About Us

The Hyp-Yoga.com website is an archive of tools and solutions for helping you reach your self-improvement goals.

The Original Hyp-Yoga company (that does not operate as a corporation anymore) was a yoga and hypnosis business that had yoga studios and licensing programs to teach their various classes and programs.

Hyp-Yoga = Hypnosis + Yoga

“Conscious Living with Subconscious Help”

Hyp-Yoga (pronounced hip-yoga because the “hyp” stands for hypnosis) is a empowerment system developed to help you “save your self.”  All our classes, workshops, MP3s and DVDs are designed to help you live a vibrant, conscious life through subconscious help or “brain hacks” and shortcuts that help you create new, positive behaviors and thought patterns, so that you can focus on what is truly important in life – connecting with family and friends and creating your own, unique art in this world.

The tools we use are methodologies taken from ancient wisdom (the yoga) and modern science (the hypnosis). Yoga is often a necessary tool to get our body/mind connection even more in sync so that as we move into a meditative, hypnotic state, we can begin to make lasting changes in our lives.

Who Were the Hyp-Yoga Founders?

OUR TEAM

Hyp-Yoga has a team of professional experts that have proven track records of success in the health and wellness industries. We have helped thousands of people since 2006 reach their weight loss and health goals in healthy, natural ways.

Here is our core team:

• Registered Nurse/Certified Hypnotherapist/Yoga Teacher, Kimberly Isherwood, RN, CH
• Certified Hypnotherapist/Yoga Teacher/Certified NLP Practitioner, Carly Cummings, E-RYT, CH
• Certified Hypnotherapist/Yoga Teacher, Rebecca Grabner, RYT, CH

Carly’s Story

YOGA: My junior year of high school I started doing a Denise Austin Pilates/Yoga Tape at home with my mother. Like you can do when you are 16 – I lost 2 inches off my waist line in two weeks and at that moment decided that I liked this mind/body stuff.

While I was growing up, my mother Becky was very into group fitness. She would take me and my sister Meagan to step classes she taught at the YMCA or go with us to weight lifting classes. At home, my mom had a yoga practice mostly feed by books and later VHS tapes. My mother being the ravenous reader that she was and still is, has had a firm grasp on many decades of the development and rise to mainstream culture of the importance of the mind/body connection. I have always considered it an honor to be her student for the past 25 years.

I began my journey as a yoga instructor as a Sophomore at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. At the time I auditioned to teach I had no formal yoga training, just what I had learned from my mom, our videos and a year of yoga at UNL. After I past my audition, I started my 6 year training process with Beth Shaw’s YogaFit® training program. I taught at the University for 3 years while also teaching at the YMCA, and for 24 Hour Fitness before moving my teaching practice out of gyms and into private studios.

Like many others, my yoga story reflects a shift from my beginning interest of yoga for fitness to my current more expanded interest as yoga for life practice.

HYPNOSIS: I am a certification junkie! I am a forever student who is determined to learn as many unique ways to express myself and enjoy life. I have attended everywhere from yoga certification to bar tending school (though I haven’t bar tended a day in my life), so it made the inner student in me jump with joy as I sat one day at a networking luncheon listening to a hypnotherapist that had a school of hypnosis. After hearing my soon to be hypno-mentor speak, I immediately set up an appointment to see her to see if she had any thoughts on me beginning training. As I recall, she really didn’t have to say much, I basically sat in her office and talked my self into taking the training.

In leading up to this fateful meeting, I had recently graduated from UNL with a BSBA in Management with an emphasis on Entrepreneurship. During college my two main jobs were teaching yoga and aerobic dance for the Rec. Center and working at the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship as a student project manager. Between classes, these jobs, student activities and friends, I truly enjoyed my whole college experience. I should have know that the combination of all these activities where an excellent minutia of what I would always want my life to look like – yoga, entrepreneurship, continuing education, and people I love.

