Emotional Freedom Technique

EFT Tapping

EFT (Tapping) helps former Apprentice star

 

As complimentary therapies become more popular so techniques like EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) become more well known. Although there are still a number of my clients who have not heard about it when they first come they are very soon won over by it’s simplicity and effectiveness. Once they understand how to use it and how useful it is it soon becomes a daily practice in their lives.

Here in this article former Apprentice star Jessica Cunningham explains how EFT played a large part in helping her control her health anxiety.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5634123/Former-Apprentice-star-Jessica-Cunningham-reveals-suffers-hypochondria.html

EFT, or “tapping” for short, is a technique developed in America by engineer Gary Craig and works by gently tapping on acupressure points around the body. As an acupuncturist would apply needles to these points so, just by gently tapping on them with one’s fingers one can get amazing relief from many issues physical and emotional that can be resistant to other forms of treatment. It also works very well alongside many other treatments such as hypnosis and can even help boost the effectiveness of such treatments. One of the biggest bonuses of EFT is that clients can learn it themselves and continue to safely use it when they are at home.

As you will read in the article Jessica was using it for Health Anxiety issues which is a not at all uncommon and I regularly find it extremely effective helping clients overcome panic attacks, anxiety, stress, depression and performance issues. In fact it really can be of benefit with virtually all of the issues that clients bring to my office.

If you would like help for any of the above problems or other issues in your life and would also like a tool that you can take with you and use yourself, find a good EFT practitioner and they will be able to help you by using it in the therapy room and also showing you how you can take it away and use it yourself to great effect.

Men, controlled by your eating?

Men Eating

Eating disorders

A recent article in the i Newspaper (3rd November 2016) by Eve Simmons highlights a real lack of information regarding men with eating disorders.

Statistics appear skewed probably partly by the male psyche and society’s unconscious restrictions on men “owning up” to having any sort of mental health issues. So understandably a lot of eating disorder information is aimed at women but as Eve Simmons article points out “men get eating disorders too.”

Figures from The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence estimate 11% of eating disorder sufferers are male and 6.4 percent of all adults displayed some form of an eating disorder. So as they point out those figures in fact point to more like a 25% figure for males.

The good news is that it is possible to recover from an eating disorder and with the right help and focus remove this often devastating illness from your life.

Here is a copy of the SCOFF questionnaire developed by John Morgan at Leeds Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust that can help sufferers check if they have some or all of these pointers

* Do you ever make yourself sick because you feel uncomfortably full

*Do you worry that you have lost control over how much you eat?

*Have you recently lost more than one stone in a three month period?

*Do you believe yourself to be fat when others say you are thin?

*Would you say that food dominates your life?

According to SCOFF a positive of two or more answers to these questions should raise your awareness of a possible issue.

Mental/health Awareness week will take place May 8 – 14th in 2017.

Three things to bring with you to a hypnotherapy session

Therapy Session

And get the best results when working with your hypnotherapist

If you haven’t experienced hypnotherapy before it can be a little daunting wondering what will happen and how you will feel when in hypnosis. Most of us have seen stage shows and hypnotists on television so understandably one may feel a little wary. However hypnosis could be one of the most relaxing experiences you have had but unfortunately the thoughts of “will I cluck like a chicken or tell all my darkest secrets” can make us somewhat guarded at that first appointment.

Now, a professional hypnotherapist would not make any of their clients cluck like a chicken and you certainly will not be telling anybody anything that you would rather keep to yourself.

However these worries can set up an unconscious resistance before we even cross the threshold so it is best to be aware of these thoughts to help allow yourself to participate as comfortably as you like in the session.

First, remember that the therapist is there to help you and has your best interests at heart. One of the strengths that Milton Erickson, the founder of modern hypnosis had, along with his remarkable skills was his ability to unconsciously convey to his clients how much he cared that they achieve the very best results.

Consciously knowing this means that there will be no need to “do battle” with the hypnotherapist. Just think how much more relaxed will you feel and how much easier it will be when both of you are working together. Those who arrive with arms folded and a “well fix me then” look on their face will take up valuable time in their session when they could be making valuable changes instead.

One reason for this resistance is that our logical thinking mind may not want us to do this work since our logical mind may not want to hand over control to the creative mind. (Yes you can relax, it will still be your mind not the hypnotherapists‘!) What the logical mind can find hard to grasp at times is that accessing the power of our creative mind will help free our logical mind thereby encouraging the whole brain to work more harmoniously. The vast majority of clients are very easy to work with and if there is any discomfort then as professionals it is our job to help put the client at ease so they will leave the session happier and more relaxed than when they came so helping them achieve their best results.

So all you have to do is bring along the belief that you will be exploring wonderful and powerful ways to help let go of the issues you will be working on plus three experiences that will help you get the best possible results –

Focus, relaxation and imagination.

