Develop Grow Change

A Trillion pounds

2012-01-24T22:37:00.001Z

A Trillion pounds that's the public debt of the UK now.

It's the equivalent of £16000 each for every man, woman and child in the UK. If you add in the back rescue money as well, that's another £16,000 per person.

So as well as our personal debts, now each of us is saddled with £32000 extra for the management of the country's debt.

The median wage in the UK is around £26,000 so our government debt dwarves an average worker's take home pay.

This can't continue, the interest on the debt will cripple us.

And people are surprised that consumer spending is lower?

Never mind the negative effects on mental health. It's going to be an interesting year of the Dragon (chinese New Year)

Lots of interest but....what will it take to make the change?

2012-01-11T19:44:00.000Z

I've often said to a new client that the hardest part of their journey is already over by the time they come to see me.

Why?

Because they have already made enough of a commitment to make a change for the better in their life.

At this time of year I see lots of extra activity on my Hypnotherapy web site (www.somersethypnotherapy.com) but it can often be months from a person finding the site to taking action.

Do it now. Delay just means more of what you don't want. Start making that change now and feel so much better sooner. To quote a friend of mine (Brad Burton) "The further you run (away from the problem), the weaker you become.

Start that change now.

Sign of the times

2012-01-09T21:17:00.001Z

Relocating to the internet. Seen in Yeovil, Somerset today

I tried Google+ today

2012-01-07T11:15:00.000Z

Lots of people seem to be talking about it, it's had lots of press and it's supposed to be the next big thing.

So I tried Google+; and hated it.

It messed up all my access to other Google products, it was so non-intuitive that I had to resort to the help links several times and it looked like Facebook but with more whitespace.

I unregistered less than one hour later.

I filled in the Google commentary form about why I was leaving, it'll give them a small input on how they can improve what they do.

Google are so amazingly good at so many things, but social media stuff? I'll pass I think.

Find me on Twitter instead @johncburns.

Trends and forecasts for 2012

2011-12-28T08:48:00.000Z

Trends and forecast for 2012

My own personal view on what may happen over the next 12 months. It looks bad but there are opportunities in the midst of the chaos ahead.

War, terror, chaos, Bank Holidays and energy shortages
As I contemplate the outlook for 2012 things look really rather grim. The background is tension over Syria and Iran where sabres are being rattled by the west in the belief, by some, that Iran is seeking to produce a nuclear weapon (although no hard evidence has so far been shown for this). Syria, a country with close links to Iran is near a civil war state.

These factors will unsettle the Middle East and with it the oil market.

In the USA new laws have been passed that permit the indefinite detention (without trial) of any person who is deemed to be an enemy of the state. This law appears to ride roughshod over the rights outlined in the USA Constitution. This is a troubling development from the nation that we used to view as the home of free.

In Europe the Euro is in deep trouble with any resolution to the problem seemingly being 'kicked down the road' as many times as possible. However unless there is a major restructuring of the Bank debts that have become Sovereign debts in the Euro zone there will be major problems in the first months of 2012.

Oil Shocks Unrest in oil producing regions is nothing new and the pressure from Israel and the USA on Iran seems likely to continue. There appears to be a stealth war already going on with US drones over flying Iran and mysterious explosions happening in or around Iranian research bases.

The recent rumour/threat that Iran was going to/had closed the Straits of Hormuz added 3% to the oil price in minutes. Can you imagine what would happen if this oil gateway was closed for a week? This story will run and run with the oil price climbing gradually higher in spite of the recession/depression in the USA and Europe.

Euro Zone breakup or breakdown?

The Euro currency in its current form can not continue indefinitely. Capital is leaving the Euro zone and only being replaced by 'funny money' from the European Central Bank. The can has been kicked down the road about as far as it can go although perhaps some new ingenious rescue mechanism will be devised.

I expect the Euro to collapse; either into two blocks (basically North and South) or more likely into the Euro zone (Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg; maybe some others) and all the rest.

Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy could create an new regional "South Euro" but more likely they will simply bring back their own currencies. What will happen to Euro based contracts will exercise corporate lawyers for the next few months.

The tricky thing is the timing. When will it happen? My guess is between 6 and 9 months into 2012. It will be chaos. On the upside; if this happens, holidays in Southern Europe will become cheaper!

What will happen to Ireland?

It may run counter to every political bone in an Irish Republican's body, but perhaps they could look at joining Sterling again. There are so many constitutional issues with this that plotting the path seems difficult, but it would make a huge amount on sense given the trade between the UK and the Republic.

Will the EU survive

Probably. Perhaps in some more useful and much attenuated role.

In the UK

I expect major retailers to go to the wall in the first three months of 2012. Upward only rent demands, terrible trading conditions and the on-line market will see a number of big names either disappear or become amalgamated into larger trading groups.

Mental health issues of anxiety and depression will grow and become even more common. Sadly it's likely the suicide rate will increase too.

Good news stories: Insolvency practitioners will do well, on-line business will grow and new home delivery companies will come to market.

Crime

Will only go up with an increase in food theft rather than manufactured goods. This is simply a reflection of the impact that the austerity program is having. There is no simple way out of this. The Labour party believe that fewer shallower cuts are needed but in truth this will simply prolong the agony.

Good news stories: Private security firms will grow, new forms of manned and unmanned guarding will start to look effective and affordable on a neighbourhood by neighbourhood basis.

Government

To reduce costs the Government must get smaller. The Tory/Liberal alliance will tell you that it is getting smaller. But it's not small enough and likely never will be because they just can't resist meddling and imposing new rules. However job will move from local Government to private service companies and from central Government quangos to HMRC. Taxes MUST be collected!

Good news stories: It's the Government, there are no good news stories.

Employment/Unemployment

Sadly I can only see UK unemployment rising along with self-employment forced by circumstances. Where there are no jobs sometimes the only option left is to become self employed. Long term unemployment is still the nettle that central Government is frightened to grasp. In the 1930s depression unemployment rates hit 25%. If/when the Euro goes bang it's possible we might see rates near this again. It seems obvious to me that the black economy will thrive in this type of setting.

Bank Holidays

The meaning of Bank Holiday is that the bank is closed. If things get very tight in the Euro zone and possibly even in the UK, the Governments may be tempted to impose a Bank Holiday where a levy is taken directly from every bank account in the name of "The Greater Good". During this Bank Holiday access to cash would be severely restricted. This has happened before (in Italy I believe) and could be as high as 1% of the amount in an account. What would that do to your savings plan?

Of course they will not announce this in advance or you may be tempted to put your cash under the mattress and that would never do. The beast (Government and Banks) must be fed!

Energy

In the UK our energy supply is hanging on by a thread. Ageing Nuclear reactors are being kept going passed their design life to cover an energy gap that will only get bigger as the UK population grows. The Greens fascination with wind turbines will continue in-spite of the experiences in the USA where many multi-turbine installations have been left to rot as the feed-in tariffs change and make maintenance and updating unaffordable.

In the short term Gas Turbine power stations can deal with the issues but only for as long as we have a ready supply of natural gas. With many supplies coming from long and vulnerable pipelines it would be dangerous to rely on these alone. Solar power can only really be a bit part player in the UK, especially since most installations do not include battery back-up storage.

The reality is that only more nuclear infrastructure will deliver the power we crave but it takes a decade or more to bring a new nuclear station on-stream. A personal generator in the garage may be the most effective way to beat rolling black-outs that seems certain in the years ahead.

Gas Exploration

Shale gas may be the way ahead but the environmental costs seen in the USA (poisoned drinking water etc.) may stop or slow its progress in the UK. However perhaps our deep water exploration teams will find more oil and gas opportunities in the western approaches or off the North West coast of Scotland. Let's hope so.

Peoples

Immigration is nothing new for Europe and nor is emigration. I expect to see more of both in 2012. There signs already that many of Europe's talented youth are going to seek new opportunities abroad. For the Portuguese, Angola and Brazil are beacons of hope. Likewise for the Spanish, Latin America offers jobs and a future. For the Irish and the Brits, Canada, Australia and New Zealand look enticing when seen from the UK.

But Europe will also see more immigration from the Arab countries as turmoil continues in North Africa and now Syria. Add in people from Afghanistan and Somalia and one can begin to see a real change in how Europe will look in coming decades.

The Rise of Turkey

A member of NATO and once a strong candidate to join the EU, now Turkey looks set to become a regional powerhouse of influence and control. They will have lots to say about Syria, Iran and Israel. Muscles will be flexed.

It seems that 2012 will be a year of being defensive, looking after one's own, protecting what you have before worrying about what you want next. The TV will continue to produce more escapist shows (Strictly Come Dancing, X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent etc.) to provide relief from the gloom of real life.

People will still be seduced by technological toys like the iPhone/iPad. They will simply add the payment to their monthly bills. Subscription TV will become more popular as discretionary spending moves from going out to the pub/restaurant to staying at home with a bottle of wine/beer.

Most things done by the Government will have little or no impact, the best that one can hope for is that they get out of the way so that Micro and small business can grow into medium sized ventures and so create new jobs.

Batten down the hatches, it's a choppy sea we are set to navigate in 2012.

How well did my trends forecast for 2011 go?

2011-12-17T13:49:00.001Z

Here are the forecasts that I posted at this time last year; some of them seem to have been right on the money.

I gazed deeply into the crystal ball and as the mists cleared here is what I saw: The Trends for 2011
Actually that a lot of old waffle but I do think we'll see a lot of this happen. I may not be a forecaster like Gerald Celente, but the markers for these trends are already in place.

1) An economy that fails to grow as quickly as forecast but still with inflation pushing up prices. The 1970s word Stagflation will become well known again.
I think this one was pretty much bang on.

2) The slow motion implosion of the Eurozone. The smaller countries overwhelmed with Bank debt will need further support for their still increasing debts. A two speed Eurozone may be imposed as the Germans tire of being the generous uncle who bails the smaller countries out. Debt will have to be restructured either willingly by changing the Euro rules or unwillingly by the collapse of the Euro.
Ongoing and pretty accurate but still with a few months to run.

3) Rising unemployment in the UK coupled with rising prices and stagnant wages will lead to more crime and more civil unrest. The rise in crime will lead to calls for "something to be done" and so more draconian police powers will be demanded and put in place.
I think with this one, we see and experience the crime now and are just starting to see the "something must be done stage".

4) Local taxes of all kinds will rise. Since the Council tax itself is fixed, car parking, planning and other usage based charges will rise by 20-50% as a ways of generating more income for the councils.
Again bang on the money with new charges and parking meters etc being pushed on us all the time.

5) Local based business with low or no overheads will survive and may even prosper in the confusion of the high street. Expect to see one or more mid-range high street brands collapse. Online sales of commodity items will close those stores with no special USP.
Ongoing even now as we spend for Christmas, many of the retailers will not see much past the second week of January.

6) Large scale volume manufacturing for many items will continue to move east. Either to Eastern Europe or to China where labour costs (even after recent Chinese wage inflation) are still much lower than in Northern Europe. Watch for more of European manufacturing to be done in North Africa as well. Special trade deals will make it easy import products from this region without duties.
So the move to North Africa did not happen (yet) because they had wars and uprisings to get out of the way. Watch this space. Just possibly though some companies are beginning to see that China manufacture is not the only answer.

