Date Blog Started

22 September 2008

Welcome to my page where I will be adding articles that I have written, and also adding some thoughts and ideas about the way our minds work, and how we perceive the world around us.

To get things started, I have posted some articles that I have written over recent months. Some of these have been printed in Energies in Action, a bi monthly newsletter and also in my local NCT magazine. If you want any more information on these articles or clarification on any points raised then I would be really happy to discuss them with you.

The articles posted today are:

The Pythagorean Fork, can it help us change our lives?

Is hypnosis something to be wary of?

Confidence, the key to a happy life

8 March 2010

HypnoBirthing featuring on Five TV, ‘The Wright Stuff’

I just received an e-mail this morning from another HypnoBirthing practitioner containing a link to the about programme which was aired last Friday. On this programme, Nadia Sawahla talks with huge amounts of passion about her wonderful HypnoBirth.  She managed to finally convince a really skeptical Matthew Wright that it was possible to have a birth without pain, and she described a wonderful sense of euphoria afterwards. If you are considering doing HypnoBirthing you really should watch her talk, as her passion is very typical of that experienced by many of my clients.

Click HERE to watch this clip

28 February 2010

New Technologies open up a world of possibilities.

It never ceases to amaze me that time passes so quickly when you are busy and enjoying yourself. It feels like only yesterday that I was writing that last piece on New Year’s Eve. Well I hope you had a good one, and wasn’t all that snow amazing? Business pretty much ground to a halt, but it gave families the opportunity to spend some time together and have fun. I think it brought communities together too, so all in all it had it’s positives.

Since then I have set up Skype consultations, and have already done my first one. Skype is a remarkable innovation, and I suppose being a keen fan of Star Trek as a youngster,(okay that tells you something about me!) I just love being able to do what Captain Kirk used to do and talk to someone on the screen in front of me.  It is free to use, and really opens up the opportunity for you to pass my details on to your contacts who you might feel could do with my help, but live too far away from me to see me on a regular basis.  I did this because I was hearing far too often the words, “I  know my father, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, friend etc, could really use your help, but they live in ......, and it is too far to come to see you.”  Now I can help them, because it is like being in the same room as them.  I can see their faces, and their body language, and they can see me too Contrary to popular belief, I don’t have to wave a pendulum in front of people eyes to hypnotise them, and the effects are just as impressive.

So if you do know anybody who can benefit from my help, do pass on my details and as you can see, distance is no object!

31 December 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Well I am writing this on the brink of a new decade and wonder what the future will bring to us all. What will be commonplace 10 years from now? Will I be sitting writing a blog for a website then, or will it be a totally new type of technology?  Who knows, and for some people not knowing can be quite scary.  It can make them feel anxious and unsure, and lacking in confidence.  Fear of the future, or of the unknown is not uncommon, but you know what I say, it is all in the mind, and anything that is in the mind can change with the help of Hypnotherapy!

What I do know is that it is time for me to put away the inevitable Christmas sweet tin. , and focus my mind on the immediate future. (There are only the yucky soft centres left now anyway! )   I , like many others of you out there will need to brave the weighing scales, and take positive action in the New Year.  However I regret nothing, because regret like guilt is a wasted emotion.  I enjoyed Christmas and I embrace the idea of a fresh start. For those of you that need some extra help doing this, you know where to find me.  The good thing is that there are no VAT increases here!!!  Also there is a special New Year’s offer of 10% off a series of 4 sessions booked and paid for before 28th February.

27 November 2009

Why are people so prejudiced?, or how is hypnosis similar to a knife?

I was a little shocked the other day when talking to a friend of mine who was experiencing panic attacks.  She was really suffering with these, and feeling very low and miserable. We talked a bit about how to overcome them, and went through some CBT principles.  When I suggested that hypnosis could help her accept positive thoughts more easily, she responded that no way, on principle would she allow herself to be hypnotised.  I think the principle was on religious grounds.  Over quite some time, she has tried to get me to say that hypnosis is spooky, and magical and that it dabbles in the occult, but of course I won’t say that, because in my instance it is certainly not true. I use hypnosis solely for the purposes of helping people get better, release their negative thoughts, and accept new positive ones which are more helpful to them.

