was real."
Other participants also responded intensely to suggestions. One of them ran around the room for minutes. At the end of the show, hands remained raised until people left the room.
"I followed that great man," Remi says. "And the moment he stepped out of the room, his hand went down. Then I thought: something is happening here that I can't explain."
Afterwards, he saw the show hypnotist at the front coming down the stage and decided to address the hypnotist.
"I asked him, "Is this a gift or can you learn this?" The answer hit him directly. "He said, 'Just as a cook can learn to cook, a hypnotist can learn to hypnotize.'"
That one example stuck. "I worked in the hospitality industry myself. So when he said that, it felt like it was meant specifically for me."
A life in hospitality: "I felt there had to be more."
Remi worked in the hospitality industry from the age of 16. He was good at his job and enjoyed connecting with people. "I liked giving people a good time," he says. "You learn to understand people. You sense how someone is feeling."
But there also came a time when he began to wonder if this was all there was to it. "I could make ends meet, but that was all. I felt there had to be more."
A conversation with a friend made that sentiment concrete. "He asked me, 'What else can you do?' I mentioned things from the hospitality industry. But he kept on asking. And then I realized: That was it. That was all I could do."
That realization lingered. "That was confronting. I thought, There has to be more than this."
Remi then tried other things, such as a massage course, accounting, photography, but nothing felt like his destination. "It was interesting, but it wasn't my path," he said.
Hypnosis remained present somewhere in the background. As a reminder. As a possibility.
The Playshop: "That question changed everything."
Years later, Remi decided to search for hypnosis again. He googled and came across Hypnosis Institute Netherlands. He signed up for a Playshop. "They didn't call it a workshop, they called it a playshop," he says. "Because it was fun. And it was."
During that day, he experienced hypnosis himself. But the moment that changed his life happened during the break.
"I got into a conversation with Marjo, one of the trainers. And she asked me, 'Remi, when do you start?'"
At that moment, he didn't know what to say. "I had so little self-confidence. I thought: start? With what?"
But the question lingered. When do you start?
"I got in my car and drove home. And those words stuck in my head. When do you start? When do you start?" He tried to ignore it. "I turned up the radio. But it stayed."
When he got home, he uttered the words aloud. "I told my wife, 'Honey, I'm going to be a hypnotherapist,'" he said. Her reaction was understandable. "She looked at me and said, 'You?'" But for Remi, it felt different. "My self-confidence doubled in that moment. For the first time, I stood for something."
The training: "That's when I realized what was possible."
During training, Remi went through an experience that changed everything. He had suffered from a lactose intolerance for years. "If I ate custard, ice cream or other dairy, I would snivel, sneeze and get red eyes. That lasted for hours, so I avoided most dairy products. While training as a hypnotherapist, he did a session on this. Then he decided to test it.
"I went to get yogurt. Everyone was looking at me when I came back. I took a bite. Nothing. Second bite. Nothing. Third bite ... still nothing happened."
He couldn't believe it. "I thought: this can't be." But it stayed that way.
"That night I tested it again. I went out to dinner and had a lot of desserts. My wife laid out tissues in advance. But I wasn't bothered by anything." He looked at her and said, "I don't have to anymore. I won't do it again."
That moment changed his perspective. "Then I realized: if this can be done, what else can be done?"
Another breakthrough: breaking patterns
During the training, Remi noticed something else unexpected after an exercise gauze. He no longer had to drink beer to trust himself. "In the hospitality industry, that was normal. After work a beer." But suddenly it felt different. "I took a sip and thought, I don't want this."
He later discovered why.
"In one session, I found out that someone had once said to me, 'Have another beer, it will make you cozy.' My unconscious had stored that." Through hypnosis, he released that pattern and realized that he is also sociable without beer.
The power of experience: "My own transformations convinced me"
During the 2.0 training, Remi saw a demo that touched him deeply. A woman explained that her hay fever had started when she was 27, exactly like her daughter, who lived in Australia. During the demo, her hay fever was resolved and tested with triggers to which she reacted normally.
"That was already special," Remi says. "But what happened next I found really fascinating."
In a later block, he spoke to her again. After he asked her how she was doing now, her answer was even more amazing. "She said: not only with me is it gone, but also with my daughter in Australia."
For Remi, this was a moment when his worldview expanded. "That was a moment when I thought: so much more is possible than we think," he said.
His own experiences during training gave him the confidence to continue.
"My own transformations convinced me. Not because someone said it, but because I experienced it myself."
From hospitality to practice: a new identity
In 2020, Remi officially opened his practice. At first, he still combined it with the hospitality industry, but soon his practice grew.
"I started giving sessions on people in my community," he says. "Just getting started. Don't wait until everything is perfect."
What struck him was how quickly it developed. People started experiencing results. They were passing it on. And so it grew. Today he receives clients from all over the Netherlands and even Belgium.
"People come from the neighborhood, but also from Rotterdam, Friesland and even Belgium. I find that extraordinary." Says Remi. Because it can be done online and still people choose to come and drive to Silvolde. He built his practice step by step, trusting in the process and in himself.
The floor: why the 3.0 is essential according to Remi
Within Hypnosis Institute Netherlands, Remi also took the 3.0 training, which he describes as a crucial step in his development.
"The 1.0 is the foundation," he says. "That's where you learn how hypnosis works. The 2.0 opens everything up further and then the playground begins. But the 3.0 ... that's really next level."
During that phase, he learned to watch and listen even more subtly. "You learn to pay attention to just about everything. How someone sits. How someone talks. How someone moves. Even little things that you didn't notice before."
That deepening gave him more confidence in his work. For Remi, the 3.0 is an important step for anyone serious about hypnotherapy.
"If you really want to become a hypnotherapist, it's a huge value-add."
A life that's right
Today, Remi lives a life completely different from the one he once knew in the hospitality industry. Not because he has left his past behind, but because everything he learned there now comes together in his work as a hypnotherapist. The people skills, making contact, sensing others. They are skills he uses every day.
His practice grew organically. Not through one big decision, but through many small steps, choosing this path again and again. He built a reputation, including by writing entertaining columns, gained more and more clients, and found that his work gave him not only satisfaction , but also energy.
What once began as curiosity became a calling.
He helps people with anxiety and panic attacks who are stuck, who want to break patterns, who seek change. And every time someone experiences a breakthrough, it reminds them of their own experiences.
Sometimes he still thinks back to that day at MoviePark Germany. About the man with "his" Ferrari. Of the hypnotist who told him you could learn to do this.
And to the question he was asked later.
When will you start?
Would you like to learn more about Remi and his practice? Click here to visit his website.
When will you get started? Just like Remi?
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