7) Some politicians and media people will start to ask if the Internet needs more regulation. There will be calls for a blogging licence and additional regulation to close down 'alternative' news sources.
Bloggers have been arrested, WikiLeaks has been attacked this will continue as long as citizen journalism does the job of holding people to account that used to be done by the mainstream press. I expect much more trouble in this area in 2012.

8) Government budgets will attempt to pull more cash from the individual through new taxes, not raising allowances and charging for services that used to be free. This may be dressed up in the language of sustainability/green taxes or environmental protection. The money will actually be used to fund the Government deficit, bank debts and to cover part of the fallout of the Eurozone implosion.
Again I was bang on the money with this one. Check your wallet and see if you have more or less net income this year compared to last.

9) More people will attempt to follow the 'Good Life' by taking up smallholdings and raising their own animals. Many will revert back to an urban life because of the increasingly complex rules and regulations surrounding farming and animal keeping.
Not a trend that has really got going yet. We have seen more people taking up allotments and doing more cooking at home but not yet the large scale adoption of the 'Tom & Barbara' approach.

10) GM foods will be presented as the way to deal with the increased food prices. Some will resist this but crops will be planted and local organic production will be blighted by cross contamination of land and produce.
Now we have GM moths being released into the wild and further 'trial' of new GM crops. This is still a troubling area and as these crops hybridise with non-GN varients there will be law suits a plenty from the big AgriChemical companies.

12) Broadcast TV will become increasingly fractured and of poorer quality as more channels are created. The increase in channels will decrease the advertising revenue available per channel and so expect to see more re-runs of old shows and imports of low grade shows from around the English speaking world.
Broadcast TV may seem bad (and it often is) but having seen what they have in the USA during a visit earlier this year there is still room for standards to fall (unfortunately). It's an ongoing train wreck and even the BBC has started to realise that its licence fee is not a sacred right.

13) One from left field; there will be calls for SSRI anti-depressants to come off prescription, so that they can be used more widely. This will be in response to a huge increase in those diagnosed with some form of depression as a consequence of other major changes outlined above.

As far as I'm aware there has been no move in this direction although the numbers of SSRI anti-depressants prescribed each year is truly frightening.

So now I'll work on my trends for 2012. Let's see just what the next 12 months may bring us.

Give money to charity or else go to jail

2011-12-03T10:33:00.000Z

This post was prompted by an article on the Daily Mail web site that indicated there are plans afoot to commit the Government to paying 0.7% of GDP into foreign aid. Presumably, if it breaks this new law all the Cabinet Ministers will also send themselves to prison.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069343/Now-law-foreign-aid-Ministers-want-commit-Britain-billions-handouts.html

State enforced giving by extraction of earning under threat of legal sanctions to send cash to countries rich enough to have atom bombs and space programs? No thank you.

This whilst our Government borrows that money by promising that we the UK population will pay it back with interest under force of law and the threat of jail. This approach is simply evil. If you wish to donate from your net pay then please do so. I would rather choose which charities to donate my meager income to.

On the road again

2011-11-09T06:59:00.000Z

Driving west on the A303 at this time of here you can see some terrific evening skies. Here is a recent one.

A303 West - Wiltshire

Setting Sun

2011-11-09T06:53:00.000Z

I haven't posted here for a while. I've been distracted by the ongoing train wreck of our economy and been waiting for the moment when the metal stops sliding on the rails and finally comes to rest. With so much mass and momentum behind it that may be a ways off yet.

To reset my head, I like to go to the coast and generally I'll have the camera with me. I thought I'd share a couple of pictures with from last Sunday.

Almost sunset - West Bay Dorset

Setting Sun - West Bay Dorset

Hope you like the pictures

The USA; reflections on my recent trip

2011-10-08T16:52:00.000+01:00

Having returned to the UK and adjusted to the time zone change I've been reflecting on what I found there.

I was amazed by the the lack of a world view on the TV programmes; you would never know that a world outside of the USA existed. As to the TV programmes, it was impossible to watch them, adverts every 4 minutes or so killed the flow of any dramatic script.

I realised that whilst I was there, I never saw a supermarket except the ubiquitous 7-11. If you wanted to buy groceries where would you go? I'm sure there must have been a Wal-Mart or similar around but I just did not see them in spite of travelling around in a car quite a bit. Perhaps we should be more thankful for Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda and the rest.

Without NFL and Baseball I have no idea how the TV schedules would be filled, they would need to import some documentaries from elsewhere in the world.

New Hampshire and Massachusetts were lovely places to visit and I can imagine there is much more to see than I managed in the short time I was there.

I was still glad to get home though.

I've been away...

2011-09-29T04:37:00.000+01:00

Visiting the gold old US of A.

It's been an interesting experience and it's the first time I've been to the East coast (rather than the west coast).

Observations so far?

USA immigration is still a grim experience now with the added pain of having your finger prints scanned (to be shared with who knows what organisations).

Most people (not including immigration unfortunately) seem genuinely very nice and friendly.

Even in a relatively prosperous city like Boston, there are lots of rough-sleepers, people begging and many closed shops. (It's down to the area of the city, it does vary)

The weather has been unseasonably warm and the trees in New Hampshire have yet to turn to their glorious range of autumn colours.

The TV news in the USA is mostly very poor. Sport is huge but coverage of foreign events or even major domestic issues is almost non-existent.

Most food portions in cafes or restaurants are still way too big for sensible eating.

Service is really not as good as it's cracked up to be, even Americans I have spoken to, think standards have slipped in the last 10 years.

We did ask a police man for directions and he told us what we needed to know. So there are some good ones out there.

Still a few days to go but so far it's been a good trip

Does newer = better

2011-09-08T06:51:00.001+01:00

Progress...
It's supposed to always be useful and good; a marker of a developing civilisation.

Progress = Good

Well I wonder if it is really.

Let's look at some mundane example of progress;

Windows 7 'Ribbon' interface, supposedly a vast improvement in ease of use over those old clunky drop down menus from XP, 2000 or even further back in Windows history. Except that even after 6 months of using the interface I still find myself hunting for the right function in Office 10. It's an intuitive use fail.

State education. We used to have a system that made a judgement call about those children more academically gifted and those with more physical rather than intellectual skills. This seemed to work relatively well (obvious errors occur in any system). Some went to University to get degrees in English or the sciences other went to colleges to work on HTEC, BTEC or similar qualifications in anything from mechanical engineering to food preparation.

Now instead of that, we have a state school system where many at 11 years old are unable to read and write but still expect to go to University.

DAB radio. The promise was "a brilliant way to give us more radio stations on the dial with CD quality sound." The fact is, a system that frequently fails to deliver any sound at all and is often much worse than the old FM transmitters it is supposed to replace.

Quit smoking drugs. Hailed as the best way for smokers to stop the habit, they often cause sleepless nights, altered though patterns mood swings and even suicidal thoughts.

In each case above, a worthwhile product or system has 'progressed' to a newer allegedly better way of doing things that is often worse than what went before. Yet each has been promoted as progress.

It's useful to ask who was doing the promotion, because then it is easier to understand why we are so often asked to swallow a lie about the supposed benefits of progress.

Microsoft needs to sell operating systems, this happens most often when you buy a new PC. Yes the new PC will have a faster clock rate and shinier applications but that won't change how fast you type or whether you can watch a video at double speed. An old PC can do these tasks very well but then of course you would not need a new operating system.

State education has become a self serving monster that is at least as much interested in its own status as it is the product it produces. On almost any measure one uses, it fails to deliver for many of the young people who are pushed through the system. If it is so progressive and wonderful why do we have any illiterate 16 year olds?

DAB radio transmits more channels in a narrower spectrum than FM, but if only the Government could switch of the FM stations, they could auction off the spectrum and generate barrow loads of cash for themselves and the 'advisors' who reap the real money rewards.

Quit smoking drugs mostly fail to deliver on their promise. However if you medicalise a condition, a trusted member of the community (your Doctor) will help the drug companies to get the Government to pay for your 'illness'. Hypnosis, and other counselling methods have no side effect and work more effectively. They are not however promoted by a drug company.

So before you say that progress is always good (sometimes it really is good) I ask you to think about where the money is going and then realise who is really benefiting from this so called progress.

People say sheep are stupid...

2011-08-29T10:02:00.000+01:00

But have you ever seen an obese sheep?

They eat when hungry, sleep when tired and drink when thirsty.

If we did the same their would be no obesity in the western world.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

How ever dark it seems the sun will break through

2011-08-06T09:58:00.000+01:00

In the depths of despair it can seem as if the sun will never shine again...but it will.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Apologies for the lack of posts, I'm on holiday

2011-08-03T09:25:00.001+01:00

We all need a break to recharge sometimes and I'm taking one right now.

Normal service will be resumed next week.

Change the direction of your thinking for better results

2011-07-28T07:33:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I need to flow chart a process. I usually use a piece of Microsoft software called Visio. It allows you to drag and drop decision boxes and process steps, connect them with dynamic arrow style connectors and you finish up with a nice flow chart. Start at the top of the page and work your way down, boxes, loops, decisions, connectors; job done.

But not yesterday.

I started a flow chart three times following the pattern, each time I struggled to get the logic right. The chart seemed over complex and just plain looked wrong. Frustration was the outcome.

I sat down again with pen and paper and instead of working from top to bottom of the page, I turned the paper landscape style and worked left to right. Aha! It works! Within 10 minutes I had simplified and refined the chart. I then used this as the model for a computer generated one.

And I began to wonder why it had been so much easier to work from left to right rather than from top to bottom.

In flow chart terms the direction made no difference but it really was so much easier that I wondered why this might be.

Perhaps it is because we read from left to right but I wonder if our notion of a timeline has something to do with this too. Timeline is an NLP term and it can be used therapeutically to shift difficult problems or gain a different perspective on them.

Try an experiment with me. Close your eyes and imagine or remember a happy scene from some time in your far past. Still with your eyes closed point to that event in space where you imagine it to be. Is is to your left or right? Is it in front of you or behind you? Is it above or below your eyeline?

Remember that place. Now think about an event that will be in your future. It could be your retirement, Christmas or something else of significance. Point to where that event is in space just like before.

Now compare those two locations; many people will have an imaginary timeline between those two events that runs from left to right ie the older event to your left, the newer to your right. Relatively fewer people will have the timeline running from right to left and fewer yet (in my experience) will have the past event behind them and the future event directly ahead of them.

My time line runs left to right, so in a process it would be natural for me to think, left to right. Perhaps this explains why it was so much easier for me to get some clarity on my flowchart when I literally changed the direction of my thinking.

Try it and see if it can help you too.

A dying fathers rules for a life of fulfilment

2011-07-23T11:44:00.001+01:00

You'll find the full article here and it is a tragedy, one that is so common that we almost forget about how tragic it is.

A father is diagnosed with cancer and then spends the last few weeks of his life putting his affairs in order and giving his family the benefit of all he has learnt and wants to pass on to his children.

After his death his wife found a document on his laptop called Rules for finding fulfilment.

Here are his rules.

Be courteous, be punctual, always say please and thank you, and be sure to hold your knife and fork properly. Others take their cue on how to treat you from your manners.

Be kind, considerate and compassionate when others are in trouble, even if you have problems of your own. Others will admire your selflessness and will help you in due course.

Show moral courage. Do what is right, even if that makes you unpopular. I always thought it important to be able to look at myself in the shaving mirror every morning and not feel guilt or remorse. I depart this world with a pretty clear conscience.

