The right way to deal with PTSD and Trauma.

Please read this fascinating account of how one of my clients learned to deal with PTSD and in their own words “Kick its ass”

Hello. I have written this for anyone suffering out there. Don’t, as you do not have to. Please read what I have to say. I am no writer so excuse the way I talk, I just write as it comes. 

I had not realised that the subconscious mind can store and hold onto painful memories and then bring them back at the worst and most unexpected moments. When I was much younger I had suffered abuse as a child and never spoke about it or attempted to deal with it. I buried it deep. 

As a teenager, I was in a horrific accident that nearly took my life. My body healed, but my mind was forgotten about and the incident never discussed. People said it would be too painful for you to go over it again. So I buried it deep. 

When I faced daily stress and anxiety in pressurised situations I was told to “get on with it” and talking was not encouraged. Once more I buried it, very deep. 

Then tragedy struck and I had to deal with both loss and grief at the same time. The trauma of what I had born witness to was beyond compare. This time there was no burying it and sinking to my knees I could take no more. My mind strangely decided it was time to bring forward every painful experience from my childhood to present day all at once. I could function no longer and I kept having flashbacks at random times. I feared the worse and thought to myself, I actually cannot cope or go on.

 A friend visited who said I should go for therapy. This went against everything I believed that I needed or had ever been suggested to me. At this stage, I would have tried anything. I found certain types of counselling difficult as I did not want to go over these things again, so I gave up. 

So I decided to do my own research. In a library, I found a book by a man called Richard Bandler.  I read bits about how we think and getting over things, but I could not make sense of it. I knew what he said was right, but I could not make it work. Throwing the book down, I gave up. 

Then I spotted a web post about PTSD and NLP and it occurred to me that other people used this as a therapy to help others.  This made sense that I need to visit a professional who could help. I phoned up a chap, who seemed to know his stuff and booked in. That is when I made the breakthrough. I say I made the breakthrough as this is what he taught me, we often rely on others to take stuff away from us. We need to do it for ourselves. He talked and listened in a different way and I found if I saw my world differently then I could safely view all of those elements of my life, even the bad ones. I knew they were part of something bigger, my pathway and journey. 2 sessions in and the anxiety and trauma stopped. We did something called double dissociation and pattern disruptions. I realised that whenever I hear a car door shut or I heard something else loud it would trigger memories and bring stuff back.  

I could see the sessions were doing me good and I was becoming happy to return to my old life. I held on to positive anchors and really felt I could on.  By the fourth session,  I felt I had all the skills I needed to kick this things ass now. I read some more books and practised all the NLP techniques I had been taught.  

I urge everyone out there to get out, buy a book, find a therapist that knows this stuff. I have got my life back and I am forever grateful. Go kick the ass of whatever is bothering you :) 

The Key to succeeding in anything. Why it really is time to change and find your Authentic Self

I have recently been working with a client who has had a debilitating issue regarding social and work relationships. It had become so acute that it was starting to destroy the whole fabric of her life to such a degree that she had stopped socialising or communicating with others. She had developed a fear that this issue would take hold and she would act upon her compulsions. A friend who she confided in, was currently visiting me for confidence coaching suggested that she come and see me. Her friend was aware that I also work with people who suffer from stress anxiety and other issues such as addiction and compulsion.

 After talking to the lady for a short while it became apparent that this compulsion within her had not come from any traumatic or emotional past event. She had led a successful and happy life and been brought up in a happy and loving family. She was in every sense of the world a successful lady, except for this one area of her life that was starting to become all-consuming. We worked through some NLP techniques and then regressed her through hypnotherapy to a time before she had this issue. After coming out of the trance, she suddenly had a revelation of something that she had been said to her by an ex-partner on a frequent bases. What they had said had not been negative or disparaging, but they always said the same thing during a time when she was in a high state of emotional awareness. Unfortunately, this repetition of words had created what is known in therapeutic terms as a "negative anchor" and something had recently triggered this within her causing her to have a very controlling negative self-belief around her emotions and subsequent actions.

