Blog Archives

10 Really Simple Mind Hacks for Success

30/6/2015

Photo courtesy of Ambro - freedigitalphotos.net

I often wonder what expectations people have of hypnosis. Not just the amazing things it can do but actually how it works. I’m absolutely sure that, no matter how many times I explain it’s a completely natural process they’ve all experienced before, people still expect to be put under some kind of weird and wonderful spell and that I’ll have some sort of control over their minds. And of course, as a result, they’ll be miraculously transformed!

What I find even more fascinating than this notion is that this miraculous transformation can actually take place but that my client is fully responsible for, and fully conscious of it. The mind is a powerful thing. All I do, as a hypnotherapist, is suggest that thoughts and imagination are directed in a particular way and in a particular direction, while the client is feeling very relaxed.

So I thought I’d share with you just a few of the basic techniques I have at my disposal, to use with my clients whatever issue they may come to see me with:

Relaxation – although you don’t have to be fully relaxed in order for change to take place it is more easily accomplished if you are feeling calm. When you are in this state, your breathing and heart rate tend to regulate and you allow yourself to become more open to things which might be suggested to you.
Having a focussed awareness - Hypnosis utilises a focussed awareness to allow you to concentrate on what is going on in your thoughts at any particular moment.
Visualisation - if you can see yourself doing something, in your mind’s eye, you will be more likely to actually do it. I ask my clients to visualise themselves at some time in the future, making this as real an experience as it can be. I ask them to use all of their senses, not just their visual sense, to make this feel really real.
Imagination – it is often said that imagination is the language of the subconscious mind. And it is often in the subconscious mind where deep-seated issues are rooted. It follows that it is in the subconscious mind where the answers lie. I often ask my clients to imagine what a particular part of their mind might look like. And, even though it might sound a bit strange, we hold a conversation with this particular part. Talking to the subconscious in this way (while being fully conscious of what is going on) can lead to amazing insights.
Allowing yourself to be open to success. Some people think you have to believe in hypnosis in order for it to work. I prefer to say that you just need to allow yourself to be open to the possibility. There are a huge number of different techniques within the realm of hypnotherapy that may be utilised for any one presenting issue – some of them seem incredibly simple. And yet are incredibly effective, often giving rise to change at a quite profound level.
Anchoring – you know how evocative smells are? Well smells are a sensory anchor. They are sensory experiences which act as a reminder of past emotions and previous times in your life, and enables you to bring all of the feelings associated with that time back to the present. While they are under hypnosis, I’ll often ask my clients to install a new physical anchor, for example, squeezing their thumb and forefinger together while feeling really confident and positive. With practise, all they will need to do in order to feel those confident feelings again is squeeze their thumb and forefinger together. The mind and body working in harmony.
Repetition – like so many other things, we become good at things we do over and over again. This helps to set up new neural pathways in our brain. So, if you want to be able to respond to situations in life in a calmer way then it’s a good idea to take time out for moments of relaxation a number of times every day. I very often give recordings of my hypnotherapy sessions to my clients and ask them to listen to them once or twice a day. This helps to install those new neural pathways and make them strong.
Seeing things as they really are – all too often our minds get clouded with judgements, worries, self-limiting beliefs, and lack of confidence. Hypnosis can enable you to see the true picture more clearly with all the different options that might be available to you when you are able to simply let go of this self-sabotage.
Compassion – no matter what you’re experiencing at this point in time, you (like everyone else) are simply doing the best you can to live life. Very rarely do we give ourselves credit for this. And we should!
Breathing – our breathing is like a bridge between our minds and bodies. When we become aware of our breathing, and perhaps what it’s trying to tell us, we put ourselves in a better position in order to deal with what’s going on. When we’re feeling stressed our breathing will tell us by becoming quicker and more shallow. When we notice this we can choose to alter our breathing so that it’s slower and deeper. After a while, this sends a message to our brain that our body is feeling calmer now so there is no need to worry. Again, it’s that mind/body connection working in harmony.

So, as you can see, some of the techniques that are used in hypnotherapy are really very simple and yet are so incredibly powerful. It takes teamwork to achieve results – the hypnotherapist guiding and suggesting new thought processes and courses of action; the client motivated and open to changes taking place, and willing to play their part in things too.

You can try any of these techniques for yourself (this page will help you get started) and see the benefits that they bring but to benefit fully it’s a good idea to be guided by a fully qualified hypnotherapist such as myself.

0 Comments

Is Institutional Logic being left unquestioned?

