Stronger-Mind Hypnotherapy is now offering Wellbeing Workshops

I am looking for some groups/teams to trial this with free of charge. 

If you know of anyone please do get in-touch. 

Why…well you can only get the best from your team if they are at their best!

Stronger-Mind Hypnotherapy offers bespoke wellbeing workshops for groups, teams and schools. Participant will leave feeling more:

• in-control
• motivated
• confident
• empowered
• and happy

What:

• One – Two hour session tailored for your workplace.
• Explanation of how and why the brain works the way it does, especially when we are feeling stressed, anxious, or angry.
• How to promote personal wellbeing + strategies/techniques to do so.
• How to create your own solution focused next steps.
• 15 minute relaxation/trace session to end.

Each participant will leave with:

• Wellbeing Workbook which includes the brain explanation + strategies/techniques
• Access to my hypnotherapy MP3 recording
• Free 20 minute individual conversation for those who wish to book

Sessions will now be available online on a Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evening. 

 

I wrote this after a serious of conversation with a work colleague at the start of the year, where we would ask how each of us were, our reply was always “fine”. The following is my exploration of this word and reflecting on what it means to me.

Fine

How are you I ask?

“fine” “Im really fine” she says unconvincingly.

“I’m fine, it’s all fine.” She says again!

“So, it’s not fine” I reply, knowing that under that surface level of ‘fine’…things are in fact not fine!

So what kind of fine is this? Is this an ask more ‘fine’ or is it I don’t want to talk about it ‘fine’

 

Whatever fine it is what does it even mean?

Does fine mean – she’s ok? She’s good? She’s happy?

Fine may mean her heart is breaking.

Fine may mean that she is gasping for air.

Fine may mean she can’t see any joy in tomorrow.

Or fine may just mean exactly that, that she is just fine.

Kicking a can down a road to no wear in particular.

 

But I know that she uses fine so she can cope, so she doesn’t need to look deeper, to cover up the mess inside.

Fine is her coping mechanism, her wall, her defensive mechanism.

Fine lets her deceive herself, lets her box in how she feels and move on.

Sometimes saying she’s fine is the only way she can get through the day, can get through that moment.

 

What if she could be real?

What if she could let her guard down and actually say how she feels and not cover it up with the “f” word?

 

Why is it such a battle?

Why is there a war?

At her core she believes that she is unlovable, so actually being fine is not so bad at all, not so bad at all.

She feels that fine is what she deserves, fine is her lot.

 

Yet… she is not unlovable in fact she is very much loved. This she knows in her head but her heart, her heart is so crushed so poisoned by her own thoughts that it just does not register.

 

Why can’t she show herself love?

Why can’t she treat herself the way she treats other people?

Why does she not allow people to show her love the way she shows love?

Until she can do this. Until she can show herself love and care for her own heart she will always be just fine.

 

But…she doesn’t want to be just fine.

She wants to be good, happy, content, or does she even dare to say that she wants to thrive, flourish, and be joyful.

Is she wrong to want to strive for this, to refuse to settle for fine.

 

She catches glimpses of the smallest of small glimmers, of something, something that brings a smile to her face and a warmth to her heart and for that split second, she realises, even believes that being fine is just not going to cut it anymore, it’s just not enough.

 

At times she glimpses the extraordinary, moments of love, moments of hope. She sees the joy of family and friends. She sees a rainbow in the sky, a bird in flight, the dawn breaking, a cat lying in the sun and oh so many glimmers of life that add up to more than fine.

 

Know that she is worthy of more than fine.

Know that she is worth more than fine.

Know that she deserves more than fine.

Know that she longs for more than fine.

 

So how does she do this? How does she move past fine to a life of colour, vibrancy and worth?

 

Well… she chooses to stop listening to the lie that ‘fine’ is her lot.

She chooses to be brave by doing the hard things that may hurt but need done.

She chooses to stop putting herself down and for once put herself first.

She chooses to take chances and seize opportunities that come her way.

She chooses to love and be loved.

She chooses to live this one wild, extraordinary life to the full.

 

Most of all she chooses to be her, no addons, no extras.

She chooses to be courageously true to herself, to her heart, to her soul and to her mind.

She chooses to be free from a life that is ruled by the word fine.

I was watching a film recently and it put forth the notion that you have the power to reinvent yourself into the person you want to become. That, if you choose to “think, act, talk and conduct” yourself to be a certain person then eventually you will become that person. I guess its just a fancier way of saying “fake it till you make it”

Having thought about this over the last week I believe that it all comes down to mindset. We have the power within us to choose how to act in our day-to-day lives. However, we often feel like we do not have that choice due to many reasons but mainly fear. That fear may be real, but it often is just perceived.

Our brains are rather powerful entities, but they can also be our worst enemy. Our brain cannot tell the difference between imagination and reality meaning that for example, if we think we are courageous and we think it enough we will start to embody that characteristic. However, the opposite is also true the more we think about things going wrong and that we are not courageous then we come to believe it and live out that life. Each time we choose to not do what we really want to do we become less of the person we want to be. Therefore, we feel less in control and anxiety starts to set in. It can get to the point that, that choice we once had becomes subconscious and our brain just does what it is used to doing.

When I work with clients, we look at this and how they can get that decision making power back. They once again have a choice and regain that sense of control.

