"We are what the programming in our subconscious perceives us to be," said owner Dawn Grant. "If this part of the mind views us as fat, we become fat. If it perceives that we smoke, then we smoke, and so on." Grant said hypnotherapy allows people to reprogram themselves to be whatever they wish to be. Grant, a certified hypnotherapist, also has a background in mental health. Grant has worked in Nassau County as a children's case manager for Sutton Place and as a victims' witness counselor for the State Attorney's Office. She will hold private and group sessions.HOME, BUSINESS EXPO The Amelia Island-Fernandina Beach-Yulee Chamber of Commerce has scheduled the 2001 Odyssey Expo, a home and business show, for Oct. 20 at the Atlantic Avenue Recreation Center auditorium. The event will have exhibitor booths inside the auditorium and outdoors for area businesses to showcase their services. Seminars and workshops also are planned. An 8- by 8-foot exhibit booth will cost $350 for non-members of the chamber, and $250 for members. The outdoor spaces will cost from $175 to $350 for non-members, and $125 to $250 for members. Exhibitors could set up as early as Oct. 19, in time for a chamber Business After Hours social from 5 to 7 p.m. that day.WORK PLACE SEMINAR The Amelia Island-Fernandina Beach-Yulee Chamber of Commerce will host a safety in the workplace seminar from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. Friday at the chamber administrative office, 1897 Island Walkway, Suite 1. The seminar, presented by Metro Crime Prevention of Florida, will focus on how to protect yourself from workplace crime. The event is free to chamber members and $15 for non-members. Attendance is limited and reservations are required, call 261-3248.

If you have information for In Business, including promotions or other employee recognition, a company announcement, a remodeling, an expansion or a business opening, send it to Nassau Neighbors, P.O. Box 1745, Fernandina Beach, FL 32035, fax, 261-4183, or e-mail, srespess@jacksonville.com. Include a daytime phone number.

But keeping that attitude can be hard for professional athletes, particularly professional golfers, whose game relies on swings as close to perfection as they can get. This is magnified when thousands of people are watching.Amelia Island hypnotherapist Dawn Grant found out this year how much a golfer's state of mind can affect his or her game. And since Grant, in her work, seeks to get to the root of negative thinking and uses hypnotic suggestion to break those patterns, she thought she could help.At the suggestion of a professional masseuse who works with athletes, she started attending PGA events at her own expense and was given credentials to talk to and work with golfers.Since March, she has worked with three PGA golfers who say she's helped them improve."Dawn is great for golfers and for me in particular because I sometimes can be too negative on myself and my game," professional golfer Will MacKenzie said. "Working with her has helped me discover the root of that negativity in myself, and work to remove that from my mind. That allows me to free up mentally and play up to my own potential without limiting myself with negativity."Grant continues to attend the PGA events, but it's now mostly at the expense of her clients, she said.Grant, who has owned A New Dawn Hypnosis here for six years, said when someone gets the idea in their head he or she is going to fail in the future because of a past failure, that thought pattern can sabotage that person and it can be hard to break."There can be fear of failure, fear they aren't competent, or fear of success," she said.One golfer she worked with said he didn't want to be in a tournament's top 10 because cameras would follow him and fame could cloud his personal life. Grant also said golfers can be self-destructive because they have no one to credit for the success or blame for their failures but themselves."People say golf is 95 percent mental," Grant said. "And at the PGA level, there's no question about the ability of the players. I'm able to help them with their belief patterns."As she's worked with the golfers, she hasn't just focused on their game, but also on the big picture of their lives, she said."I use hypnotherapy as a tool, but I've also started educating people on the power of their minds and their thoughts," she said. "I don't just focus on golf. And they become an overall happier, positive person. They become more relaxed. They enjoy the game out there. Getting angry is detrimental and doesn't help anything."Grant recommends people visualize what they want, stay in the present and visualize success."Going into something with a positive expectation is setting yourself up for success," she said. "Stay positive. Stay in the moment. Whenever you have a bad shot, learn from it and move forward."Tiger Woods does that naturally, she said."Tiger is a good example of what to be," she said. "He expects to play well. He's got so many positive thoughts about himself. He expects that he will shoot well. If it doesn't go the way he wants it to, he's surprised. He's shocked."For client professional golfer Cameron Beckman, what helped him was learning to talk to himself."Dawn has taught me to think and say positive suggestions to myself while playing" he said. "These suggestions are reinforced by the hypnotherapy. Things have changed for me with very little effort."

KEVIN TURNER/StaffAmelia Island hynotherapist Dawn Grant helps PGA tour golfers overcome mental barriers to their game.

"She's having a contraction," said Rozlyn Warren, a hypnotherapist at A New Dawn Hypnosis Center in Fernandina Beach. The video is of a woman giving birth using an innovative method called hypnobirthing. Warren and Dawn Grant, owner of the center, were certified in April to teach women self-relaxation techniques to relieve the pain and fear commonly associated with the act of giving birth. Now, they're want to bring "hypnobirthing" to Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia. The center held a free seminar June 3, and Warren said one couple has signed up for a series of hypnobirthing classes that will begin June 17. "It's about relaxation," Warren said. "The one thing that separates us from any other childbirth program is we come from the angle that you don't have to have pain to have a baby." The word "hypnobirthing" was coined in the late 1980s by Marie Mongan, who founded The Hypnobirthing Institute. The technique combines the concept of self-hypnosis, in which deep states of relaxation are self-induced, with that of natural childbirth, which advocates minimal medical intervention during labor. Warren and Grant said hypnobirthing helps women get back to the original idea of childbirth as a natural and pain-free event. Cultural bias has built up over the centuries that having a baby will be the most painful thing a woman will ever experience, they said. It's an idea fostered not only in countless movies and TV shows, which show women straining and screaming during delivery, but also by women themselves, Warren said. "We're told the terror of our mother's birth tale," she said. "And when it comes time for labor, the muscles are so tight because we're afraid, the baby's hitting a brick wall, and then, one more time, we have a painful birth story." Even the traditional language of childbirth is fraught with the concepts of process and pain, they said. Hypnobirthing practitioners encourage expectant mothers to change their vocabulary as part of the program. The language of hypnobirthing uses surge or wave instead of contraction, birthing instead of delivery and breathing down instead of pushing. Grant said hypnobirthing focuses on helping expectant mothers get beyond their fears and understand birth as a natural function. "Everything we teach reinforces that this is why their body was made, this is what their body was made to do," Grant said. The expectant mothers are taught self-hypnosis techniques, such as visualization, relaxation and breathing. They are not in a trance or asleep. They also learn to use their bodies' own natural pain-killing abilities. For example, a light massage technique done by birthing partners raises goosebumps. That releases endorphins, which are natural pain-relievers, Grant said. Hypnobirthing advocates say the practice benefits both mother and baby by reducing the stress and strain on both. The technique also reduces the need for drugs and other medical interventions. While Warren and Grant said they would like to be present during a hypnobirth, they don't have to be. Ultimately, the birth should be what each woman and her partner wants it to be, they said. "It's not a mystery," Grant said. "It's very simple because you're using things that are already in your mind and body."

Staff writer Amelia A. Hart can be reached at (904) 261-7606, extension 107, or via e-mail at ahart@jacksonville.com.

For more information about hypnobirthing, visit Jacksonville.com, keyword hypnobirthing.