Saturday 26 February 2011

Phobia Release and Cure

Last week I went to a local restaurant with my partner and her family to have an early Christmas dinner.

It was mid day and I was so hungry and I was really looking forward to the delicious food that we had pre ordered. I arrived at the restaurant and upon being greeted by the waiter I noticed an article within a newspaper that was open on a nearby table. I noticed it because the title described phobia cures. I picked up the newspaper making sure that know one was reading the paper and took it to our table. As I read the article I saw that it listed numerous phobias that people can suffer from. I read the article further and it mentioned phobias such as the fear of spiders, fear of the open spaces, phobia of cotton wool, fear of heights and many more. The article explained that scientists had selectively blocked thoughts of fear by interfering with the way memories are “reconsolidated” by the brain. The article suggested that following research funded by the US National Institute of mental health, there will be new ways to treat people who suffer from fears and anxieties related to phobias and memories, without the use of drugs.
I found this article interesting because hypnosis can be used for this exact purpose, to help people let go of anxieties and fears caused by memories and phobias. The article spoke about this new treatment as a revolutionary cure, however hypnotherapists have been helping many people for a long time to release their phobias and cure the emotions that have inhibited them for as long as they can remember.

Hypnosis can help you in many ways to re-program the thoughts in your mind, alter previous memories of past experiences that have helped you to feel and behave in a certain way. I can help you with the use of hypnosis and other techniques, encourage you to release your phobias and regain the life that you would like. Perhaps you can relate to some of the phobias that I mentioned earlier, but perhaps there is something else that you would like help in releasing.

Please feel free to contact me to find out how hypnosis can help you.  

Weddings, celebrations, fun and feeling nervous about public speaking

Recently a friend contacted me to ask about if I could help her with a speech because she was doing a “best man” speech at her friends wedding. She explained that she felt so very nervous about doing this speech because it will be in front of so many people, some that she knew and others she didn’t.

This particular friend comes across as extremely confident and very self assured in nearly every situation, however when presented with this situation her confidence seemed to have gone somewhere else.

Just as I have explained on my weight loss page, your mind is very powerful. It can help you to achieve so many amazing things, but it can limit you at the same time. The way in which we talk to ourselves, that voice that is always there can do so many things, including motivate us, challenge us or in this case, hypnotise us to think that we are not very good at something, or even convince us that something is going to happen.

I asked my friend to begin to notice the way in which she speaks to herself about her “best man” speech. Once she had noticed how she was talking to herself, I requested she let me know and we could start to work on the next steps.

After a few more suggestions and guidance my friend seemed very happy and went on her way to producing a great speech.

Isn’t it funny that after some guidance or help with something that we do every single day that we can truly become in control of our thoughts to produce the outcome that we dream of. I say something that we do every day because we public speak every day, we speak to people without any conscious thought, but when we are standing in front of many people our thoughts seem to go into overdrive.

Would you like to feel more confident and self assured when public speaking?

Perhaps you are soon to be speaking at wedding, conference or meeting and would like to be more self assured. Well hypnosis can help you to achieve this. I can help you to locate that person inside of you that loves to talk at these types of occasions and whilst that hidden you does the talking, that other you can sit back and maybe enjoy every minute of it. You could have this if you truly want it to happen.

Would you like to enjoy the experience and leave those other feelings behind?

If you do, contact me now.

Have you kissed too many frogs? Discover that there are plenty more fish in the sea.

I spoke with a friend of mine who had recently ended a long term relationship and was embarking on entering the single scene again. She explained that when she was single before she kept meeting the same type of person. That person seemed initially lovely but there didn’t seem to be a spark or the person just wasn’t right for her. Also she mentioned that the previous relationships had been one sided. She said that she kept on asking why, why do I keep meeting these types of people?

Does that sound familiar to you? Or perhaps you have heard friends of colleagues saying something similar?

