Self hypnosis can get you into a heap of trouble

I saw a client recently; a person in their late 20s with big self esteem issues and a self confidence that at first sight appeared to be close to rock bottom.

But...they made it through my door. They had enough confidence to do that! They dumped an emotionally abusive partner, they had enough self confidence to do that AND find someone else they REALLY cared about.

They lost over 50 pounds of unwanted weight, they had enough self esteem to do that.

They bought themselves a (nearly) new car, they had enough self esteem to believe that they deserved that.

Yet, here was a person who within the first few minutes of meeting me broke down in tears because of their lack of confidence and low self esteem. Or were these attributes really missing?

More than anything else it appeared to me that this client was not remembering past issues but literally regressing to them, i.e. reliving them in the moment. The client was entering their own trance state and it was not a useful one! The memory recall triggered the trance state that stopped them being able to see, know or feel the positive changes they had already made.

In this case my role was mostly to un-hypnotise the client.

What followed was mix of NLP, hypnosis, story telling, goal setting and reframing to show this client (and have the client feel) how things were already different and could be better yet.

This client left laughing; we have another session booked together but I'll guess that with the progress made it will be our last.

Here is the sad thing, this person has been been going through this painful experience for the last four years. It could have been changed long ago and improved the quality of life for the person dramtically.

Beware self-hypnois...it's not always a power for good.

What does your version of reality look like?

Politics is a messy business driven by ideology, religion and or moral perspective, personal belief systems, personal interest and greed. That heady mixture defines a person's notion of reality and so the choices that they make.

One person's reality may be that the State should provide for their needs without asking awkward questions or needing to work for that the money. They believe they have a right to certain essentials of modern life including a home and all that goes in it, transportation, personal communication and money to spend.

Their reality is that the State should pay for this; they have rights and they intend to exercise them.

An alternative version of reality is that the State is a thief who takes money from those who work for it with the threat of violence and imprisonment if you dare to deny the request to pay to give to others who may or may not be deserving. By taking money from many people, the State is able to employ professionals who will come after you if you do not agree to pay the money over willingly. This is called taxation by some and extortion by others depending on who is asking for the money.

Some of that money can then be given to those who think they have a right to receive it. Some will go to other causes that the 'donor' has no control over.

We have several alternative realities here.

Which helps to explain why when you ask if a system like general taxation is fair, relevant or moral you can get some strange reactions from those you ask the question of.

You have asked that person to question their version of reality and that's painful. It's a big question and most of the time big questions are too bothersome to deal with.

Instead you are likely to encounter anger or reproach as a means of not dealing with the big question of their reality.

But, sometimes it's worth asking that question, especially when the State the puts these rules, taxes and laws into place and fails to ask you whether you wanted to be taxed more or where you would like that money to be spent.

My reality and your reality may be utterly different and that's worth thinking about as those in Government decide what money to spend on whom. It's not the State's money. It was taken from me and you and 60 million others under threat of force.

Now does that reality sound like a modern enlightened society or a country run as a mafia fiefdom?

Seeing beauty in the simple things

Honestly there times when the madness of the world almost manages to overwhelm my ability to think as a rational human being.

To defend the freedom of Libyans, we kill some other Libyans. Whilst not actually pursuing a policy of war, we only send in bombs and missiles that make it look like war. It's not war because someone important said so. Even though it involves Armed Forces with guns bombs and missiles.

Our American friends manage to kill an old man in Pakistan who may or not have been Osama Bin Laden. Who may or may not have been declared dead several times already and then dump his body in the sea so that there will be no martyr's grave. Then a militant group in Pakistan kills 70 policeman with two suicide bombers even though there was no martyr's grave for Osama.

What has this got to do with your life? Or my life? Maybe nothing at all except that we are bombarded with this type of news every day and it can make us forget that there is beauty in the world in the most humble of things.

I walked in my garden recently with a camera and looked for beauty. It was everywhere. With a very improvised close up lens here are two of the images that I captured.

Click on the images to see them in their full glory and marvel that a blackberry leaf and dandelion head could be such utterly wonderful and beautiful things.

Aspirin and Anti-despressants don't mix well

I see many clients who are or have been prescribed anti-depressants normally of the SSRI variety such as Prozac.


A recent study shows that the effectiveness of these anti-depressants can be markedly reduced with the patient also takes an anti-inflammatory pain killer such as Aspirin.


Recent research is unclear as to why non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, which are a widely used class of pain medicines (and include aspirin and ibuprofen but not acetominephen) should have this effect.


In some cases the effectiveness of the SSRI drugs was reduced completely. 


It's still my belief that ant-depressants are often a chemical fix for unbearable real world problems; they do nothing to take the problem away and only deal with the symptom.


Counselling, coaching and hypnotherapy all have their role to play in dealing with the underlying issue.


The full story is here 


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576285183033104082.html

Back to work

Everyone seems to have returned to work. Emails that I sent two weeks ago are now being replied to and new enquiries are popping into the Inbox.

No more Bank Holidays for 3 weeks!

But the good news is that the new car arrived today complete with a USB memory socket to make listening to personal development MP3s even easier.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device