A journey of the mind

3/1/2023

Hypnotist encourages meditation for change.

Bill Mogolov’s journey began in 2004. The owner of a successful video company in Clive, one of his customers approached him with an idea: why not share his business expertise with the inmates at the local women’s prison?

He was hesitant at first but eventually caved and agreed.

“And so, on a really cold January night, I found myself in a classroom inside the prison walls at the women’s prison in Mitchellville. It was in an old classroom with creaky floors,” he recalled. “Before the women came in for the first class, I remember thinking, ‘What did I get myself into?’ ”

What Mogolov got himself into became “some of the best years” of his life, as he reflects back.

“I think it taught me a lesson that you should never judge a book by its cover, and it taught me that there’s good in different people that we sometimes think are bad people,” he said. “I learned that if you treat them with respect, and if they know you care about them, a lot of times they reciprocate, and you can really see them in a different light. And a lot of the people I had in the classes — I came to learn that they were basically good people, lots of them. They just made split-second decisions that changed their life, in some cases, forever.”

Mogolov taught classes at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women for eight years, plus two years at the Polk County Jail. His classes expanded from the initial focus on business to include life skills such as personal finance, stress management — and guided meditation.

That’s right: Mogolov is a certified hypnotist.

“I actually went to a school in Las Vegas and became a stage hypnotist. I did shows for almost three or four years,” he said. “I didn’t enjoy doing that so much. I liked entertaining, but I really wanted to do something where I’d be helping people, more than entertaining them.”

Fast forward to today. He no longer volunteers with inmates, and he’s retired from his video business and part-time hypnosis practice. Now, he’s on to something bigger.

“One of the things on my bucket list was to create a website where people could listen to recorded meditations,” he said.

The guided meditations, which can be found at mindjourneys.org and most podcast streaming platforms, are 100% free with no strings attached.

“I didn’t want to do the thing where you have to get emails and all that stuff,” said Mogolov, whose sole motivation is simple: to help others.

Listeners, now from nearly 20 countries, can access recorded meditations geared toward relaxation and self-improvement. “Mind Journeys” guided by Mogolov might take listeners through a walk in the forest, along the ocean beach, or back to their childhood. Self-improvement meditations help listeners deal with everything from self-image to grief and forgiveness.

“We do live in a pretty stressful world, we have to admit. And so, I wanted to do something to help people with not only stress but different issues that they might be going through.”

On occasion, Mogolov continues to teach classes. This May, he’ll be holding a beginning meditation class at Drake University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, open to the community.

A number of people are wary of hypnosis: envisioning a mysterious figure with a swinging pocket watch, ready to bombard their subject with unwelcome suggestions. To ease those fears, Mogolov pointed out that hypnosis has been around for centuries and is a proven science.

“When you are in hypnosis, you, the client, are always in control — never the hypnotist. That’s the misconception,” he said. “If the hypnotist gave you a suggestion you didn’t feel comfortable with, you wouldn’t accept it. And you can always wake up and walk away. They can never make you do something you don’t want to do.”

While some of Mogolov’s recordings use mild hypnosis to relax the listener initially, he said they mainly focus on meditation or mindfulness — which don’t incorporate suggestions.

“It’s simply relaxing yourself, putting away all your worries and your concerns from the past and future, and just concentrating on the present.

“There’s a lot of people in the world that have little things that affect their everyday lives and hold them back from leading healthy and rich lives, and I think this can help them a lot to deal with the things that hold them back.” ♦