 On discovering this it was a very easy matter of creating some new beliefs and destroying or collapsing the old belief. Also, the realisation of where it had all started also played a major role in helping her.  My client changed instantly and was amazed by how something so simple could have been causing her to have such a strong compulsion to act so strongly out of character.

This started me thinking about just how controlled we often our by the words and images that unconsciously hit our senses. These images and beliefs then become embedded within our thought process and then start to shape who we are, by distorting our beliefs.

Just stop and think about the amount of input that goes into your brain each day, most of which you are not even aware of. Also, consider those strong influences and voices from your early years that formed your opinions of the world around you and how you believe that you should act and behave within it. Its no wonder that when we hear something negative about our self that may have been reinforced from a young age, that we start to believe it and act in a way that is not authentic.

Just imagine for a moment that you could take yourself back to a very young age before the world got to you. A time before you had not taken on board any negative or distorted thinking that was given to you by parents, family, friends, television and the all-encompassing and damaging social media.  Now without all of those negative and distorted beliefs consider what are your thoughts on yourself? You might not actually have even formed any yet, but as a young child seen something that really appealed to you and thought. I want to do that and be like him or her? Was this dream then supported or were you told something like "don't be stupid, you cant do that"  causing the very young you to give up, lower your head and conform to a life of mediocrity.

But what if you could go back now and go completely clear on these thoughts. Or better still imagine if you received positive thoughts on yourself and your dreams had been supported and encouraged. How would this have shaped you and your life? Or would you have discovered who you really are and meant to be, it's such a powerful and empowering question. Ask yourself a better quality of question and get a better quality of answer. For example, what do you really like and what do you want to do with your life?


The good news is that no matter what age you are it's not to late to still hold these thoughts. I once worked with a victim of childhood abuse who very much came to terms with their abusive past and was actually able to re-frame the most traumatic period of their childhood. I will always remember they said to me in the last session. "It's not to late to have had a happy childhood, no matter how old you are".

Have you ever been away from a negative person either at work, home or in a relationship and suddenly noticed that you start to do different things and hold new thoughts and beliefs about yourself; its almost as if you have been reborn.

I always remember sitting down many years ago and watching an episode of Dr Who with my son. It was the first episode that David Tennent stared in and he had regenerated but not sure who he was yet. At one point someone asked him "Who are you" and he replied. "I don't know yet" he then went into a whole list of possibilities of who he could possibly be, considering each one he liked and dismissing those he did not. A few minutes later he committed a spontaneous defensive act that saw the evil alien leader plummet to Earth from his ship, he then declared "No second chances, that's who I am" We should be shaped by our true feelings and responses that are of our own creation and choosing, not those that are fed to us from others.

So maybe its time that we all looked to regenerate and start finding our authentic self again. Finding and discovering the person who we were all really born to be. The person who has not had a lifetime of negative sounds and images piled upon them and attempted to gloss over these. Its time to reach down, wipe off the negativity and find out who we really are. Why not start this pathway by unplugging from all of the negative people and elements in your life. Give yourself a week away from the negative elements of social media, the negative thoughts of others and start to rediscover your authentic self.

Then make a list of those true qualities that you believe that you hold and how you could use them to them in the best possible way to pursue your dreams and purpose.

You will be amazed at the power that this will give to start truly believing in yourself, growing and fully developing into the person you were born to be.

Get over any Fear and reduce anxiety instantly.

There is brand new research from MIT university in America that proves that anyone can overcome any fear and reduce anxiety in an instant.

It is actually nothing new and I have been teaching it to coaching and hypnotherapy clients for years as all of our fears really all come down to one thing!

In life when you get up and go out you usually have a general expectation of what is going to happen. You drive the same route, meet the same people and do the same job. However, within each day, you can't specifically know and plot every minute of your day and this is where fear creeps in.

