The Chicago Hypnotist

07/27/2025

🧬 The Past Life Functional Highlander

Where Your Karma Is Leaky Gut, and Your Healer Trains on YouTube

By Giulio Mike Bianco
Hypnologist | International Member of ASCH

Years ago — while still completing my clinical residency — I reached out to Dr. Jim Tucker, the psychiatrist who continued the controversial and fascinating work of Dr. Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies. To my surprise, Dr. Tucker replied with warmth and thoughtfulness. There was no arrogance in his tone, no proselytizing mission to convince — just scientific curiosity wrapped in human decency. He struck me as a man genuinely invested in exploring mystery without exploiting it, which already places him miles above the average wellness guru on Instagram.

Tucker’s most well-known case is that of Ryan Hammons, a young boy from Oklahoma who, at the age of four, began recalling details of a man who had lived in 1930s Hollywood — a man later identified as Marty Martyn, a dancer and talent agent with surprising biographical overlap to Ryan’s vivid memories. Ryan named streets, professions, wives, and even a personal connection to Rita Hayworth — all later corroborated by the research team. He cried at night, asking to be taken “home to California.” The case is strange, unsettling, and — if taken at face value — profoundly moving.

Even Dr. Tucker himself has clarified: these are cases suggestive of reincarnation, not evidence of it. They are unreplicable, anecdotal, and susceptible to interpretive distortion. Yet they circulate through culture like wildfire, because they offer exactly what the modern world is starving for: meaning, immortality, and a special identity in a painfully indifferent universe.

I do not mock those who report such experiences. I do not dismiss them. I do not ridicule them. I’ve had patients claim alien abduction, only to later uncover it was the mind’s way of shielding them from real, unbearable trauma — sexual abuse, violence, betrayal. I’ve had people speak of voices, lights, beings of light, doors opening into other dimensions. My role, like that of my teacher Dr. Sidney Rosen, and his friend Dr. Milton Erickson, is not to invalidate — but to understand. To meet people where they are. To speak the language of their unconscious and help it heal.

But here comes the comma.

Comma: when the stories of past lives become bestsellers, Netflix documentaries, and private regression sessions that cost $395 per hour — I grow skeptical. Not because mystery isn’t real, but because marketing often is.

FOLLOW THE MONEY (AND THE METAPHYSICS)

The psychic services industry in the United States alone was valued at over $2.2 billion in 2023, according to IBISWorld. This includes tarot readings, mediumship, past life regression, soul retrieval therapy, spiritual coaching, alien implant removal, and more. Many of these services operate legally under religious or metaphysical exemptions — often with no regulatory oversight, no licensing, and no obligation to disclose the fictitious or theatrical nature of their services.

The FTC and FBI white-collar crime divisions report thousands of such cases yearly. In 2022, more than 95,000 fraud complaints related to “spiritual services” and “alternative wellness scams” were filed — totaling over $800 million in losses. Victims are often elderly, grieving, or managing chronic illness. The marketing is emotionally manipulative, built on vague metaphors and digital charisma, delivered with Instagram-polished compassion.

ANN’S STORY: WHEN “FUNCTIONAL” MEANS FINAL

Let me tell you about Ann — a beautiful, courageous, and deeply spiritual woman who was diagnosed with cancer. Desperate for hope and unwilling to go through another round of chemotherapy, she was lured into the orbit of a Functional Medicine center in Mexico. They promised her healing — not just symptom relief, but complete cellular detox, emotional clearing, and reversal of cancer progression — all for the sum of $40,000, which she didn’t have.

Her ex-husband, friends, and family helped her raise the money. None of them had ever heard of Functional Medicine before. It sounded legitimate — medical, personalized, sophisticated. But what Ann received in Mexico was a mix of vitamin infusions, coffee enemas, vegan broths, chlorophyll drips, affirmations, and unverified “quantum healing” protocols. She was told to stop conventional treatment, that chemotherapy “kills the soul,” and that her cancer was the result of “stored emotional trauma and toxicity.”

She died eight months later.

I only learned the full extent of her story when I began to investigate a similar pattern — a woman in the UK, polite and charismatic, who had attempted to deceive two of my own patients. She had a Diploma in Nutritional Therapy from the College of Naturopathic Medicine (CNM) and claimed she could “support” cancer patients, offering detox plans, hormone balancing, and “natural oncology.”

