I came back to my senses and I couldn’t remember having driven the last mile, thankfully it was on a fairly empty A47, but I was busy thinking, “What’s in the fridge for dinner.” instead of concentrating on the road until a brake light on the back of the car ahead brought me sharply back into the present.

If you recognise this rather disconcerting feeling, you’re not alone.

This happens all the time, in routine situations, in the supermarket or at work, we switch our attention and we go onto autopilot and we can do one task, while we think about another.

Of course, this all makes sense, we have complex brains and we can be thinking about things and we don’t stop breathing or walking, we’re able to do many tasks at the same time.

It's the power of our unconscious or subconscious minds, which I would go as far as describing as our hidden superpower.

While we are able to process ‘routine’ tasks without really thinking about them, we have the same ability of our minds to take on suggestions without being fully aware of them, and in the right hands we can harness this ability that we all have.

Whether it be becoming a confident public speaker, having better self-esteem and self-love, boosting your sporting or business performance, stopping smoking or addictive behaviours or beginning to understand that you were never broken, it is simple and yet powerful.

It's been described to me as a bit like the feeling of daydreaming when, as a hypnotherapist, I create a deeply relaxed state of mind for you, in a safe space where your conscious thinking brain is resting and you’re able to process memories which are causing issues in your life right now.

The trauma that was experienced as a child has an effect on mental health and might be causing anxiety or depression now but you might not realise that it also impacts on physical health and our bodies.

Trauma victims often experience illness, as the stress hormones keep flooding their bodies, leading to headaches, pain, insomnia, rage, panic, anxiety and all sorts of physical ailments.

It's the mind body connection that hypnotherapy works on.

Of course some people are worried that their memories might feel painful and unpleasant to return to, but this is generally a fear rather than a reality.

If they haven’t been fully processed, they might be causing the current issues both mental illness and physical issues, and once fully processed the memory lacks the power to control the present and you can be free of the control that it exerted over you once and for all.

It's a long way from my previous career as a senior lawyer practising in Norwich.

I sometimes pinch myself when I am now treating a client for trauma, anxiety or pain and I think that only a few years back I was advising clients about family law or their litigation case, swanning about in a pinstripe business suit and reading up on the latest legal judgements.

Not that there wasn’t plenty of trauma in those cases, but I always knew that as a solicitor I would get accused of being part of the problem, of making things worse.

It was obvious to me when helping clients with their divorce, especially when they would ask me to take a tough approach, or ‘take him to the cleaners’ and we would take our instructions from the client paying the bill but it was never comfortable for me because, as is often said, “There are no winners, except the lawyers.”

Through this therapy I can make a difference, in a positive way, to help people to create a positive and life free from their past and able to move on with excitement and joy for the future.

It was the celebrity therapist Marisa Peer who inspired me to make a change in my own life, and train as a Rapid Transformational Therapist (RTT), so that I could help others to break free of their past.

It certainly surprised a few people when I trained as a hypnotherapist, but I want to live the way I tell others to, to be free to create whatever they want to in their lives, and not be beholden to other people’s judgements or allow other people’s expectations to define them.

Harnessing your subconscious might be the superpower you’re looking for.

It's free to book in a Discovery call to find out more about RTT hypnotherapy and whether it is suitable for you, or book a 1-2-1 at www.tarahillstherapy.com

Tammy Parnell is a member of the Feel Good Norfolk collective