Let me explain further. Imagine you are a work and suddenly you are called into a meeting with your whole team. No one has any idea of what is about to happen or why you are there. The Head of the department walks in with the finance manager and the CEO. They tell you all to take a seat and that they have a very important message and they won't keep you long.

Now be honest if this happened how many of you would be thinking, "wow this is exciting, its bound to be brilliant news". I can't wait to hear how this is going to alter and enrich my life in a positive way? No, what you will actually do is think the worst and fear for your job. This is because everyone's fears are all rooted in one thing, the unknown!!. No matter what you are scared of I guarantee that what is actually scaring you is not knowing what is going to happen in any given circumstance or event and we find that quite terrifying.

Now the problem is that fear is a real killer, it kills opportunities, relationships, potential sales, moral and all of your life chances. For when we become gripped by fear, we become inactive and do nothing rather than face a fear of an unknown future.

However, there is a really simple and easy solution that will flip any fear on its head in an instant.
Have you ever acted out of total certainty, done something that you were sure was going to work out and carried it through with total confidence? Of course, you have, as most of the things that we do each day have a level of certainty about them. Certainty is one of the human givens and without it, we would probably just lay in bed all day watching telly fearing that anything we did would result in a tragic circumstance. We get up, get dressed walk to the shops, go to work, eat, drive all because we are reasonably certain that we will get a positive outcome. So you could say that our confidence comes from us being secure in all the facts and us holding a belief in a positive outcome of our actions. We even become so good at this that we don't even think about most activities and just act unconsciously knowing that putting one foot in front of the other will get us where we want to go.

So why do we have fears? well, this is when our unconscious mind focuses on uncertainties with any future outcomes that we plan. Sometimes this is good an protects us, but a lot of the time it just keeps holding us back. Now while we need a level of fear to keep us safe, as a society we have become massively over cautious and see fears everywhere and create ones that do not exist, just to prevent us from taking action. We have become risk-averse and it is making us more and more anxious to take those bolder actions that will often bring us all the rewards in life.

That said its actually a really simple to overcome any fear and it only takes 2 steps. 1 something that I call fearless planning and 2 possibly the biggest issue that everyone has, which is taking action!!!!!

Now if we choose to plan something out and seeing it going well as appose to us failing, we are going to start believing that we could make it happen and not only succeed in our action but also enjoy the activity which we once found scary. Go ahead think of something that you would really like to do, that you have previously been too scared to do and see it going really well. Just see the event happening, see yourself succeeding at this and then see the event happening through your own eyes. It feels different now doesn't it. What you have just done is started to reprogram your brain to be confident in a way that it never was before. We have created a whole new neural pathway and your unconscious will hang on to this.

That done, now you need to take action. Just make any small step towards whatever it was that you previously feared, but whatever you do take action. Now here is the real secret to beating your fears. Your brain can only focus on one thing at a time, so when you start to take action and focus on the event, you can't actually be scared of it anymore as you are not focusing on it. To be scared of something you have to actually consciously think of being scared of it,  once you are consciously in the act of doing, you cannot be scared as your conscious action reduces the fear. Just think back to the first time that you got behind the wheel of a car or walked across a room to talk to a member of the opposite sex you liked. As soon as you started changing gears, looking for other cars or engaged a person in conversation so stopped being scared as you were focusing on the event, not your fears. Always remember risk and danger is real, but fear is something you create in your own head.

So the next time you really want something in life, whatever it just sees it going well and then take action.

Jason

If you have decided that its finally time for you to take back control in 2018 and get the better of your fears and anxieties, then call me for a free consultation on 07919102191 or visit my website.

hypnotherapy-in-norwich.co.uk

One simple reason why you have not lost weight and its not what you think!!

Find out what has been stopping you losing weight

Now that the Christmas Period is over a lot of peoples thoughts start to turn to the new year and making positive changes to both their diet and exercise. But before you do, have you considered if you are one vital ingredient missing that will make all the difference?

At this time of year, there are countless books, websites and yes blogs about weight loss all of which will promise you the secret to losing weight quickly and keeping it off forever. However, I have yet to read one that actually addresses the real reason why certain people fail to lose weight and keep it off and others have huge success and stay thin.