Show humility. Stand your ground but pause to reflect on what the other side are saying, and back off when you know you are wrong. Never worry about losing face. That only happens when you are pig-headed.

Learn from your mistakes. You will make plenty so use them as a learning tool. If you keep making the same mistake or run into a problem, you’re doing something wrong.

Avoid disparaging someone to a third party; it is only you who will look bad. If you have a problem with someone, tell them face to face.

Hold fire! If someone crosses you, don’t react immediately. Once you say something it can never be taken back, and most people deserve a second chance.

Have fun. If this involves taking risks, so be it. If you get caught, hold your hands up.
Give to charity and help those who are less fortunate than yourselves: it’s easy and so rewarding.

Always look on the upside! The glass is half full, never half empty. Every adversity has a silver lining if you seek it out.

Make it your instinct always to say ‘yes’. Look for reasons to do something, not reasons to say no. Your friends will cherish you for that.

Be canny: you will get more of what you want if you can give someone more of what they desire. Compromise can be king.

Always accept a party invitation. You may not want to go, but they want you there. Show them courtesy and respect.

Never ever let a friend down. I would bury bodies for my friends, if they asked me to ...which is why I have chosen them carefully.

Always tip for good service. It shows respect. But never reward poor service. Poor service is insulting.

Always treat those you meet as your social equal, whether they are above or below your station in life. For those above you, show due deference, but don’t be a sycophant.

Always respect age, as age equals wisdom.

Be prepared to put the interests of your sibling first.

Be proud of who you are and where you come from, but open your mind to other cultures and languages. When you begin to travel (as I hope you will), you’ll learn that your place in the world is both vital and insignificant. Don’t get too big for your breeches.

Be ambitious, but not nakedly so. Be prepared to back your assertions with craftsmanship and hard work.

Live every day to its full: do something that makes you smile or laugh, and avoid procrastination.

Give of your best at school. Some teachers forget that pupils need incentives. So if your teacher doesn’t give you one, devise your own.

Always pay the most you can afford. Never skimp on hotels, clothing, shoes, make-up or jewellery. But always look for a deal. You get what you pay for.

Never give up! My two little soldiers have no dad, but you are brave, big-hearted, fit and strong. You are also loved by an immensely kind and supportive team of family and friends. You make your own good fortune, my children, so battle on.

Never feel sorry for yourself, or at least don’t do it for long. Crying doesn’t make things better.

Look after your body and it will look after you.

Learn a language, or at least try. Never engage a person abroad in conversation without first greeting them in their own language; by all means ask if they speak English!

And finally, cherish your mother, and take very good care of her.
I love you both with all my heart.
Daddy x

I think there is something here that everyone take take positive guidance from. I know I have.

With all the bad news, it's easy to forget...

2011-07-20T07:48:00.001+01:00

With all the bad news around at the moment from phone hacking, to the collapse of the Euro, from rising fuel bills to falling wages it's easy to forget the good things that are happening.

Remind yourself that the sun WILL rise tomorrow, that even now apples are ripening in orchards, that babies are being born who are untainted by the troubles of the world.

Remember that the sun will shine and the rail will fall regardless of what happens to stock markets or pension plans and even in the depths of the longest and deepest economic depression for 60 years, people are still donating time, money and goods to charities.

It's easy to fall into a melancholic slump from time to time. it happens to me too, but when you get away from the man-made problems you can see there are so many good things that happen too.

Take a moment to today to find just one thing to enjoy and be thankful for. Honestly, it will help you feel better about the negatives and help you put them in their place.

A phobia is not always a phobia

2011-07-19T06:11:00.000+01:00

When a little girl developed a phobia of going to the playground her mum was obviously concerned.

But the crying and the fear was not a phobia at all; it was an undiagnosed brain tumour. This was only realised when the little girl Poppy started bumping into doorways and falling over.

This is as much a lesson for therapists as anyone else. Are you really working on the root cause of a client's issue or could there be a medical angle that somehow got missed?

Read the full story on the Daily Mail web site here.

There are times when I need to remind myself...

2011-07-18T07:00:00.001+01:00

I can't change everything.

I believe in personal empowerment and getting involved, but there are times when I need to remind myself that that there are some things I cannot impact in a meaningful way and I should let go.

I say should, because the letting go is not always easy.

This morning as I looked at the web sites around the world that help me know what the news is, I learnt that once again the UK (with France and the USA) has bombed Libya.

The NATO force has flown around 10,000 sorties with about 6000 of these being bombing missions. Over 1100 civilians, men, women and children have been killed by NATO and yet supposedly this adventure is to save the people of Libya from a tyrant.

Now we learn that another four aircraft will be brought into the battle.

A non-aggression pact has been ripped up by Italy and as a consequence a gas pipeline from Libya to Italy will not be pumping gas needed by industry and householders in Italy.

Barely more than one year ago, Libyan Government services were being trained by British specialists. Britain sold arms and ammunition to Libya following Tony Blair's meeting with Ghaddafi in the desert, how things change.

As much as I support British forces, I can't support what is going on and worse yet, the taxes that I pay make me partly responsible for the carnage.

I have no way to change this situation.

All I can do is make my feelings known and let go. That letting go is not easy when we as a nation seem to have got this situation so badly wrong.

This will lift the spirit

2011-07-16T11:12:00.001+01:00

Love this! Even though my wife says it tastes of old lady bath water. (How on earth would she know?)
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It's nice to get a new client by referall

2011-07-12T05:47:00.000+01:00

Sometimes, out of the blue I'll get a phone call from someone who has been referred to me by a former client. It always feels nice when this happens, a confirmation that one's work has had lasting value.

In this case a young man in his teens is having some difficulties in adjusting to becoming a young adult. Whilst his parents are having some trouble adjusting to the fact that they now have a young man in the house, not just a boy.

Cue, confrontation!

But this is a natural situation. Perhaps if I say it like this it will become clearer; the old lion has been undisputed king of the pride for a very long time. His lioness has had cubs, one boy one girl, who loved to play in the protective shadow of the lion.

Male Lion - waiting for the challenge

But as the lion cubs grow, they must start to take on new roles and the boy lion must begin to ready himself for the life beyond the family pride. So he'll start to test the authority of the old lion and of course he must be put back in his place (at least for a while) until he is ready to form his own pride or at least start looking to do so.

You cannot have two dominant male lions in a pride. You cannot have two dominant men in a home, one has to go. In our culture, as with the lions, it is the younger lion that must go and make his own way.

When we see a nature documentary about this on the television it is so clear and obvious what is happening but often people are slower to recognise these changes that are simply part of growing up.

When you begin to understand the process it makes it much easier to deal with. The confrontation is likely to be temporary although temporary might still mean 2, 3 or even 4 years of friction.

It will pass and in most cases (but not all) be replaced with something nearer to adult friendship.

Of course you may still have a young male lion rampaging in the home; it's always going to be a challenge!

A quick thought

2011-07-05T06:21:00.000+01:00

Why are people scared of hypnosis?

Because they know it works and are scared of what the hypnotist/hypnotherapist might do to them.

So doesn't it make most sense to check out the hypno person first? Most of us are happy to talk on the phone or face to face before working together.

Just a thought.

Quit smoking with Champix or hypnosis

2011-07-05T06:08:00.001+01:00

The quit smoking drug Champix (known as Chantix in the USA) is again in the news after studies indicate that it can actually increase the risk of heart problems when compared to patients who took a dummy pill.

According to the Daily Mail "Champix, which is also known as varenicline, has previously been linked to psychiatric problems, including 37 suicides in the UK and hundreds of cases of suicidal thoughts."

I have seen both positive and negative results from people who have used Champix to stop smoking. It seems to be one way in which smokers who prefer not to take a hypnosis type approach can make the change. It's just that before one takes the drug there seems to be no way to predict what the side effects might be.

Stopping smoking with hypnosis is still the most effective way to become a non-smoker. I believe that I achieve 70-80 % success rates using my 2 sessions, of 2 hours, 1 weeks apart approach.

The drug option can seem like the easy way to make the change; no effort, no time taken, just a pill to swallow. But I honestly believe that becoming a non-smoker is worth putting time effort and money into.

By the way, if you do want to use my services, then the charge is £195 and about four hours of your time. It's worth though, you'll probably gain 14 years of a extra healthy life. What's that worth to you?

Sometimes your environment is the best (or worst) medicine

2011-07-02T09:56:00.000+01:00

I was out early this morning and had to be in Lyme Regis, which is a small town on the Dorset coast. (Its famous Cobb harbour wall was the setting for a scene in the film The French Lieutenant's Woman )

This morning the tide was in, the sea was as calm as a lake, the sun was shining but still low in the sky and the place looked wonderful.

I only had time to take a couple of pictures and they are hardly of National Geographic quality but I thought you might like to see them.

This scene lifted my heart for a while and perhaps it can do the same for you. Nature truly can be a wonderful medicine.

Why complaining is good

2011-06-28T07:45:00.000+01:00

The Australians call us (the British) whinging Poms and perhaps they have a point. You'll hear plenty of people moaning about almost any topic you care to mention, on any day of the week.

However, I'd like you to consider that complaining and whinging may be a good thing......if you follow through and do it the right way. This is not a "how to" piece on getting the best from your local store when you go and complain about some shoddy goods, no, it's a bit deeper than that.

If you can complain about something, anything, then it means that you you are in some way comparing the position you find yourself in with some other better version.

Let me explain, you don't complain about gravity, gravity just is. Your pen rolling off the desk and dropping on the floor may be annoying, but you still don't complain about gravity. In fact, at the weekend you choose to play with gravity, when you play golf or football. You use it just as it is, there is no point complaining about it, as there is no gravity free alternative.

Contrast this with a golf ball that splits the first time you hit it. You paid good money for the ball and yet it seems that it must be defective to split after being hit just the one time. You probably have a model in mind of how many golf games or holes a ball should be good for and when you compare that with what you have, you complain.

The essence of the complaint, is the difference between your expectation of the product or service and what actually is delivered. But knowing what that difference is gives us the ability to look at ways of bridging the gap.

We can look at better plastics to cover the golf ball, we can suggest to the product manufacturer, ways in which their product can be improved. Knowing that there is a difference between our expectations and our current outcome provides the clues that can drive positive change.

So as you moan or complain today, reflect on how that difference could be bridged and then set about doing it.

Interesting stories in the press

2011-06-21T06:26:00.000+01:00

I thought you might find these pieces interesting:

Could the right to die become seen as an obligation to die?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthadvice/jameslefanu/8582032/James-LeFanu-Doctors-diary.html

Formaldehyde now officially listed as cancer-causing chemical - what should you avoid?

http://www.naturalnews.com/032765_formaldehyde_carcinogenic.html

Hypnosis can help with breast and thyroid surgery
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/744526

I'm entitled, You Should, I demand, It's not fair

2011-06-20T06:59:00.000+01:00

I wonder what happened. I wonder how it happened. When did people begin to decide that the Government / Council / Power that be / had ultimate responsibility for their life?

What do I mean?

It seems that many people now expect that the 'Government' should become a kind of surrogate parent providing all that is required for a full and fulfilling life. Money, housing, opportunity even food, clothing and happines; all should be entitled as a right to have these things and if a person can't get them for themselves, the Government should provide.

Yet, these people (and I meet many), consider themselves to be adult, consider that they are in charge of their life, consider that intrusion into how they live their life is unwarranted.

