On a theme of motivation, I have a nice story to tell.
A client asked me to help him lose weight. He said he was more than 3 stones overweight and only in his later twenties. he had lost weight in the past and then regained it quickly. He needed to know how to stay motivated. he had his wedding coming up but realised that he would like to continue staying motivated to be slim. I discussed exercise and he half heartedly informed me that he had a bike, but the weather was not good to ride it to work. He did say he had gone to work by bike and felt physically sick after two miles!!
We worked together to first of all eat smaller portions and then stop eating in between meals at work. A short time went by and his motivation was not at full strength. I thought maybe he would not continue to lose weight and then I did not see him for a couple of months or so. When I saw him he had lost more than a stone and was looking good. Again I did not see him for some time, and then it was passing by his place of work. I really did not recognise this younger, slimmer gorgeous looking guy, but it was him. he told me he had not only been cycling for miles, but also running and swimming. And this was the person who felt sick after two miles on his bike!
Now just over a year later, he looked great for his wedding, but is now cycling over a hundred miles at a time, has done some marathons and triathlons. For those of you who are not too sure what they are as I was, it is swimming 2 miles usually in open sea, getting out of the water and straight onto a bike for 16 miles and then running 4 miles. It is tiring just thinking about that.
I saw him the other day and he has entered an Iron Man which is about ten times harder than triathlon. He said he was inspiring others to get fit, even someone who had had a heart attack and was struggling to walk to the end of the road. He told him his story, and the man was inspired and now does three miles walking each day.
This young client of mine is a true inspiration to everyone out there who thinks they cannot get fit. Now, when doing my best to walk 40 minutes each day with my dog Ruby, I stop complaining and think of my client.
I wish he would tell his story to as many other people as possible.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Hypnotension
I have just completed a course to help people reduce their blood pressure. Over 90% of people have what is termed as essential hypertension, which means essentially doctors do not know why the blood pressure is raised constantly. Most times medication can be effective in reducing it, but as with any drug, the side effects can be unpleasant and long term which can include dry cough and sexual dysfunctions.
Doctors do like to advise their patients to make some lifestyle changes which would include diet and exercise, but it is not always easy to instantly make changes unless you are motivated. It would appear that a huge amount of Americans over the age of 50 take medication for hypertension and Statins to reduce cholesterol. Stains is now being researched even more and the conclusions are not so good. Of course GPs will say the effects of Stains outweigh the risks of a stroke if your cholesterol is too high, but lifestyle changes can also be of more benefit.
Reducing stress is a valuable tool in the reduction of high BP, and Hypnotension can help with reducing stress and making necessary changes that have less risk
Doctors do like to advise their patients to make some lifestyle changes which would include diet and exercise, but it is not always easy to instantly make changes unless you are motivated. It would appear that a huge amount of Americans over the age of 50 take medication for hypertension and Statins to reduce cholesterol. Stains is now being researched even more and the conclusions are not so good. Of course GPs will say the effects of Stains outweigh the risks of a stroke if your cholesterol is too high, but lifestyle changes can also be of more benefit.
Reducing stress is a valuable tool in the reduction of high BP, and Hypnotension can help with reducing stress and making necessary changes that have less risk
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Confidence
How do you know when you lack confidence? It would be perfectly normal to be less than confident if you are doing something for the first time, but it is not always acceptable to constantly feel you lack confidence. and yet, you probably go through the day showing confidence in many areas of your life. The ability to get up, wash, dress and perhaps go to work takes confidence. It takes confidence to seek help for problems you cannot overcome yourself.
When people report they have less confidence than they would like, it usually means that the things they would like to be even more confident with are not obvious, or they get feelings in their body that make them feel nervous, and then the interpretation is they lack confidence.
Excitement can often be confused with anxiety or lack of confidence. If you were to do some sky diving, I feel sure you would probably experience, fear, anxiety, and for some excitement. That same adrenalin rush would go through your body.
So how do you become more confident? Changing the way you think for a start helps. New thought patterns create new behaviours, and we can learn by practicing how we speak to ourselves. You will probably find if you think you lack confidence, that you often speak negatively to yourself. You can even notice the difference when you speak positively t yourself how the feelings in your body change.
When people report they have less confidence than they would like, it usually means that the things they would like to be even more confident with are not obvious, or they get feelings in their body that make them feel nervous, and then the interpretation is they lack confidence.