 In order to get to this reason let me ask you a question. Do you have a friend that appears to be able to eat whatever they want, whenever they want and never gain any weight? Or know someone who has stuck to one of the numerous fad diets, lost pounds in weeks? However, when you tried the same diet all that happened was you were hungry and never lost a pound.

Yes, what many diet gurus and experts never bother to consider is that everyone or rather everyone's brain is, wait for it.....completely different!!!  I know this is a real shocker and just as no two people look the same, most of us don't think the same either. So why is this so very important to losing weight?

Let's look at this another way, which kind of people eat only when they are genuinely hungry, stop when they are full and seldom eat between meals and find it easy to not binge eat or eat rubbish and exercise regularly? I will tell you, they are motivated, driven people who manage to lose weight and realise that keeping it off is a lifelong commitment.

So why can`t I keep up this motivation all year long like other people I hear you ask? The answer is actually very simple, we are all motivated to lose weight and stay healthy by different thoughts and feelings and this is why it is so hard for any weight loss guide to help you, as it does not know what stimulates you.

I recently saw a client who was able to give up binge eating by seeing a figure of herself looking lean and healthy. She actually said that he could not get out of her chair and get to the fridge as the image was so powerful. It was so powerful that she even stayed motivated to not binge eat over Christmas and continued to lose weight over the festive period. However, another client of mine was motivated by how they would feel putting on a new pair of jeans, that had previously not fit her. Yet another client was motivated by their partner telling them they looked great. Now, these are all great motivating factors but everyone who has come to see me for weight loss hypnotherapy has had just one thing that has kept them losing weight and exercising and the real secret is finding out what it is and then using that motivating factor to its greatest advantage.

Whenever I work with someone I will always find out what sort of person they are and whether they are motivated more by what they see, hear or feel.  Everyone is always surprised to find out where they mostly operate with their emotions and some people are equally stimulated by two more senses.
Then using NLP therapy and Hypnosis I help them to boost these new feelings both consciously and subconsciously so they remain motivated to achieve both their weight loss and fitness goals.

So before you start to find that new you, make sure that you have gotten to know who you really are and what is going to properly motivate you to lose weight and stay fit in 2018

Jason

If you have decided that it is finally time for you to take back control in 2018 and lose weight, then call me for a free consultation on 07919102191

Removing your fears will set you free, but do you know what you are really scared of?

We tend not to dwell too much on those things that scare us, do we?
But have you ever wondered how much happier and successful we would be if we did? Most people are not even aware of those things in life that they are scared of and potentially hold them back and stop them doing in life that they most desire.

 I think everyone can identify something that they are scared of, heights, deep water, spiders. The list is endless and working as a hypnotherapist I have helped people overcome all manner of fears and phobias, from the very common fear of flying and spiders, right down to someone who had a fear of people with green eyes. Most of the time there are not always rational explanations for our fears. Psychology suggests that we are only born with maybe one or two fears (loud noises and falling) all of the others have to be learned and boy do we learn them and hold on to them.

We can always identify a risk that is attached to certain fears such as a fear of heights is attached to someone not wishing to fall and hurt themselves, however we don`t ever call it a fear of falling or even a fear of hitting the ground, no we choose to verbally associate the fear and label it a fear of heights. I once asked a client if they would be more or less fearful of driving on a motorway if we actually called the fear something different. So we spoke about her fear and she said that what she was actually scared of was things getting out of hand when she drove. I pressed her further to tell me more and she said I am scared of driving on a motorway if something happens like there is an accident and I have to stop and help someone. I asked her if she felt this was likely to happen or if it had ever happened to her before and she said no, but watched lots of reality TV shows and there were always accidents on motorways and she had seen one where a man went through a window and cut his face and there was blood everywhere. I could see where this was leading to so we spoke even further about the accident and she really went into great detail about what it would do to her if she ever encountered this.  I then set about asking her a few other questions that enabled her to look at the situation differently and she had a light bulb moment. I am not scared of driving she said I am scared of blood!!!. After that it was a case of collapsing some old associations and creating some new ones around what was the real cause of concern for her, seeing someone bleeding and not knowing what to do about it. Her fear of driving on the motorway was not actually real. However, she was very concerned about being in a situation where someone was bleeding and not being able to help them.

