Calm in your Storm Self-hypnosis Workshop

It’s Good Friday I woke to the sun, yes, the sun beaming in my window, which was a great reason for it to be a good Friday (after the dullest coldest March in 50 years).  As I was about let my enthusiastic fingers rip over the keyboard for my blog (my first this year), the thought “so why is it called Good Friday?” pulled me up in my tracks. I have a choice Google it or ignore it. I Googled; it turns out the reason is unclear so I am choosing to run with what the Baltimore Catechism says. ‘It is called Good Friday because Christ by his death showed His great love for mankind’. Good in this sense means Holy.

Google can be a blessing or a curse, blessing in that you can find someone’s opinion to anything or curse it distracts you as you head off down some other adventure. Now it could of course turn out that is a blessing depending on how you view it.  Which, funnily enough brings me back, to what I wanted to talk about in the first place, ‘how we view things’ and how that leads to Empathy.

While enjoying the sun and a cuppa tea or ‘cha’ as we say in Ireland I read an article by Lauren Hadden in the Psychologies Magazine ‘Free your mind’ and it got me thinking about empathy. It is something I tell myself I struggle with (others have told me otherwise) either way it is not a great place for me to believe I’m in as a therapist. Empathy is our ability to let go of our story of how the world ‘should’ look.  Just writing the word ‘should’ makes my stomach squirm these days, I feel it as a blame word and it drains away my energy.  I won’t go there now.

I completely agreed with Lauren that we have created our own story of the world based on our beliefs and that we are indeed attached to these beliefs. We consistently seek out pieces of information which agree with our story. You know our automatic way of being, ‘our need to be right’.

The insight for me was the reason we are attached to our story, is that it gives us a feeling of certainty. Apparently neurological research suggests that at any given moment our brain is bombarded with millions of bits of information, so it needs to be filtered in order for us not to be completely confused, overwhelmed with all the options available. The way the brain does this is through a story.  Like any story it is just a glance of a bigger picture.  Here was the gem for me, our brain’s need to hold on to this model (story) of the world, leads to our resistance to change and our reluctance to empathise with someone else’s story.

I feel much more empathic towards myself now that I understand more also I feel a warm and accepting of other people’s stories.  I drop my need to be right (no doubt there will be times when I don’t, being human is tricky) and am willing to walk gently in the shoes of others.  The more empathic I am to myself the less resistance I have to change myself. Now that is a great thought for Good Friday.

Happy Easter everyone.

PS

If you are ready to make changes to your story in order to create a new story give me a call Doreen on 01628 675400

Ready to let go of the old you?

Ready to start afresh?

Ready to empower yourself for 2013?

You can by learning the unique 7th Path

Self-Hypnosis tools for change

     “What lies behind or before is nothing compared to what lies within you”

What is stopping you moving on in life?

       Feeling stuck – indecisive – low – lacking confidence

       Confused – worried – anxious

      Relationship problems at home or at work

                       In a small group you will find

        Purpose and motivation

       Self-Acceptance, inner peace and strength

  Forgiveness, joy, fun and love

Where: 13 Balmoral Gardens, Windsor, SL4 3SG  (Free parking)

When: Two Evening Workshop Wednesday 9^th & 16^th January 2013

How much:  Price £85: Early Birds before 10^th Dec £70: Bring a friend £60 each

Limited spaces early booking recommended

To book this workshop call Doreen on 01628 675400 or use  

Now it took the author Kim McMillen 12 years to reach that place and mine has taken about the same. Don’t panic, just because it takes time doesn’t mean it isn’t worth starting.  It is a bit like having children there is never a good time to get pregnant (too busy, not enough money etc) yet the rewards outweigh the bumps along the way.

What is self love all about

Self love is about self acceptance warts and all and self belief, we often confuse self love with selfish, arrogance and therefore avoid it like the plague.

Safe in a slippery world

What I have learnt is, when I love myself enough it is easy to be kind and gentle with other. To let go of my judgements quickly (they still pop in for we are creators of judgement) and have compassion.

When I love myself enough I can take risks and trust the outcome will be just perfect in its own way.

When I love myself enough the world is an amazing place to live and my heart is full of laughter.

When I love myself enough I feel supported and nurtured by those around me. I feel free and easy, I feel connected to all around me and my inner wisdom.

I remember often as a little girl being asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?’ already the pressure to ‘be’ something in order to feel accepted. Perhaps a better question might be, ‘how do you want to ‘feel’ when you grow up?’