Now , why or how you might ask is hypnosis like a knife..? Well, when I was chopping the vegetables with my new, super sharp knife the other day, this thought occurred to me.  It was after my conversation with my friend, and needless to say this had been on my mind.  My new knife is wonderful, and I wondered why I had struggled with a pathetic smaller blunt one for all these years.   Now I think we all accept that knives can be used for all types of things.  They are very useful tools, and of course some of the things that they can be used for can be quite dangerous, and I don’t doubt that there are some uses for knives in occult practices too. However, would you on principle back away from using a knife to cut up vegetables, because it could also be used in other ways???    Of course you wouldn’t. It would be ludicrous to do so, so in just the same way, I suggest that it is ludicrous to back away from using hypnosis as a tool to help yourself get better, just because you have a belief that some people may have occasionally used it for purposes that you don’t agree with.

So if you know somebody who is standing on some false principle like this, perhaps you can pass this analogy on to them,  I would be interested to hear their reactions!

16 November 2009

What is happiness?

I watched an old Columbo movie on ITV yesterday whilst doing the ironing, and two of the characters were having a discussion. One of them, who was living under quite emotionally stressful circumstances said that there were more important things in life than happiness, to which the other one questioned, ‘well what?’

Indeed, there is very little that could be put ahead of happiness. Some people might seek to put financial stability there, but , but when you stop to think of it, would this be correct?  Is financial stability the same as happiness? Certainly if you don’t have financial stability , that can certainly impact on happiness, but there are far more other factors involved.

Many of us know people who seem to have it all, but yet don’t seem particularly happy. Why is that? It could  be a lack of love in their lives, or are they just looking at the world through muddy glasses?

Your attitude to life is all important.  The way you frame your thoughts can make the difference between feeling happy or feeling put upon, depressed or dissatisfied with life. The way you frame your thoughts can make leave you feeling small, inadequate, and lacking in confidence, and that is not a very good recipe for happiness is it?

So what can you do about this? Do you have to live you life like this?  Is what your are thinking actually true? Is it helpful? If a friend were saying these things to you, would you accept them?  All of these things can be changed, and I help people to do this every day.

I use Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy to help people make those changes to the way they frame their thinking, and it really works. People leave here feeling far more positive and confident, and I do believe ,a lot more happy.

So if you feel that you need a little more happiness in your life, then you know what to do... Give me a call and make an appointment, because you won’t regret putting a bit more happiness into your life, in fact you will wonder why you didn’t do it years ago!

29 September 2009

Where does the time go to?????

I decided today to have a quick look at the blog because I hadn’t updated it for so very long, and I could not believe that it was nearly 6 months ago that I last wrote here.  That doesn’t mean that I haven’t had some fairly profound thoughts since then, just that I have been so busy that there hasn’t been time to get here. 

I have really enjoyed this summer. I had a nice holiday with the family, and did a lot of reading, both for pleasure and work related material.  The interesting thing about the field that I work in is that you never stop learning, simply because there is so much to learn.  Even with issues that I regularly deal with such as weight loss or smoking cessation, each new client that you meet brings a new aspect to your understanding.  The other amazing things that I have found is that when I do a new bit of reading, or learning, then along comes a client to whom it applies to. Perhaps it is fortuitous, or not, but that doesn’t really matter as long as it helps the person I am working with.

There are two other things which are relevant to be mentioned here.  I am now up and running on Skype so could conduct consultations at a distance if necessary, so if you need to talk to me, but feel that you are too far away, we can still have have a face to face chat if you have Skype too.

The other thing is that several HypnoBirthing babes have been born, and I have started holding coffee mornings for the Mums to come along and increase their social network. It is really lovely for me to see these little babies, and also for the Mums in waiting to hear positive stories of other people’s births. We have had two of these coffee morning so far.  There are a few babies still to be born from classes already held, so I will probably be holding another coffee morning in the next few months, so if you fancy coming along, please call me for dates.

31 March 2009

HypnoBirthing Information Evening

This happened tonight at the Crowthorne Chiropractic Centre, where I will hopefully soon be holding some of my classes.

Well , if you are reading this now,  you have missed it, and it was really inspiring to hear Hayley and her husband Jon talk about the birth of their lovely little girl.  They spoke so passionately about how Hayley felt no pain at all throughout her labour, how her midwifes were all amazed at her calm and serene labour.  It was truly lovely to hear it all, and to see their faces glow when they spoke of what was a truly magical experience for them.