This is actually common and we can often label our fears incorrectly and sometimes we are not even aware why we make certain decisions and display behaviours that are damaging to our careers or personal lives. I once worked with a very successful solicitor who found success late in life after dealing with a work-related fear. When she first came to see me she told me that for years she was fearful of completing tasks and sending emails. After nearly losing her job for repeatedly failing to complete her work correctly she had to sit down with her boss and tell him that the reason she was falling behind was that she was scared of being shouted at and laughed at by him. Unfortunately, when she told him this, he laughed. He did not mean to and actually, she had created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Her boss quickly apologised had said the reason he had found it so funny was he had always seen her as such a strong person and would never dream of shouting at a colleague.  He suggested that she seek some sort of therapeutic help to see if things changed for her, which was how she found herself sat in a room with me. Using hypnosis I was able to regress her back to an early period of her life when as a little girl she had been shouted at by a male teacher after handing in a piece of work and was so scared that she wet herself on the spot and had been laughed at by her whole class. When her Mother came to collect her from school instead of offering support and care, she was further chastised and shouted at. So easy to understand where her fear of being shouted at had come from. Fortunately, it was something that I was able to help her with using hypnotherapy and NLP.

It is always worth exploring every area of our lives when we feel that we would like to grow and develop in and sometimes the most unexpected things arise from this, from people not being able to lose weight for fear of looking good and receiving attention from members of the opposite sex, to people in the business world having a fear of being successful as they were told when they were young that nobody likes rich successful people. So the next time you encounter something that scares you, are you really scared of this, or is there something else lying beneath.

If you are struggling with any areas of your life and would like to be free of a fear of concern that may be stopping you live the life of your dreams then email me to book a free telephone consultation.

Click here to email me and book a free telephone consultation

Visit my website for more information on how Hypnotherapy can help you overcome your fears 

Do you really need therapy or do you need a coach?

So, when is a therapist not a therapist?
 When they are a life coach and more to the point just what is the difference? Well for me, it is quite easy to answer as I am both a qualified Clinical Hypnotherapist and a Life and Business Coach. Whenever I meet anyone for the first time and tell me they need help with their lives my first thoughts always go towards if there is anything within someone's past that they need to deal with, or are they stuck at a crossroads and need help moving forward. That can let me know very early on the type of help and work that I will be doing with them. For example, all of my clients who come to me with anxieties, fear of phobias have something that they will need to deal with from their past. As opposed to a CEO who is agonising over which direction to take her company next, who would be clearly coming to see me for business coaching.

But what happens when you are stuck with past issues, but also want to move forward with your goals? To explain how best to deal with knowing if you need a coach or a therapist you really need to sit and work through a Life Plan Pathway in order to find what steps you need to take first in order to achieve your goals. You see its very important when you are looking to make any improvements in your life that you tackle the correct issues and in the correct order. For if you fail to do so and do not deal with those things that have been holding you back first then your always going to struggle to move forward. For example, a successful weight loss client of mine had struggled her whole life to lose the weight that she had wanted, as she kept lapsing back into old habits and could not work out why. At the same time, she set herself some goals to go to the gym every day in order to burn calories. Unfortunately hard as she worked she made no progress and found herself binge eating then fasting and then working hard at the gym only to find that she was losing no weight. We sat and worked through a Life Pathway Plan and shaped it around everything to do with weight loss and pretty soon realised that there were a number of past issues that needed to be dealt with regarding her thoughts on self-image and her beliefs around thin people.