Right after college though, I deviated off this blissful path and found myself a little unhappy. After 3 years of working for the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship and telling others to “Make jobs, don’t take jobs!” (something my college boss, professor and advisor would coin as his phrase), I took a job at a small engineering firm as a business developer. With no perfect business ideas at hand, it seemed like a decent thing to do – I was helping a small business grow at least! This only last 3 months I and learned a very important lesson, I really am not an employee, I am a leader, a creator. Ever so dramatically I would often declare that sitting in a cubical “ate my soul!” Yes, sometimes I am a bit over the top, but when something as time consuming as a job is not a good fit, your whole life, and your soul, suffers.

It was while I was at this firm though I went to that fateful networking lunch and started my hypnosis training. Hypnosis training lasted about 6 months and was developed by the National Guild of Hypnotists, the oldest organization and educator of hypnosis in the world. In my training I learned about the real, natural power of the mind and how to tap into the subconscious mind in order to make permanent changes in my thought and behaviors.

After completing training and passing both practical and written exams, I started seeing clients at the Hypnosis Center where I was trained. I would meet one-on-one with men and women looking to lose weight, stop smoking or work on one of many other life goals or behaviors. Already being in the fitness and wellness industry (by now I was also certified as an ACE® personal trainer and as a TurboKick® instructor) I most enjoyed working with weight loss clients.

In a typical weight-loss session we would go over the clients personal goals, current behaviors they would like to get rid of or change, and desired behaviors they would like to implement. After talking, I would lead them through relaxation and then hypnosis. When we were done, I would send them out the door with a more aware subconscious process and a plan for success, it was a good program – but I knew something was still missing.

Hypnosis does a good job of working to link the mind/body connection, but my some of my clients needed more than to do told to exercise. They needed to know where to start and some of them were missing the necessary tools to learn to move their bodies in order to get the most effective weight loss results. My clients would sit in a chair the whole session, I thought this a waste – we could be discussing the same issues and learning even more about ourselves if we incorporated movement and body awareness and appreciation in our session. What better practice to do this with than yoga? Yoga was the perfect prep for hypnosis. During a yoga class the focus is on mind/body/breath awareness – all three things necessary to deepen the hypnosis experience!

HYP-YOGA: So Hyp-Yoga was born. While developing the program I played around with the name yogavation and a few others I thought might not sound as intimidating as a name that included hypnosis right into the title, but then I decided to give more credit to the open-mindedness and adventure in my future students and call it what it is – Hyp-Yoga. (As a side note, I must give credit where credit is due – my lovely husband is the originator and champion of the name Hyp-Yoga.)

Hyp-Yoga classes started one cold January with my first class of four ladies, all looking to lose weight, in my loft apartment that perfectly fit five of us if I moved all the furniture into the kitchen and up against the walls. At the same time, my mother started her first Hyp-Yoga class in the home of one of her friends with four ladies as well. I had by now developed the first Hyp-Yoga Weight Loss Program and had trained my mother, who was already teaching yoga, into the system.

Soon after we moved our classes into a rented space we still have at a dance studio in northwest Omaha. Three months later Hyp-Yoga had its first teacher training and welcomed in Kim Isherwood, Meagan Grabner, Roxy Dart, Stefany Stephens and Kathy Wolfe.

Kim, a nurse who I met through the American Heart Association’s Volunteer Programs, turned out to be the long-lost sister/friend/business partner my mom and I always wanted to have. The three of us would take Hyp-Yoga above and beyond what I dreamed it could be. Because we all believe in and know just how powerful Hyp-Yoga is for people, we have had so many adventures in sharing it with people all over. In our home city of Omaha, NE, Hyp-Yoga Inc. is now licensed by the oldest yoga school in Omaha – the Omaha Yoga School – that we purchased and use as our studio model and think-tank for new Hyp-Yoga programs used all over the US!

Becky’s Story

I have always loved the written word. Next to my wonderful husband Ray—reading is my passion! Fiction and fantasy, biography, travel, health and fitness, philosophy and a life long love of the Bible.

My journey into health and fitness started in my college years when for the first time I struggled with my weight. True to my nature I read everything I could find on the subject. I actually learned to practice Yoga through a book, Richard Hittleman’s Yoga 28 Day Exercise Plan. I would work through the postures and see a difference not only on my waistline, but my overall sense of well-being. Shortly after this I also became interested in the power of “mind over matter” by reading books such as Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking.