Have you pressed your “Like” button today?

Now, this could be my shortest post yet and it could also be the shortest and simplest way to help you on your way to finding much more pleasure in your life.

Question. How much time do you spend on Facebook? (Just skip this if you’re not on Facebook, it won’t matter!) How often do you “like” someone’s post? How often do you receive a message saying someone “Likes” your post. How does that make you feel?

Now if you want to create more pleasure, enjoyment and satisfaction in your life start to notice today, starting right now any small pleasurable experience however seemingly insignificant, any satisfying achievement that happens and just press your own internal “Like” button. This simple thought process will send a subtle but powerful surge of Alpha (dreamy) waves through your brain and you just rewired your brain right?

As a hypnotherapist and mind coach, clients come to see me to help them change their experience of the world they are in. How can we do that?

A/ By letting go of past issues that are keeping us stuck where we are.

B/ By reorganising our thinking patterns which in turn rewires our brain.

Do this on a daily basis and see what happens. Start right now.

Press your own “LIKE” button.

(And press it twice if you liked this post!)

Are you talking “Absolute Turnip”?

Have you thought about changing your thoughts?

Andy Murray competing in the 2016 French Open tennis quarter finals was heard to shout “Absolute Turnip” to himself as he fought to break the serve of big hitter John Isner. Apparently this is a phrase he has been using for a few years now, presumably for shots that were not his best and it certainly worked on this occasion.

However, how often during the day do we talk to ourselves and are we really listening to what we say to ourselves carefully? Pretty much everything we say to ourselves will have some unconscious effect on our perception of ourselves and our skills. It may not be enough for us to notice any immediate difference but the “drip, drip” effect of this self talk can easily make a big difference to our confidence and self esteem over time.

Now we may find it amusing to call ourselves or our tennis game “absolute turnip” but remember that your unconscious mind is listening to everything you say and may not be translating it the way you expect.

Have you ever told a child “now don’t drop those plates”? Seems to be very good advice and a very good suggestion. But what message does the unsuspecting youngster hear first? Drop the plates!! Why, because the brain will first do a quick rehearsal of “drop the plates” before adding in “don’t”. Too late! The plates are on the floor and broken before the conscious mind has a chance to save the situation.

There is a very good book “Your body believes every word you say” and if we think about it for a moment we cannot have an emotional feeling without a physical reaction any more than we can experience something physical without some sort sort of emotional experience. Plus, our mind is constantly making decisions for us before we know we have even thought of them. This is a very useful thing since this leaves the prefrontal cortex free to make our executive decisions and operate hopefully with our best interests in mind, while we carry on doing our everyday tasks like walking downstairs or washing up.

So it’s well worth paying a little more attention to your “self talk” bearing in mind that there are lots of different parts of you listening to what you say and interpreting that information perhaps not in the way you expect. Maybe saying our tennis is “absolute turnip” is no big deal but saying derogatory statements about ourselves and our skills certainly is. We all deserve better so make sure you do a bit of weeding around that unconscious vegetable patch and grow some more positive thoughts. It really will make a difference.

Hypnosis and help for anger

Hypnosis helps for anger

Don’t get angry or get even – “get even tempered” with hypnosis!

How angry are you? Do you “lose it” over the slightest thing? Do you find yourself seething inside feeling as if no one ever understands you? Is your driving getting scarily aggressive and is everyone on the road “in your way”?

These are just a few of the symptoms we can experience when anger gets out of control and if so it is time to get to work on it before things get much worse.

There are lots of ways we can express our anger, and anger is a natural human expression. It is also a very powerful primal instinct designed to keep us safe from dangerous situations and if it gets out of control can create havoc in our life and for the lives of those around us. In our modern world we are no longer in day to day hostile environment but “acting out” as if were can lead to many situations that are unhealthy, unsafe and dangerous.

Unchecked anger can ruin relationships, health and the enjoyment of life. It drives away family and friends, can lead to loss of jobs and income and even our freedom by making us do things we regret later. Controlling anger is not usually a difficult thing to do and once we have the skills and understanding about what is going. With this in place then life can begin to turn around into a pleasure rather than literally a continuous fight.

Anger triggers the “fight” part of the “fight or flight” response which when left unchecked starts to operates on an uncontrollable “hair trigger” and that is a very dangerous situation to get into.

Since we all are programmed to experience some anger it is important thing to be able to manage and control it in a healthy way. When we have the tools to do this the anger can be diffused and will not be able to hijack our emotions as it may have done in the past.

