Why do we overthink so much?

Overthinking

We can often blame rumination or continually mentally analysing things in our life as an achilles heal in our thinking. But part of this habit could go back to our ancient ancestors’ need to keep themselves safe. We are all evolved from our early ancestors who would, even before speech, have to keep themselves safe as they mapped out the days’ chores in their minds. Just as we do now.

However they couldn’t reach for Google Maps to guide them safely out of their village. To get past the large tree on the left a mile down the road that often had dangerous snakes around would mean them going back into their memory banks and visualising all the options. They could always take the other route alongside the river but if they did they would have to make sure the river was safe to cross. And of course they had to be careful not to upset the mother elephant who lived on the left hand side of the bank as they were making their way to the stream.

Like us, they had choices to make, but their choices could mean life or death on their way to collect water or hunt for food. So we can imagine them having to carefully work out in their minds the safest route every time they stepped outside the limits of their village.

Much of our thinking patterns are still to a large degree connected to the primal parts of the brain. This part of the brain has one job to do and that is to keep us alive. All these primal connections are still working from the same survival needs that we are using from all those centuries ago.

So it makes sense that we can get ourselves stuck in a loop trying to make up our minds what order to do things, whether we take the train or the plane plus myriads of options and choices in our daily lives. This overthinking and worry can sometimes make us feel as if we are on a hamster wheel as we continually analyse every small detail that comes to mind. All those centuries ago this was a matter of life or death and sometimes it can feel as if we are still in that same place.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and other stress issues are all linked to this natural overthinking process which can get out of hand. Learning how to detach and negotiate our way round a never-ending loop of thoughts and worries will help lift us out of the tension and stress that has been keeping us locked “looking out for danger” 24 hours a day.

For help achieving positive change and rapid stress release in your life I offer techniques such as Hypnosis, NLP, Emotional Freedom Technique, Eye movement Sequencing plus much more.

For more information please call +44 7970218451 or email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com 

How long will it take for body and mind to heal?

Heal body and mind

Understandably we are all looking for ways that we can make change as quickly and effectively as possible. Unfortunately, that inner need to get “instant results” can often be the one thing that slows or even blocks us from achieving the best outcomes and experiences we are looking for.

This is linked with our nervous system’s need to feel safe and whole quickly, and get body and mind back on track and healing.

However, the very thought of us “trying” to relax and “trying” to heal sets up exactly the opposite outcome to the one we are hoping for. This is the sort of thinking pattern that will unconsciously set up resistance, doubt, and worry in the mind placing us back in the very mindset that blocks our healing connections. Then the ventral vagus nerve senses pressure and doubt putting us back into a “not safe” state thereby generating more “fight and flight” experiences.

With hypnosis, we’ve all seen stage hypnotists on television and elsewhere “instantly” putting someone in a hypnotic state just by telling them to sleep!

Now we may expect the same experience in a hypnotherapy session but there is much more to healing body and mind than one trigger word. We all respond differently and although many clients will be able to easily and rapidly drift into a pleasant state of relaxation there will be background material to take into account.

For my clients, I use a variety of techniques including Hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique, and Eye Movement Sequencing to help generate the appropriate trance for each individual. In my view, we are all in different states of trance at different times of the day and the trick is having the tools for each of us to generate better and more appropriate experiences in any situation.

To master these changes to our thinking and dealing with issues we will need time to put our new skills into practise. Although results are usually very rapid we still need to practise and fine-tune our new ways of being, thinking, and feeling. Adding a strict time frame on top of our already stressed body, mind and psyche will only serve to slow down and even unconsciously block progress.

y advice to clients is to give yourself “All the Time in the World” as you make the changes you are looking for.

Then how pleasantly surprised you can be to discover that the results you are looking for some quicker than you expected.

Pain and feeling safe

Pain and feeling safe

There are 3 words I write at the top of virtually every client’s notes at the start of the first session.

“Am I Safe?”

Whatever anyone comes to see me for and whatever the issue it is nearly always governed by this question. This is why I generally start a session working not on the presenting issue but helping clients learn how to manage their own nervous system. Without that we have no foundation for body and mind to build a life experience that we will “feel safe” in.