My first full time job after college was selling advertising for a newspaper. Here I also realized how important the power of mind is when it comes to having a successful sales career.

Through my early years of marriage and having my two lovely daughters, Carly and Meagan, I continued to embrace the importance of both body work and expanding my mind. My spiritual life grew deeper during these years also. I have succeeded in keeping a positive mindset enough to be known as “Pollyanna” in the workplace.

My delightful daughters, grew up working out with and around me. On of my favorite gifts from the girls when they were about 8 and 6 was a homemade workout video made “just for me” by them. It was actually pretty good, with little asides from my younger daughter Meagan, doing difficult gymnastic feats and saying “don’t try this at home, Mom”. I began teaching aerobics in my 30’s and continued Yoga at home with Yoga videos often accompanied by Carly and Meagan.

When Carly was in college and began her yoga training, she suggested that I try it, I decided it was the perfect way to step up my yoga practice. Since then I teach yoga at various studios along with teaching at the YMCA and a fitness club.

After I turned 50, I began to watch my weight and fitness level more carefully. I went through menopause fairly young at the age of 43 and it was obvious that Yoga helped me hugely with my coping skills.

When Carly took training to become a Hypnotherapist, I of course wanted her to hypnotize me! I found it to be extremely helpful. The combination has also been wonderful as I’ve gone through the menopausal years. Of course, I felt the need to trained in hypnotherapy also!

As we progressed in our yoga training we discovered, it is so much easier to get into a meditative state after a great yoga workout. When Carly came up with the idea of putting the two concepts together (Hyp-Yoga) it was just so exciting!

For the past 10 years I was the Children’s Ministries Director of a large church. Because many people and especially Christians have some fears about yoga and hypnosis, I have put together a program called dis-still-ation (discipline, being still and meditation) for churches to use. I love life and I love how Hyp-Yoga has helped to make the life I love even better!

Kim’s Story

I was a no-good sun of a gun living in a van down by the river, eating a steady diet of transfat infused twinkies and government cheese. Then I met Carly and Becky and everything changed. Okay, that is not how it went. Here is the actual story..

In 1981 I was a senior in high school when I wrote a paper on hypnosis. In my research I worked with an FBI agent that used hypnosis for witness interrogation. I learned about the amazing properties of hypnosis and its many uses in law enforcement as well as in medicine and I was fascinated. From then on, I have used self- hypnosis and it has always seemed to just hang back and act as an old friend whenever I needed it. I was extremely forward thinking for a teenage girl from a small town in western Nebraska and I know that being open to new ideas and challenging the status quo made me a bit of a rebel, but I have worn the title proudly.

Today I am married and I have two wonderful children; Molly and Colton. My husband, Ryan, and I are both in the medical field, and have always been fairly health conscious, active and athletic. I have tried yoga off and on for years but never had a consistent practice. I reached “maximum density,” as I like to call it, a couple of years ago and I was very frustrated with my body and my health so I decided to really get back in shape. I hired a trainer, joined a gym and I worked very hard. I ran 3 to 4 days and week and took off some weight but plateaued quickly. I also started having a lot of back and hip pain so I decided to come back to yoga to help with flexibility and hopefully help de-stress.

I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason and my road to Hyp-Yoga was definitely divine intervention. I was googling “yoga classes in Omaha” when I received an e-mail about a new yoga class called Hyp-Yoga. It was from Carly who is the original creator of Hyp-Yoga, and it really peaked my curiosity. Since I had always used self-hypnosis and loved yoga, the combination made perfect sense to me. I called Carly and I agreed to come take her teacher training, yes I, who had never taught a yoga class decided that this would be a new adventure and I was really excited about it. Obviously Carly is also one heck of a sales person!

Carly Cummings, her mother Becky, and I all met during a huge snowstorm and ended up doing our training class at Becky’s house. Since that day we have been like family. Carly and Becky are my long lost blonde sisters! The three of us are now in business together and we are so thankful that Carly created this amazing venture we call Hyp-Yoga.

The journey has been amazing and everyday I am thankful for my all of the wonderful blessings in my life.