It was then that I began tracing what is, in my view, a clinical scam — just dressed in quinoa and yoga pants.

THE UK SCAM: DIPLOMAS, DETOXES, AND DANGEROUS WORDS

The College of Naturopathic Medicine (CNM) in the UK is one of the leading institutions selling certificates in “Nutritional Therapy”, “Natural Oncology,” “Iridology,” and “Homeobotanical Therapy.” It is not a medical college. It is not a university. It is a private business offering unregulated training in pseudoscience, much of which carries real clinical risk if practiced outside evidence-based boundaries.

Their graduates — many of whom use the title “Nutritionist” or “Functional Medicine Practitioner” — are often registered with the British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine (BANT), a voluntary regulatory body that claims:

“Nutritional therapy is the application of nutrition and lifestyle medicine sciences in the promotion of health, peak performance and individual care.”

It sounds scientific — but it isn’t. It’s branding.

There is no standardized scientific definition of “nutritional therapy.” These practitioners routinely run expensive and unvalidated tests — hair analysis, microbiome swabs, “adrenal stress” kits — and sell regimens of supplements based on results that no NHS oncologist or endocrinologist would accept. Many of them charge £120 to £300 per hour, selling packages that prey on fear, not evidence.

The absence of legal action is not proof of safety. It is the result of regulatory loopholes. This is Madoff without the SEC, and unlike Madoff, whose fraud was eventually caught, the “wellness” industry thrives in plain sight, defended by vague disclaimers and an ocean of hashtags.

⸻

THE HYSTERICAL FANTASY: WHEN THE MIND INVENTS TO SURVIVE

What is a hysterical fantasy?

In Freudian terms, it’s the mind’s elaborate narrative built not on truth, but on defense. It is fantasy born of repression, displacement, denial, projection — all dressed in the clothing of conviction. A person might believe they are being followed, that their spouse is poisoning them, or that they’ve lived before — not as a way of deceiving others, but as a way of protecting the self from collapse.

This explains why anxiety and depression can be amplified — or even triggered — by unexamined hysterical fantasies, especially when reinforced by figures of authority who call themselves “healers.”

A WARNING FROM THE WORLD OF ILLUSION

As a child, I was mesmerized by Uri Geller, the man who bent spoons with his mind. Until I met James Randi, the man who unbent the lie.

Randi — magician, skeptic, and human bu****it detector — spent his life debunking psychics, mediums, channelers, and spoon-bending charlatans. His $1,000,000 challenge (unclaimed to this day) offered a prize to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal ability under controlled conditions.

Criss Angel, Derren Brown, and Banachek (Steve Shaw) — brilliant illusionists — have all said the same: It is easy to deceive. It is even easier when people want to be deceived.

Brown has shown how suggestion, expectation, and stagecraft can mimic miracles. Banachek famously faked being a psychic for years — as part of Randi’s experiment to expose media gullibility.

⸻

THE PSYCHOTIC BELIEF DISGUISED AS “HEALING”

When a therapist implants their personal cosmology into a session — suggesting that you have a “dark entity” attached to your aura, or that your lupus is karmic debt from your past life as a Viking — we’ve crossed a line. Not just clinical. Ethical. Human.

These are not “unusual beliefs.” They are psychotic constructs when imposed on others without consent, clinical proof, or mental safeguards. Delusional convictions — delivered with soothing voices and PayPal links.

THE CRIME OF PERSUASION

Fifteen years ago, I consulted on a New York internal affairs investigation involving psychic fraud. Several individuals — most targeting immigrants, the bereaved, or the mentally vulnerable — were arrested and charged with larceny by false pretenses and fraudulent spiritual inducement. One woman lost over $73,000 attempting to “cleanse her lineage.”

This isn’t spirituality. This is weaponized suggestion for profit.

PARVIS VERBIS

You may believe in Ryan’s memories.
You may believe in healing energies.
You may even believe, quietly, in your soul’s long journey.

But please —

Do not surrender this life, this health, this mind — to someone else’s fantasy dressed as therapy.

Let us protect the vulnerable.
Let us honor mystery — without monetizing it.
Let us stay grounded, even as we look toward the stars.

REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Tucker, J. (2013). Return to Life. St. Martin’s Press.
• Freud, S. (1911). Two Principles of Mental Functioning.
• van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score.
• Brewin, C. (2001). “PTSD and Cognitive Neuroscience.” Behaviour Research & Therapy.
• Novella, S. (Yale). “The Problem with Functional Medicine.” Science-Based Medicine.
• Gorski, D. “Integrative Oncology and Cancer Quackery.”
• Hall, H. (MD). “The SkepDoc” on Functional Pseudoscience.
• Barrett, S. “Functional Medicine and Ethics.” Quackwatch.
• FTC Consumer Reports (2022). “Fraud Losses in Spiritual Services.”
• IBISWorld. “Psychic Services Market Report 2023.”
• ASA UK (Various). “Violations of Advertising Code by Wellness Providers.”
• Randi, J. (1982). The Truth About Uri Geller.
• Brown, D. (2006). Tricks of the Mind.
• Shaw, S. (Banachek). (2002). Psychological Subtleties.

07/27/2025

Your Progress Doesn’t Need an Audience
By Giulio Mike Bianco
🧠

The idea that your progress only counts when it’s seen, liked, or validated by others is not just sad—it’s neurologically disturbing.

When you measure self-worth through external applause, you hijack your brain’s reward system. Dopamine—the same chemical that spikes from co***ne or slot machines—gets wired to likes, not growth. Over time, you no longer strive to be better—you strive to be seen being better.

That’s not progress. That’s performance.

📚 See:
• Turel et al., 2014, Addictive Behaviors – Social media mimics addictive neural patterns.
• Murthy & Fiske, 2010, Neuron – Reward circuitry in the medial prefrontal cortex lights up from social validation.

Practice quietly. Let your brain rewire for real satisfaction—not applause.

07/26/2025

“Cum tot verbis opus est ut demonstret se non esse culpabilem… plerumque est.”
(“When someone needs that many words to show they’re not to blame… they usually are.”)

07/26/2025

07/26/2025

ANESTHESIA WITH HYPNOSIS? YES — AND HERE’S THE PROOF.

🎥 In this video, my client shares a true story — not a myth, not a TikTok gimmick, not a placebo, but a scientifically grounded example of clinical hypnosis producing full anesthesia.

No needles. No numbing gel. No pharmacology.

Just the mind — properly guided.

🌀 So, how is this even possible?

Clinical hypnosis can alter perception, nociception, and even the subjective experience of time, attention, and identity. The brain doesn’t just receive pain — it interprets it. Through precise therapeutic methods, we can shift that interpretation.

💡 Research shows that in highly hypnotizable individuals, hypnosis can modulate pain at the cortical and subcortical levels, including the anterior cingulate cortex, insula, thalamus, and somatosensory areas (Rainville et al., 1997; Faymonville et al., 2000). Functional MRI scans show this clearly — during hypnosis, brain regions involved in pain processing literally shut down or rewire.

📘 A study by Montgomery et al. (2000) published in The Lancet confirmed that hypnosis significantly reduces pain, anxiety, and recovery time in surgical patients. Hypnosis has been used during open-heart surgery, dental procedures, burn treatment, and childbirth — sometimes as the sole method of analgesia.

🪶 What would Dr. Milton Erickson say about this?

He wouldn’t say much. He’d observe.

Because Erickson — one of the founders of modern hypnotherapy — often bypassed formal trance rituals entirely. He didn’t need swinging watches or monotone scripts. Instead, he used language like a scalpel, precise and suggestive. A glance, a story, a metaphor — and the subject would drop into a deep trance without knowing it.

One of Erickson’s patients underwent blister induction (i.e., a suggestion caused a real blister to form) — a testament to how the mind can manifest powerful somatic changes under guided focus.

As Erickson wrote:

“The unconscious mind is not dumb. It’s just silent.”
— Milton H. Erickson

He knew that rapport, timing, and suggestion — delivered with deep empathy and clinical insight — could guide a person into profound neurophysiological shifts without any formalized induction.

🔗 For a detailed account of these methods, read:
• My Voice Will Go With You by Sidney Rosen (1982)
• The Neurophysiology of Hypnosis by Jean-Roc Faymonville et al. (2000)
• Rainville et al. (1997), Pain affect encoded in human anterior cingulate but not somatosensory cortex: Science.
• Montgomery GH, David D, Winkel AF, Silverstein JH, Bovbjerg DH. (2002). The effectiveness of adjunctive hypnosis with surgical patients: A meta-analysis. Anesthesia & Analgesia.



