I listened to a hypnosis CD today

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.

Self hypnosis can get you into a heap of trouble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This really shouldn't be a surprise

The recession is causing anxiety and stress.
The ongoing recession is causing a rise in the number of people going to their family doctor to deal with stress and anxiety.

Reports from many different parts of the media essentially all confirm the same story, that a recession is bad for our mental well being. The worry about whether we will be the next victim of redundancy and the concern about how one might pay the bills lead to a feeling of being permanently stressed. All this on top of actually trying to perform a job in the worst market conditions for many for decades.
A medical response?
For many people this will prompt a visit to the family doctor to help deal with the issue. Those visits to the GP (family doctor) are likely to lead to a chemical approach to deal with the symptoms of the problem. Beta Blockers and anti-depressants are often the first response to this stress and yet this will not solve the underlying problem, to a greater or lessor degree it will only relieve the symptoms.

Is there an alternative?
When faced with overwhelming pressure or anxiety there a few ways to deal with it effectively:
Ask yourself
1) Can you change the situation?
if not, can you...
2) Move away from the problem?
if not can you...
3) Change the way you think about the situation?

In the current financial climate it is often only option 3 that is open to us but without some tools to help, this approach can feel daunting.

A useful start can be made by learning a useful way to relax in spite of the difficulties. A self hypnosis recording is one way to achieve this and I have put one of my recordings online for you to download. Visit my www.gift4life.com website and enter your email address to get the MP3 relaxation download.

A useful start
Listening to the recording once or even twice a day can allow you to find a more resourceful state to begin the next phase of dealing with pressure . More on this approach tomorrow when I'll talk about a practical approach to the use of affirmations.

Saturday-a time to catch up

It's Saturday morning and after a busy week it's good to catch up with those things that somehow got left behind in the hurly burly of life.

The new video I created (see the post below) is being viewed on YouTube (Google video is yet to show any results) so hopefully in some small way, I've helped a few people to relax.

My plans for next week involve re-editing the Self Hypnosis Handbook that I first put together in 2005 and have only ever given away to personal therapy clients. I plan to offer the book as an e-book download but am wondering whether I should create a printed version as well. What do you think?

Have a great weekend