Often on that journey to ‘be’ something we become disconnected from ourselves and the love we possess within us.  The fruits of our labours can feel empty and self doubt shadows us without self love it is very tricky to believe in oneself.

Yes, indeed when you need something to believe in beginning with yourself is a very good place to start for this is where we discover how to feel Content Within.

Get in touch

Hypnotherapy Directory

Have you noticed that people who feel good about themselves, usually have a quality about them, that makes it a pleasure to be in their company?

Could it be, that life is more rewarding, calmer and exciting for people who have high self-esteem and a deep inner confidence?

We are all born with a 100% confidence.  It’s as we go through life that our experiences can either confirm our self belief or erode our confidence in our abilities.  Once upon a time you may have been a confident little climber, however, those caring words, “be careful you might fall”, may have started to make you doubt your ability.  As you left for school each morning, did you hear “take care”, or “go for it, you can do it”, ringing in your ears?

Celebrating success

Do you ever find yourself saying, “If only I had the nerve to learn to drive, or fly a plane”.  “I would give anything to be able to relax and stop worrying“.  What impact is stress having on your life?  Do you find yourself taking care of everyone else except yourself?  Is anxiety restricting your enjoyment of life?

All of these feelings are a huge drain on our energy and zest for life, I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that.  So what would make the difference?  Finding our self-esteem, confidence and inner peace, it already exists inside you, they have just been buried in layers of life.

Hypnotherapy provides the path to the subconscious mind, which automatically runs your everyday life, your habits and way of being.  All of the answers to allow change, you already posses in your subconscious mind, they lie within you. We all have an unknown part, what we do not know we do not know. Johari window theory. That’s why I say ‘Go within or Go without’.

My role as a clinical hypnotherapist is to open the doors for you, to find the new path to the future you want for yourself.

For a free chat just contact me by e-mail or phone me on 01628 675400

Emotional Freedom

Well there are all kinds of detox programs these days and emotional detox really captures my imagination.  So when Mark told me he was coming to London (he’s American operating out of Ecuador) I was determined to be there.

Eventually last Saturday came and my expectations were met.  A full day workshop run by Mark England of Transcend your Story on how our language shapes our emotions and lives.  Mark uses EFT and his own program of Language Overhaul to lift us out of our automatic way of being. 

Now, I’m there thinking I’m a fairly positive thinking person yet I was amazed how often I used what Mark calls Negation language. Let me explain his definition, it is speaking about “What wasn’t, What isn’t and What won’t be”. When talking about past events, present situation or future possibilities we describe our perception of the event. This leaves lots of room for confusion and conflict.  When I use words such as Can’t … don’t … shouldn’t … haven’t … won’t .. etc I create a visual picture in my mind of negativity and my energy drops.

Have I lost you?  Let me give you an example, just say this out loud and feel what happens to your energy. “I don’t want to be sick anymore”, repeat it over and over. What happened? Did you create a picture of yourself feeling sick? What happened to your energy? Really stop and feel what happens inside of you.

What Mark pointed out was when we use this “I don’t want .. “ type of language everyday, week, month, year in communications with others and ourselves we manifest some problems for ourselves. We create a future we say we don’t want because that is what we focused on.  We have hypnotised ourselves with our language.

Now say this out loud, “I want to be fit and healthy”.. repeat it the same amount of times.  Notice the pictures created and how your energy feels. The great news is we can hypnotise ourselves using affirmative language to create what we want in our life.

How does this work so powerfully, well pictures are the language of the subconscious. The subconscious mind is always working to keep you safe and comfortable, however it has no concept of what is good or bad and it ignores  negatives. It just blindly follows what it is given to work with.

It sees the picture “I …… want to be sick”,  it doesn’t know what to do with the “don’t”  and says, “I will do my best to deliver that for you”.  Don’t believe me? Ok try this one.  Don’t think of pink elephants. What did you think of?  The ‘don’t’  command is simply not computed by the mind.

All I ask is try out for one week just speaking in the affirmative and listen to the language used around you and become aware of your body energy.

Notice how you become the creator of your day, your week, your month, your life.

Beware of what emotions come up for these are your signals to what you need to pay attention to and resolve if they are holding you back.

To find out more call Doreen on 01628 675400

Last week I introduced my campaign to bring awareness as to what lies behind the western world’s growing problem of obesity, today I shall talk about ‘emotions’ and ‘feelings’, yes those driving forces and the touchy feely things we don’t like to talk about.

So lets start by identifying what I’m talking about, when I use the term ‘feelings’ I’m talking about how our emotions make us feel. The feeling is the physical expression of an emotion we feel inside, in our subconscious mind which is where emotions are generated.