So to an outside viewer they might appear to be more like a petulant teenager than an adult accepting responsibility for their own actions. They ask for lots, give little and accept little responsibility for the outcome of their actions. This sounds more like a 14 year child testing the boundries of childish demands with the desires of a young adult.

Transactional Analysis provides a useful model for this. If one person adopts the child like postion of being demanding, needing constant attention and not able to or unwilling to accept responsibility, the other party in the relationship is almost forced into the position of being the parental provider. (An alternative would have an adult to adult discussion about who can provide help in times of difficulty and who has responsibility for what.)

You can find lots more about Eric Bearne (who first came up with this idea) and Transactional Analysis here: http://www.ericberne.com/transactional_analysis_description.htm

So here is your thought for the day; are you or someone you know demanding that others provide? Are you or someone you know not taking responsibility for what happens in life?

If that is the case, you or they have given someone else (or some organisation) a veto over your happiness and wellbeing. If that organisation is a council or Government what do you suppose is the likelihood of them caring about you deeply enough to consider your happiness. Hint, it's close to zero.

So this morning, today, I urge you to take the controls of your life. To take responsibility for your actions, to become the adult in the transactional analysis diagram, to decide that no one will have a veto on your potential for happiness.

It will not be easy, you will slip and fall but the great advantage is that when you take back control and responsibility for your life, you will find the ability and resources that you need. That may be charity, friendship, courage, drive or determination but the pay-off is HUGE.

Will you do it?

McDonalds & The Cloud WiFi access

2011-06-17T13:17:00.000+01:00

An interesting response when I went to take a look at David Icke's web site using the WiFi at a McDonalds in Derby.

Access Denied (content_filter_denied)
Your request was denied because of its content categorization: "Alternative Spirituality/Belief;Newsgroups/Forums"

For assistance, contact your network support team.

It seems that an alternative view of life is so dangerous that it must be blocked.
Interesting.

Hypnosis can aid surgery & speed recovery

2011-06-14T06:23:00.002+01:00

James Braid, surgeon
and hypnotist

Of course hypnosis has been used as a surgical aid since the mid 19th century and was pioneered by people like the Scots surgeon James Braid. The advent of modern anaesthetics generally put a stop to most hypnosis in a surgical setting, anaesthesia was generally much faster to deliver than hypnosis. Another famous Scot who used mesmerism (after Anton Mesmer) was James Esdaile. He was a surgeon working in India and used hypnosis to provide pain relief (analgesia) for his Indian patients. Esdaile encountered many problems when attempting to use his techniques on the European patients though; prejudice meant many felt the technique was only suitable for the lower Indian orders.

Choloroform for most patients provided the next step forward in pain control and hypnosis was for the most part pushed to the margins. However every few years a news story arises as it does today of hypnosis being used successfully in a surgical setting. The Daily Mail today has a story about surgeons in Belgium using the technique in thyroid and breast cancer operations to good effect. The complete story is here.

I think Braid would be pleased that his work still had value 150 years after his death.

I listened to a hypnosis CD today

2011-06-13T22:48:00.000+01:00

I listened to a hypnosis CD today (not one of mine) to relax and recharge the batteries.

Apparently the relaxation side went a bit far, my relaxed state was disturbed by a snorey snort. It was me...

Oh dear.

Some picture to brighten your day

2011-06-13T07:57:00.000+01:00

Some close up pictures taken over the weekend for no better reason than they look good.

Chive Flower

Another Chive Flower

Parsley

Mint

Tricky words - part 2

2011-06-13T07:13:00.006+01:00

Can you remember back as far as your early school days? Can you recall a teacher telling you to 'try' and form that letter or do that sum. This blog post is about that tricky word 'try'.

Allow me to create a scene for you; it's a work environment, an office that could be almost anywhere. There are bosses and supervisors a hierarchy common to companies all over the world.

In this scenario a supervisor walks up to Bill, a long time serving office worker and says "Bill I'd look you to do the consolidated shipping report this week."

Bill knows that this is the job everyone in the office hates. The consolidated shipping reported is pulled from multiple paper systems, it is prone to errors and never easy to do. Bill is now wary of what's coming next.

The Supervisor says "Bill, I have great faith in your skills and I'd like you to have that report completed by 9am tomorrow".

Bill thinks "Great! A compliment about my skills followed by an impossible deadline. Just great!"

But what Bill says is something different "Harry, you know that report is a nightmare to prepare. " Bill is setting up the 'try' defence he will use tomorrow when the report is not done. Bill continues "I'll TRY and get it done by 9am."

Harry the Supervisor is satisfied that he has given charge of the task to Bill.

The truth is at this point Bill has no intention of getting the report done by 9am and has already provided a reason ("nightmare to prepare") why it won't be done.

Sure enough the following day when Harry the Supervisor goes to Bill at 9am expecting the report to be finished, Bill is only half way through.

Harry is unhappy about the lack of progress but he has to deal with Bill's response "Hey, I said I'd TRY and get it done. Not that I would guarantee it!"

That type of situation gets played out in offices across the world every day.There are several dynamics in there but the part I would like to focus on is the word TRY.

Try carries with it an implicit notion of failure. If I say I'll TRY to do something then there is a good probability that I won't do it. When we use the try, it frequently implies that the task WILL fail.

Can you see how poor a word choice this is in a teaching context.

Can you begin to understand that in the context of the pep talks that you give yourself, the word try sets you up for a failure every single time.

So with that in mind the next time you feel tempted to use the word try, substitute a different word or phrase.

Some alternatives:
I will do that!
I won't do that!
I'll do it but I'm not sure how well it will turn out
I'll do it but I'll need an extra day(s) to get it to you

Stop trying simply do or don't do In the words of Yoda from Star Wars "Do or do not there is no try"

Another book for your collection if you are getting into Hypnotherapy

2011-06-09T13:00:00.003+01:00

This book is called The Art Of Hypnotherapy by C.Roy Hunter.

It's full of practical therapy examples rather than being a manual on how to hypnotise.

It covers techniques like parts therapy and the use of regression. There is a whole chapter on motivation mapping that can potentially provide a framework for the therapy.

Well worth having on a hypnotherapist's book shelf.
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Flowers at Dillington

2011-06-06T23:10:00.001+01:00

I saw these flowers in the early morning sunshine at Dillington House, Ilminster, Somerset and thought they deserved a picture.

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Looking after the kids

2011-06-06T18:23:00.000+01:00

This swan is walking her cygnets back to the river in the town centre of Marlborough.

She was not allowing anyone to get in their way! Picture taken 6th June 2011.
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Dangerous words-Part 1-Should

2011-06-06T06:29:00.000+01:00

My clients often come to me unaware of the words they use that constrain their thoughts and so their actions.

A quick example; how often have you said to yourself "I should do this" or "I should stop doing that"?
If you are like many people I meet, you say something like this quite often.

But that "should" often implies two things
1) I should do it but I'm not going to. (Or I can't)
2) I should do it according to whom?

In the first example a should often indicates that we believe it would be useful to do something but we resist (for whatever reason) and that sets up an internal conflict where neither position is resolved.

In the second example it can be useful to ask "I should according to whose rules?"

Often when a person uses 'should', their actions are being driven by an outside influence, a previous teaching or a moral standard. This may be something we picked up as children and had drilled into us or it may be something that we collected on our journey through adulthood. Do those things still apply today?

So if today you find yourself saying "should", just stop. Ask yourself "I should according to whose rules?". If you don't value that person or organisation why should you?

Secondly, it is much more useful to decide to do something or not do something rather than saying I should do it.

Think about the situation where you used the word should and decide whether you will or won't do the thing. It's ok to decide that you'll do it, but you don't know how. Or to say I'll do it when "this happens"; then get on with the rest of the day.

Should is a slippery little word and when you begin to look at how you use it, you may just begin to see that it indicates areas of your life where other people or social expectations conflict with your own values.

When you avoid the word, should, you'll avoid those inner conflicts.

By the way, if you find yourself saying "you should" to someone else, ask yourself why should they? Why should they run your agenda or follow your ideas. That should word can be a bit of a bully. Watch out for it.

Regrets of the dying-what they would have done differently and what you can do now

2011-06-03T05:40:00.000+01:00

We grow like flowers but are cut down by age

Life is short. Often we have no idea how short.

Few of us can know when our time is up and so it might make sense to ask those who know they are near death to reflect on the decisions they made, or did not make in life.

An entry on the blog site Inspiration and Chai is valuable in its clarity and simplicity.

In essence it says work less, value friends, be happy, speak your mind, do what you want, not what others expect and express your feelings more.

Nothing unexpected or unusual then but perhaps because we think we know these things we feel free to ignore them; rather as if they belong to someone else.

It's a good read to begin your day with. Take a look and then think about what you do. I've already started thinking about my own life.

Rotten Nasty Cold

2011-06-01T10:41:00.001+01:00

I have a rotten nasty cold. My voice sounds as if I have recently gargled with razor blades.

In short if you are after hypnotherapy in the next couple of days you'd be best to visit here www.gift4life.com.

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Self hypnosis can get you into a heap of trouble

2011-05-28T10:28:00.001+01:00

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?

2011-05-19T06:24:00.000+01:00

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

2011-05-14T08:42:00.001+01:00

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

2011-05-09T06:34:00.003+01:00

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

2011-05-03T19:12:00.001+01:00

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.
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Folly piled on folly will lead to miscarriage of justice

2011-04-26T07:40:00.000+01:00

Not a hypnosis post

It seems that even if you can not read and write English you can now be eligible to sit on a jury.

Even more bizarrely, not being able to understand English (never mind the complexities of English spoken in a legal setting), will no longer be a bar to being a juror.

It's almost as if someone, some where, wants to so discredit the jury system that they are sabotaging it from within.

Follow this link to the Daily Mail web site for the full story.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1380538/Cant-read-write-English-You-serve-jury-new-rules.html

Reading Ayn Rand

2011-04-25T09:00:00.001+01:00

I'm reading Ayn Rand's book 'Atlas Shrugged' at the moment and finding a lot in it which chimes with my thoughts on how things are becoming in the UK and Europe more generally at present.

I'll blog on this subject some more when I have finished the book (it may be a while though, it's a big book!).

Big themes; entitlement vs creating worth, state vs person, freedom vs control.
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Sunrise in Yeovil

2011-04-02T14:26:00.001+01:00

Sunrise on Saturday 2nd April.

I thought it looked quite striking and worth sharing.
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Recent trends

2011-04-02T14:22:00.001+01:00

There are few things that I have begun to notice over the last couple of months. Whether they are on-going trends or simply things that I have tuned into I'll leave you to judge.

Noticeable trends

Independent retailer shops closing and the premises remaining closed for extended periods
Independent petrol retailers closing (in fact there are so few that to find one is notable)
The rise and rise of the gold shop/pay day loan shop/ pawn broker
The recent increase in the number of cars up for sale by the side of the road (owner sales, with computer printed details)
The rise and rise and rise again of Tesco
More people buying seeds for vegetables
The increasingly blatant lies being spouted by the politicians in Parliament (Start with Libya)
Social Networks of all styles becoming the source for REAL news (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.)

What about you?

By the river in Marlborough

2011-03-25T13:54:00.000Z

I have been in a photographic frame of mind recently, looking interesting images. Hope you like this one.
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Life is all about balance

2011-03-24T12:02:00.001Z

In this case the balance was me stacking smooth pebbles on Charmouth beach a couple weeks ago.

