Over the past twenty years we have seen a huge shift in our understanding of what can cause illness. This new way of dealing with disease is one that recognises that our experiences are metabolised into biology. Throughout our life our external environment and our inner experiences are reflected in our health. So what is conscious medicine? Conscious medicine is a term that has been used more and more over the last few years. From a conscious medicine perspective your mind and body is one vast integrated network of intelligence that responds to your environment, thoughts and beliefs. New scientific discoveries have shown the belief that our DNA and our cellular activity is fixed and responds to rigid programming is wrong. In fact quite the opposite happens, as your cells are continually reacting to stimuli from your physical and energetic environment. Even your DNA does not wholly determine if you get a disease or not, as the cells in your DNA can activate DNA programming – or not. Our thoughts and unconscious beliefs affect our physical experience The growing body of scientific evidence that demonstrates how your mind and body are inextricably linked; has uncovered the mechanisms by which your body receives and processes information. This information highlights what Eastern philosophy has believed for thousands of years. That we cannot separate our mind and body, as our emotions and beliefs are the driving force behind the chemicals that create our physical experience. Although your body will constantly strive to be balanced and healthy, trauma, anxiety, anger or a sense of isolation can change your chemical make up and negatively impact on your physical well-being. However the good news is that when we make choices and changes that bring happiness your body’s natural healing mechanisms and chemicals flood into action. Disease doesn’t often happen in an instance Diseases such as cancer can take years to manifest. Cells can start to act strangely and mutate decades before they would start to present as illness. Ingrained patterns of unhelpful beliefs can churn on until the effects start to become obvious. A busy life can mean that you pay little attention to your overall health until a yellow card is held up to make you stop and address the problem. Your body can change if you re train your thoughts The reductionist view of ‘modern medicine’ where if you have a skin complaint you will see a skin specialist and so on, often bypasses your rich network of healing communication throughout the whole body. Just as this network can create an internal chemical soup that cause illness it can also be used to re create wellbeing. By training your mind to hold healthy beliefs you can affect the trillions of cells that make up your body. Just as your in built mechanism for physical balance can go off course you can learn how to get it on track again. Our new workshop teaches skills that will help anyone who is looking for a route
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Bursting with good feelings after feedback from students on the hypnotherapy diploma
OK so I am not one to shout how wonderful we are at Within Sight but I am sort of bursting with lovely feelings as I have just finished the mid term 360 degree feedback chats we do – let me explain. Half way through the course, which is about now – we collate the feedback from the two client sessions the student has done and all the other points of assessed work. We chat to their mentor and the student and formulate feedback that helps them to have a really clear picture of what they have done well and where they now need to concentrate their attention for the next stage of the course. Its 360 as we also ask for feedback about us. And I have just listened to the most encouraging and uplifting things about the course and the team. Things like – ‘I did not know i would be this well supported.’ ” you and the team really know your stuff and teach in a way that makes the information easy to remember.’ ‘So glad I choose this course as as the level you guys are teaching is preparing so well for doing this as a career.’ So my chest is pushed out as far as it can be right now:)
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How to Become Your Authentic Self.
