Life Coaching and Hypnotherapy

Therapist

Is a Therapist a Life Coach and is a Life Coach a Therapist?

Well yes and no.

A Therapist will need therapy credentials to be able to set up their practice and a Life Coach will presumably have been through certain training before setting up their practice.

The more I have developed my Hypnotherapy practice and brought in various other trance based modalities the more I realise how much EVERYTHING COUNTS. For instance if I am working with a business client who feels nervous giving a presentation then one of the many things I need to offer that client are tools to manage their anxiety otherwise all their valuable work could be overwhelmed by their fear of public speaking. On the other hand if I am a Life Coach helping a business client feel comfortable in these situations they also will require to offer, for example voice projection and presentation tools. And so here we begin to see that success for the client is supported by both the coaching aspect and the therapy aspect of their treatment.

When I continued to bring in more techniques and tools that covered more eventualities the results began to speak for themselves.

So I found myself joining tools for life coaching and tools for therapy together. As they say, “you only get one chance to make a good impression” whether it is interviewing for a job or speaking to a few hundred people in a packed auditorium. To grasp that opportunity how much better to have a powerful selection of tools, coaching and therapy, that cover as many eventualities as possible.

Some people are looking for coaching to help them and some are looking for therapy to help them. Yet Hypnosis, Life Coaching and Therapy can begin to easily and fluidly become one and the same thing. Trance is a state of Hypnosis and Life Coaching is a form of therapy. Hypnosis is a state of trance and therapy is a form of Life Coaching.

Everything overlaps and extending one’s skills in overlapping areas will help give clients more information and power to develop the changes they are looking for.

Some people will be looking for a Life Coach and some for a Hypnotherapist but where does one end and the other begin. The titles may be different but the real differences are more likely to be in the personalities and specialties of each practitioner.

So the best advice is first look for recommendations you can trust. Engage your intuition to help you get the best match for you and your issue whether a Therapist, Hypnotherapist or Life Coach.

Or perhaps you would like all three?

HYPNOSIS and what really happens in a hypnotherapy session

Hypnotherapy Session

So you’ve been watching videos and television clips of hypnotists at work and with a command to “SLEEP” or a tug of the arm the person in front of them flops down on the couch, becomes totally rooted to the spot or they completely forget their name.

Amazing, you think to yourself. If I go see a hypnotherapist I could have my smoking habit, my anxiety and my phobia sorted by lunchtime and I will be a new person!

Does it really happen like this?

Well yes and no.

Yes, I have clients who after we have been working in a session for a while who, for a few moments, can’t remember what their issue was. However this means the issue is now not in the forefront of their mind so we are making good progress. Or some who are already drifting into a trance as we continue talking. I may at that part of the session have to reorient them “back into the room” since that may not be the best moment for that particular state to engage. Or later, after doing a deep body relax they quite probably feel so comfortable that they might not want to open their eyes. I will then suggest they take their time “as they come back into the room.”

What is happening? We will be engaging certain states of mind that will have been appropriately introduced depending on what we are working on. Sometimes a client may only be in “eyes closed” for few moments during a full session. But we will be choosing the trance just as you unconsciously are choosing your own trance as you read this post or when you drive your car.

I remember a client telling me he didn’t think he had been hypnotised so I asked him “and what did I say?” Looking a bit perplexed he said “I don’t know”.

Hypnosis or trance is happening all the time within us. Even the organising of the words in this post are designed to attract the attention in a way that helps draw you and your imagination into the story. To facilitate change we must harness the creative and cognitive parts of our mind to work together. This skill will help us achieve the changes and goals in life we are looking for.

The job of the hypnotherapist is to give clients the tools that they can use to enable them to engage their own inner knowledge and “arrange their own story” in the very best way they can for the future.

And, by the way, enjoy the process at the same time.

Hypnosis, Mind Coaching, Performance Enhancement and Life

Hypnosis

 

Hypnosis EFT and NLP can help enhance your sport, your life and your career

Tennis star Johanna Konta has come back from a slump in her performance and is looking in very good form for the 2019 Wimbledon tournament.

So what is it that has been influencing this resurgence in her form? An important part of the answer seems to be that working with her new Mind Coach, Lorenzo Beltrame, is helping get her game back on track.