Balance in life is about as difficult stacking up the extra pebble in this stack!
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Wiltshire sunset part 3

2011-03-24T09:17:00.001Z

The third in a trio of evening sky pictures. Taken near Salisbury.
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Setting sun over the A303

2011-03-24T09:13:00.000Z

Taken whilst in the car driving west along the A303 in Wiltshire.
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A Wiltshire sunset

2011-03-24T09:11:00.001Z

Sometimes as I'm driving along I see some wonderful sights.

This sunset struck me as being worthy of a picture.
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Details count.........sometimes.....depends where you are in the journey

2011-03-21T22:17:00.002Z

I'm a big fan of getting going in the general direction of where you want to be and adjusting your path along the way. Without worrying too much about the detail of the actual journey.

At the beginning of a journey it's enough to know where you are starting from and where the end point is. If you have both locations you can make a good stab at heading out in the right general direction.

As you gather more information along the way, you'll make adjustments to bring you on track to your desired goal. In just the same way that an aeroplane adjusts its flight path to compensate for crosswinds or the need to divert around storms.

So far so obvious.

But sometimes you need the final detail.

I spent a large part of today picking through sales leads and prospect details from someone who was not much into detail. Sometimes detail is vital; like in an email address or a phone number; one misplaced detail and you're screwed. It's a bit like the captain of that aeroplane having a compass that's out of whack, that's a detail that's vital.

So use the general direction to get you going but make sure you have the details straight by the end of the journey or there may no place to land.

Fear makes even the most extreme rules seem reasonable (to some people)

2011-03-18T06:30:00.000Z

It seems that the British tradition of taking a picnic to a sporting occasion will not be possible when the Olympics happen in London in 2012.

Those attending will not be able to bring in sandwiches, bottles of drink or even mobile phones (good luck with that one people, there's no way that is enforceable).

Along the way you will be X-Rayed in the same way as if you were going on an aircraft; just think of the queues...

This wide range of bans is being touted as a safety measure but the cynic in me thinks it may have even more to do with protecting the on-site food and drink concessions that suppliers have had to bid for.

The whole event starts to feel ever more removed from the stated Olympian ideals.

I feel a black farce about to begin.

Crystal Ball gazing for 2011-Forecast & Trends

2010-12-29T10:04:00.001Z

I gazed deeply into the crystal ball and as the mists cleared here is what I saw: The Trends for 2011
Actually that a lot of old waffle but I do think we'll see a lot of this happen. I may not be a forecaster like Gerald Celente, but the markers for these trends are already in place.

1) An economy that fails to grow as quickly as forecast but still with inflation pushing up prices. The 1970s word Stagflation will become well known again.

2) The slow motion implosion of the Eurozone. The smaller countries overwhelmed with Bank debt will need further support for their still increasing debts. A two speed Eurozone may be imposed as the Germans tire of being the generous uncle who bails the smaller countries out. Debt will have to be restructured either willingly by changing the Euro rules or unwillingly by the collapse of the Euro.

3) Rising unemployment in the UK coupled with rising prices and stagnant wages will lead to more crime and more civil unrest. The rise in crime will lead to calls for "something to be done" and so more draconian police powers will be demanded and put in place.

4) Local taxes of all kinds will rise. Since the Council tax itself is fixed, car parking, planning and other usage based charges will rise by 20-50% as a ways of generating more income for the councils.

5) Local based business with low or no overheads will survive and may even prosper in the confusion of the high street. Expect to see one or more mid-range high street brands collapse. Online sales of commodity items will close those stores with no special USP.

6) Large scale volume manufacturing for many items will continue to move east. Either to Eastern Europe or to China where labour costs (even after recent Chinese wage inflation) are still much lower than in Northern Europe. Watch for more of European manufacturing to be done in North Africa as well. Special trade deals will make it easy import products from this region without duties.

7) Some politicians and media people will start to ask if the Internet needs more regulation. There will be calls for a blogging licence and additional regulation to close down 'alternative' news sources.

8) Government budgets will attempt to pull more cash from the individual through new taxes, not raising allowances and charging for services that used to be free. This may be dressed up in the language of sustainability/green taxes or environmental protection. The money will actually be used to fund the Government deficit, bank debts and to cover part of the fallout of the Eurozone implosion.

9) More people will attempt to follow the 'Good Life' by taking up smallholdings and raising their own animals. Many will revert back to an urban life because of the increasingly complex rules and regulations surrounding farming and animal keeping.

10) GM foods will be presented as the way to deal with the increased food prices. Some will resist this but crops will be planted and local organic production will be blighted by cross contamination of land and produce.

12) Broadcast TV will become increasingly fractured and of poorer quality as more channels are created. The increase in channels will decrease the advertising revenue available per channel and so expect to see more re-runs of old shows and imports of low grade shows from around the English speaking world.

13) One from left field; there will be calls for SSRI anti-depressants to come off prescription, so that they can be used more widely. This will be in response to a huge increase in those diagnosed with some form of depression as a consequence of other major changes outlined above.

Well what do you think of these? Let me know.

End of year updates and news

2010-12-29T08:48:00.000Z

My blog postings have been a bit spradic this year and partly to make up for that I thought I'd have an end of splurge on news stories that tweaked my interest recently. Then I'll move into Old Moore's Almanack territory and attempt to do some predictions for 2011; without the aid of planetary charts!

Smokers to be given free Nicotine patches
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1341706/Smokers-given-free-nicotine-patches-NHS.html
As reported in the Daily Mail and elsewhere, the UK Department of Health is to spend £250 Million on smoker "Quit Kits" which will include a week's supply of Nicotine patches. The idea of this approach being to help would be quitters through the first few days of not smoking.

I'm not convinced this will be money well spent though; around 20% of the population still smoke, some two thirds are said to want to stop. (The numbers always seem to be rather vague with few sources cited.)

However what I see is young people, especially girls, still starting to smoke (from 13 years upwards judging by my town) as a way of defining their adultness. Ask a 13 year old or a 16 year old what they think their life will be like when they are 30 and you may as well as them what the moon is like. They have no idea and no sense of the potential damage that smoking does to one's health. So they won't stop until film makers and TV program makers stop portraying smoking as 'cool' by association with the stars of the day. That is bigger and much more difficult challenge than handing out nicotine patches.

The challenge with older long established smokers is to deal with the habitual and conditioned responses that smokers have. Hypnotherapy is great for that.

When hypnotherapy CPD goes bad.
A former hypnotherapy student of mine called just before Christmas to wish me the best for the season. As we chatted about her year, she talked about a "Continuing Professional Development" (CPD) course she had attended on rapid inductions in a clinical setting.

Normally these events are fairly mellow with a nice spirit of friendly co-operation and active learning (the attendees pay for the course after all). But on this course it seems that the trainer and his assistants were more interested in getting applause for how good they were than ensuring that the training was effective.

Some of the techniques used involving rapid movements of the head/neck could, according to this lady have been dangerous. (She had to refuse a personal demonstration by an assistant due to previous damage to her own neck/spine. However the trainers did not point out the simple yet obvious conclusion that for some clients this method would be completely wrong and potentially dangerous. That ought to be a cause for some concern.

Congruence?
I know it is sometimes said that when a therapist has dealt with all their own issues they will no longer work with others but there has to be a sense of congruence to be a successful therapist.

If you are a fat lady or gent offering weight loss sessions then perhaps you should start with yourself first?

This idea of being congruent or in alignment with some core values is often used in Neuro Linguistic Programming but surely it applies just as much for hypnotherapy?

It seems that some the 'therapists' attending the training session previously spoken about were not aware that without that congruence positive change was unlikely to happen.

Now here is a something to reflect on...

2010-12-15T11:00:00.001Z

Listen to this prose poem about our situation and the zoo of our own making.

Thoughtful and though provoking; take a few minutes from your day to listen and watch.

How about this for a Somerset morning?

2010-12-05T11:44:00.000Z

I have been so busy recently that blog posts have been rather thin on the ground.

However I had to be out early this morning and a fog had settled on the countryside. As I travelled above the fog line this is what I saw.

The picture was taken from the Hinton St George to Dinnington Road in South Somerset.

Hope you like it.

I have a confession to make...

2010-11-15T07:38:00.000Z

Over the last few years I have bought many books related to self-help, hypnosis, psychology and similar topics.

One of those books is the Power of Now by Echhart Tolle; he is variously described as a sage, a guru and a spiritual teacher.

The book gets rave reviews, that Queen of American TV, Oprah Winfrey rates it.

But the truth is that I struggled to read it, I found the format hard to digest, in the end an irritation with seeming 'worthiness' meant that I stopped at page 61.

However perhaps I should have another go. In the Daily Mail newspaper today they report how daydreaming makes us miserable and how being more in the moment increases our happiness.

Perhaps it's time to have another look at the The Power Of Now.

Goodbye O2, coprorate sponsors of vile child killing videos

2010-11-11T07:16:00.000Z

Today I say goodbye to O2 as my provider of mobile phones.

Why?

Because they sponsored the 10:10 organisation that sees the use of carbon as something to be avoided at all costs.

Their (10:10) now infamous "No Pressure" mini movie (written by Richard Curtis) that showed people being blown apart if they did not fall in line with 10:10 carbon reduction ideas, was for me, the last straw.

I wrote to O2 to ask why they were continuing to sponsor 10:10 when they put out this sordid piece of propaganda. O2 said they did not have editorial control over what 10:10 did but that the company aims were broadly aligned with 10:10.

To me that makes O2 complicit in a media campaign that promotes the taking of human life if you don't sign up to the 10:10 agenda.

The only logical response to that is to vote with your cheque book and use a different company, so I did.

Good news the UK leads the world...in cocaine use

2010-11-11T07:05:00.001Z

It seems that the UK leads the western world in cocaine use (or should that be misuse?).

It's reported that the drug is as cheap as £1.50 per line in some areas and in Manchester 4 out of 5 clubbers are said to have used it.

Cocaine is a stimulant (it was once part of CocaCola, hence the name) and suppresses appetite. It acts to stop the re-uptake of serotonin and dopamine in the brain to give that euphoric feeling.

So what's the problem?

It is addictive, especially in crack-cocaine form and this tends to lead towards increased use and with it, the need for more money to pay for it. Excessive use can also lead to a racing heart, hallucinations and paranoia.

But perhaps the biggest problem of all is that the supply of cocaine is through illegal channels where the product can be tampered with and the money spent on the drug is effectively exported.

In Portugal drug use has been reduced by decriminalising major drugs. It should be a useful model to follow in the UK since the policing approach appears to have failed but no politician in the UK appears to have the courage to promote this as an idea.

In many ways alcohol use is far more damaging to the individual and the country but adopting a licensing approach to cocaine use is not being promoted by any of the major political parties at present.

Hollywood Stars and their secret

2010-11-09T21:34:00.001Z

There is a secret that Hollywood stars use to change their life.

What is that secret? Hypnosis.

From stage fright to spider phobia, the Hollywood stars are in the end just like the rest of us, they sometimes need a little extra help to overcome their problems.

Watch the video above see how the stars become non-smokers.

You can use exactly the same methods without traveling to Hollywood, just contact me through the web site.
www.somersethypnotherapy.com

Malware blasted

2010-11-02T10:01:00.000Z

After my problems yesterday with a malware attack on my PC I thought other may want to know how I fixed it.