Step into your power – lead a conscious life Learn key steps to take towards generating a life that is all of the above and more Ok so if you think I have gone hook line and sinker into the world of self-development – just to let you know they are not my words! Just quoting what I read and hear many times in the media. Taken at face value these expressions have a great ring to them don’t they? But what do the words mean? Well they mean different things to different people. In the psychology business we call them nominalizations. Words or sentences that are non-specific but enable you to get a message across that will be personally meaningful. Using this sort of language you can inspire good feelings for each individual listening. Some of the most powerful speeches recorded, cemented their magnificence because they inspired hope. The power in the great political speeches over the last few decades didn’t give detail of government reforms but those grand sweeping sentences created general feelings of positive change or national pride. And that’s what the catch phrases in the title of this blog do. Wouldn’t it feel amazing to step into your personal power? Lead a conscious life or become your authentic self? You could try to do that right now but whoah – do you know what to do first? Not sure? So let me share some steps that will help you to identify what makes you feel hopeful or happy and how to make sure your life generates more of those good feelings. Make sure you get to read our four blog posts over the next two weeks that show you How to Become Your Authentic Self: 1. Identify what makes you happy, sound crazy? Well lots of people know what they don’t want but often have little idea of what they want to head for. So we are going to take a look at the importance of knowing your core values 2. How to live a life that is consistent with your core values 3. How to develop confidence in your intuition when making decisions. Your intuition can be a life long aid to guide you towards creating a fulfilling and happy life 4. How to stay on the path of your true self – despite the sweeping changes we are seeing in our society. How not to be crushed by the culture of fear that grips and stifles so many of our commercial institutions. Stay creative and find the confidence to take risks to remain on track
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Use Hypnosis to Help Yourself
Use Hypnosis to Help Yourself Part 4 in our mini series on hypnosis Yesterday you learnt that • we navigate our world through our senses and the emotions evoked by these senses are the glue that fixes our instincts in place – the greater the emotion the stronger the instinct • your imagination acts like a reality simulator so when you think about something great or sad, your body then creates responds as if the event that you are thinking about is really happening • in REM your mind and body do not know the difference between what is real and what isn’t. So a hypnotherapist can guide you to a new experience that changes unhelpful instincts Today discover how you unconsciously train your mind to evolve negative instincts, how to stop this and make sure you help yourself instead In the clinic’s that have worked in I have seen thousands of people who have sought help because they feel anxious, angry, jealous or depressed. Often we can do little about the situation that caused the problems but these people get better. So how does that happen? Well the change comes when they see the problem in a new light. So if you felt you were not good enough for a new job, you are likely feel anxious during the interview and preoccupied with feeling pretty rotten inside. However if you were able to access a relaxed state and felt determined to give that interview your best shot – you would get into flow with the questions and have a good chance of doing well. How you feel in any situation can depend on how you used your imagination to build your emotions about a future event. Your imagination is a powerful tool and the more that you imagine the deeper you are in REM or hypnosis. The emotions generated during this time are believed to be so real that the body responds by memorizing then laying down instinctive behaviour and corresponding thoughts. In one of the hypnosis workshops that I teach I did a demo with a man who loved to be in the sunshine. During the hypnotic session I guided his imagination to a time when he last enjoyed being in the sun. Beads of sweat started to appear on his forehead and within minutes his white linen shirt was wet with perspiration. When he came around from the hypnosis he said he had been transported back a few months previously when he was on a beach in India and the sun was beating down. Remember that our imagination draws us in to hypnosis and so whilst this man developed an inner picture of being on that beach his body really thought it was there. And produced sweat to help him cool down – a natural response to the body feeling over heated. Now whilst perspiring when hot is a natural in-built response you can also create instinctive behavior too. When you focus you can create a hypnotic response and create a
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How Hypnosis Changes Behaviour
How Hypnosis Changes Instinctive Behaviour Part 3 in our mini series on Hypnosis – How Hypnosis Changes Behaviour Yesterday you learnt that • in REM we learn and lay down new patterns of instinctive behaviour • your instinctive behaviours are stored in your unconscious mind so it makes sense to go into REM and accesses your unconscious mind to update those problematic instincts Lets check out how we embed and update our instincts in REM. Whist I was at a party last weekend, I met a guy who was telling me all about his recent holiday to Sri Lanka. His language was rich and evocative as he regaled stories about the beautiful long sandy beaches, the sunshine that glittered on the sea and the smell of fish being cooked on open fires. I felt like I was there and could almost smell the sea and smoke, it was a lovely feeling. He went on to talk about the local people who are really poor by western standards yet would give you the shoes they walk on – the devastation from the tsunami still evident in many parts and the stories he had gathered from some of those people that had lost so much. I found it hard to hold back the tears, and no I wasn’t going to weep in front of a stranger. What on earth had happened here to make my emotions cascade through feeling wonderful and then tearful? Quite simply this guy had a gift of telling stories and like all good storytellers he had been able to captivate my attention through evoking my senses. I had lost sight of other friends and fun happening around me and was living his story. We understand and relate to our world through our senses Any story that has a meaning to