Roger Foxwell Hypnotherapy | Clinical Hypnotherapy – Emotional Freedom Technique – NLP – IBVA

A good friend of mine phoned the other day to tell me about some emotional issues that had arisen that he was having difficulty coming  to terms with.  As we spoke it became clear that he did not really have any plan in mind about how to tackle the problem and really just wanted to talk over the situation with me.

Obviously I empathised with how he was feeling but when I realised that he had no plan or even desire to change how he felt about the situation I suggested that this might be the very best time to readjust how he felt about things. Obviously this would mean some emotional work would need to be done but wasn’t the issue trying to tell him something?

When an issue arises in our lives it often seems easier to try to ignore it, soldier on, pretend it will go away or even use it as a way of letting everyone know how difficult things are for us at the moment. But if there is some area of our lives that needs sorting out it has been brought to our attention for a reason and this is the very time when we should be working on it. Using it as a prop or hoping it will go away means that it is never addressed or resolved. It is easy to become more understanding, more spiritual or more likable when everything is going well. It is when things are tough that we need to put in the effort to move ourselves on positively in our life.

I am a fan of the tv series “The Dog Whisperer” where celebrity dog trainer Cesar Millan takes badly behaved dogs and rehabilitates them (but first he has to retraining the owners!). One of his sayings is “a bad moment is a good time to rehabilitate yourself.” That moment really could be telling you that now is the time to make a change.

If you are interested in finding out more about how you can raise your level of consciousness or even if you are not thinking about it you could click this interesting link- The Three Vibrations of Consciousness

I will be surprised if there are many people who have not heard the words “credit crunch” by now. Even in the paper shop today I heard it mentioned by a customer and we are constantly being bombarded with these words in the media every day. Now, this is not a political blog and I am sure we all have plenty of ideas as to why we are in this state but just imagine that you never read papers watched the TV or listened to the radio. You would be quite unaware of what everyone else is talking about constantly and more to the point your outlook on life would be no different to the way it was a year or ten years ago. In your mind there is no “credit crunch”. But there again although we are constantly thinking about it, it is still only in our mind. Unfortunately I do not have a crystal ball so I have no idea what tomorrow or the next day will bring but are we not already acting as if tomorrow is already here? Our minds are already energising a negative situation and making it worse!

So where are the reactions to these fear messages generated? Briefly the brain is in fact three brains and it is the outer layer, the neo cortex that is the developed thinking brain we use to make our rational, considered decisions. When a powerfully threatening thought or event comes our way then our “lower” brains kick into action and take over the whole system getting us ready to “fight or flight”. Unfortunately this reaction also kicks in at times when we are not in a life threatening situation and overpowers our powers of reason and logic.

I am afraid that politicians and media manipulators know how to press these buttons because they want you to look to them for protection from these fears real or imaginary. Ask yourself when did you last worry about bird flu or the planet freezing! Every day we are being bombarded with real and imaginary fears to occupy our minds with. I personally think that we should be taking more steps to look after our planet but then we should have been doing that years ago not just because someone has “discovered” global warming. Whether you believe in global warming or not be on your guard when these things are being used as a tool to frighten you. Allow yourself to stand back from the situation and use whatever techniques you can (e.g. meditation, breathing, relaxation exercises) to help keep your thinking in the rational part of the brain and do not be bullied into being frightened. At least then if there is any crisis you will be able to cope much more effectively. I personally use EFT on a daily basis to help keep my thinking as clear as possible and help avoid getting sucked into any de energising mass panic.

There have and always will be difficult times but do not let yourself become overwhelmed by the constant mental battering that we are subjected to by media and politics today.

Self Help books have been out a long time now. Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” was published in 1937 at the end of the Great Depression and is still in print now. This was the forerunner of a mountain of similar publications that have followed since. One piece of advice that turns up time and again in probably every book of that genre is that if we don’t formulate our goals clearly they are unlikely to materialise. There is so much information out there about setting goals that a browse round your local bookshop will offer you a large selection of motivational books with plenty of hints, tips and ways of doing just that. However maybe Lewis Carol also had something to say about it in “Alice In Wonderland.”

Alice came to the fork in the road.
“Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” responded the Cheshire cat.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

That was written in 1865!

“The person who conducts is not the same person who is sitting here..there’s a moment of metamorphosis..you have to change..if you haven’t really tried to undergo that metamorphosis you’d better not go on stage.” That was Sir Simon Rattle talking in an interview for the BBC programme “Imagine” in which the cameras followed the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on a tour of China. But this was no documentary of lost instruments and double booked hotel rooms but a real in depth look at how the elite musicians in this world renowned orchestra cope with the physical and psychological pressures of performing to the very highest standard each time they walk onto the concert platform.

So what did Sir Simon Rattle mean by this “metamorphosis” he talks about undergoing, and how can we achieve it in our professional and competitive challenges? A lot of my clients come to improve their presentation and self confidence in sport, music, and business but to get the best results we often have to leave behind the everyday person that our friends and relatives know and take on the persona that will get the job done. This persona has no room for doubts and worries about our abilities and has to be completely focused and at the very least give an appearance of confidence on the outside. This does not mean one has to completey leave behind the real you but it does mean that to get results you need to develop a strong degree of focus, determination and self confidence to really achieve your true potential. There are many ways to develop this and one is to find someone in your field that you admire and can relate to and “take on the mask” of that person when you are in your performance situation. Ask yourself what would they think, feel, hear and see in this situation? How would they react to enable them to get the best results?  Then start to bring these attributes into your own performance situations.  Just be sure to choose a role model that uses their skills in an empowering and structured way then you will begin to develop extra skills and techniques that will give your that extra performance edge.