🧠 The phenomenon of hypnotic anesthesia is not a parlor trick. It’s a real, replicable, documented clinical event — and it only happens when the right conditions are in place:
• A trained clinician
• A receptive mind
• The absence of performance or ego

📺 Watch the video. Listen to her voice. This isn’t magic. This is medicine.

And if you’re wondering how long it can last?

Hypnotic anesthesia, once anchored, can last minutes, hours — even be reactivated later with posthypnotic cues. In some patients, just one well-seeded suggestion can replace a lifetime of dread in the dentist’s chair.

⸻

📍Hypnosis is not sleep. It’s not mind control. It’s focused neuroplasticity.

And when done properly, it’s one of the most powerful tools we have.

—
Giulio Mike Bianco
Clinical Hypnotherapist | International Member of ASCH
Ericksonian-Trained | Student of Dr. Sidney Rosen
🧷 With skeptical applause from Pippin the Pomeranian

07/24/2025

A Tribute to Dr. Sidney Rosen

For the quiet ones who shaped the world without ever needing a stage

By Giulio Mike Bianco
Clinical Hypnotherapist | Member of ASCH
Student and Keeper of Dr. Rosen’s Notes
With Respectful Side-Eye from Pippin

🪢

There are men who walk into a room and demand attention with their presence, their voice, or the cologne they spray like ego in liquid form.

And then there was Dr. Sidney Rosen.

He didn’t need a stage, a microphone, or a room full of gasping admirers to change lives. His stage was a wooden floor, his spotlight a simple desk lamp, and his audience was often one person at a time—fully seen, fully heard.

Dr. Sidney Rosen was born in Detroit on July 14, 1926, the son of Polish and Austrian immigrants who, like many of their generation, believed in the slow, honorable climb. He would become a physician at a time when medicine still carried the weight of poetry and possibility, earning his M.D. from the University of Western Ontario by the age of 21.

Like Erickson, and like myself, Sidney began experimenting with hypnosis as a teenager. I read my first book at 12; he was already exploring altered states and unconscious language before he could legally vote. That says something—not about rebellion, but about curiosity; about the gravitational pull of the invisible.

But let’s be clear: Dr. Rosen did not confuse hypnosis with entertainment. In fact, he spent most of his life cleaning up after those who did.

His office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan—tucked neatly between Lexington and Park Avenue—was no palace of glass and design. There were no resin floors by Gaetano Pesce, no Cassina lounge chairs to impress clients, no chrome accents that screamed “my therapist shops at the MoMA store.” What he had instead was a quiet waiting room, a hallway that felt like a whispered thought, and a consulting room that was both womb and workshop.

There was a wooden desk, worn and steady. A wall of well-loved books, annotated and gently leaning. A patient chair—simple, but sacred—that wasn’t just a seat but a mirror, reshaped energetically for each person who sat in it. That chair had a function, a name, a role in every session. It held grief and insight, trance and resistance. It was never furniture; it was part of the story.

And the wood floors—old, creaky, humble—didn’t reflect ambition, they absorbed it, grounded it. From that small corner of the city, he helped rewrite the legacy of hypnosis, restoring it from carnival trick to clinical art.

After a session, one could walk to Central Park just a few blocks away—his patients did this often—trading gray concrete for the green breath of trees. It wasn’t part of the prescription, but it may as well have been. Rosen knew healing happens in metaphors, in landscapes, in silence. He taught us to leave the office not with answers, but with space.

He would start each training not with technique, but with philosophy:

“Hypnosis is a language.”

Not a spell, not a parlor game. A language—spoken in tone, tempo, suggestion, trust. He quoted Erickson constantly and with reverence:

“The scientific community finally admitted the existence of the unconscious mind.
What they don’t understand is… it’s all unconscious.”

Rosen saw the unconscious not as a closet of repressed memories, but as the living language of the body and mind—every blink, breath, metaphor, twitch, and image. It was not a dungeon. It was a cathedral.

He taught us how to produce real anesthesia and analgesia with words—no gimmicks, no pendulums. He showed us that healing doesn’t come from forcing; it comes from aligning.

He and Rita Sheer, another devoted Erickson student, co-founded The New York Society for Ericksonian Psychology and Hypnosis (NYSEPH)—a state-licensed school, not a weekend seminar at the airport hotel. One of the few institutions where integrity was signed into your training. Before you were accepted, you had to agree: you will not become a clown. You will not turn vulnerable people into comedic props. You will not exploit the unconscious mind for attention or social media content.

