The range of luxury VIP wellness treatments on offer during TIFF is wide and deep, from eye-popping facial rejuvenation to hot and cold running massages. But there is one service that stands out in this sea of luxury. Master hypnotist Asad Metchi is in attendance at his bar at Four Seasons Hotel Toronto’s Wellness & Bio in preparation for this week’s festival.
Mecci’s hypnosis is customized to your specific goals, from improving sleep to improving performance for elite athletes and executives, reducing stress, and losing weight. At the hotel’s invitation, I decided to work on my fitness. Now, I’m not an elite athlete, but before the pandemic, I was faithfully going to the gym six days a week. It’s surprisingly easy to let go of years of good habits, and I would have tried anything to get them back.
The price to see Metch is steep at $1,500 per session, but he’s no ordinary hypnotist. He is a famous hypnotist. Mecca is trained and certified in all forms of hypnosis. In particular, he has been working with athletes since his early 2000s, teaching his figure skaters his jumps and squash to “strengthen neural pathways and improve timing, motor coordination, and alertness.” I’ve taught you how to visualize champions. He also helps people sleep and calm their nerves before big events like sports or the boardroom.
Metch is Canadian and lives in Toronto, but his show “Hiprof: Hyplov: Hypnotic Improvisation” was performed off-Broadway and received rave reviews in The New magazine before being performed at Harrah’s Showroom in Las Vegas. Because of this, I spend a lot of time on the move. York Times and Wall Street Journal. The show is an interactive blend of improvisation and hypnosis, and features a rotating cast of comedic stars. Whose line is it anyway? Mecca welcomes 20 hypnotized volunteers to the stage. The Most Sensitive will, under hypnosis, perform the rest of the show with a professional improviser and her Mecca.
I also seem to be one of those accepting people. Conclusion: This treatment worked perfectly for me. I now walk 6 kilometers of trail every morning, and the ripple effect of that hour outside is amazing in terms of increased energy, mental clarity, mood elevation, and effortless weight loss. It’s a target. I got greedy and committed myself to requests to do more yoga, eat cleaner, and have fewer glasses of wine implanted in my subconscious. Luckily, most of those goals also penetrated my thick skull.
I met Metch in person earlier this summer during his former Four Seasons Hotel Toronto residency at Wellness & Bio Bar, which opened this spring (please contact the spa for future plans). In addition to hypnosis, this serene space offers biohacking and evidence-based treatments such as LPG endermology, Selma phototherapy, customized touch therapy for cancer patients, and pre- and post-natal treatments. We offer
Metch is a very soothing person. His soft voice, reminiscent of his late-night radio DJ, is tuned to put you at ease. First of all, he reassured me that this treatment was completely different from the clips I had seen of his show. “You won’t do or say anything you don’t want to do,” he reassured me. This is more subtle, deep, and customized work.
Metch also explained that a deeply relaxed state is not a trance state, so there is no problem coming out of it. He said that if something were to disturb us, for example, if our blind old dog suddenly started barking for no reason, I would be able to get up and deal with it right away. states. Fortunately, that didn’t happen in our session (we added an additional follow-up via Zoom after the initial in-person meeting).
Metch gently guided me into a hypnotic state. The hypnotic state begins with total body relaxation, after which a countdown begins.
“It’s like a mental massage,” Metch explained. “Stimulating the parasympathetic function of the nervous system promotes rest and digestion, and lowers heart rate.” As someone with a violently reactive fight-or-flight response, this was very appealing. In fact, I felt better afterwards, as if I’d had a good night’s sleep, but this isn’t my strongest area of personal care. “The deeper you dive, the better you feel” is a mantra that sticks with me and now keeps me up most nights.
While I was “down there” I could hear Metch’s voice explaining what I was going to do and reassuring me that I was safe and comfortable. We talked at length about my goals. The original plan was to increase my treadmill times, but since I live on a farm near many nature trails, I made adjustments to get me outside and run for miles. It didn’t take me long to reach my goal duration and walking distance. Then I gradually added interval running (which is all my 50-something knees will allow).
As I turn into the driveway on my way out for a walk, I still think of the image he had of a field of wildflowers in my head, and the satisfying feeling of actually being healthy, that strong, smooth, Imagine a muscular sensation. “Images give the unconscious mind a blueprint for success,” Metch says. (He prefers the word unconscious to subconscious because “it makes people think about the id and superego.”)
The best part of the customized treatment was that Mecci helped me overcome setbacks, like when I experienced my first COVID-19 infection midway through the program. Over time, I have remained faithful to this ritual, although I sometimes slack off during busy periods or on very hot days.
It’s a process focused on increasing motivation and cultivating consistency. After all, it promotes habits, both good and bad. You don’t have to be a Hollywood VIP to reset yourself.