Ask yourself this question today “Who do I want to be?” How do you want to think, act, talk and conduct yourself? Remember that you do have the choice to be who you want to be, but sometimes we need a little help to get there. To feel like we do and feel in control once again.

I am pleased to announce that face to face sessions are now available on Sunday afternoons in Kingswells. I get to work out of this lovely garden room that is part of Perfect Beauty.

I saw the following article “Find Your Priorities” in a magazine and found it equally helpful and challenging. I hope it does the same for you.

Be totally honest with yourself. Once you know who you want to be, start making changes – even small, incremental ones make a difference – that every day you can get closer in alignment with your goal. Scale back on low-priority tasks and events, focusing on the people and projects that really matter, and that includes you. Give them your attention, energy, and love.

Some questions to ask yourself:
– What makes you happy?
– What do you love to do more than anything?
– What are you most proud of?
– What makes you relax?
– Where do you want to go, how do you want to get there?
– Who do you want to become?

Make some time this week to think about these questions. Find your priorities and give them your attention, energy, and love.

Excited to launch my new programme “Get Exam Ready” for those with up coming exams!

 

 

 

Audacity
May you dare to follow your heart and your own inner voice at all costs.
May you willingly take bold risks and chances in service of creating your best and most beautiful life.
May you see fear and pain and courageously move forward in spite of it all.
May you follow your values and not be swayed by pressure from others.
May you see good where others see darkness.
May you be light when others are heavy.
May you create love where there is none.

Excerpt from “Radiant Rainbows” by Jessica Swift

I found this extremely thought provoking and challenging. What do I need to do to create my ‘best and most beautiful life’?
Have a think, but don’t allow your mind to get overwhelmed. Break it down into tiny steps. Ant size steps.
Ask yourself…what is one small thing that I can do or change that would help me make that first ant size step to living my ‘best and beautiful life’?
It is saying no to something or someone or saying yes? Is it applying for a new job? Is it being kind to yourself? Creating a boundary?
Whatever it is…have the audacity and “courageously move forward.”

Hello everyone!

So sorry that I have not posted for a while. I was taking some time out to focus on something else that I love, drawing.

Here is why. Having read the next part of “Stop Overthinking – Master your Emotions.” I knew I needed to take some time to do something that allowed me to switch off.

“Doing activities that you enjoy will be a balm for your anxieties and your negative emotions. It will be profitable for you and help you get your mind away from negativity. Do not deprive yourself of these activities; make time for them occasionally; your health requires it, and it is something you deserve”.

I have loved being inside my creative bubble and experimenting with how I go about drawing. I get lost in drawing, “when we do something we like, we do not notice the passage of time; our mind is absorbed and totally motivated by what we do”.

As much as I have loved spending time drawing, I have almost pendulum swung to the other side, where I spend 4-5 hours drawing per night to the detriment of other things. Something that was so useful to start with, is now verging on becoming a problem in itself.

This is how our mind works. We find something that we enjoy, that helps us feel better, or switch off and then we carry out that activity. Our brains become used to this and new files are created.  These files say do said activity = feel good. So the files get bigger and stronger each time we do that activity. We all want to feel good so we do it more and more and more.

The problem occurs when the need to do the activity no longer helps you. When it becomes an addiction, where if you don’t do it for a few days, (or even hours), you start to feel anxious and unsettled.  We need to reassess things.

Files that help us can also be files that hinder us if we don’t learn how to stay in control. When we start to say “I have to draw”, “I have to get to the gym”, “I have to”… in order to feel good – this is when we really need to look at what we are doing and ask:

1. Am I still in control or has my subconscious mind taken over?
2. Is this file that is getting bigger and bigger still is as useful and needed as before?
3. Do I tell myself that if I can’t do_______ then I will not feel as good?

Taking time to do your hobbies and passions is really important, but it is just as important to make sure that you are the one staying in control of them and how you are feeling and not the other way around.

I am working on this nuance, as I love to draw and it feels great, but I need to remind my brain that I don’t have to do it in order to feel good. I need to stay in control, because when we feel in control, we then are able to make rational decisions – which allows us to get the best from ourselves.

Quotes from ‘Stop Overthinking – Master your Emotions’ by Philip Gibson

I was given a wonderful book by a friend called “The Right Words – when you need them the most” – Donna Ashworth

This is one of the pages from this book. I hope it speaks to you.

If you think grief has a time limit 

You have likely never lost, a piece of your heart.

Everything looks different and will never look the same again. And that never lessens, we only become accustomed, to handling it, to hiding it.

If you think grief has a time limit, you have never lost a piece of your heart and for that, you should be truly grateful.

If you think that the days, months and years will somehow erase the extent of the loss, then you have never been unlucky enough to lose a love. You are blessed, my friend.

For life without that piece of you, is a new life indeed. Is it a new world when the person you miss is no longer here.

Every day is a mountain to climb, battling the waves of emotion, when a song plays, a smell reminds or a memory rears.

You may think time is healing the hurt, then you enter a new phase of your life; a relationship, a child, a grandchild, a new opportunity and you realise you cannot share it with your missing part.

The waves bear down fresh as they were on the very first day.

Let the grieving grieve for a long as they must and if you want to help, love them more.

Love is the only way.