That oath meant something.

Because Sidney had no patience for buffoonery. He did not respect hypnotists who “prove their power” by making someone forget their name, bark like a dog, or believe the number 5 no longer exists. Those “tests” that flood TikTok and Facebook today? They are the rot in the reputation of hypnosis. They turn medicine into mockery. They confuse people into thinking hypnosis is about control—when in truth, it’s about collaboration.

“At the moment you’re turning hypnosis into a show,” he once told me, “you’re not a clinician anymore.
You’re a clown in a suit turning science into foolery.”

He spoke it calmly, but the bite was there. And rightly so.

Sidney also carried forward one of Erickson’s most important metaphors: the Procrustean Bed.

In Greek mythology, Procrustes was a rogue blacksmith who offered travelers a place to sleep. But his bed was one size only. If the guest was too tall, he’d cut off the legs. Too short? He’d stretch them. The goal was not to fit the person—it was to make the person fit the bed.

Erickson and Rosen both saw modern psychology—especially those peddling fixed “models”—as dangerously Procrustean. “This method works for everyone,” they’d say, with a smile and a certification to sell.

But Rosen knew better.

“Each person is as unique as their thumbprint,” he reminded us.
“What works for one might be zero for another.”

He reserved his deepest contempt for those selling formulaic “cures”—the NLPs of the world, built on pseudoscience and charisma, marketing systems that overpromise and underdeliver. Rosen didn’t need your money. He wanted your ethics.

He was also a deeply devoted man. He gave the last years of his life to caring for his wife, Estelle, who was stricken with Parkinson’s. Not out of obligation—but love. Real love. The kind that reads stories aloud even when the words can no longer be understood. The kind that knows healing isn’t always about getting better—it’s about staying close.

And if the world knows of Erickson’s magic today, it is thanks in no small part to Dr. Rosen. He was the architect behind My Voice Will Go With You—that legendary collection of therapeutic tales that lives on shelves across the world. But what many don’t realize is: his voice is in it, too. His metaphors, his memory, his reverence. It is as much his legacy as it is Erickson’s.

He also published Understanding Ericksonian Hypnotherapy at age 93—a final gift to the field, a distilled gospel of experience and reflection. No fireworks. Just wisdom.

Sidney passed away on May 19, 2022, at the age of 95, in his home in New York City. And though he never shouted, his absence is loud.

What remains are his students. His notes. His ethics. And the silent chairs in quiet rooms where real therapy still happens.

📚

PARVIS VERBIS
(In Few Words, Everything)

Thank you, Sidney. For your kindness. Your precision. Your refusal to perform. Your commitment to keeping hypnosis scientific, dignified, and deeply human.

Your voice still goes with me. And it always will.
Giulio

07/24/2025

I got numerous reactions on one of my posts last week! Thanks a million for your kindness and support! 🎉

07/24/2025

Zia Feretty and the Great Brain Heist

Why the Internet Turns Us into Bargain-Bin Scrooge McDucks (and How Honest Hypnosis Hands Back the Keys)
🧠🐾 With a suspicious side-eye from Pippin and a velvet-hammer monologue from Zia Feretty
by Giulio Mike Bianco — The Chicago Hypnotist

🚘

Picture humanity as Uncle Scrooge perched atop his famous money bin: a mountain of gold coins, a top hat wobbling with self-importance, and the smug certainty that treasure equals safety, love, and eternal admiration.

Now replace the Beagle Boys with algorithms, pop-up gurus, and a delusional monkey who insists he can persuade your brain to do backflips without asking permission—then claims to melt free will like Gorgonzola in a microwave.

Voilà: the modern Internet.
A 24/7 smash-and-grab operation targeting the only vault that really matters—your attention span.

“Sit, caro,” purrs Zia Feretty, swirling espresso like liquid truth serum. “The screen is whispering sweet nothings, and you’re falling for it like Bernie Madoff in a Santa suit.”

