We had the good fortune of connecting with Penny Payton and we’ve shared our conversation below.

What was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Originally, the thought process was just to understand my own issues with food. Which became a ten-year deep dive into research on childhood trauma and including the use of the hypnotherapy needed to find the origins of the triggers and release the repressed emotional energy.

As I cleared my subconscious I became more conscious and far happier. Throughout the process I knew I had to share what I was learning. At first I started with coaching. But it seemed possible that these findings could be useful on a larger scale, so I wrote my first book, Unpacking Emotional Baggage. As my story began resonating with people, I began public speaking and community building projects which were really well received.

What should our readers know about your work?
Everyone is living with some type of negative effects leftover from their childhood experiences. EVERYONE. Even people who had loving happy childhoods. We all have insecurities, fears and false beliefs that were created in those years that block us in some way. We’ve learned to live with them and accept them as part of how we are, often thinking our personalities are set, when all it takes is some self-reflection for better understanding.

One of the problems that makes it hard to look inward or to the past is we’ve been conditioned to ignore our own emotions, which just increases anxiety. And anxiety is actually a normal emotional experience. We are just not meant to live with it on a regular basis and acknowledging how we feel will certainly help with that.

I’ve been fortunate enough to partner with a colleague in higher education, Vincent Wiggins, to write a second book which we address these issues and has just published Consciousness is Under the Rubble.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
San Diego is a magical place to relax and get more in touch with yourself. Walks along any of our beautiful beaches, cute communities filled with sweet cafés to read and reflect and gorgeous sight seeing all across the county.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My hypnotherapist is also an artist and he’d be great! Sean Brannan. hypnotherapysd@gmail.com

Contact information: 

Website: www.unpackingemotionalbaggage.com

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutSocal is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.