If we can’t manage that part of our physiology then we will always unconsciously be looking out for danger as if we were in the jungle. As I mentioned in an earlier post that part of us (Fight or Flight) will always kick in if we need it. However when it is switched on permanently we are unable to heal. We need to be able to reach the parts of the body that need the “Stress Volume” turning down so we can reach that safe place of healing.

This also accounts for a lot of pain issues that doctors cannot find any cure for. The reason being that the brain can get caught in a loop “just in case” there is still danger waiting to “pounce out of the bushes” and attack us.

By organising our own nervous system to become more fluid and relaxed when appropriate (which should be most of the time) we can reach our healing part (the Ventral Vagus Nerve) and then body and mind can begin to recover.

A lot of pain goes unresolved because the brain has set up this fear response to protect us from danger and sometimes it can’t switch it off.

Of course not all pain is just in the brain and the well known American back surgeon Dr Sarno found that the scans of patients’ spines etc. often did not correlate to the amount of pain they were experiencing. So he began offering workshops on the different medical and psychological issues that pain could be presenting. He realised that stress and other factors could be causing the pain to continue. This meant that there came a point that the patient’s body was not responding to medication and drugs even though everything appeared to be healing successfully.

So if you have tried every possibility and have gained no lasting or positive relief from back pain and other issues such as CPRS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) there are other options available.

Hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique and Eye movement Sequencing are just a few of the techniques I have successfully used with all my clients over the years to help them change not just the mental programmes they have been locked into but also the body physical experiences. If you have tried all the traditional medical routes of healing without success it is entirely possible that you can learn how to organise and control your own autonomic nervous system physically and mentally thus helping yourself diminish and even remove the constant stress and pain that surrounds these life changing issues.

Important! Keep Your Inner Child Safe!

Inner Child

We all have our own inner child within us. This is a part of you that has grown up with you from birth to your present age. If you’re not sure if you have an Inner Child think about how you feel in demanding situations, or if you regress to childish behaviors when you don’t get your own way. You may be behaving like a teenager or an eight year old at school.

Now there is nothing wrong with your inner child and nothing wrong with you, it’s just that our inner child is still just that. A child. It doesn’t want to bring up a family, run a business or go to work. It wants to play. No wonder it gets childish when it doesn’t get what it wants.

However there is a way to help support your inner child and yourself. We must Grow Up in a way that helps our inner child feel safe. And we are grown ups aren’t we? And there is no turning back now.

In the past I used a mix of psychotherapy, hypnosis and counselling for inner child work which was very successful but a few years ago I developed a much simpler way achieving even better results almost immediately. This unique technique with the right input will almost immediately help us snap into a much more comfortable and responsible mindset in our daily lives. In fact it makes life easier and more comfortable whilst developing confidence and pleasure in our everyday lives. This change can free you from many of the worries and doubts you may have about yourself and your life. The simple changes will help you generate a feeling of safety that continues to support you through the tricky times and the good.

Growing up is about claiming your right to be yourself while taking positive responsibility for who you are and where you are. Building your relationship with your inner child will mean building a better relationship with yourself and everyone around you. Now your inner child will really begin to feel safe.

After all we can’t be children for ever.

For more information please email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com or call +44 (0)7970218451

Want to be happy? You need to know about these brain chemicals

Want to be happy

The 4 brain chemicals that will help you feel happy.

To have a “feel good experience” we need to trigger our “feel good” brain chemicals. Being able to recognise them when triggered within our body helps us develop and strengthen them, encouraging the good feelings we would like to experience in our lives.

The four main happy brain chemicals are Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins. These are all working in connection with each other but one or two will be taking the lead depending on what we are experiencing at the time.

Dopamine helps us move forward in life and “climb to the top of the tree”. It is the brain chemical that helps push us forward to reach the best fruit at the top of the tree. Otherwise, we could be left sitting at the bottom of the tree looking for leftovers.

The actual climb to the top is what triggers dopamine helping push us onward and upwards toward our goals. When you experience a feeling of pride and satisfaction whether it is winning an Olympic medal or finishing constructing a piece of flat-pack furniture you will be enjoying the pleasant and satisfying hit of dopamine you have just built up.

However, it is very important we actually “earn” our dopamine. Addictions and bad habits such as gambling and drugs can also trigger dopamine, dopamine that we haven’t actually “earned”. This in time leads to stress and disappointment triggering our unhappy chemicals such as Cortisol.

