Category: <span>Hypnosis</span>

Anxiety Choosing the right therapist for you Hypno-analysis Hypnosis Hypnotherapy Matrix Matrix Reimprinting positivity Post traumatic stress disorder Self-improvement Stress Therapy • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

How to use your trauma to heal yourself

A picture of man holding up his arms in victory, standing in a cornfield with the sun beating down on him with the words "Your recovery can actually begin at that darkest moment" Brad Mace then the website www.positivelycalm.com

For eighteen years now I have been working with clients, mostly on a one to one basis, and the majority of this work has been trauma work using  hypno-analysis. Many of the clients that enter my consulting room have a pre conceived idea about hypnotherapy or hypnosis.  I tend to call this the ‘magic wand’ syndrome. That’s to say that they think that I can hypnotise them and take away their worries or fears and everything will just go away in one session like ‘waving a magic wand.’ It would be truly wonderful if therapy was that simple. It tends to be stage hypnosis that gives people this misconception. The clue is in the title ‘stage’ I am afraid. Hypnotherapy is a completely different ball game. I use clinical hypnosis alongside Psychotherapy. So let me explain further, when we suffer trauma the emotions related to that trauma can get repressed and this repression happens within the subconscious part of our mind.

Hypno-analysis is a form of therapy that can allow us to access moments that have caused trauma and this helps release the trauma from our subconscious. There are also other therapeutic tools which I use, apart from hypno-analysis, which can help to do this. I believe in having different tools to support what works for each personality type, and am aware that what may not work for one just might work for anothe.  What I have found is that what all the most successful tools have in common is that they involve revisiting and working with the event that has caused the trauma in the first place!
So, when that client walks into my consulting room expecting me to wave that magic wand the last thing that they usually want to hear is that I am possibly going to take them back to face up to the trauma that caused their symptom. I say ‘possibly’ because this isn’t always the case. Suggestion therapy will work on some things, for example quit smoking. I do know though, for most problems related to a neurosis, the cream of therapies is weeding out that root cause through analysis.
The fact that a client doesn’t want to face up to that trauma is the exact reason that they should even though this is quite understandable. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’? We don’t want to ‘go there’, of course we don’t , because it means reliving the moment. Most of our problems end up going back to something in childhood and that was a time when we couldn’t understand or rationalise how we were feeling hence repression. Revisiting that event and accessing the feeling is a way of reprocessing it and letting it go. Sometimes there needs to be some re-framing of that memory. Other therapeutic interventions such as EFT and EFTMR can also help with this and they are similar to hypnotherapy in that we are putting the clients mind into the theta state. This relaxed state makes us able to access the subconscious and it is also much easier for the client to talk about traumatic experiences and for me to work with them.

It’s not just a case of jumping into a memory and working with it straightaway. It would very often take much more than one session to be able to access traumatic memories, of which there would usually be more than one, and the right therapist would guide you very gently through the experience. Yes, emotion will be released but that release is a huge weight off the shoulders leading you towards freedom from your symptoms. I, myself was healed of my tourettes symptoms by revisiting an early traumatic moment that caused them. You can see my article about how this was achieved here.


These are great interventions to help with the relief of anxiety, depression, PTSD, phobias and so much more. So if you ever find yourself in front of a therapist who you were hoping was going to wave a magic wand but instead wants to help you confront and release those trauma then my advice would be FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY! Remember, always go with a professional accredited registered therapist to help you achieve that freedom from fear and anxiety and know you are working hand in hand with the clinical professional. To book a free 30 minute consultation contact me here.

Anxiety EFT fear of flying Fears Hypnosis Hypnotherapy positivity Positve thinking Self-improvement Stress Therapy • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Free yourself from Fear!

A picture of a tree with a pale blue background with the words "The fears we don't face become our limits"

It could be argued that people’s greatest enemy is fear. Fear is often the very thing behind failure, sickness, stress and poor human relations. Millions of people are afraid of so many things including fears of the past, the future, old age, dementia, death and illness. Many fears can become a phobia such as fear of flying, spiders and water to name but a few. But fear is just a thought in your own mind which means that all you are actually afraid of are your own thoughts! It’s never too late to free yourself from fear.

If you imagine a small child can be fearful of a monster living under the bed because a playmate has told them that the monster would grab them in the night. But when a parent turns on the light and shows them that there is no monster under the bed then he is freed from that fear. The fear in the  mind of that child was every bit as real as if there was really a monster there. When he was made to realise that the thing that he feared did not exist then he was healed of a false thought in his mind. In the same way, most of your fears have no reality.

The great nineteenth-century philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “Do the thing you are afraid to do, and the death of fear is certain.”

I remember when I was 19 being asked to be best man at a wedding. In fact it was a very big wedding. I was filled with unutterable fear at the thought of standing before an audience and speaking. I believe that if I had given way to this fear, as terrible as it was, I am sure you would not now be reading this blog. I would never have been able to share with others what I have learned about the workings of the subconscious mind. The way I overcame this fear was to follow Emersons advice. Quaking inside I went before the audience and spoke. It was tough at first but as the speech went on I gained a little confidence and by the end I was almost enjoying it. Admittedly it was quite a while until I spoke in front of an audience again but I used this experience as a benchmark and in my line of work now I have to engage in public speaking all the time and I actually enjoy it. I did the thing I was afraid to do and the death of fear was certain.