Excitement can often be confused with anxiety or lack of confidence. If you were to do some sky diving, I feel sure you would probably experience, fear, anxiety, and for some excitement. That same adrenalin rush would go through your body.
So how do you become more confident? Changing the way you think for a start helps. New thought patterns create new behaviours, and we can learn by practicing how we speak to ourselves. You will probably find if you think you lack confidence, that you often speak negatively to yourself. You can even notice the difference when you speak positively t yourself how the feelings in your body change.
Monday, 17 October 2011
Training
Most weekends I am training, either hypnotherapy, NLP or Coaching. I like the difference between seeing clients one to one for therapy and then training. Training lets me know how much I do now and have learned over the last eleven years. I enjoy watching people progress and make changes in their lives too as they go through the courses.
Do you have compulsion problems?
Any addiction is a compulsion. We feel compelled to do the habit and even though we want to stop, we find it difficult to do so.
Compulsions can be anything from drinking too much, drugs smoking, too much eating, obsessive compulsions, touching things counting, tidying etc etc. Compulsively having the need to pull your hair or eyebrows out, or twisting it, always feeling the need to check things over and over, making yourself sick. The list is exhaustive, but if you are doing anything with a compulsively and you cannot stop it, then the good news is that help is at hand. Hypnotherapy and NLP can help you to reprogramme your mind.
There are many forms of help, but hypnosis and NLP tends to be the fastest and quicker root. Emotional Freedom Technique also helps to free the mind so that you can think more clearly.
Compulsions can be anything from drinking too much, drugs smoking, too much eating, obsessive compulsions, touching things counting, tidying etc etc. Compulsively having the need to pull your hair or eyebrows out, or twisting it, always feeling the need to check things over and over, making yourself sick. The list is exhaustive, but if you are doing anything with a compulsively and you cannot stop it, then the good news is that help is at hand. Hypnotherapy and NLP can help you to reprogramme your mind.
There are many forms of help, but hypnosis and NLP tends to be the fastest and quicker root. Emotional Freedom Technique also helps to free the mind so that you can think more clearly.
Sunday, 16 October 2011
When forgiveness is possible, it can heal major pain
That was a quote from Dr David Hamilton's book 'Why Kindness Is Good For You'.
Being kind to others makes us feel good, and so it is a two way approach. You show kindness for others and you feel the benefit of that kindness too. Forgiving people is also a kindness to them and to others. It would appear that many people these days and not prepared to forgive and prefer to keep anger and resentment going on rather than forgive and let go. Forgiving does not mean saying that the person who wronged you in some way gets away with treating you badly, but it can mean that you forgive yourself at the same time because all relationships are two way, and we must learn to take responsibility for any breakdown in relationship.
There are not many people who have not be betrayed at some time in their life. Someone who you trusted and thought they really cared or loved you, then to find out they have betrayed you in some way, or are not prepared to do their best to repair the relationship. I feel sad when family relationships break up, particularly for mothers who find that they have done their very best to raise their children with the resources they have, only to find they have been dumped almost without another thought, and often for the most ridiculous of reasons. Maybe both sides are not willing to communicate and sort things out. Thousands of years ago we lived in tribes and new each other well. Now we become more distanced away from family. I have seen many very old people in homes with no visitors, even though there are family somewhere out there.
Do you need to forgive someone, and perhaps need to forgive yourself so that you can release anger and resentment and bitterness. That kind of thinking leads to illness both psychologically and physically. Here are some tips that David Hamilton suggests we use to help us forgive:
Learn about how forgiveness is good for your mental and emotional health
Ask yourself if it is doing you any good holding on to grudges
Remind yourself that forgiveness is an act of kindness towards yourself
Make a determined decision to forgive
Take a deep breath when you find yourself dwelling on your past and move on
Realise that you have hurt people in the past which then gives you a different perspective so that you can step into the other persons shoes and see it from their point of view
My own view and experience in my career as a therapist is that forgiveness releases us and gives us emotional freedom. Either we can repair relationships with a different understanding, or move on and make other relationships worthwhile.
Value the good relationships you do have. Nurture them and make sure you patch up any misunderstandings quickly.
Remember too, that if you have fallen out with parents and you have children, it may happen to you at some time in the future and then you will suffer as much as parents do when they are estranged by their children. Parents make mistakes all the time, and provided it is not physical or mental abuse, we may be able to repair the bonds, and if we cannot, we can forgive and move on.