Fortunately the PC would still boot.

I interrupted the boot process and booted in Windows Safe mode.

I had already downloaded on another PC the anti-malware tool from http://www.malwarebytes.org/ (This is the free version of the tool)

I loaded this onto a memory key, changed the name of the EXE file to something short but meaningless (some malware will recognise the name of anti-malware tools).

Dropped it onto the PC desktop and let it do its stuff.

It took around 1hour 45 minutes to check my PC and found and then removed the garbage program. (All whilst in safe mode with internet access)

Reboot and we were good to go.

I have now raised the firewall security setting up one level!

Malware

2010-11-01T18:09:00.000Z

I have for the first time in months been subject to a malware attack that has taken over the 'security' of my desktop PC. This is inspite of being protected by McAfee anti-virus/firewall etc.

I'm well hacked off with the amount of time and energy wasted on dealing with this.

The rogue site? It was all about marine electronics.

It could be a long night.

If you argue you may be mentally ill?

2010-10-22T07:58:00.001+01:00

If you are a free thinker, or argue and don't respect authority you may be, according to the American Psychiatric Association, mentally ill.

You may in fact be suffering from “oppositional defiant disorder” or ODD.

Oh dear. It would appear that having your own thoughts and views may actually be a sign that you should be drugged by the latest wonder medicine from who knows which company.

These kind of diagnoses worry me, there seems to be so little room for the person who chooses not to confirm to a medically drawn stereotypical model of what a 21st century citizen should be. It is rather like the gulags of Soviet era Russia when to think other than the way you were told to was a sign of mental illness.

Our modern day, western version of the gulag is not some cold prison cell in a remote location, but a chemical concoction that seeks to smooth away all the rough edges of personality and thought until conformance is achieved.

Check the link to read more about DSM IV and this 'disorder'

My trusty cassette tape recorder

2010-10-19T11:17:00.000+01:00

Yes I know they're old but I still find my old cassette tape recorder a useful tool. However the supermarkets have stopped selling cassette tapes!

It looks as if Argos will come to my rescue though!

Just sometimes...

2010-10-16T22:38:00.000+01:00

Just occasionally the noise and nonsense of life threaten to overwhelm clear thinking.

Generally it's a sign that I have been overdoing it (perhaps it's the same for you).

So having been here before I know the most useful path to take which is to relax, do less, rest and recharge the batteries.

Chill time. (Just for a day or so)

I'm not an ecomist but...

2010-10-14T18:14:00.000+01:00

I can't help feeling there is something very screwy going on with the stock markets. They just seem to keep going up in spite of what is going on around us.

During my working day I see many companies and organisations; some are doing well, many are just getting by and far too many are either on the way to closing or now closed.

I see empty shops and business units (some empty for years)across the south of England. I see those shops that are open, having continuous rolling sales with huge discounts.

If I believe what I see, then the economy as a whole is not well. Belts are tight and getting tighter, pay is flat or even down for many and still, new job losses are announced.

So why in this maelstrom of bad news does the stock market keep going up?

Is it because it's the only place banks and trust funds will invest? Has the real value of the FTSE companies really gone up? Is too much money chasing too few stocks.

I see the real economy slipping backwards into what feels like a re-run of the 1970s and yet the stock markets appear to be driven by some other primal force utterly disconnected from the shops, industrial units and factories that I see.

Like an over stretched elastic band, I have a nasty feeling that something somewhere quite soon will go PING! When it happens I'm going to guess that it will be the ordinary everyday people who get hurt and that the bankers and stock brokers will be elsewhere counting their gold and silver.

The bad and the good of humanity-two videos to compare

2010-10-02T10:30:00.001+01:00

I had planned to write a blog today about my thoughts and feelings about the world in this very moment but two videos will do this for me.

The first is supposed to be a "joke" way to have people wake up to need to reduce carbon use. It is a nasty piece of work but I'll let you watch it first and then comment on afterwards.

It seems that any means is justified by the end (reduce man made global warming). How can you have respect for the eco-systems of the planet when you have no respect for those who disagree with your views.

It is a very long way indeed from the enlightenment view of Voltaire "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. " Now if you don't agree with 'their' world view your life has no meaning. This is not a joke video, there really are people who advocate mass deaths to reduce the human population.

Isn't it odd however that those calling for a reduction in population (the Duke Of Edinburgh amongst them) never actually live or rather die by their own words. One presumes that it should always be 'other people' who should die rather than the self elected, global climate change gurus.

You can see organisations "sorry" page here http://www.1010global.org/uk/2010/10/sorry

But, there is another way.

Watch this video.

I think the second video says most of what I wanted to. (I realised that I had never watched the Chaplin film The Great Dictator, that forms part of the second video. I feel I need to do that soon.)

Just sometimes I get so tired that...

2010-09-15T17:02:00.000+01:00

Just sometimes I get so physically tired that I find it almost impossible to think.

Or at least too tired to think with that linear, logical left side of brain. (Tom Silver the hypnotist would say outer vs inner brain and I think he has a point).

So what's left after logical thought leaves the room? Emotions, feelings, intuition, insight, gut feel, maybe even telepathy?

So right now this blog post is being guided mostly by gut feel. I don't KNOW why I feel the need to post this but it FEELS the right thing to do.

Is the lack of creative output driving depression?

2010-09-13T11:01:00.000+01:00

This thought has been on my mind for some time.
Is the lack of a creative output for an individual driving societal depression?

Are we using Prozac & SSRIs for the wrong reason?

I'm using creative in the broadest possible terms here but essentially making something with one's hands or working constructively in a physical way. Not web surfing, email writing, texting, tweeting, facebooking or pushing bits of paper (virtual or real) around in an office.

I meet so many people who consider it normal to be on anti-depressant medication. They live regular suburban lives, hold down jobs, have families and collect their prescription for Prozac / Citalopram and the like every six weeks.

But how much meaning is found in the way we collectively live today? It appears to me (and I have zero evidence to back this up just my empirical findings) that when creativity is stifled or unused we lose an essential part of being human. It seems to push us towards a sense of incompleteness, anxiety even depression.

Now, this is not to say that a creative person does not or will not have depression; that's clearly nonsense as the regular suicides of designers and artists would attest. It's more the impression I have, that unless we regularly engage in useful creative activity and physical work we become more prone to those natural moments of melancholy turning into a depressive state.

I saw a report recently in one of the UK newspapers about Doctors prescribing work on farms rather than drugs for those they felt were depressed. But what a shame we have become so disconnected from meaningful work that the only seemingly valid way to do it is via a Doctor's prescription pad.

Our society problems are merely an aggregation of our personal problems and a clear indication that it's time to look for some more meaningful and fulfilling ways to live.

Smells and how they trigger memory and emotion

2010-08-27T14:13:00.000+01:00

I happened to be delivering something to a local pub recently. It's a mass catering food venue rather than an old style boozer.

As I walked out of the door, I caught a blast of air from the kitchen area.

In a moment I was transported back almost 40 years to a school meal hall.

In a split second an emotion of comfort was triggered in me. A warm feeling of being cared for...followed almost immediately by deep concern, low level anxiety and a feeling of unease.

A smell triggered a memory and then an emotional response (rather a stream of emotional responses) all within a few seconds and all without a conscious thought from me.

I wonder how many people realise just how powerful the sense of smell is in evoking memory and thereby emotion.

It was my own Proust, "Remembrance of Things Past" madeleine moment.

Are there days when you just want to be alone?

2010-08-21T10:50:00.000+01:00

There are days when I would rather just be alone.
It's not that I don't like people (that would be a challenge) but more that sometimes my internal processing needs time and space to do its thing.

This is absolutely OK when one has that time and space. It's absolutely terrible when you need it and can't get it.

Personally, in that situation, I'm liable to become grouchy and argumentative (yes it's a weakness but I'm still working on me).

Ideally then do not attempt to do the mundane things in life like going shopping for groceries when what you really need to do is go walking along a deserted sea shore.

Sometimes though, 'stuff' gets in the way and so for parts of yesterday I was that grouchy guy.

I just wanted you to know that life can get all of us that way sometimes...we are all human with the difficulties that that brings.

So if you are having a grouchy day and would rather be walking alone along the sea's edge, I'd like you to know that it's OK. Things will probably look better tomorrow; they did for me.

Brave New World - happening today?

2010-08-19T18:04:00.000+01:00

I have just finished reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The book was written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 (632 A.F. in the book), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology (no one is born naturally, they are decanted from jars) and the break up of the family so that there is no longer a notion of Father, Mother or even marriage.

Perhaps the most astounding thing about the book is just how far down the line we have come towards the Brave New World envisaged (even desired) by Huxley.

He has the members of society taking a drug called Soma that allows you not to worry about anything, to find happiness in a drug dose. It is even used for mental holidays where a person could lose days at a time in a blissful state of disconnectedness from the outside world. To a modern reader it sounds rather like a blend of Prozac and Ecstasy.

The women all control their own fertility (although no one actually gets pregnant) just like having today's contraceptive pill.

No one got old, or at least they didn't appear to get old (because of hormone tablets, blood transfusions and the like); it seems rather akin to the way TV and film stars have plastic surgery to "stay young".

Society itself was stratified into pre-determined layers where your destiny is related to the chemical mix put into your embryo jar. A little too much of the wrong chemical would have you destined to become an Epsilon Semi-Moron who would only do the most menial tasks.

As a result society is stable but there is no sense separate self, no notion of pain or solitude. Society has become a stable, self sustaining organism that no longer recognises the right to be different. Indeed, in the end the person who comes into the society from outside is driven to suicide to escape the pain of being the same tomorrow as today.

It's is intriguing and more than a little disturbing just how many of the aspects of the book are reflected in life today.

As a literary novel it's not going to thrill you with its dialogue or character formation but this prefiguration of modern society will really make you think.

So simple, so brilliant and it applies to us all

2010-08-12T07:38:00.000+01:00

An actor talks complete sense and destroys so many conventions in 55 seconds.

Blair book launch

2010-08-12T06:17:00.000+01:00

There is something deeply unsettling about our former Prime Minister Tony Blair selling a book of his memoirs for millions of pounds whilst the UK public pay for his protection and others in Iraq pay a far higher price for his time as PM.

If you want a personal dedication written in the cover of your copy, you're out of luck. Mr Blair will not sign books with a personal message, have photos taken or be near anyone with a mobile phone.

Personally I wonder about what his state of mind is now, as he contemplates the mess that he left behind; not least the legacy of a war in Iraq where over one million people have died as a consequence of the fighting, depleted uranium weapons and shattered healthcare system.

Sucessfully quitting smoking

2010-08-09T10:19:00.000+01:00

I had an email recently from a man who said "I have been trying to give up smoking for years and years."

Two things struck me about that one comment (and I do tend to hear them a good deal):

1) "Trying"....trying implies failing. "I'll try and get that done by Wednesday" really means you won't see it until Friday. In other words it's a socially acceptable cop out. Harsh I know, but how often have you heard someone say "Well I said I'd try...." as they failed to deliver what you thought was a done deal.

2) "Giving up" What do those two words say to you? Think about the times when you said them, even drift back to childhood when perhaps you "gave up" chocolate for lent. (Does that still happen?) You really wanted the chocolate but for some other life affirming reason you decided not to have it.