Jumping with joy

As a hypnotherapist I tend to divide our behaviour into three parts conscious, subconscious and unconscious.

Research suggests that our conscious mind can only deal with seven to nine pieces of information at any given time, it’s no wonder we can feel overwhelmed easily these days.  However, it is very good at analysing these pieces of information allowing logical and rational decisions made all the time.

Subconscious the storehouse of our experiences, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and projections into the future. It is where our emotions are generated as a result of our experiences, beliefs and attitudes.

The unconscious mind is not actually unconscious as such, rather that we are not aware of it as it goes about its work.  It controls and monitors all our automatic bodily functions. This is also where our emotions which were generated in the subconscious are turned into feelings.

Let me just give you an example, when you experience the emotion fear the unconscious activates the physical response of releasing adrenaline, the heart rate increases, muscles tense up and breathing shortens and you feel anxious. This is why we often refer to our emotions as feelings.

There are many different opinions as to how many primary emotions we have and what they are rather than me explain it all check out Emotions explained. I would have used the heading ‘Feelings’ where he has said ‘Tertiary emotions’.

So what has all this got to do with obesity and how to lose weight?  It is about how our emotions and feelings affect us that makes the difference.  I am coming from the place that all emotions are ‘good’ in that they have a purpose it is what we make them mean that makes the difference.

Emotion is motivation, it is a psychological signal to take action. When we suppress our emotions and feelings we are suppressing our motivation a self saboteur develops.  One of the main ways of suppressing our emotions is by distraction techniques. We divert our attention from the pain of what is bothering us to something more pleasurable, well at least in the short term. See if you recognise this one, you feel bored and you reach for food.  Other common distracters are alcohol, gambling, TV, computer games, prescription and non-prescription drugs.

The reality is no amount of food or other distracter is going to satisfy the emotion so continuing to give the emotion what it does not need is not going to help. Motivation is gone and you feel bad and the cycle continues with more weight going on.

As our emotions and feelings are created in our subconscious so it makes sense to work with our subconscious mind to overcome the problem, this is where hypnotherapy is so effective.

I know from working with clients who have been on YoYo diets for years that obesity or overweight is not about the food.

Feeling content

To learn more about how hypnotherapy can help call Doreen 01628 675400 today or e-mail me.

I have been talking to friends and colleagues over the last few weeks about launching an awareness campaign about the feelings underneath eating disorders.  It has been really encouraging the number of people who feel strongly that obesity,  which is a serious problem in our society today.  Thanks especially go to the two Lorraines’s, Mark and Caroline for their active input so far.

So I emerged myself in getting a project plan together, filling in the goals, detailing the tasks which needed to take place and looking at what delegation is possible.

However, the truth was I didn’t feel any nearer to actually being ready to launch the campaign by Saturday 10^th November (well at least I had given it a date!!!).

Then last night I was blown away by nine year old Martha Payne who has raised not only awareness of the state of school meals but has raised £119,482.10 through Mary’s Meals Charity http://www.justgiving.com/neverseconds to help feed school children in 16 countries.

This is all good work and Martha has achieved what most of us will never do. I take my hat off to you girl, well done.

The bit that really inspired me and hit me between the eyes was Martha did not sit around creating ‘Vision statements’ or a project plan and setting out goals and wondering who would join her campaign. Martha just told her truth and kept telling her truth and people listened because her truth meant something to others.

Thank you Martha now it all seems much simpler to move forward, it is a matter of me going within to create my truth and simply speak and write my truth without attachment to the outcome.

What rattles my cage is the more the government, NHS and the diet industry focus on the food to overcome obesity  the further away we get to solving the roots of the problem.  The same food and yes,  a lot of it is processed and junk is available to the whole population yet the whole population is not obese. The real question is what causes people to eat in a unhealthy way?

In my experience in working with people who want to lose weight the problem is not one of giving us more

information about what we eat but an inner wisdom as to why we choose to eat what we eat.  I believe we are the shape and size that our subconscious mind believes we need to be and deserve to be. Protection and self-esteem are the driving forces.

Feel good inside and out

The subconscious mind is a primitive tool, its main objectives are:

1. SURVIVE,  survive at all costs (yes food is fundamental to achieving this)
2. Stay SAFE & COMFORTABLE

It is the stay SAFE & COMFORTABLE at an emotional level which is of most interest as there is enough food and no amount of food will satisfy an emotion. This is where the journey starts.

If you have any questions just give Doreen a call on 01628 675400 or e-mail me.