Being kind to others makes us feel good, and so it is a two way approach. You show kindness for others and you feel the benefit of that kindness too. Forgiving people is also a kindness to them and to others. It would appear that many people these days and not prepared to forgive and prefer to keep anger and resentment going on rather than forgive and let go. Forgiving does not mean saying that the person who wronged you in some way gets away with treating you badly, but it can mean that you forgive yourself at the same time because all relationships are two way, and we must learn to take responsibility for any breakdown in relationship.
There are not many people who have not be betrayed at some time in their life. Someone who you trusted and thought they really cared or loved you, then to find out they have betrayed you in some way, or are not prepared to do their best to repair the relationship. I feel sad when family relationships break up, particularly for mothers who find that they have done their very best to raise their children with the resources they have, only to find they have been dumped almost without another thought, and often for the most ridiculous of reasons. Maybe both sides are not willing to communicate and sort things out. Thousands of years ago we lived in tribes and new each other well. Now we become more distanced away from family. I have seen many very old people in homes with no visitors, even though there are family somewhere out there.
Do you need to forgive someone, and perhaps need to forgive yourself so that you can release anger and resentment and bitterness. That kind of thinking leads to illness both psychologically and physically. Here are some tips that David Hamilton suggests we use to help us forgive:
Learn about how forgiveness is good for your mental and emotional health
Ask yourself if it is doing you any good holding on to grudges
Remind yourself that forgiveness is an act of kindness towards yourself
Make a determined decision to forgive
Take a deep breath when you find yourself dwelling on your past and move on
Realise that you have hurt people in the past which then gives you a different perspective so that you can step into the other persons shoes and see it from their point of view
My own view and experience in my career as a therapist is that forgiveness releases us and gives us emotional freedom. Either we can repair relationships with a different understanding, or move on and make other relationships worthwhile.
Value the good relationships you do have. Nurture them and make sure you patch up any misunderstandings quickly.
Remember too, that if you have fallen out with parents and you have children, it may happen to you at some time in the future and then you will suffer as much as parents do when they are estranged by their children. Parents make mistakes all the time, and provided it is not physical or mental abuse, we may be able to repair the bonds, and if we cannot, we can forgive and move on.
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Therapy, Coaching?
I often have to wear different hats when seeing clients. Do they need counselling, or hypnosis? Or would coaching be more suitable?
Some people don't really know the difference, and its not a bad thing to be aware of what you may be need that will be more beneficial. I love hypnosis, apart from the fact it makes you feel good, it does help to change unconscious thought patterns. Some people do get great benefit from talking though, and it can be really cathartic to get off your chest all that has been bothering you, especially if you bottle things up.
Coaching though, helps you to become much more resourceful, you are finding out all your potential.
I am training two courses of coaching at the moment, and its fun. One course is in the corporate sector, the other is for individuals to use coaching either at work or within the therapeutic environment. Both course are great fun to train, and I get a great deal out of the courses myself.
In the corporate market, employees feel valued when the company brings a coach in, or trains senior management in coaching skills. One of those skills is how to present feedback during appraisals. Most people do not like having an appraisal, nor do does the appraiser, but by giving it in a way that is most beneficial can help enormously. We call it the sandwich effect. If someone tells us we have done something good, but then follows it with something bad, all we can think of is the bad thing we have done. Funny how we can make ourselves feel bad isn't it?
In the sandwich effect, we begin by telling the employee what has gone well, followed by what could be even better, and then ending the sandwich with something good again.
The 'even better if' or EBI has a very positive effect. Imagine when you were at school and the teacher said, 'You have done that well very well, and it might be even better if you could take more time to correct your spelling next time'. By saying it this way you don't dwell too much on what was not so good, but are determined that next time you will pay more attention to spelling. Sounds too simple? Well it really works with people, and I just wish some of my bosses in the past had be aware of EBIs
Some people don't really know the difference, and its not a bad thing to be aware of what you may be need that will be more beneficial. I love hypnosis, apart from the fact it makes you feel good, it does help to change unconscious thought patterns. Some people do get great benefit from talking though, and it can be really cathartic to get off your chest all that has been bothering you, especially if you bottle things up.
Coaching though, helps you to become much more resourceful, you are finding out all your potential.