Now think about those words in the context of smoking. "giving up" sounds like you still want to smoke. Subconsciously the desire to smoke is the same, it's just that pesky conscious part of mind that worries about negative health effects that wants to stop.

What's the alternative?

Don't try, just stop
Sometimes you'll be successful in stopping for a long time and sometimes not.

Don't "give up"
Decide to focus on what you want (to be a non-smoker). The only things you are giving up are the very negative health impacts of smoking. Decide simply to be a non-smoker.

The words you use to yourself have far more power than you know.

The holiday that prompts you to make the change

2010-08-04T06:59:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year when we go away on holiday or in these financially constrained times, enjoy a stay-cation.

Whether it is time away or time at home, we have some space to think about what we want from life and what may be holding us back.

I have become used to the way that the number of enquiries from those interested in changing their life ebb and flow throughout the year. Often this process begins in January when many will make New Year resolutions to change things; often those resolutions are broken before the end of the month.

As the year progresses, we tell ourselves that we WILL get that thing done or that change made but work and family commitments stop us grabbing hold of that particular issue.

Until holiday time....

That brief interlude in the year when the pressures of daily life are either reduced or perhaps just changed. But that change allows us to think differently, perhaps more clearly about our dreams and desires, our aspirations and goals.

So we return home determined to make that change but also recognising that some additional resources might be needed. (Well we tried will power back in January and that was not as successful as we wanted.)

So we look for resources, instant or near instant fixes to our situation. That's when I start to get the phone call and emails looking for personal assistance; that may be where you are right now. In which case make the call today, I'll give you 30 minutes of my time on the phone so that you can ask questions about how I work and how it can be effective for you.

You are not alone, others have been down this path before and I've shown them how to get rid of unwanted fears or habits, how to deal with old but still unresolved emotions like anger, jealousy and pain or simple how to make things afresh.

There are so many ways in which your life can be better, take the first step today and decide fully and completely that you're ready to make the changes and then set about doing it. I can help you with that process and am just a phone call or an email away. Call me on 01935 700333 or john@somersethypnotherapy.com.

Moving ahead

2010-07-23T05:47:00.003+01:00

My blogging has been rather spartan just recently, sorry. I feel that I am once more moving positively forward with life after a month filled with grieving for the death of my father.

His memory is with me still as are some tangible reminders of his time, things he made or held from wood that he loved to work.

As is common at this time of year my one to one practice has been quieter than usual. It happens each year as people focus on getting away for their holidays and can think of little else. I know that within two weeks the phone will almost literally be ringing "off the hook" as people reflect on their position whilst away.

It seems that as human beings we need these times of reflection and contemplation to get an insight into what is most important. That reflective time might be your holiday or simply a gap in your work day, however you get it it is useful, restorative time to be embraced.

Is it time to reflect on what's most important in your life?

Life must move forwards

2010-07-05T06:43:00.003+01:00

A little over one week ago, my Father died unexpectedly aged just 72. I know the stages of grieving and I knew what to expect but his passing hit me very hard indeed.

Mostly it was regret for things left undone. The trips that we should have taken together that were put off because finances or poor health seemed at the time to be insurmountable barriers. The stories that did not get written down or recorded of his younger days, the granddaughters and grandsons he will not see grow to maturity.

So I have in the last week been evaluating my own approach to life and have, in some areas, found that things could usefully change. For the most part it has been a realisation that even though we all know that our life is finite, none of us can know when it will end. Knowing that both emotionally and intellectually is very different from just being able to say the words.

I know that I will waste far less time on things that have no long term value for me or my family. This includes most of the things that the TV adverts would have us lusting after and spending our as yet unearned income on through the means of a credit card. Things hold little of real worth.

Friends, family, experiences and emotions carry far more value.

I know that I will miss my Dad for a long time, perhaps always, but the pain of missed opportunities will guide my actions and I think prompt me to make better life choices for now and the future.

No one can know when their life will end; if yours were to end next week, what things undone would you regret?

Got an answer? Then please take action on it now.

Sorry about the lack of blog posts

2010-06-30T07:51:00.002+01:00

I have been rather less busy on the blog than normal.

The reason is that on 24th June 2010 my father Brendan Fergus Burns (always known as Bob) passed away. Family and funeral arrangements have come first.

For those who knew Bob, his funeral will be at Taunton Crematorium on Thursday 1st July 2010 at 12pm.

Oh good grief

2010-06-19T09:36:00.003+01:00

I pondered for at least 30 seconds before making this post.

Fresh mug of tea brewed (it reduces your chance of a heart attack...no really..see the Daily Telegraph) and a short break in the mania that life is at present.

Like many other people who call themselves therapists I earn my money from a variety of sources. For me at this time it's a necessity perhaps for others it's a matter of convenience but many of us do it.

I find it helps to give me a more rounded perspective on the kinds of situations that people bring to the consulting room. I believe that helps me be a better and more effective therapist. This ability to switch thinking in different situations is a very useful skill to have.

This is not so much multi-tasking as many tasking. I only do one thing at a time, when I'm with the client I am really with the client; I'm not thinking about anything outside of our shared experience.

As someone put it to me the other day "Be completely present in whatever you are doing at that moment. Be in the room both physically and emotionally".

All of which brings me to the explanation of the blog post title. I was with a client last night; we started work as England started playing. At the end of the session it was half time and I had no notion of what the score was. (0-0 at that point) It seems that I may as well have booked another client in rather than watching the rest of the match. Having seen the final 40 minutes or so my reaction was "Oh good grief". England as world cup winners? I don't think so.

Cumbrian Gunman Rage

2010-06-05T12:48:00.003+01:00

There are times when people just lose the plot.

As in the recent killings in Cumbria (UK) sometimes simmering resentment boils over into uncontrollable rage.

I don't know the full background to this case, perhaps no one ever will but I recognise the rage.

It can happen to the best and most well meaning person; an event, a situation; perhaps that becomes exaggerated by drink or drugs that results in uncontrollable rage.

Rage is blind, it is I believe, a deep emotionally driven response to an assault (or perceived assault) on one self. An assault so potentially damaging that it must be dealt with at any cost.

When you see someone in a rage you quickly recognise that until the fire-storm of anger passes, there is no way to have a rational conversation with that person.

The best that might happen is to provide words of comfort from a distance, direct intervention, even from a loved one can be perceived as a further increasing threat to be dealt with.

In that rage, anything that comes to hand can become a weapon, it needn't be a gun; a chair or fist or handbag will do just as well.

Whilst I do not think we can eliminate rage (nor should we) it's easier to stay in control of one's own deep emotions when eating well, avoiding drugs (including alcohol) and cultivating a deep reserve of self-esteem to deal with the issues that other people push on to us.

In this most recent case the result of what seems to have been a long simmering rage is nothing short of a deep and profound tragedy. Sadly, guns or not, it will not be the last incident of raging violence that we hear about.

All you can really do is look after your own well being and help those others willing to change their life. Some people do not want to change and for that reason alone rage will always be with us.

I don't charge a fortune but...

2010-05-20T18:16:00.004+01:00

Sometimes I get phone calls that start "How much do you charge?"

Well, at that point I try and find out a little more about what the person wants but I also know that 9 times out of 10 their decision making is going to be based on cost, not effectiveness.

That means that 9 times out of 10 they will not be a client.

Often they have been down the standard medical routes, sometimes with counselling, sometimes with SSRI anti-depressants. Often they feel they have no where else to turn and then I'm too expensive.

I don't have a smart answer for this. I do take on reduced fee clients and sometimes no-fee clients but without a fee being charged I don't have the resources to deliver the change work.

It feels wrong, but right now I don't have a fix for the issue of needing to charge for those who can't afford to pay and have been left behind by the medical establishment. (Arguably the medical establishment should not be involved in emotional and life skill issues anyway.)

My day.

2010-05-19T22:53:00.005+01:00

Today I have commented on a logo, worked with client who sometimes uses drugs, driven 200 miles, drunk coffee, eaten pasta, drunk wine, washed shirts, posted a cheque, missed the children, put diesel in the car, bought a sandwich, watched the news, tweeted, texted, blogged, marvelled at fields of yellow oil seed rape, received a credit card bill, made phone calls, decided some people prefer to act like idiots, watched Jamie Oliver and finally decided to go to bed.

Nice testimonial

2010-05-15T12:32:00.003+01:00

Getting testimonials in hypnotherapy work can be a bit of a lottery.

Some clients make massive positive changes to their life but would rather no one else knew of their particular issue and therefore do not give testimonials.

Those who do leave a testimonial are therefore a select few but I had a very nice one earlier this week who had asked for help in dealing with pre-job-interview nerves.

Well, read what she says below and if you would like to know more visit my web site www.somersethypnotherapy.com

The testimonial:

Dear John

I hope you are well. I can say that the session I had with you about interview nerves has done me so much good, as have the CDs. The first interview I had after the session, I got a job offer and have accepted! The interview involved a presentation which I would have previously been so nervous in, but I was very calm this time ! Before the interview I was even calm enough to read a book instead of manically looking through the job desccription and panicking! Thank you for your help and I would not hesitate to recommend you

Kindest regards

Linda Ajam

A very nice result in just a couple sessions together.

Warriors, Settlers & Nomads & Parent Adult Child

2010-05-12T06:16:00.005+01:00

There are a ton of personality models out there to choose from but I often find that one of the simpler ones, Warriors, Settlers and Nomads from Terence Watts to be very useful.

Watts puts forward the idea that there are three basic personality types that derive from our inherited DNA. (These may or may not relate to our parents' personality typing).

Warriors are the go- getters. Action driven , focussed and determined to achieve goals. Want respect more than love. Analytical rather than feeling, controlled and controlling choosing somber colours (blacks/brown) for clothes.

Nomads are the drifters, they love change, colour, feelings and need to be the centre of attention. They hate being controlled by people, situations, schedules or events. They are "people people" often with a passion for the arts or performance.

Settlers are those who occupy the middle ground. Solid dependable folk who get on with life. They like to please others and value home life, friends, stable work patterns and family.

Of course we are all a blend of these personality types but imagine for a moment what might happen if two warrior types fall in love and form a long term relationship; you can expect fireworks!

If a Nomad and a Warrior get together, the drifting ways of the Nomad may exasperate the Warrior while the controlling tendencies of the Warrior may make the Nomad want to run away.

Of course these are massive generalisations and yet I have found the hypothesis a very useful one to make use of in therapeutic work.

In that work, I often find I am dealing with not just the personal difficulties of one individual but also the interaction with that person's partner or parent or child.

Since I do not generally engage in relationship counselling or couple work, I wanted a simple way to explore that dynamic and have found the combination of the Warrior Settler Nomad personality typing coupled with elements of Transactional analysis Parent - Adult - Child states to be very useful.

I am still exploring the areas where this is most useful but I thought some others might find this a useful combination to explore.

A nasty bug...

2010-05-11T10:35:00.002+01:00

A nasty bug has me in its grasp. I have a cold and as a consequence my voice has dropped in pitch. I sound like a bad Barry White impersonator. It also makes speaking difficult and a bit painful.

Today I will be mostly silent in an effort to recover the voice, although this would be a perfect time to record a couple of hypnosis audios if I had time booked in the studio.

Actvity at a new low in hung Parliament twilight zone

2010-05-08T08:43:00.007+01:00

It has been a strange nether world we seem to have occupied since the General Election polling stations opened on Thursday morning.