Perhaps you would like help to change these thoughts in order that you may find a person that is right for at this time. Maybe if you do change your thinking that you could find a long term partner?

I’ll give you an example of how powerful our minds are and how we can hypnotise ourselves in certain situations. Yes I did say hypnotise your self.

Are you aware of that voice in your head, often referred to your conscious thinking or thoughts? Yes…

Ok… have you ever been going out during the day or evening, you have been taking your time to get ready and for some reason the time has flown by, and you are going to be late for your appointment if you don’t get ready quicker?....yes… ok, so now imagine you are about to dash out the door, you need to find your keys so that you can lock the house and drive your car to your destination…can you find your keys…ERR NO.

Ok panic starts to set in and your conscious mind starts to say to you…”I cant find my keys”. You say it over and over again to yourself and perhaps you start using some expletives  and then ask your mind, “where have I put my keys…followed by a few more expletives.

What happens? You start to sprint round the house trying to find your keys…can you find them…ERR NO.

Here is an example of how you have been self hypnotizing yourself not to find your keys….your mind switches off and it doesn’t allow you to find them. This is learnt behaviour and for me I used to play this game so many times a week. However because I am now aware of my self hypnosis powers I am able to use my thoughts to benefit my experiences.

For you this could be similar in the way you look for your prospective partner. Perhaps you are self hypnostising your self to find the same types of personalities. Alternatively you may wish to find out the reasons why you keep finding the same types of partners, or maybe there is something else.

Hypnosis can help with these behaviours and if you would like help to break these patterns, this could lead to you kissing the frog that turns into to the prince or princess of your dreams.

However there are no guarantees that you will find the prince or princess of your dreams because it depends on how much you want to change your thoughts and behaviours. This is not a dating website, the work you will carry out with me is purely to become aware of the way you think, feel and behave with partners. Once you do become aware perhaps you can realize that you could make some changes that will benefit you.

Sports Performance

Hypnosis has been used in sport for many years by sports participants to increase their performance, build confidence, alleviate pre game/competition nerves, lose or gain weight, focus attention, develop mental stamina and many other benefits.
Which professional sportsmen have used hypnosis to reach their sporting goals?
Many sportspeople have used hypnosis, for instance golfer Tiger Woods, boxers Frank Bruno, Steve Collins and Nigel Benn, former England cricket captain Mike Brearley, athlete Iwan Thomas, and golfer Ian Woosnam to name but a few.
Hypnosis can also be used with a team to help them achieve their goals. This could be to help them climb a league by winning more matches or perhaps the team requires more motivation and belief that they can win. Hypnosis can be used for all of this and more.
An example of how effective hypnosis can be, in 2009 Twenty20 Cricket cup winners Pakistan had been hypnotised to  forget past failures, win the tournament and bring the world cup back to Pakistan. In addition football teams Ipswich Town and Swindon Town are enjoying successes after working with a hypnotherapist.

In addition hypnosis is highly effective for anxiety, motivation, mental blocks and competition preparation. Most sports men and women who are serious about achieving performance goals use some form of hypnosis whether it's visualisation or affirmation. Many professional and amateur sports participants seek the help of a professional hypnotist to help in their mental training.
 

Sports Hypnotherapists work directly with the Subconscious part of the mind, this is the part of the mind that controls our behaviours. Therefore with hypnosis changes happen very quickly and the sports person finds that their performance improves as a result.

I have experienced personally the benefits of using hypnosis to increase my own sporting performance. My goal of using hypnosis was to increase my batting averages and be more confident in my ability. Before I had hypnotherapy I was scoring an average of 30 runs a game. After only a few sessions I was amazed to find that I scored over 200 runs in a couple of weeks. Ever since then I use many techniques to help me to continue to achieve the goals I want in all the sport I play.