I am training two courses of coaching at the moment, and its fun. One course is in the corporate sector, the other is for individuals to use coaching either at work or within the therapeutic environment. Both course are great fun to train, and I get a great deal out of the courses myself.
In the corporate market, employees feel valued when the company brings a coach in, or trains senior management in coaching skills. One of those skills is how to present feedback during appraisals. Most people do not like having an appraisal, nor do does the appraiser, but by giving it in a way that is most beneficial can help enormously. We call it the sandwich effect. If someone tells us we have done something good, but then follows it with something bad, all we can think of is the bad thing we have done. Funny how we can make ourselves feel bad isn't it?
In the sandwich effect, we begin by telling the employee what has gone well, followed by what could be even better, and then ending the sandwich with something good again.
The 'even better if' or EBI has a very positive effect. Imagine when you were at school and the teacher said, 'You have done that well very well, and it might be even better if you could take more time to correct your spelling next time'. By saying it this way you don't dwell too much on what was not so good, but are determined that next time you will pay more attention to spelling. Sounds too simple? Well it really works with people, and I just wish some of my bosses in the past had be aware of EBIs
Healing
My hypnotherapy group have been very fortunate this weekend to have Mark Barber come to speak to us about well-being and our immune system. Mark is a Naturopathic practitioner, and has a clinic in Blofield Norwich called Willow Farm Clinic.
Now I could listen to Mark forever as he is so knowledgeable and has an amazing way of delivering training. My students were thrilled to hear him speak and were so busy writing notes and listening and watching, they could not get enough of it.
Mark spoke at length about our adrenal glands and how if they are out of balance in any way we can have a variety of symptoms presenting themselves. Oh how I wish all GPs were like Mark, and I know that I would prefer to consult Mark and treat myself more naturally than taking drugs which produce horrible side effects. I must be clear and say that I would take drugs if my life was threatened in some way, but I prefer to seek more natural remedies, although Mark was also keen to point out that not all natural remedies are safe and can also have side effects. I think we were all in agreement that drug companies make billions each year from the likes of us who trust our GPs to give us drugs that will 'cure' us. I do my best not to get angry that the drugs companies forced the government to stock pile Swine flu vaccinations, and no doubt this year or towards the end will frighten us into believing we need to get vaccinated again, and give us the vaccines that are nearly at their sell by date.
Back to something far more positive though, and that is how Mark is able to get across some technical information in such a way that is easily understood. It led the way for the rest of the day to discuss how as therapists we can help our clients to deal with pain, and undiagnosed conditions. When it comes to something like IBS, we agreed with Mark that really it is not a condition but a symptom of an irritated bowel and we must look for the cause of what is making it irritated.
For me as a trainer, I would have preferred to let Mark run the whole weekend and me be a student, but as his time is so precious, we had to let him go.
Thank you Mark from us all xxxx
Now I could listen to Mark forever as he is so knowledgeable and has an amazing way of delivering training. My students were thrilled to hear him speak and were so busy writing notes and listening and watching, they could not get enough of it.
Mark spoke at length about our adrenal glands and how if they are out of balance in any way we can have a variety of symptoms presenting themselves. Oh how I wish all GPs were like Mark, and I know that I would prefer to consult Mark and treat myself more naturally than taking drugs which produce horrible side effects. I must be clear and say that I would take drugs if my life was threatened in some way, but I prefer to seek more natural remedies, although Mark was also keen to point out that not all natural remedies are safe and can also have side effects. I think we were all in agreement that drug companies make billions each year from the likes of us who trust our GPs to give us drugs that will 'cure' us. I do my best not to get angry that the drugs companies forced the government to stock pile Swine flu vaccinations, and no doubt this year or towards the end will frighten us into believing we need to get vaccinated again, and give us the vaccines that are nearly at their sell by date.
Back to something far more positive though, and that is how Mark is able to get across some technical information in such a way that is easily understood. It led the way for the rest of the day to discuss how as therapists we can help our clients to deal with pain, and undiagnosed conditions. When it comes to something like IBS, we agreed with Mark that really it is not a condition but a symptom of an irritated bowel and we must look for the cause of what is making it irritated.
For me as a trainer, I would have preferred to let Mark run the whole weekend and me be a student, but as his time is so precious, we had to let him go.
Thank you Mark from us all xxxx
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