Sower of Seeds

So there we were at a Networking meeting discussing solopreneurs, (solo business person) how they evolve and the secret to success.  The way I found myself explaining it was like this. We start off with our bag of seeds and in our excitement to get going, we spread them far and wide.  In our rush some land on stony ground others take off in the wind, some grow yet turned out to be not what we thought we sowed so we scratch our head wondering if it was a weed or not.  As there is such a large area to cover with limited resources often there is little fruit. So some run back for another bag of seeds, others hang up their satchel disappointed and disillusioned. However, a few spot the healthy buds, check if they need transplanting to richer soil, then water and fertilise them with love and passion.

As Hamlet said, “Nothing is neither right nor wrong but thinking makes it so.”

It’s true we don’t always know what seeds are in the bag and there is nothing wrong with scattering them initially to see what might grow where. It is part of the growing process as a Solopreneurs.  It’s important to keep checking for which buds to nurture with our watering can and fertilizer.

Yet the most important thing of all is to look after the sower, for if they become overwhelmed, exhausted, anxious, confused or stuck, what can possibly be created.?  When you are struggling to find time to look after yourself, what I call  ‘self-care‘, you can easily find yourself running on empty, frustration and resentment creep in.  We can only reap what we sow.  The impact of loosing self confidence can be detrimental to the success of our dreams.

Hypnotherapy can help with building confidence and motivation.

If you would like a chat give me a call my initial consultation is free.

Doreen Gowing 01628 675400 or get in touch via e-mail.

My feeling of being selfish lead me to put all those who were really good at looking after other people on a pedestal, now I was feeling really bad about myself. Talk about abuse, I was getting very good at it. Yes, indeed it’s true it looked like others were doing a great

Aha! moment

job of being there for everyone and taking care of other people’s needs.

Just a thought, do you ever ask yourself, “is my ‘being nice’ or ‘being busy’ robbing me of my own life? If so, let me tell you, you are not alone, many people take on the role of caretaker or organiser extraordinaire.  What you may not realise, is the high personal price you pay for taking on the roles.

There is a very good reason the air crew remind us to put our own oxygen mask on first before we even put on our child’s mask.  However, in life we can sometimes run around the aircraft without our mask helping everyone, then wondering why they are all doing fine and we are totally, frustrated, annoyed, exhausted.

How do you value yourself? Not a question you asked recently? How do you feel about not having time for yourself? Does the idea of really looking after your own needs sound selfish, arrogant and uncaring?  If so … why?

There was nothing for it, I just somehow got it that I had to clean up my own act, deal with my own business before I could even attempt to help anyone else and I don’t mean as a therapist just as a human being.  The task is to love myself first and foremost. Wow! did that one stick in the throat?
Yes, it’s an ongoing work in progress just like life and I have to say it is worth every bit of the effort to feel calm, loving, free and energised …. yes, yes alive.

Very often we have learnt as a small child that looking after everyones’ needs are more important than looking after our-self. If we were rewarded with words of praise or treats when we sacrificed our own needs we learnt this is how I get rewarded. Back then our only real need was to feel safe, loved and approved of by those who took care of us. What messages did you receive when you wanted to play with your favourite toy? Can you hear that tone of voice now making you wrong or praising you for knowing what you wanted in life?

How our need for love and approval was satisfy as a child strongly influences our behaviour as an adult. When we are pinning our happiness on the approval, acknowledgement and love from others we are in for a bumpy ride.  Where is it written we are to love others MORE than ourselves?

How would it be to not take on any commitments which are done out of resentment or obligation?

Who is looking after you while you are looking after everyone else? Who says you are less important?

I’m talking about valuing self not being selfish. When my cup is empty from exhaustion, hurt, disappointment, anxiety and fear of what others might think of me. Can I really offer others love and support?

I’m talking about when my cup is full of love, peace and a positive outlook, I am in a much better place to share and support.

I’m talking about loving myself and by that I mean looking after myself in every way possible.

Is life running away from you? It will continue to gain speed unless you put on the brakes.

Tips for creating change:

Imagine feeling completely motivated to look after yourself.

Imagine feeling in control when you look at the in-tray, vending machine or fridge.

Imagine feel calm and in control when the kids are running wild.

If it was your best friend do you think they deserve all this?

Why would you not want the same for yourself?

What are the obstacles in your way?

Doreen Gowing

PS

If you would still like some help just give me a call on 01628 675400 and we can have a chat about how I can help you. Or check out my http://www.shamrockhypnotherapy.co.uk