Losing Weight instead of Using Diets

Imagine this, shortly after Christmas last year, after hearing from friends and family about their New Year’s resolution to lose weight and eat healthily. I was sat at my Gran’s house discussing how I am a Bournemouth, Dorset Hypnotherapist and discussing the year ahead.

During one conversation I noticed that there was a newspaper of her choice upon the kitchen table, I took a double take at the image the front page of the newspaper, portraying the youngest obese girl in the country. I was intrigued, I was engrossed in what I read, I wanted to read more about this young girl right now. As I had read more the article said that the once acclaimed largest young girl in the country had lost a lot of weight, and I mean a lot of weight. I heard myself say, “good for her, she has begun to change her eating habits, her life and now taking the right pathway for her. I wondered how she had made all of these adjustments which had enabled her to lose the weight.

Further down the article said that she had been dieting for a good few months and she had lost her weight. One thing that I have found interesting is the term “dieting”. How many times have you heard someone say to you, “oh I’ve been on a diet, lost loads of weight, but now I’ve put it all back on again”? or what about, “I seem to eat really healthily but I just hit an imaginary wall and go back to my old habits”? 

Dieting shouts out that you are consciously trying to go against your eating habits, and by consciously doing something are will just keep trying, until you change the habits that you have. You may change or lose weight temporarily through diets however as soon as you stop dieting you go back to your old eating habits.
Going back to the largest girl in the country, I’m not saying that she will go back to her usual size and shape, she could stay or continue to make even more changes with her body, however if the cause of the weight increases are left and not changed, then there is a higher risk of the weight increasing again. Weight reduction is about what is going on in your unconscious mind.

A blue print has been made, or even a software that has been programmed in to the deepest parts of your mind to allow you to think and behave in many different ways. Just like in computers, if a problem arises a warning message comes up saying that support is required, the brain does something very similar with our behaviour, however with us we don’t have the error message popping up. J

Our blue print of ourselves is termed as our beliefs.

I was watching the sports news channel a short time ago, looking through the scores of the football, however being an avid cricket fan I wanted to find out the score of the England and West Indies game. Flicking through I came across an interview that Sky had with the England batsman, Ian Bell. Ian was speaking about his recent batting achievements with England and his test place batting at number 3 in the team. Sky had shown him playing some amazing games and when batting, looking very good, however he wasn’t achieving his full potential with the bat. The cricket selection committee had been saying to him that if he could change and increase his scores he would be eligible for selection, however in the mean time Ravi Bopara would be taking his place at number 3 batsman. Ian Bell was speaking about the team, about the forthcoming summer and how he looked forward to “enjoying his cricket again”. When he said this I asked myself and actually said to the TV, “what do you mean by that, how come you are not enjoying it now”? Ian spoke as though his international game had gone somewhere, I wasn’t sure where it had gone, and I don’t think he did either. Even though Ian Bell has scored a career best of 262 runs not out for Warwickshire and 199 runs for England against South Africa, he says he wasn’t enjoying his cricket, how does that figure? He has played some of his best cricket, however due to a few games with some scores not getting to the same high standard as those other games; he says he isn’t enjoying his cricket.

 So as a result of this mind set his game became un-enjoyable.

Isn’t it amazing how the brain works, our beliefs about ourselves can limit us?

Usually we base our beliefs around experience. When Ian’s beliefs about himself were high, he had great results. When his beliefs about his game became lower than usual, his game would follow suit. So now not only are our beliefs the result of experience, experiences are the result of our beliefs.

I have used this example to show how powerful the mind can be, how it can limit us, behave and act in certain ways to help us. However, most importantly we can use our mind to obtain the dreams that you want so much, and in this instance, lose the weight you want to, achieve your ideal body shape, feel more and more confident so that the emotions radiate out from deep within and not forgetting, wear the size clothes that are right for.

Hypnosis can help you with this amongst many other things. If you would like to find out more how hypnosis and coaching can help you, please do contact me now to find out when you can start to lose the weight and make this New Year the beginning of many amazing to come.