🪢

🔐 How the Heist Works (No Balaclava Required)
1. Inflate the Promise
Madoff dangled 12% returns. TikTok dangles 12-step glow-ups. Same dopamine sparkle, different packaging.
2. Agitate the Fear
Not if, but when a ransomware strikes. Not if, but when you lose your hair, your abs, your soulmate, your 401(k).
Fear sells faster than Nonna Deda’s hot focaccia.
3. Offer the Miracle
A paid course. A superfood powder. A “quantum mind reset.”
Because obviously, you—poor mortal—can’t possibly survive on common sense and pasta alone.
4. Normalize the Frenzy
Every scroll is a strobe light for your limbic system. Your prefrontal cortex calls in sick.
The Beagle Boys (now wearing startup hoodies) walk right in.

🪢

🧠 Gullibility: The Universal Password

“People aren’t stupid,” says Justin the Artist, muffled behind his noise-canceling headphones. “They’re just… anxious.”

Exactly. And anxiety is the Swiss-made lockpick of every con artist.
The moment we tie self-worth to possessions, status, and applause—we don’t just allow the heist. We hold the vault door open.

Madoff looted retirement accounts.
Today’s con men loot something even more intimate:
• Serenity morphs into Anxiety
• Sadness deepens into Depression
• Jitters erupt into Panic Disorder
• Quirks harden into OCD
• Shyness calcifies into Social Phobia
• Body image becomes Dysmorphia
• Hunger becomes Bingeing or Anorexia
• Reality becomes Depersonalization
• Sleeplessness becomes Insomnia
• Distraction becomes Addiction

Ten problems, one root:

the lie that value = visibility and acceptance = performance.

🪢

🪷 Enter Hypnosis (Minus the Glitter and Ego)

Real hypnosis doesn’t involve sequins, saxophones, or mustachioed magicians waving fingers like sorcerers at a Renaissance Fair.

It’s not a show.
It’s a neurological de-escalation protocol with storytelling and safety at its core.
• It quiets the amygdala
• Gives the frontal lobes back their dignity
• And whispers:
“You were always enough. But your brain forgot. Because it got hacked.”

Zia Feretty, naturally, translates this in kitchen Italian:

“All a brain really needs, tesoro, is a safe pillow, a warm soup, and someone across the table who isn’t trying to sell you enlightenment in 5 easy steps.”

Justin, mid-trance, finally smiles.
Not because he’s become someone else.
But because—for the first time in months—he doesn’t have to be anyone at all.

⸻

🎭 Greed, Glitter, and the Great Escape Hatch

So yes—the Internet is misused.
Yes—manipulation is now branded, monetized, and streamed in HD.
And yes—greed still wears different hats (sometimes a Wall Street fedora, sometimes a TED Talk fascinator, sometimes a Dolce & Gabbana tux… worn by a monkey).

But the jailbreak?

Stubbornly human.
1. Close the glowing door.
2. Reclaim boredom.
3. Bake something.
4. Walk with someone who listens.
5. Get a therapist who doesn’t sell slogans.
6. Try hypnosis—but the real kind: quiet, curious, boring to influencers.
7. Pet your dog. Preferably one who looks like a teddy bear and disapproves of marketing jargon.

😐

🪙 PARVIS VERBIS

Your worth is not stored in a vault, a feed, or a spreadsheet.
The Beagle Boys are relentless—but they only steal what you let them measure.

Close the vault.
Open the window.
Pass the soup.
The rest is noise.

And noise?
Noise is powerless when nobody’s dancing to it.

07/22/2025

Why Brains Need Meatballs, Instead of Mindfulness Apps

By Giulio Mike Bianco
The Chicago Hypnotist
Member of ASCH (and holder of the true recipe of spaghetti with meatballs)

One of the many tales from Nonna Deda, told for the bright young minds who still believe their brains deserve better than the nonsense of social media.

Come here, sit down, little professor. Yes, you. I see you. Your eyes no longer reflect the stars but mirror the flickering screens of your phone — dancing like hungry hyenas on a carcass. Your ears are full of noise. Your heart is tired, and far too young to understand why.

Let me tell you a story. Not a TikTok. Not an Instagram “motivational” post. And certainly not a pointless shouting match on Facebook.
A real story.
The kind of story made for a brain that is still capable of love.

Because your brain, my dear, is not a sponge. It’s not a USB stick. And it certainly wasn’t made to hoard trivia like which influencer drank the detox smoothie this week — the one infused with quantum vibrations and eggplant, per the “Law of Attraction” manual, Chapter 3.

No.
Your brain is a garden.
It grows best when watered with good things: stories, friendships, quiet afternoons, and the warm snore of your dog Pippin curled next to you. That’s how a brain stays strong.
Not by doomscrolling. Not by hashtags.