Oytocin is called the “love” or “cuddle chemical”. This helps trigger the safe and relaxed pathways in your body and mind and is connected with the vagus nerve. As you generate more oxytocin in your physical body this will help you feel calmer and more comfortable with yourself, others, and your life.

For more information please email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com or call +44 (0)7970218451

What is an ACE score and what it can tell you about your health and stress levels

Health and stress levels

A.C.E. stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences and is used as a guide to the chances of developing a chronic disease or mental disorder later in life.

Growing up one may have experienced psychological or physical trauma in the family or elsewhere but there are also traumas such as hospital visits, accidents, operations, and losing a loved one that could also be triggering psychological or physical distress long after the event.

This could lead to a reliance on alcohol or drugs to manage the emotional pain and anxiety.

The problem is that the fight or flight mechanism will have been switched on permanently and is looking out for danger virtually 24 hours a day.

Methods and strategies such as Hypnosis, Meditation, Eye Movement Sequencing, and Emotional Freedom Technique can literally help clients “Feel Safe” again. They are very effective in helping relieve stress whilst quietening intrusive thoughts and feelings. This allows the vagus nerve to effectively continue the healing process.

One problem is that, understandably, clients may feel uncomfortable talking through past emotional traumas. It can be so deeply imprinted in the psyche that just thinking of distressing past events can feel as if we are reliving them.

However, by using Eye Movement Therapy, Hypnotherapy, and EFT I have found it is actually possible to gain a level of relaxation that safely allows the unconscious to do a lot of the work for us.

For more information please email me at rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com or call +447970218451 and I will be very happy to help you.

Cigarettes. Health or Wealth?

Smoking Cigarette

Still, smoking? You may well have been thinking about it for a long time but just can’t bring yourself to make that change. However, now circumstances have overtaken most of us and we are having to look carefully at our finances. What better place to start than with cigarettes?

It’s interesting how we generally put our health behind our “need” to continue smoking but for most, there comes a time when we will be forced to make that choice – cigarettes and illness, or no cigarettes and healthier future life.

I used to smoke decades ago but now we all know better. Everyone used to smoke then but when my eldest son, who was just a toddler at the time walked up to me holding a full ashtray saying “dirty, dirty”. I immediately knew it really was time to stop, and I did.

No regrets, no worries it was a strong enough message to my conscious and unconscious and I knew I had no answer that would stand up to even a moment’s scrutiny. My eldest is now grown up. He’s a nonsmoker and I’ve had no interest whatsoever in even trying one throughout all these decades.

However 25 years ago when I began seeing clients to help them stop smoking it probably took a month or so to recoup the fee. Now, with inflation, you’ve probably already worked out that a £95 hypnotherapy session is a bit of a bargain. And if you smoke 20 a day you could recoup it in just 9 days! After that, it’s all profit and you could be saving up for your next holiday.

So far we’ve ignored the “elephant in the room” ( it’s OK it’s used to being ignored!) We haven’t talked about health. Well I remember a letter in a local newspaper when this gentleman talked about how his father was a heavy smoker. His father used to say to him “Son, I’d love to stop but I just can’t”.

Soon after that conversation he coughed up a little blood on his handkerchief and from that day on his father never touched a cigarette again.

You won’t leave it too late will you?

For more information just call 07970218451 or email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com

And I will be happy to help you

How to get rid of yips and performance nerves?

Sports Challenge

What do you need to know about the YIPS and PERFORMANCE NERVES plus how to get rid of them

FIGHT or FLIGHT or FREEZE is designed to keep us alive. It is a primitive part of our autonomic nervous system and this means that whenever there is a sense of danger or even just worry, this system will in fact respond as if we are in a LIFE or DEATH situation.

Immediately your brain’s only job is to keep you alive and all it’s resources will be focused on that one outcome. This means that your body’s healing mode is switched off and your “modern” thinking brain is no longer able to operate rationally. You have now lost access to your fine motor functions and clear cognitive thinking

Also, in “shutdown” your body and brain are preserving oxygen. So there is not enough dopamine to turn the “freeze” state off and your focus and clarity back on.