Sadly her previous mind coach Juan Coto died at the end of 2016, aged just 47, and from that time Konta’s results began to gradually decline until  Beltrame took up the mantle which has coincided with her latest upsurge in form.

The vast majority of sports people these days take very seriously the fact that working on the mental side of the game can make a tremendous difference to results. I work regularly with sports and performing arts clients, professional and amateur but also, a large number of my clients see me to help deal with their daily life issues of anxiety, stress, depression and confidence etc.

Interestingly I have found more and more that there really is not as much difference as one might think between the techniques and strategies we need to perform in a sporting context as the techniques and strategies we need to perform to our best in actual life situations. There are just three words that the brain is evaluating at all times that govern how comfortable we feel not, only on the big stage but in our everyday life.

Those three words are “am I safe”.

If you can turn “am I safe” into “I am safe”, whether you are on the tennis court at Wimbledon or in your everyday life the payback can be immense. 

There are many empowering and fascinating ways to do this and if you would like more information about how you could make the changes in your life you deserve please feel free to contact me. 

 

So you think you know what Hypnosis is?

 

Or do you?

There are so many different descriptions of the state of hypnosis that even hypnotists and hypnotherapists will have their own definitions of hypnosis. As hypnotherapists we tend to define it more in relation to the particular way we do our work.

I could put someone into a relaxing trance. Or mesmerise them with the positive changes they could make in their lives. Or hypnotise them so they can recall or forget to remember a past memory.

Although the typical picture of someone in hypnosis will be eyes closed and seemingly fast asleep on a reclining chair I tend to favour the word trance since we are all experiencing different states of trance on a daily basis. The American term “Highway Hypnosis” sums up how we can be wide awake but in a trance at the same time, even when safely driving.

In fact reading the heading at the top of this post will put you in a light trance as your mind diverts itself from the first question and just for a fleeting moment responds to the second question with “or do I?”

Did you go into a state of hypnosis, trance, focused awareness or heightened imagination? Or perhaps you were expecting to be told to forget something or repeat an action or remember something from the past.

“And” (a hypnotist’s favourite word because it simply and easily joins each point with a natural flow) as you were reading the previous sentence your mind was probably taking you very rapidly through all sorts of mental pictures, thoughts and conundrums.

So does it matter whether it is hypnosis, hypnotherapy, mesmerism, sleep, autosuggestion, trance or focused awareness? The interesting thing is that in reality we will automatically find ourselves using our natural favoured way of dreaming, or daydreaming. Everyone has their preferred way of going into trance and will be unconsciously using it throughout the day.

That’s the way the brain works.

We just go there and that is a place that knows a lot about you.

It does, doesn’t it?

Hypnosis, Trance, and the Vagus Nerve

The Vagus nerve

Vagus in Latin means “wandering” and most of us will have heard of the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic divisions of the nervous system but perhaps not the Vagus nerve.

This nerve, which has only scientifically been researched in more depth over the last 20 years, is critical to our physical and emotional feelings of well being as beneath our awareness it efficiently and smoothly sends messages to the brain, gut, heart and other organs of the body. So the fact that it is “in touch” with so many of our vital organs tells us how vitally important it is.

The relatively recent research of Stephen Porges has brought to our attention the pivotal role this superhighway has on every area of our body and therefore our life.

So what does it do for us?

When the vagus nerve is operating at it’s best it is connecting the messages from our organs, our thoughts, our conscious and our unconscious into one smooth multi level pathway of health, calm and ease on a daily basis.

And isn’t that what we have been looking for?

A few of the issues toning the Vagus Nerve can help with

Anxiety

Digestion

Blood pressure

Memory

Reducing inflammation

Panic attacks

Stress

Voice issues

Sound too good to be true?

Well my research and work on myself and clients has really helped take what I do up another level. Resolving past issues, helping the body operate physically with more balance and connection, quicker healing, less anxiety and more pleasure and satisfaction in life are major goals that most of us would like to aim for.

What can I do to tone my Vagus Nerve?

  1. Humming, Singing

  2. Heart Rate Variability breathing – High Coherence Breathing. (Heart Math)

  3. Simple crossing the Mid line Exercises eg BrainGym

  4. Gargling – anything that stimulates your vocal cords is good.

  5. Meditation – Loving kindness meditation

  6. Washing your face with icy water–cold water on your face stimulates the vagus nerve–remember this next time you’re feeling really stressed out.