you or that engages you will naturally turn your attention inwards and access REM. A child listening to a scary story will believe that it is really happening and feel frightened. They will not be able to tell the difference between what is real or not. The same goes for us adults, if you think about going for an interview that you do not want to go to, your tummy may turn over with a burst of anxiety. It might be a week away but by imagining that scary time your body really thinks that interview is happening. On the other hand when you are daydreaming about something you are really looking forward to then you will have pleasant feelings. By thinking about anything that conjures up emotion your instincts will learn to make a partnership. If you love to swim and think about getting into the water your body will begin to produce a good feeling, however if you hate swimming and you think of going to the pool the likelihood is that a pang of anxiety will flit across your stomach. Each time you access these thoughts those practiced reactions will become more instinctual. Our imagination is
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How Hypnosis works – updating our instinctive behaviour
Part 2 in our mini series about hypnosis Yesterday you learnt that hypnosis is not some weird watch swinging process that happens on stage. It is an essential part of what it takes to be a human being. Hypnosis is a natural state akin to dreaming which happens during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) phase of sleep. Today we are going to learn why REM paves the way for beneficial change. In REM we lay down new templates of understanding During the last trimester of pregnancy a foetus spends vast amount of its time in REM. During this time instinctive behaviours are programmed so when the baby is born it can grasp, suck and build rapport. REM factors large in the first seven years of life, you would have spent much more time in REM than you do now. This is when you would have learnt more than at any other phase of your life. So, as an adult it makes sense to go back into REM when you want to change your instinctive behaviour or embed new learning. Problems are held at an unconscious level If problems were held at a logical level oh how easy would it be for anyone to stop thinking or behaving in ways that caused difficulties. A smoker would be able to sit down, give himself a good talking to and never want another cigarette again. However this is not the case. Even if a smoker manages to stop, there would be many who got a whiff of a cigarette who would be consumed with longing. That’s because their instincts have been programmed to expect a cigarette. Even though their conscious mind has been strong enough to resist reaching for one, their unconscious mind perpetuates creates the craving. Lots of thoughts behaviours and feelings are generated and stored at this unconscious level. For example, if you think of a time you were embarrassed or nervous, my guess is that you didn’t think ‘ok now I am going to bring on a blush’ or ‘I am going to start to panic in two minutes.’ No, you realized you were blushing like a beacon way after your body had started the chemicals rolling to create those flushed cheeks. And no matter how much you tried to stop that heat flooding your face you couldn’t. That’s because reaction is instinctive. Your mind somehow learnt to associate something with embarrassment and once it gets the trigger it goes on to produce the corresponding emotional response. We need to go into the REM state to update instincts If your mind has learnt to associate cigarettes with feeling calm it makes sense if you want to stop those cravings that you go to the place where the problems hang out. This is the case for any unconscious response that you want to change. Last year I worked with a lady who was very stressed and prone to frequent bouts of anger. Although she was petite she described how her rages
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What is Hypnosis?
What is Hypnosis? Do you know the story of the fish that managed to escape his watery confines and took a trip over the beach and into a small town? OK, so he spent some time looking around at buildings and people and had no idea what they were. The mind of that little fish was whirring as he flipped and flopped back to the sea. He was so excited about seeing his friends and could not wait to tell them about the world beyond the ocean. The word soon spread that the missing fish had returned and a great crowd gathered on the seabed. Our fish started to explain about the funny looking fish that walk upright, have one gill in the middle of their face and don’t need to live in water – the spellbound audience gapped open mouthed, then one small fish gurgled ‘what is water?’ Hypnosis is an essential part of our human existence The ocean was such an integral part of the fish that they could not distinguish themselves from the water. Just like that water, the hypnotic state is a natural part of being a human being. It is everywhere in our experience – we just don’t realize it. Over the next two weeks we are going to write a series of blogs to build your knowledge of hypnosis but the first thing that will contribute to a clearer understanding of hypnosis is to know that it is a natural brain wave state for all humans. The hypnotic state has several essential functions but lets start building your knowledge by bringing three essential elements of hypnosis to your attention. 1. The Unconscious Mind To keep explanations simple at this stage lets just say that the unconscious mind is everything that you are not aware of right now. You don’t consciously recall everything you have ever learnt all the time. This information is stored as patterns and associations in your unconscious mind. And your past experiences are filed as multi sensory imprints that can be accessed consciously or unconsciously. The unconscious mind becomes like one huge storage depot. If you had to be conscious of everything from how to digest food and grow your hair to thinking about what you have to do to engage in conversation – your brain would become totally overwhelmed. What we learn and experience simply gets filed away and becomes instinctive behavior stored in our unconscious mind. 2. Focus of attention When people talk about hypnosis being like a daydream they talk about how we often forget driving part of familiar route. Or read a newspaper and have no idea of what we have just read. And how many of us have lost a few minutes when dreaming of what we would do when we win the lottery? When you focus time can slip by and it can feel as if you have been in a dream. Getting lost in a good book, surfing the internet or playing a favourite sport
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Therapy or Coaching? – What Does a Client need?