But today? Oh, poor brains!
People feed them flashing lights, dopamine crumbs, and absurdities all day long. This phenomenon is called — by people in lab coats who know their stuff — Digital Dementia.
A very serious name for something very silly:
Too much Instagram.
Too many flashing lights.
Too much validation-hunting.
That’s why you now forget where you put your socks.

Once upon a time, people knew how to rest.
They walked.
They made meatballs.
They listened to their grandmothers tell stories about life.
That was enough.

But now?
Now we have people like Giampiero, who charges $3000 to teach a secret meditation technique only he knows. And where does he teach it? Not in a classroom. No, no.
Giampiero teaches from the very last stone on the highest roof of Rocca Calascio.

Do you know Rocca Calascio?
It’s a castle so high, even mountain goats need therapy after climbing it.

And there he is.
Giampiero.
Balancing on the tip of his left foot like a flamingo who read too much Paulo Coelho.
With his right foot, he juggles a soccer ball, training (he says) for the Yoga World Cup.
He tells people that only by paying him, climbing mountains, and wearing D&G leggings can they achieve “peace and alignment.”

What does Nonna Deda say?

Nonsense.

Peace is not on a roof.
Peace is not for sale.
Peace is not doing yoga in designer pants while juggling existential dread.

Peace is already inside you.
And certainly not with Giampiero.

Want to know what real meditation looks like?
Here’s the official Nonna Deda™ method:
1. Sit down.
2. Breathe slowly.
3. Notice the sun on the wall.
4. Hear the spoon in the coffee cup.
5. Let your thoughts come and go like pigeons.
6. Don’t follow the pigeons. Just sip your coffee.

If you’ve listened this far, you’ve already meditated.
Better than Giampiero.
Cheaper.
Less dangerous.

And guess what?
Science agrees.

(Science and I go way back — I’ve been friends with Stanford researchers before you were even born.)

Meditation calms the amygdala — that little fire alarm in your brain that shrieks when you forget your homework or someone leaves you on “read.”
It helps the prefrontal cortex — your brain’s wise owl — think clearly.
It reduces stress.
It makes you happier.
And yes, it helps you remember where you put your socks.

Brains don’t need apps.
They need rituals.
Signals that say:
You’re safe.
You’re alive.
You’re not a robot.

Like what, you ask?
Oh, like making tiny meatballs the size of marbles. The kind we make in Teramo for spaghetti. Not the cartoonish American ones the size of baseballs.

Ours are polite.
Elegant.
First, they are kissed by olive oil,
then whispered to by garlic,
and finally blessed by a splash of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.
Only after that, they meet the sauce.

Harmony, dear, is in the order of things.
• Walk.
• Talk with a friend.
• Share your grandmother’s recipes.
• Listen to a story that makes you forget your damn phone and remember how to smile again.
Not the fake smile. The real kind — the one your brain hasn’t used in a while.

These are what scientists now call reset rituals.
They reduce stress.
Help your memory.
Keep you from turning into a TikTok zombie who can’t butter bread without losing focus.

And sleep?

Oh, sleep is sacred.
It’s when the glymphatic system (imagine little janitors with brooms) comes out to sweep your brain clean:
Useless drama.
False promises.
Articles that claimed spinach makes you immortal.
All swept away.
Gone.

But if you don’t sleep?
The trash piles up.
Your brain fogs over.
You forget your homework.
You cry over spilled milk.
And nobody — nobody — wants that.

So listen to me:
Sleep is not weakness.
Sleep is not laziness.
Sleep is wisdom.

If you’ve read this far, you’ve meditated.
You’ve laughed.
You’ve let your brain breathe.

If you’ve pictured Giampiero on that rooftop in his leggings, juggling a soccer ball and mumbling about chakras he doesn’t understand — you’ve achieved mindfulness.

No app can teach you this.

Forget the influencers.
Forget the clowns of TikTok.
Forget the Facebook marathons arguing about astrology and air fryers.

Remember this:

Your brain is not a machine.
It’s a garden.
It needs stories, silence, friends, food, and time.

Walk it.
Feed it.
Let it rest.
And never treat it like it’s broken just because the world is noisy.

And if you remember nothing else, remember this:

The meatballs must always meet the olive oil first. Not the sauce.
That’s how harmony works.

Got it?