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

“Not everyone wants to get over their problem” may seem a strange statement for a therapist to make but sometimes people are so “wedded” to their issues that they become such an important part of their life that they cannot let them go. What will they talk about or what will occupy their time if they somehow resolve their issue? They may worry that they may not feel important or that they will be left with an empty gap in their lives.

Having said this, they will still insist that there is nothing they would like more than to get better – but somehow they don’t seem to be able to do it. It can feel scary losing an issue that has become a part of one’s life however uncomfortable it may feel. Ask yourself why people stay in bad relationships or continually seem to fall for unsuitable partners that appear to have similar unpleasant characteristics? In my opinion that one of the reasons (there are other) is because one is familiar with the discomfort but the option of going out into a world that is uncharted territory feels infinitely more frightening. There can be a natural tendency to settle for a default position that helps avoid taking challenging decisions. Have a look at motivational speaker Zig Ziglar’s take on this phenomenon.

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRMogDrHnMQ

In my next blog I will be looking at the “flipside” as to why it can be hard to make changes when we really need them.

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.

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.

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