This is why it becomes virtually impossible to instantly switch back to your clear thinking relaxed state.

So, to help gain more control of our autonomic (automatic) nervous system the most important place to start is with BREATHING.

Using the best diaphragm breathing techniques will lay a foundation whereby you can, as rapidly as possible re-engage your dopamine and other body chemicals. Now you can help reconnect the higher communication centres which have the blueprint of all the tens of thousands of hours of practise you have put into your skills.

Te next step in my work with Golfers, Tennis players, Darts, Snooker players, Musicians etc. is opening and expanding our vision pathways and learning to control our autonomic nervous system on an everyday basis.

Using simple acupressure points and mental programmes we will be able to find and relax the physical and mental, body and mind stress points in a way you can begin to take with you into every competition, friendly game or performance you have.

An extra bonus is that no one will know you are using these techniques. But they will be very unlikely not to notice that everything about your performance is improving!

For more information on how I can help you play and perform to your highest standards just call or email and I will be happy to help.

These techniques and strategies will work equally effectively with

great results – online, face to face, professional or amateur.

www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk +44 7970218451 rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com

Do you think you might have an alcohol addiction?

Alcohol Addiction

Check this out – it will surprise you!

Did you know that even one or two glasses of wine on a daily basis, or 5 or 6 beers every Saturday could be having a profound negative impact on your health and well being?

If you are not sure whether to believe this just click on the link below for an excellent scientific explanation of what exactly happens.

(https://www.google.com/search?q=huberman+lab+podcast+alcohol&oq) (3.19 min and 24.23min.)

When clients call me for help stopping or curtailing their bad habits or addictions I always say that a few sessions will be required to help resolve this. We all hope that by using hypnotherapy a quick flick of the hand and the words “SLEEP” will “cure” us in just one session. Well this does happen but for the majority of clients I suggest 3 or 4 sessions will give them the tools and strategies to help them make and keep the changes they are looking for.

Many of us are using some addictive habits to help us feel safe and comfortable in our world. This is only natural but becoming addicted to habits such as smoking, drinking, drugs and gambling can only support us for so long without having major detrimental effects on our mental and physical health.

I use Hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique and Eye Movement sequencing. These simple but powerful strategies coupled with remarkably easy changes you can use on a daily basis really help clients achieve rapid and major turnarounds in their daily lives.

This can all be done very effectively online and also in my office. To book an appointment or for more information please call me on +44 7970218451 or email rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com and I will be happy to help.

www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk

How does the pandemic affect your mental health and everyday life?

Mental Health

After Covid

Although many countries are back to relative normality after Covid close to the surface there are still major issues the pandemic has left behind. This means that many people still continue to experience both physical and emotional difficulties from Covid.

There are 3 words that I write on the initial notes for virtually every client’s first session.

“AM I SAFE?”

From both a physical and mental viewpoint Covid has left us all feeling unsafe

If you are still experiencing these sort of issues and find that you have not found a way forward emotionally or mentally I offer a healing protocol using Hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique and Eye Movement Therapy plus working with the Vagus Nerve (which is of prime importance in the healing process). I have been using these techniques for many years now with excellent success and offer clients on a daily basis the tools and strategies that they can begin to use to help turn their lives round.

Hypnosis has many facets of healing body and mind and a major one is helping us learn to relax again. If we cannot relax then the body cannot heal since it is using all its energy to keep us safe. Hypnosis will encourage the healing response through deep relaxation

Emotional Freedom Technique is now a very popular healing technique that my clients always love to use. Here we literally gently tap on acupressure points helping the body and mind release inner tension both physically and mentally. This helps us stabilise our emotions and release blocked energy stored in the body.

Eye movement Therapy has been available for many years now but it is only relatively recently that research has been done showing how our eye movements hold so much valuable information past and present.

The Vagus Nerve is another area that only relatively recently has been shown to have a much more profound effect on our body and mind than was originally thought. Using the latest scientific information we can make amazingly powerful changes to our lives using the simplest of techniques that will naturally help engage more healing and healthy experiences for our everyday lives.

If you would like to learn more about this work and how it could help you please feel free to contact me and I will be very happy to help.

For more information about one to one sessions online in English anywhere in the world please feel free to contact me

www.rogerfoxwell.co.uk 07970218451 rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com