How do I decide between Therapy or Coaching? There has been many ponderings on the essential differences between therapy and coaching. Writers have pointed out that if you have problems and are anxious you need therapy. If you are fine but want to make improvements to your life – opt for a series of coaching sessions. They go on to say therapy involves various interventions to change an unhelpful outlook. And coaching aims to help the client find answers and insights to issues through questions. Both facilitate change but in different ways. In essence that is a helpful guideline but the lines are blurred particularly when a therapist like myself uses solution focused brief therapy. However I have found that being aware of either side of that line is really helpful when setting goals with my clients. A time for therapy Gerry was suicidal. Two years prior to seeing me he had been mugged, he had also nursed his father though the latter stages of terminal cancer. After returning to work he was distressed to discover that the company he had devoted many years to, had severe financial difficulties. His job was on the line and this became the straw that broke the camels back. The threat of redundancy and cutbacks caused Gerry high anxiety and sleepless nights. Exhausted and worried he slipped into depression. When he first came to see me I found that Gerry had developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the mugging and the trauma of nursing his father. Not knowing if he would be made redundant or not had increased the pressure and thrown him into a highly emotional state. The constant rumination and worry locked him into a negative train of thoughts. The goal was clear – Calm down the emotions first So what did I do? In the presence of high anxiety there is only one route and that is to break the grip of the PTSD and anxiety. The brain does not know the difference between what is real and imagined. Worrying about loosing your job or it really happening causes the body to respond in the same way. When fear is present the conscious logical mind is made to play second fiddle to the highly aroused emotional brain. PTSD and anxiety acts like a magnet to attention No matter how brilliant your talking approach is, unless you are able to calm a stressed out ruminating mind, the person sat in front of you will not be available for change. Fear will cause attention to constantly be drawn to the stimulus and feelings around those fears. High emotion stops coaching questions being processed Any amount of inspired questions from an attentive coach will be like water off a ducks back as the brain struggles to process words and their meaning. Creative thinking is bypassed as worry imprisons the imagination, curtailing positive problem solving or the development of new ideas. Thinking out of the box requires the person being coached to be ‘present’ A
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Hypnotherapy Training Diploma – Weekend 4
Hypnotherapy Diploma – first client sessions enjoyed by students On Sunday morning there were a few apprehensive faces around as the first assessment of the hypnotherapy diploma 2011 began. The students worked on each other for an hour in an improvised client session, whilst being observed by a supervisor. Glad to report that that the students were all smiles as they left having really enjoyed the day. Many reporting how much they had learnt and how surprised they were at being able to recall so much of what they had been taught. News of clear and confident recall is always reassuring to hear as we have developed a way of teaching that follows the current wisdom of how people learn best. Not just the standard ‘Tell, show, do’ but we bring in discussion and recall repetition to help cement the new knowledge. So for example the assessed sessions are followed up by the student writing a report, then the supervisor writes one too and these are then passed on to the students mentor for discussion in their next monthly call. We are very clear that any therapist needs to be able to apply the skills they have learnt on their hypnotherapy training diploma to working with clients, so we do four assessed sessions, the next three are with members of the public that we bring in. It is a great opportunity to help our students flourish under the expert guidance of our top notch supervisors. The next client session is on June 5th, the session is free and clients report back having really noticed the benefits of the session. So if you or any one would like to take advantage of these session, call us on 01273 738 663.
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Hypnosis weekend – interview with past students
Hypnosis weekend at Within Sight – interview with past students to see what they got out of it. Ian and Becky Sherred now practising hypnotherapists, look back on their first weekends training and tell you how the knowledge and skills changed their lives. http://www.hypnotherapyhampshire.com/2011/01/learn-hypnosis-how-will-it-change-your.html
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