  7. Emotional Freedom Technique and Hypnosis

My work building a raft of trance based techniques including Hypnosis, NLP and Emotional Freedom Technique has been dedicated to helping clients move forward in their lives. The addition of working with and toning the Vagus Nerve has been another major addition to helping clients access even more meaningful and simple yet empowering tools that they can use on a daily basis to help turn their lives around.

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

Panic Attacks and Hypnosis

Panic Attacks

Panic Attacks can be one of the most frightening experiences one can have and can appear, as it were, out of nowhere. To suddenly become aware of your heart beating faster, a loss of control and feeling disconnected from your surroundings is a very uncomfortable experience. Plus, once we have had one panic attack our body and brain remembers it and this can set up a loop whereby the brain stem continues to be alert and on the lookout for anything that might trigger a panic attack again. Unfortunately that only compounds the problem and we can become more liable to having them on a regular basis.

This experience is a message from our primal brain saying it does not, for whatever reason feel safe. Once the primal brain is activated like this it is very hard to switch off because it is in effect four times stronger than our frontal “thinking” cortex at getting it’s message across to the body.

Basically the frontal cortex, which can think logically for us, resides in the front of the skull and the primal primitive brain at the back of the skull. So once a panic attack begins generally no amount of logical thinking will turn it off and we just have to go through the experience until the body runs out of adrenaline and we can begin to calm down.

However there is a lot we can do ourselves to bring those feelings into check and manage them until they become fewer and fewer in our lives. Using hypnosis is a perfect tool to help calm the nervous system and regain control of the uncomfortable physical and emotional feelings. Also there are breathing strategies available that will help us to breath in a way that relaxes rather then excites the nervous system. Also subtle trance based ways of thinking can help us turn this around.

The beauty of using trance based techniques such as hypnotherapy is that not only does it make it easier to slip into a comfortable state of relaxation but also the trance state helps us bypass the conscious mind and generate change on a deeper unconscious level.

Stay calm

If you would like to know more about hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique, NLP and other ways of engaging your creative mind for relaxation and change do feel free to contact me and I will be very happy to help.

Always seek medical advice when appropriate.

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!)

Ernie Els gets the yips at the Masters

Ernie Els gets the yips

Snakes in the brain

“Snakes in the brain” was one way the genial and talented prolific winner on the PGA tour Ernie Els described his putting meltdown on the first green at Augusta National golf course as he started the second round of the Masters golf tournament.

It took six putts to get the ball in the hole from just 3 feet and any golfer watching, amateur or professional would have felt like turning their eyes away as a four times Major winner and previous number one in the world had a disastrous meltdown with his putting stroke.

7 putts on first hole for Ernie Els

Well Ernie is not the only illustrious player to suffer with what in golfing terms is called “the yips” where the brain seems unable to convey to the muscles the clean and precise movement required to make the stroke. Last season Tiger Woods struggled with his chip shots which at times seemed to give the ball a mind of it’s own which did not include heading anywhere in the direction of the hole.

And golfers are not the only sports people to struggle with this problem in their careers. It can suddenly appear in the games of professional and amateur snooker, darts and cricket players. In fact any skill requiring a high level of subtle muscle, eye and brain co-ordination can become plagued by this seemingly irrational inability to carry out a movement that may have been working perfectly for years.

So what is going on here? Basically there is some sort of neurological interference with the regular messages that pass through the brain to the muscles resulting in a conflict between those messages and the movements that we have pre programmed into the muscles.

Now if you think you may be suffering from a Functional Neurological Disorder then the first step is to seek help from your medical practitioner. However this particular issue can be as much psychological as physical and I offer processes and techniques designed to help return the brain signals back to smooth natural communication. This is an area that I specialise in for musicians and sports people. In fact any situation that involves high levels of performance which could be winning a golf tournament or just writing one’s name in front of other people. Anything where pressure seems to break down the natural communications between body and brain.

To help get the body and brain back to clear communication it is not only the muscles and thinking that need to be examined but also our psychological state. The golfers yips or the violinist’s “pearlies” are often just the presenting symptoms of unconscious issues from past experiences that, unless resolved will continue to sabotage our best efforts to think clearly and act smoothly under pressure.

