Roger Foxwell Hypnotherapy Glasgow Hamilton Dumbarton Lanark Stirling Dumfries Dunblane Helensburgh Motherwell Falkirk Cumbernauld Kilmarnock Ayr | Hypnosis Clinical Hypnotherapy – Emotional Freedom Technique – NLP – IBVA Hypnosis Treatment

When I first meet a client I always want to know if they are on any medication or seeing a doctor for their presenting issue. This is especially important for more serious mental health issues and for any physical issues that may be related to how they feel. For certain problems long term medication may well be the best answer and as far as I am concerned that is to be left to my client and their doctor. But even then some form of talking therapy is likely to be of benefit in many cases alongside any drugs.

However in a lot of cases taking drugs long term is never going to solve the underlying issues of why a person has feelings or behaviour patterns that they would rather be without. I subscribe to regular newsletters from Dr Mercola in America and they always make very interesting and entertaining reading. This article  from Dr Mercola talks about how he feels that there is an over medicating in America of people suffering from depression and also has a lot of questions concerning statistics and information we are given about certain medications. Since we are often never far behind America this article is well worth a read.

Although there seems still to be a prevalent view that depression is something that one perhaps just has to live with or at best may take years to overcome in my experience that is not always the case and I have first hand experience, as have many of my colleagues, of being able to help clients make significant changes in their emotional wellbeing in as little as just a few sessions.

Also as an update to the above this is a recent article on the BBC (health) website  by Dr Joanna Moncrieff where she talks about how putting patients on medication for psychological issues can be just a case of putting them into a “drug induced state” without ever addressing the real issues behind the problem just as Dr Mercola’s article does.

Just been improving my healthy eating aims by incorporating the “green smoothie” into my diet. I must say it tastes a lot better than I had imagined and there is endless variation in ingredients so if you Google green smoothie you can find everything you need to know or go to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFm9_6BTCHM and see how it is done. Some fans say that if you drink one a day for a month you could lose your taste for sweet foods. I will keep you posted!

Here is the recipe I used today:

2 Lettuce leaves – 1/2 a Banana- Stick of celery – a carrot – piece of cucumber – four strawberries and a couple of cups of orange juice all blended together.

If you need help to lose weight contact roger@rogerfoxwell.co.uk

If you are reading my blogs you are possibly finding out a bit more about me and looking for more information about how I work. Well one important clue there is in these blogs is that they are all quite short. Why are they all quite short? Because these days we generally do not have time to wade through reams of information and would prefer what we are looking for to be crisp and to the point. That is how hypnotherapy, NLP and EFT works at its best.

This also equates to the way I work in the therapy room. I prefer to offer my clients information as succinctly, practically and as clearly as I can. Any “homework” will be powerful techniques that can make lasting and meaningful changes that can be done easily and quickly. These will also be techniques that one can use for a lifetime but techniques that used regularly can make amazingly empowering changes in one’s life. So KISS!

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood” is a phrase attributed to the co-founder of NLP Richard Bandler. This is a reference to how NLP techniques (and in this case especially Time Lines) can help improve the way we feel and interact with the world. Time Lines are a particularly powerful way of generating resources that we have within us or can develop from without to help us make empowering changes for the rest of our lives. Notice that I did not use the term future because if our head is always in the future we will never be able to live in the present. Conversely if our head is always in the past we also will not be able to live fully in the present.

Put simply we are all connected in our minds with thoughts and feelings about past and future that have a powerful bearing on how we feel in the present. If you imagine your past as a line connecting yourself to the present and the same with your goals and hopes for the future you would probably visualise this line behind you for the past and in front of you for the future. This is what in NLP we call a Time Line.

The interesting thing about time and memory is that it is not set in stone and time can change memories as much as two people can have different memories about the same event. The beauty of being able to use this technique is that it gives us the opportunity to make adjustments and empowering changes to how past experiences affect our present and future. So “it’s never too late to have a happy childhood” doe not mean that we can change history but it does mean that it is within our power to use our present knowledge and understanding to alter and adjust the way past experiences affect our present and future.

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.

Improved breathing technique is something that I incorporate a great deal into sessions especially when dealing with anxiety and stress. There are many different breathing techniques one can use but the first thing to learn is abdominal breathing. Nine out of ten times if I ask a client to take a few deep breaths the shoulders will immediately rise and the abdomen, instead of filling outwards with air and releasing back on the out breath, will remain static. My favourite technique is alternate nostril breathing.

If you want to help bring stress levels down breathing is the perfect place to start.

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.

This is a weight loss programme I found on the web. What impresses me about it is the sheer simplicity and how obvious the method is. It is well worth reading in my opinion but always check with your Doctor about any methods you may be taking up to help you lose weight. Remember also that eating problems are often connected to other issues that may not be immediately apparent. If this is the case until these issues are resolved it is always going to be hard to make any programme stick.

Anyway, check this out Debramoorhead

Problems with alcohol, social and physical, are rarely out of the news these days and I find myself seeing more and more clients who are trying to get their lives back on track before it is too late. The success that I have had over the years has proved to me that hypnosis is a very powerful intervention that really helps clients get control back in their lives. A recent article in The Times helps support my experience so if you or someone you know needs help in this area it is well worth a read.