Hayley has kindly agreed to speak at another event again, so if you are interested in coming along to another talk like this in the near future, then please call me, or send me a contact form. Many thanks to the three of them for coming along to make it such a special event.

 1 February 2009

Busy, Busy, Busy.........

It has been a while since I have updated this page because I have been so busy.  I have had so many clients through for all types of things, and it is really rewarding to see them make tremendous progress, and positive changes to their lives.  So many of them have been set free of the limiting thoughts that have held them back, and it is really lovely to see them being able to relax and enjoy the simple pleasures that many of the rest of us take for granted.

I have also been running a series of stress busting workshops for women at a local childrens centre. Some of these women are coping with very difficult situations at home and at work, and generally are struggling with confidence and self esteem issues. I have been using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques to help them identify errors in their thinking patterns.  It all sounds quite complicated, but in actual fact it is very straightforward, and these ladies say that they are really enjoying it.  It can be very liberating to see that you are not the only person in the world who thinks that everything that goes wrong is 100% your fault and you are a complete failure as a result. 

I really must applaud the manager of the Children’s centre for her foward thinking in asking me to run this course.  It really has the capacity to help these people to be more positive, and be empowered to take control of their thinking patterns and their lives. Six hours of group sessions may not completely change their lives, but hopefully will give them a foundation to work on if they want to.  Hopefully this course will run again later in the year, and I will be able to help many others too.

Stress is stress, and it does not matter if it comes from the difficulties of dealing with children and family life, or from a high level well paid job.  I have been in both situations and I can vouch for this.  This course would equally be appropriate for a corporate situation, and it is my intention to approach some larger companies to see if they are intereted in taking this on too.

22 December 2008

The Jeremy Vine Show

I just had to add this note here today.  I have been sent a link to download a segment of the Jeremy Vine show on one of the BBC channels....Sorry, I don’t listen to an awful lot of radio so I don’t really know which BBC channel it came from.  Anyway, this segment was about hypnosis, and asked if people were scared about it.  There was a hypnotherapist on the show being interviewed having helped one lady who has stopped smoking. She was a BBC employee and she said that having had it done that morning she felt really positive and calm.

They then had a phone in with various people calling in with their comments and experiences, which were all (almost without exception) positive. There was even a midwife who called in and explained about her experiences of seeing women labour so calmly and peacefully using HypnoBirthing.

It was such a positive review of the uses and benefits of hypnosis that I thought I would enter the link here so that you can visit it and listen to it yourself. I can tell you how great hypnosis is, but I know that you would rather hear it from people who have used it and experienced it themselves, from the horses mouth as you might say.

So here is the link.....http://www.mediafire.com/?2myjjmgxmzj   Enjoy it!

16th December 2008

The time sems to pass so quickly especially when you are busy. I have been seeing more and more people lately, and the the message that HypnoBirthing is as great as it is  seems to be spreading.  I was lucky enough to talk to the local midwifes recently and explain all about HypnoBirthing to them. They seemed to receive it well. It is really nice now, that when my clients come along to have their babies with these midwives that they will know how to best support them, so this is all really positive.

15 November 2008

The Credit Crunch -the greatest proof that suggestion works!

In the last few weeks there has been nothing but talk in the media of the Recession, and the Credit Crunch, and how things are bad.  Then they lower interest rates, but the media kept on telling us that things were bad.  So what happen, the public wholeheartedly accepted the suggestions that the media have been giving them.  They have completely taken on board the suggestions that we will all be poor and we should stop spending.  Pretty much the entire nation has responded to these suggestions and have stopped spending.  This is in spite of the fact that for the vast majority of people they have not experienced any hardship so far as a result of these economic woes.

Most people in secure employment have continued to receive the same level of income each month, and in fact many of them will be significantly better off because of the interest rate falls, but because of all that they have been hearing, all the suggestions being fed to them daily by the media, they have chosen to stop spending, and therefore they have indirectly caused there to be  problem. Once people stop spending then businesses suffer.  When businesses suffer they make staff redundant, so they have inadvertantly being causing their own demise.

To me this is the greatest proof that suggestion actually works. Suggestion is delivered in all sorts of ways through TV, radio, and advertising.  We are exposed to it everyday.  When you  focus your attention on something you effectively become hypnotised, and in that state can take on all sorts of suggestions, and as far as I can see this is what has happened to the population.  Suggestion does work.