3/6/2015

0 Comments

I’ve just watched a local news programme where the issue of stress amongst teaching staff was being discussed. Ofsted had been quoted as ‘advising head teachers that they should be helping their staff to manage their workload more appropriately,” or words to that effect.

Earlier on in the day, I’d been at a meeting with eleven other hypnotherapists where a lot of the discussion had centred around the idea that unless the root cause of a problem is at least acknowledged (inwardly or outwardly), then the solution might always be evasive.

In a way, it’s a good thing (for me) that stress continues to ensue in schools – I have had clients who are primary and secondary school teachers, and adult education tutors, coming to me for various stress/work-related issues; and children (usually presenting with an issue that has anxiety as a root cause) again spanning the primary and secondary age range. So, for me, it means more business. But at some point, I feel, the education system has got to sit up and take note of the fact that there needs to be a huge shift in its logic, of some sort. Otherwise people like me will continue to be needed to put sticking plasters on problems whose causes run much, much deeper than an ‘inability to manage workload appropriately.’

And, of course, it’s not just the education system.

It seems that life is no longer there to be lived and enjoyed but instead it’s there so you can ‘achieve the best’ you possibly can. To strive towards goals that constantly move further away, out of your reach. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for ‘doing my best’ and achieving results – being a hypnotherapist, I depend on people getting results and making changes. However, is this really the most important thing, all of the time? After all, there are so many different ways in which we can all be successful.

A recent conversation in one of my mindfulness groups springs to mind. We were talking about the ‘rat-race’. Have you ever sat back and thought “What’s it all for?” You go out to work, to pay the bills, in order for you to be able to live in a nice house, that you rarely get to see, because you’re always out at work, in order to pay the bills, to live in a nice house… It makes you think.

Some authorities think that a lot of illness and disease in today’s world can be traced back to stress and anxiety (suggestions for books on this and other related subjects can be found here). Our bodies were not designed to have stress hormones surging through them on a constant loop. They were equipped to deal with a sudden threat and then recover. In the natural world, some animals shake continually for a few minutes after being chased by a predator to rid themselves of all the stress chemicals. Then they get up and carry on as if nothing had ever happened. Let’s face it, generally speaking the human race isn’t brilliant at dealing with stress. It’s gives itself too much… and then doesn’t know how to deal with it.

I’m constantly aware that, as a teacher of mindfulness and a clinical hypnotherapist, I am often helping people to deal with the stress, anxiety and depression that are, all too often, side effects of today’s ‘modern lifestyle.’ All well and good maybe, from my point of view. But wouldn’t it be good if society, as a whole, and the institutions that act as our society’s backbone, operated in such a way that we were able to be more compassionate with ourselves and with others – so we were not constantly competing against each other, not constantly having to strive to prove our worth and not always having to prove we’d done our best. The human race is naturally competitive – survival of the fittest and all that. But, at some point (and in my opinion) this competitiveness has little worth if there is not, at the same time a good deal of compassion and respect – for self and others.

I caught an episode of Thinking Allowed on Radio 4 the other day – they were discussing the ‘Happiness Industry’ and the ‘Wellness Syndrome.’

The presenter, Laurie Taylor, was interviewing William Davies, author of “The Happiness Industry - How the government and big business sold us health and well-being.” He is also Senior Lecturer in Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London. He outlined the fact that:

“It’s far more common for policy makers to turn to the individual and turn to their behaviour and what they can learn by way of behavioural and cognitive tips than it is to actually question some of the institutions which might actually be the source of their unhappiness in the first place.” In other words, the root causes of stress are often ignored and the individual is to blame for ‘not managing their work load properly.’

He goes on to suggest that practices such as mindfulness simply act as that much-needed sticking plaster:

“They are also coping mechanisms which are draped over an institutional logic and a political/economic logic which effectively tells everyone that they are in a race against each other the whole time and they are going to be measured, audited, subjected to what we know are stressful practices by managers and policy makers and then take time out to practice mindfulness or whatever as a way of trying to cope with a whole institutional logic which is generally left unquestioned.”

If you’d like to listen to the whole interview, you can do so here.

“A whole institutional logic that is generally left unquestioned?”

I'm sure, over recent years, those questions have begun to be asked. But then, does anyone have the answers - so that the sticking plasters are no longer needed, because the wound is no longer made in the first place?

0 Comments

In2 minds

10 Really Simple Mind Hacks for Success

Is Institutional Logic being left unquestioned?

Author

Categories

Archives