 After two hypnotherapy sessions she had dealt with these issues and it was time to move forward with diet and exercise goals. This time it was a different story and all of her hard work started to pay off and she dropped 2 dress sizes, as she had dealt with her eating issues and remained motivated to work hard at the gym. After a while, my client returned to me as she was doing so well, that she wanted to run a marathon and knew that she would need to break down her goals and had decided that Coaching would help her. So we met again and re-contracted and this time we worked on a diet and exercise regime that allowed her to start running longer and longer distances while still juggling a busy career and social life.

If you are struggling over a decision or need to move forward with any of your goals and desires and feel that you are stuck, contact me and we can book a free telephone consultation and discover just how you will make a positive difference to your life.

Click here to email me and book a free telephone consultation


Visit my website for more information on Hypnotherapy and Coaching

Hypnotherapy to boost your mental performance.

Recently there has been an increase in people looking online into Nootropic medication to boost their brain power. There are now numerous sites, someone of which look very suspicious and will happily sell you supposedly brain boosting medication, without knowing anything about your history and not all of which appears to have been thoroughly tested to safe standards. From looking at these sites they appear to offer various pills that claim to be able to increase everything from confidence, fitness, recall, motivation to giving you improved socialising and verbal interaction skills. I would personally love to know how a pill could achieve all of that in one go.  While I am sure there are always personal gains to be made in our mental performance from maintaining good health through exercise, nutrition and emotional stability of which vitamins play a part. But my experience as a therapist and performance coach has taught me that positive self-belief and personal development are far more effective than relying on mood-altering medication, which many have found can give you quite harmful negative side effects.

 This idea of a mythical brain boosting pill is not a new idea. I first became aware of the idea of being able to improve recall, focus and our retention when I first saw the Bradly Cooper movie Limitless. For those who have not seen the film, Bradly coopers deadbeat character takes a tablet called NZT that allows him to have access to 100% of his brain and turns him into the best version of himself overnight.

The idea fascinated me and I watched the film several times and broke down the process into several key areas of improvement in order to improve my own capabilities. I very quickly found that through using a combination of coaching, hypnotherapy and NLP techniques, focus, ability to read situations and people, recall and motivation could be rapidly increased but without the help of medication.

At the same time I started developing this idea and working on this process I had started a new career in clinical health which required me to work and study long hours while I was also studying privately and working as a therapist. I knew that this amount of work would require me to work at optimum performance and the performance techniques that I developed allowed me to improve my focus, motivation whilst improving my ability to connect with people and gain a greater understanding of their needs. This set me on the pathway of self-development and since this time I have always been interested in performance development and I today I continue to use these techniques to work with people when they feel that they need a boost to any areas of their lives.

The problems that I have found with people who have become reliant on performance boosting pills is that while they may have a strong belief in the medication,  they are failing to address the other areas of their lives that lead them to seek out the medication in the first place. We all have capabilities that can be improved through increased focus and taking greater responsibility for our situation so while a tablet may potentially give someone a buzz and release of energy, if you are still not addressing the correct area of your work or emotional state that is holding you back, you might as well be a fast moving car, traveling in totally the wrong direction.

The techniques I have developed will not only help provide that deeper level of concentration and relaxation, whilst giving you a greater sense of focus and self-motivation. They will also help you analyse with precision, just what and where you need to give your attention to in order to develop.

The debate and people reliance on Nootropic medication and its various side effects may continue for some time. However reducing your stress levels and increasing your confidence, your ability to work longer and harder and achieve greater results can be obtained through performance coaching and hypnotherapy. Once more coaching looks to provide you will all of the tools that will empower you and leave you with a greater level of long-term self-reliance all without a monthly repeat subscription

I have worked with a number of clients from medical and law students who find themselves struggling to stay focused on their studies. To athletes who wish to obtain a great awareness and motivation in order to improve their ability on the field. These sessions can even help give your career a well-needed boost if you are struggling to move forward and want to take the next step up the corporate ladder. If you would like to know how I could help you with a bespoke performance coaching and hypnotherapy session, please contact me for a free telephone consultation.

Click here to email me and book a free telephone consultation