There are many ways to help guide one’s mind and thinking into a more relaxed and healthier pattern such as exercise, yoga, meditation, mindfulness and finding a hobby. However it can also be important to get some professional help. I use a variety of techniques such as hypnosis, EFT and NLP that are all designed to help clients regain control and enjoy their lives on a daily basis. Hypnosis is an exceptionally valuable tool to help teach the body’s nervous system how to relax and also release physically and emotionally. An expert professional will often be able to turn this around in two or three sessions and give you the tools to continue these changes on a daily basis.

If you would like any more information on this subject and the help available to enable you to make a remarkable difference in your life then please call or email and I will be very happy to help.

Mental Health, let’s talk about it!

Mental Health

Talk about mental health with Time to Talk

On Thursday this week (February 4th 2016) it will be “Time To Talk” day.  Time To Talk day has been organised for the last three years by charities Mind, and Rethink Mental Illness under the umbrella Time To Change and the aim is to encourage people to share their feelings and discuss their stories and personal experiences about mental health in person and via Facebook and Twitter.

Although this is primarily a project that has been been organised in England over the last three years, in Scotland, England and Wales one in four people will suffer from some sort of mental health issue and encouraging people to talk about it can only help break down the taboos and difficulties around discussing mental illness.

For various reasons people find it hard to talk openly about mental illness so engaging everyone helps bring into the open a subject that has been in need of more awareness and understanding for a long time now. It is really much more common than we think and this initiative can only help and encourage a greater understanding and support for anyone going through difficult times. Knowing that you are not alone is invaluable in helping support the healing process.

According to a Time to Change survey 60% of those interviewed found the stigma and discrimination around issues such as depression, anorexia and anxiety were as debilitating as the symptoms they were suffering. If we have a physical illness we are much less likely to keep it to ourselves than a mental one because of the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Talking with friends and family is a great therapy but there is a point when one needs to take the next step and that is of course seeing your GP, and or appropriate professional organisation who will be able to help you get the best treatment. 

The three charities below are a good place to start if you or someone you know is having difficulty in getting the support and advice they need.

For more about Time To Talk day follow this link

Time to Talk

See me Scotland  is a Scottish charity also with the aim of ending mental health stigma and discrimination and for Wales follow the link below for  more information 

Time to Change Wales

Self Hypnosis, EFT and NLP can help OCD

OCD Awareness Week

This week (11-17 October 2015) is OCD Awareness week and already there have been suggestions that this emotionally painful and destructive condition is still being served up with a mild “vanilla” flavouring!

OCD Awareness Week

“We’re all a bit OCD”

That is the sort of phrase that is often thrown into a conversation but in truth is way off the mark. Unless we find that what we imagine are our “OCD” compulsions and repetitive thoughts are leaving us feeling anxious to the point of exhaustion, powerless, helpless and continually burdened with a feeling of guilt (and these are just a few of the debilitating symptoms sufferers experience) it is unlikely that our being “a bit OCD” has very much resemblance at all to what it really feels like to suffer OCD on a daily basis.

A recent BBC Horizon programme about OCD was titled “A Monster in my Mind” and that title really sums up the daily experience that invades the life of someone with OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder “hijacks” the logical and cognitive thinking processes often virtually rendering the ability to get on with one’s everyday life almost impossible.

A list of some common symptoms of OCD

Fears that you might murder someone
Thoughts of sexual violence
Worrying you may have run someone over
Continuous checking
Worry that you may have offended God
Worries that you may have contracted a serious illness.
Fear of contamination

These are just a few of the thinking patterns that get stuck in a loop in the mind.
The choices of treatments on the NHS are mainly medication and cognitive behavioral therapy and OCD can take over someone’s thoughts and actions so powerfully that there is often a case for medication to help calm the system even to get treatment started.

According to recent research we have a primal operating system in the brain that is continually checking in the background for anything that might be dangerous to our survival. So in one sense we are all operating with the same equipment and perhaps are “a bit OCD” but if this equipment is switched on permanently at full tilt it becomes a recipe for continuous mental torture.

I use a range of techniques and strategies that are designed to help quieten these overactive messages.
If you would like more information about how Hypnosis, EFT and NLP can help you please contact me.

Body image, confidence and Hypnosis

Body Image

There is a post doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment that says “want a bikini body? Put on a bikini and stop giving a s*** what everyone else thinks!!”

Fighting talk, and amusing enough if you don’t actually care what people think. However many  people worry very much about “what everyone else thinks” and it can be very hard to acquire the confidence and thick skin to ignore those thoughts. “What other people think of me is none of my business” is one of my favorite quotes but we live in a culture that celebrates celebrity. We have celebrities on our TVs and ipads every moment of the day setting new trends in fashion, body image and status. Also we may be struggling with past conditioning without even knowing what it is that is keeping us in a low self esteem, lack of confidence mindset.

Lack of confidence in ourselves emotionally and lack of confidence on a physical level will have a profound effect on how we act, react and communicate in pretty much all our everyday communications, social and business . This obsession with body image and how we perceive ourselves and imagine others perceive us can easily tip over into even more destructive issues such as depression and eating disorders so it is important to get good professional help to turn this around and get one’s life back.