Liked this post from helpothers.org so thought I would pass it on.

“One of my teachers had each one of us bring a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes. For every person we’d refuse to forgive in our life, we were told to choose a potato, write on it the name and date, and put it in the plastic bag. Some of our bags, as you can imagine, were quite heavy.

We were then told to carry this bag with us everywhere for one week, putting it beside our bed at night, on the car seat when driving, next to our desk at work.

The hassle of lugging this around with us made it clear what a weight we were carrying spiritually, and how we had to pay attention to it all the time to not forget, and keep leaving it in embarrassing places.

Naturally, the condition of the potatoes deteriorated to a nasty slime. This was a great metaphor for the price we pay for keeping our pain and heavy negativity!

Too often we think of forgiveness as a gift to the other person, and while that’s true, it clearly is also a gift for ourselves!

So the next time you decide you can’t forgive someone, ask yourself… Isn’t MY bag heavy enough?”

- from www.pravsworld.com

There is a saying “Watch what you say around your body-it may be listening.”

A client came to see me last week to improve their performance in their sport and told me that they were working with a new trainer but were beginning to notice doubts creeping in. They then told me that their trainer had a habit of saying things like ” Are you feeling nervous?” or “Are you ok?” before a competition. Well you don’t need me to tell you that surprise, surprise they were beginning to feel nervous. Very nervous!

Someone else throwing careless statements our way is one thing but how many times do we do the same thing to ourselves or others? Just listen very carefully to your own self talk and be sure that to avoid giving yourself a continuous diet of negative thoughts. Your body and your mind is listening to everything you say and so is everyone else’s that you come into contact with.

If you Google “I’ve learned”you should get various versions of a poem I rather like or you can try this link at Indian Child You can continue to add whtever you like but I felt it worth adding “life does not always go the way or do the things that we want it to.”

How often do we feel frustrated or cheated that we didn’t get what we wanted, that we “missed out”, that “we deserved better” and how does that leave us feeling? It probably happens much more than we care to think but what is this sort of thinking doing to us? It builds up resentment, disappointment, frustration, and anger, all emotions that I would call toxic, and toxic emotions will drain our energy, warp our thinking and weaken our bodies diverting us from attaining our positive intentions.

Next time life doesn’t go the way you had thought it should why not try stepping back for a moment. Allow yourself to go with the flow. Acknowledge your feelings while allowing yourself to let them go. The feelings are natural but hanging on to them will not help. Learning from your experience and accepting will help you to “regroup” and use your energy in a much more positive and beneficial way.

How long does it take to change a habit and make it stick? The accepted view is that between 21 and 30 days is the time span to change a habit and feel that it has become part of your lifestyle. Most of my clients wishing to stop smoking will find that they have no desire to do so as soon as they have finished the session but what if you want to stop smoking, change an eating pattern or even an attitude but would like to try a good old dose of will power? Well, why not give yourself a free 30 day trial?
We are all more predisposed to putting our money down on goods or a service if we feel that we have some guarantee in case we are not happy. On the other hand we find it harder to stick at something if we do not have a clear goal in our head. This goal may be feeling healthier if we stop smoking or lose weight, or changing an attitude and improving a relationship but if we do not give ourselves a goal as to how long we are going to stick at it to experience the benefits we may soon lose direction and give up.
So go on, give yourself a 30 day free trial. It’s free so what are you waiting for. You may find you like the change so much you don’t want to give it back!

Went to one of my favourite coffee shops today hoping to get a seat outside, sit in the sun and read my paper. Guess what? All the outside seating had been taken! Hardly surprising considering how nice the weather was. So I just had to sit inside where it was a bit stuffy and noisy. Now this may not be a very exciting event but what did it tell me?

Sometimes what we imagine we are going to get is not always what we end up with. I had a very clear picture in my mind of enjoying myself in the sun and spending a pleasant hour or so outside. It is very easy to expect everything in our lives to go perfectly to plan and then be left wondering why events did not fit with our own idea of how they should have gone. Whether or not I get to sit outside on a sunny day is not that important but if a small disappointment leaves us feeling cheated how do we cope with other more important changes?

It makes a lot of sense to plan but life does not always follow the plans we have set out for ourselves. Life is not static but throws up surprises and changes often when we least expect it. We need to be fluid and adaptable, to be able to go with the flow when things change. If not we leave ourselves open to feeling cheated, stuck and disappointed on a permanent basis. If we imagine it is our given right to enjoy that table in the sun every time we want it how do we cope when we don’t get it?

Rumi, the Persian poet said:

“Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralysed”

He wrote that in the 13th. century. The question is do we paralyse our enjoyment and connection with life because we have been denied something we want or can we allow ourselves freedom to adapt and go with the flow of life?