I work regularly in this area with professional and amateur golfers, snooker players, footballers musicians and have also presented workshops to performers and sports persons at Universities and Colleges around the country. In fact for any discipline that calls on us to perform at times out of our comfort zone and requires clear thinking, confidence and clarity of physical movement I offer a range of powerful strategies and techniques designed to take performance to the next level.

For more information just call or email me, 07970218451,  rogerfoxwell.therapy@gmail.com and I will be very happy to discuss this further.

Even Tiger Woods can get the “Yips”

Tiger Woods

Even Tiger Woods can fall victim to the “Yips”

Tiger Woods has had his fair share of golfing problems recently how Tiger got the yips Hainey and now to add to that it appears that he has been suffering from the yips around the greens. Once the master of the most any shot in the bag it seems that at one point recently even a simple chip shot was not always guaranteed to land on the green for him.

What it must feel like for a pro of any standing let alone Tiger’s it is hard to imagine but for the amateur whose head gets infiltrated with this toxic experience it may not be the end of their profession but it will certainly take out a major percentage of the pleasure in their golf game.

There seems only limited expert help out there for this problem and working with a pro on your stroke whether putting or chipping is important to help you to have a clear idea of the correct way execute the stroke. However it is not guaranteed that the brain will obey these instructions once the problem has started and this is where finding someone with the knowledge of the psychology of the game, and with knowledge of techniques to help the brain and body re route these mistimed messages whilst quietening the “demons in the head” that seem to sabotage every thought of hitting a clean shot is invaluable.

I work very successfully in this area with pro and amateur golfers and also in such sports as snooker, darts and tennis. The first thing is to halt the stream of negative self talk that drains any possibility of confidence and for this I use a simple mental phrases that you can take with you and say to yourself wherever you are and whatever the situation. Instead of using the usual “pump me up” power phrases such as “let’s go for it” and “in the hole” try saying to yourself any time you have a negative thought “that thought is not available”. You will be able to use the other phrases later but one step at a time.

Sounds too simple to be true doesn’t it but the reason it works so effectively is that it is a post hypnotic suggestion. In other words it bypasses the conscious mind and embeds itself in the unconscious whereas anything like the previous phrase will just get batted backwards and forwards round the conscious mind. And it is imperative to clear the negative debris that has been left from past negative experience before we can start putting in positive affirmations that we will believe.

Part of my work in this area deals with “mind tips and techniques” that will help tune the mind and thoughts to a much more positive level The other part is using very simple but specialist techniques to reconfigure the brain circuits. Because the proprioceptive messages from brain to body that trigger the muscular responses are jumbled and distorted then we must have ways available that will cancel out the misdirected information and set up a clear path for clean messages to take their place. How would it feel to have available available simple techniques that will help build a much closer connection and feeling of what your muscles are doing that can literally begin to rewire your physical responses?

I know how powerful these techniques are simply because I have developed and used them successfully over the years in my own experience of years performing in front of large audiences as a professional musician. (Yes musicians can suffer from their own forms of the yips as well) This has meant my developing a unique but powerful set of tools, techniques and strategies aimed at helping performers in all areas achieve their best outcome for their skills and pleasure in their hobby or profession.
For more information just call or email and I will be happy to help you in person or over Skype.

“Sorry I’ve not been in touch, but it’s really just to say thanks. Since we met I have worked away at the swing thoughts we spoke about and have banished completely my short game problem. I don’t even acknowledge that word anymore my game is great even if its not went as well as I would have liked. I don’t have the same feeling of dread I used to have on approaching short shots or chips and my enjoyment of the game has improved greatly. So thanks again Roger.” CW

Gary Player used self hypnosis to help win the US Open 1965

Golfer

Today I am sharing a link featuring one of the most successful golfers in the history of the sport. Gary player  was a regular PGA tour winner from 1958 through to 1978 with nine Majors to his name. He was also the only golfer in the 20th century to win the British Open in three different decades.

At 80 years old he still puts himself through a punishing fitness routine that exemplifies the mindset that he has used all his life to create his amazing success. And what else did he use? Self hypnosis.

For anyone looking for inspiration to help achieve their goals this is a must read and inspiring article. I am sure you will enjoy it.

Gary Player used self hypnosis to help win the US Open