Commercial activity seems to have slowed right down, the stats on my own web sites (I have several and monitor others) are all universally down; I'll guess that those for the web sites of Sky News and the BBC are up a good deal.

This period of transition from one Government to the next has a strange unreality about it that seems to have affected nearly all of us.

It's worth remembering though that the events in the world keep moving on. We are still fighting a war in Afghanistan, still paying credit card bills and government taxes even whilst those who would lead the country decide who should be Prime Minister.

Outside of the Westminster world, the people who come to see me in person are still getting rid of unwanted habits, letting go of fears and phobias and releasing anxiety.

For all of us, whoever says they are in charge, real life goes on.

Faith, short cuts & authority

2010-04-29T07:00:00.002+01:00

We all need short cuts to understanding because it is simply not possible to know everything. I read on the internet yesterday (and therefore it must be true) that the sum total of human knowledge is doubling every 15 years. Even if this is radically inaccurate it is clear that one can not be an expert on everything.

For that reason we all need short-cuts, rules of thumb to run our life by. Without these short-cuts we would be lost in a sea of detail that one lifetime is too short to comprehend.

Where do we get short cuts from? Those who have or seem to have authority. Authority we confer on them by believing what they say. Is belief another way of saying faith?

Sometimes, especially when we first meet that authority, we will test it against what we already know. If it measure up and agrees with our principles of how the world works then we will go on to be more accepting of what the 'authority' says. We have faith until we perceive a gross deviation from our world model. That deviation may be found by scientific test or by personal deductive thought. Perhaps at that point we may say that we have more faith in our self than in the authority of others.

Is this a form of enlightenment?

How to read faces event in Taunton 28th April

2010-04-24T10:22:00.003+01:00

This is not one of my events but I plan to be attending.

Where/When?

Taunton Library Meeting Room. Wed 28th April 7.30pm - 10pm Entrance £5
Taunton Library, Paul Street
Taunton TA1 3XZ

0845 345 9177

Seating for up to 70 people only. Get there early

Who will be interested?

Business owner, Managers, therapists, counsellors, Law Enforcement, Sales People in fact almost any one who works with other people!

How to read faces by Naomi Tickle. http://www.naomitickle.com/

This should be an interesting evening for anyone who wants to learn about the personality of others.

Naomi has developed an idea she call personology which is about being able to read the personality of an individual by looking at their face.

It is based on work done by a US trial judge.

From a Judge's Courtroom -- A Modern Version

It was created by Judge Edward Vincent Jones. After watching thousands people in his courtroom for many years, he found he could reliably predict their personality, behaviour and innate abilities from their facial features. These were not expressions and gestures but basic hereditary structures and shapes. He was so fascinated by this knowledge that he maintained detailed records. From this mass of knowledge he realized he had documented a new science.

Now I ought to say that I am somewhat sceptical of the technique but I'm sure it will be very interesting! I look forward to mind opening experience afterall she says that the technique is 92% accurate; very impressive.

Naomi Tickle event poster

Download printable in PDF

See you there? Should be very interesting.

NLP and Life coach meeting in Taunton

2010-04-23T07:15:00.003+01:00

I met with some Life Coaches and NLP ers in Taunton recently, a very interesting bunch of people to be sure and with very different backgrounds to my own, which makes for more interesting conversations. It was intriguing to hear about the different areas that they each work in and the customer niches they have defined for their work.

We had a talk by a local Life Coach, Becky Wright who runs New Leaf Personal Development. She talked about some of the steps she had taken to to build her business since its inception in 1992.

The biggest take away was to employ a graphic designer to get your marketing materials looking good if you want to be taken seriously. And whilst printing in your office with a desk top printer may be a useful way to start it does not compare to the quality of material that a printer can produce for you.

The desire for consistency and how to use it

2010-03-30T06:56:00.001+01:00

The desire to maintain a consistent approach to our life is a powerful driver of personal actions. Once we take a decision, we will put in place all kinds of strategies to make that choice work for us rather than appear inconsistent to others.

This desire to maintain a consistent approach starts early in life, think about the negative ways we have of talking about people who do not adopt this consistency. We describe people as "a bit flaky", "a day dreamer", "a drifter" we might say "I wish he'd just make his mind up!”.

A consistent approach gives us a sense of certainty in an uncertain world.

So how could we use this desire to be consistent to our advantage?

Well let's think about two things that lots of people would like to change about themselves; losing weight and becoming a non-smoker. Writing your goal down is the first thing to be done, that will generate the desire for internal consistency. But then, use the power of your relationships with others to hold yourself to the goal.

Get some blank business cards and on each one right down something similar to "I promise by the end of 2010 I will weigh xx pounds / xx kilograms".

Or if you are a smoker and would like to be a non-smoker write down "As of 30th March 2010 I have committed to being a non-smoker and staying a non-smoker for the rest of my life."

Now give these cards to people you know, trust and respect and who respect you. That might be your spouse, your parent, your child a trusted work colleague or a good friend.

Your internal need to be consistent to those around you will keep you on your chosen path. The loss of face and personal shame that would result in backsliding on the commitment will drive you towards your chosen goal.

Will it be easier? Probably not.

Will you be more likely to achieve that goal? Almost certainly.

Is it time to nip down to the office supply store for your blank business cards?

Smokers, excuses and waiting and waiting and waiting

2010-03-27T10:06:00.002Z

Why do smokers do it?

Why do they make the phone call to a hypnotherapist and say “You’re my last hope”, no pressure then…

Often a long phone call follows as they satisfy themselves that you do know what the hell you’re talking about and a booking is made for some mutually suitable date in the diary.

Then, as in a recent case with me, the following happens:

1) You get ready with your kit for the session, in my case, books, CDs and similar

2) You arrive at the clinic in good time and prepare the room (I work from a health centre)

3) You’re ready but you check your notes that were taken on the phone and…

4) You wait

5) And you wait

6) And you decide to call the client

“Hi xxx” I say “did you remember that we have a quit smoking session booked for today?”

Client: “Oh yea”

Me: “Is there a problem, do you need directions? (It’s a call to a mobile)

Client: “Uh no, I wont be coming, I’m just back from hospital” (Blatant grasp for sympathy)

Me:”Oh, dear, what’s happened?” (I’m going for concern but my excuseometer detector is off the dial)

Client “It’s me boy in’it. He’s got bronchitis, had an attack and we had to take him in” (It’s not my fault I’m not there and you can’t argue with this one mate)

Me: “Right…so you won’t be in today. Would you like to rebook for next week” (I know she is never going to re-book)

Client: “Yea, yea, I’ll give you a call next week”

Me: “OK bye”

If what she said was true has she ever considered just why her boy might have bronchitis? Could smoking in the home and car have something to do with it?

Some people are just so challenged by making a change that staying in the same place is the only option they feel they have. Of course it’s not always great being where they are but still the thought of change scares them so much they are paralysed by inaction and go back to watching the master hypnotist in the corner of the room. (The TV)

This clinic scene has been played out enough times now that I’m bored with it. It costs me time and money and the ‘would be’ client is still puffing away like there is no tomorrow; which for them may be true.

So recognising that you can lead the client to change but you can make them do it, I have changed.

I did think about not doing quit smoking work any more but in the end came up with the idea of getting folks to pay fully in advance. It builds motivation in the client and it means that I’m not out of pocket if they don’t show.

Does that sound harsh? Perhaps, but for me to continue doing this work, first of all, I as a therapist have to survive. Having other people waste my time and money makes that all the more difficult.

By the way any smokers that do actually want to stop and stay stopped can contact me. The cost for the work is £195 for a two session package. If you want to book, expect to get your credit or debit card out whilst on the phone……….you know why.

Simplify, simplify simplify

2010-03-08T22:36:00.007Z

My old boss (now dead sadly) was a right bugger to work for. His attention to details clashed with my rather more relaxed approach. There were often fireworks, his attention to details sometimes seemed obsessive and he still managed to get things wrong.

But I did learn a lot from him, most of it good.

He wrote software code in the C language. As any software people out there will know, it is possible to write messy and complex C. This style of code is frequently filled with hard to track down bugs.

His mantra was; simplify, simplify, simplify. Use simple constructs, think about what you want and test as you go.

It worked for his software and I think it can work more generally in life too. So now I am on a mission to simplify the complexities of my own life. I aim to streamline what I do and how I do it.

The aim is to be both more creative and more productive; with the level of complication that we have in life today it's almost a miracle that anything gets achieved.

This is likely to be a task that is ironically far from simple. I expect it to be a process that happens over a year or more but I'll highlight the more interesting bits on this very blog.

How much more more creative and productive could you be if you simplified your life?

Busy life working what about play?

2010-03-02T13:56:00.002Z

A busy time in my family life means that posting here has been rather reduced. However whilst contemplating how things were last night I realised that the modern notion of "work/life balance" was completely wrong.

If you enjoy working it's not the negative that it is often supposed to be. So my perspective is that we should have a better work/play balance.

In that equation I'm doing too much working and not enough playing. How about you?

Changing times

2010-02-11T07:01:00.004Z

I travel around the country a good deal. Over the last year it has been painful to the destruction that the recession has brought about. Jobs lost, dreams shattered, business' going broke after years of operation.

But things do seem to be changing, I was at a trade show recently where almost in spite of the market circumstances, people were out promoting themselves and the business'. There comes a time when simply accepting the gloom from the powers that be, is no longer acceptable.

Certainly I have seen an up-tick in my own one to one therapy work and others I talk to in the same line have seen this too.

So it's probably a bit early to say "let the good times roll" but how about "let's make our own good times in-spite of bankers, politicians and speculators".

As far as I know this is the one opportunity at life we have some grab it with both hands and enjoy the ride.

A business book you'll want to read

2010-01-30T11:30:00.005Z

I must have read dozens of business books. Some have been autobiographical in nature (like that of Victor Kiam, the man who bought Remington because he liked the razor) and some have been more philosophical. Most have been quite 'dry' with, you sense, a good deal of inconvenient truths left out.

So where do place a book with all the inconvenient truths left in? At the top of your reading list if you run or would like to run a small or medium size business. Which book would this be? "Get Off Your Arse" by Brad Burton. Brad is well known in the UK as the Managing Director of the largest Nationwide Networking organisation, 4Networking.

The book is part autobiographical, part motivational and part plain old common sense with splashes of earthy humour. Let me say that the provocative style will not suit every reader; there are no spreadsheets or graphs and very few notes on how to construct a business plan. And yet.......this may well be the most valuable business book you will pick up. Why? Beacuse through Brad's anecdotes and tales of lost opportunities, glorious mistakes and finally resounding business triumph, you will see the way to secure your path to a great business.

This book will not tell what markets to be in or what location to choose but there many simple practical tips here that can be applied to almost any business. This is a motivational shot in the arm that will have you ditching excuses and taking action that moves your business forward. As Brad might put it, "If sitting around in your underpants is not working" then buy this book.

It may not change your world but it could just change your approach enough to get you back on track to growing your business. Highly Recommended.

It's that time of year when...

2010-01-18T20:42:00.003Z

The newspapers talk about weight loss or maybe just being fat a lot this time of year.

Swedish weight watchers cause floor to collapse. Oh well there goes the stereotype of the slim Swedish blond.

Only eat raw food and lose weight? Well you can do it that way; here's what happened.

You could try the military boot-camp approach...

Or you could start to re-educate your body and mind with this...