No one should have to spend their lives short changing themselves on confidence, happiness and self respect and although the reasons behind these feelings may be complex that does not mean it need take a long time and a lot of therapy sessions to turn this around. Techniques such as Hypnosis, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) can help achieve real and positive freedom from this state often in a remarkably short period of time.

All these techniques have a positive track record in achieving rapid and lasting change that other therapies cannot always match. If we could change just by thinking consciously and knowing consciously what we want to change then it would not in most cease be a problem. However it is rarely as simple as that. However the reason that change can be so rapid and effective with these therapies is that they all help connect with our creative unconscious, the very part of us that has the tools to reprogramme our feelings and thoughts.

It may feel a daunting task to turn something such as this round but with the right help it can be a life affirming experience that has the promise to make massive change in a very healthy way.

If you would like any more information just call or email and I will be very happy to help.

“I can’t believe so much has changed in my thinking in the last few weeks., and I feel in a different place again. I am so much more confident and positive. Thank you.” – DG

EFT can help you make remarkable changes in your life

EFT can help

I have been using EFT in my practice for many years now and it never ceases to amaze me how simple and effective this technique is. If you want a technique that you can use and take with you “in your back pocket” wherever you are and whatever circumstances you are in then EFT is the obvious choice.

EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) has been around now for 20 years and was developed by Gary Craig from Roger Callaghan’s Thought Field Therapy. It is termed as an energy psychology and works by tapping on certain acupressure points around the body whilst verbalising (internally or out loud) the issues you are working on.

It is a favourite technique of mine and often clients will come in with no knowledge of it and I will demonstrate to them without initially explaining it a simple round of tapping on the specific points to see what experience they get. They may look a bit perplexed as we begin the “round” tapping on the side of the hand then tapping with the fingers on 7 points around the body whilst reciting the problem out loud. The interesting thing is that even after one or two rounds which will take only a minute of two at most, their face and body will relax and when I ask them how they feel they will usually say, with a pleasantly surprised look on their face, “well, I seem to feel a bit more relaxed”.
This almost instant reduction in the discomfort of the problem is to me proof that meaningful and powerful change has already begun. We may have only just started the session and the work we will do but now my client is also learning a technique that will help empower them on a daily basis. And this will be a technique they will soon learn and be able to take with them and use without me having to be there. As I say to clients “I don’t know what you will be thinking at 5 o’clock tomorrow any more than I know what I will be thinking at 5 o’clock tomorrow” but if it is something you want to deal with then EFT can help you deal with it on the spot.

The well respected complimentary medicine and nutrition expert, osteopath and best selling author Dr Mercola has written various articles about the benefits of EFT and has a video and information about how effective it can be for relieving stress and tension headaches.

EFT can help with many issues including:

Phobia – Sickness phobia – Animals phobia – Insects phobia
Fear of water – Fear of darkness – Social phobia – Night phobia – Fear of plants – Any simple or complex Phobia
Stress – Anxiety – Tenseness – Insecurity – Nervousness – Anger – Hate – Grief – Depression – Guilt – Feeling incompetent
Fear of abandonment – Fear of the future – Fear of persons – Fear of the unknown – Fear of death
Traumatic memory: Rejection, Failure, Duress, Abandonment, Accident, Abuse, Rape, Love pain
Headache – Nervous stomach-ache – Back pain – Pain in the neck – Carpal tunnel syndrome
Pre-menstrual syndrome – Physical pain with no organic cause – Constipation – Irritable bowel – Jaw tightness
Asthma – Constricted breath – Dyspnoea – Chronic diseases – Hypertension – Hypotension – tachycardia – Arrhythmia
Sexual problems (non organic) – Myopia – Vision problems – Allergies of any kind
Dyslexia – Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) – Learning problems – Low school grades
Panic attacks – Bulimia  – Cravings – Anorexia nervosa – Overeating – Specific food dislike
Drugs – Alcohol – Smoking – Addictive food – Nervous habits
Plus general improvement and happiness in one’s personal and professional life: 

Self-confidence – Self-image – Better relationships – Forgiveness – Procrastination – Goal achievement – Work performance – Sport performance – Personal peace
To find out more about how Emotional Freedom Technique can help you just get in touch and I will be happy help.

Have been meaning to get back to you for ages to say thank you so much for your support with myChronic Fatigue Syndrome. As you know we met just before a very big trip abroad. The two sessions really helped lift my energy levels pretty much from zero to high enough to allow me to pack and get myself to the airport, which was looking a bit doubtful at that point in time.Your techniques supported me throughout the 3 months I was away and I would recommend your methods and support for anyone living with this condition.
Thanks again