 So is all of this getting you down? Is the constant talk of doom and gloom getting to much for you?  In these times it hepls to keep as positive an outlook as possible, and that is not easy if you watch telly, or listen to the radio or read the papers, especially the tabloids. So my advise is turn it all off, and settle down with a meditation CD and focus on yourself for a while, and just enjoy what you have. Be conscious of the suggestions you have been given, and carefully choose which ones you want to accept.

23 October 2008

HypnoBirthing -The word is spreading........

I went to the Earls Court Baby Show this last weekend and met many expectant parents who were all very interested in learning more about HypnoBirthing. This is wonderful.  It really is such a wonderful programme, and I sometimes feel that I should shout it from the rooftops. It was really refreshing to see that midwives were referring loads of people to our stand, as they so thoroughly support the programme.  My sincere thanks go to all those dedicated practitioners who organised the show, and I look forward to seeing some of the people I met at the show again in my HypnoBirthing classes over the coming months. By doing a HypnoBirthing course you are definitely giving yourself and your baby the best chance of a calm,comfortable, controlled and natural birth.  I was also lucky enough to hear from the mother of the latest HypnoBaby in Crowthorne, and delighted to hear of what a fantastic birth she had. She has kindly given me a testimonial and I have posted it on the HypnoBirthing page

15 October 2008

If life was like a bar of chocolate, would we ever get fed up with it?????

8 October 2008

What is reality?

I was reading a book the other night, and this was a question asked at the end of a  chapter.  The question was paraphrased from a book by Trevor Silvester, and posed the question ‘Do we ever really know what reality is?’  Our perceptions colour our reality all the time. Take this example. Say you were at a party, and something happens, for example someone spills a drink or breaks a glass or something similar.  If you asked three different people to describe what happened and the events leading up to it, they would probably all describe it differently. The key elements would be fairly similar, but depending on what else they were doing, or looking at, there may be bits they missed, or angles they did not see. So what really happened, and can any one person give a full and accurate account of that?

The answer is probably not.  What we see and hear form the basis of our perceptions  I should change that last sentence though, because it is not what we see and hear, it is what we think we see and hear.  Our self esteem and confidence may take a downward slide when we think someone is criticising us, but are we seeing all of the picture? Are we engaging in thinking errors when we think we can mind read? Are we deluding ourselves, both positively or negatively?  Are we letting our unfounded negative thoughts get us down? Is it sapping our self confidence, and making us feel low?

The way to change this is to do some work on identifying those negative thoughts and turning them into positives. A cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist will be able to help you to identify what your negative thoughts are, and will also help you to open your mind to other possibilites of realities. They will help you to work out whether these thoughts are in fact true, and if so just how true they might be. It could turn out to be only 10% true, and if you turn that around then it may be 90% untrue. Most people would regard that as a low level thought, and seeing things like that can help you get things into perspective.

So if negative thoughts like these are getting you down, you know what to do, give me a call and I know I can help you fee better, more positive and confident.  I have seen it happen and it is great to see. People walk out of my rooms with a gleam in the eyes, and you know and they know that they feel better.

28 September 2008

Change

I have just been thinking about this.  It is after all what the biggest part of my job involves, because it is what most people come to me to achieve.

Change can be scary. To change you really need to do something different. If you keep doing the same old stuff you will continue to get the same old results. The problem is that although you want to change one aspect of your life, you are usually quite happy with the rest of it.  However you need to look at everything, becasue no one area of your life can be taken in isolation.  Everything needs to be reviewed to achieve change.  Many things may not need to be changed as a result of your review, but there may be elements of routine things that you do that will need alteration to achieve the desired results.

For example, I know one person who has a spider phobia.  She spends her life avoiding dusty, and disued places in case she encounters a spider. She could tackle the spider phobia headlong in hypnosis, and probably would conquer the phobia quite easily, but she would also need to adapt her behaviour and her attitudes to dusty and cobweb ridden places.  She would need to be happy to embrace the idea of visiting them, and poking around in their corners. That would mean changing the habits of a lifetime, so would she do it?   Perhaps she will, perhaps not who knows? More to the point, would you do if you wanted to get rid of your phobia?