When you affirm positively that you are going to master your fears, and you come to a definite decision in your conscious mind, you release the power of the subconscious, which in return flows in response to the nature of your thought.

Try this technique for overcoming fear. Suppose you were afraid of swimming. You can retrain your mind with this simple technique. Try and sit still for at least two to three times a day for five or ten minutes. Now imagine that you are swimming. Mentally project yourself into the water. You feel the coolness of the water and the movement of your arms and legs. It is all a very real and vivid and joyful activity in your mind. What you are experiencing in your imagination will then be developed in your subconscious mind. When you next swim it is the joyful action that will surface as this is the law of the subconscious.

The same technique can be applied to other fears. A hypnotherapist can induce an even deeper state to instill positive suggestion and sometimes may work with regression to find a root cause for the particular fear and release the negative emotion that has been buried within the subconscious mind. Emotional Freedom Technique is also another good way of clearing those negative feelings.

Remember to give your focus to what you want to happen not what you are afraid might happen instead. For example If you are fearing failure then focus on success!

For further help and support in overcoming your fears please do not hesitate in contacting me.

 

 

Anxiety Hypnosis Hypnotherapy Insomnia Sleep disorder • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Insomnia – Is it all in your head?

A man looking at his alarm clock in despair at ten past two in the morning because he can't sleep.

Worrying about not getting enough sleep could be the very thing that is causing your insomnia. Although sometimes there could be factors preventing us sleeping such as our diet and health, in a large number of cases it could just be all in the mind. Many of us are actually sleeping much better than we think. What many people actually have is ‘paradoxical insomnia’ where they think they are sleeping much less than they actually are. This can especially be common in people that are a bit anxious or sleep lightly. They may not be getting as good a sleep as the average person but studies show that although they tend to wake up a lot they are still getting sleep in between looking at their clocks. Because the sleep is very light they get the feeling that they are not sleeping at all so accepting that they are actually getting some broken sleep is the first step to tackling insomnia.

Insomnia is often about fear. Fear of just lying awake, fear that they can’t sleep or fear that they will not be able to function at work properly if they do not sleep. This fear then becomes a cycle and then going to bed becomes a negative task and then the fear of sleeps sets in.

So insomnia can simply be as much of a problem as the individual decides to make it. The problem is in your head. So if you can think your way into a problem then surely you can think your way out of it. But how can you do this?

First of all don’t put pressure on yourself to sleep. Don’t think of yourself as going to sleep but think of it as going for a rest. Resting is very restorative. As soon as you put pressure on yourself to sleep it’s not going to happen. So, make rest your goal! Research shows that for some cognitive tasks the benefits of rest were indistinguishable from sleep.

Much of the time people have decided for themselves wether they are good or bad sleepers. Remember you get what you focus on so if you focus on being a bad sleeper then you are probably going to get a bad nights sleep. Maybe if you decide that you are a good sleeper then if you do get a bad night then it won’t be so much of a big deal. Good sleepers have a belief that they are going to be fine whatever happens in the night. People that get highly stressed about their sleep have more depression, tiredness and cognitive impairment than people with a more positive belief system about their sleeping habits.

Increase your confidence about falling asleep by determining what time you need to get up then set your alarm and count backwards five and a half hours and don’t let yourself go to bed before that time (so in this case it would be one am). Make sure that you get up with that alarm and that you do not allow yourself any little naps throughout the day. Once you have done this for a few days your body will try and satisfy it’s need for sleep by making those five and a half hours as efficient as possible. Your sleep will then become much more continuous and much deeper. Once you have developed the confidence that you will fall asleep you can start bringing your bedtime forwards until it feels right for you. People may try and tell you that you need eight or nine hours sleep but research shows that six or seven is enough for a lot of people.

Move away from defining yourself as an insomniac by taking your focus away from sleep. See if you can go a whole month without talking about it! If you are asked by anyone about it then just say you slept fine.

Sometimes if we haven’t slept well the night before we tend to go to bed early in order to make up for it. This is a common mistake. It’s far better to go to bed later rather than earlier so that you make your sleep more efficient and don’t lay there in bed putting yourself under pressure to sleep.

You can start your bedtime routine as early as in the morning. Pick a wake up time and STICK TO IT! The brain loves consistency so if the brain has routine then it knows what is coming. Exercise is also a great idea. Early in the morning and outside in the fresh air is even better.

Sometimes it can be a case of an overactive mind. If I find my mind racing when I go to bed I find it very useful to use Emotional Freedom Technique to shut down my thinking. Hypnotherapy can also be very useful either by finding the root cause of the problem or using suggestions to help you sleep and get back into a routine.

For more information about hypnotherapy and EFT in Essex please contact me.

Anxiety coping mechanisms EFT fear of flying Hypnosis Hypnotherapy Motivation positivity Self-improvement Therapy • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 2 Comments

Fear of flying. Plane stupid?

A man flying in the clouds with an ipad attached to his chest looking panicked.

Fear of flying. Plane stupid?

Hello again everyone. Welcome to my latest blog about fear of flying. I apologise for there not being a blog for the last couple of weeks but this is due to me taking a much needed holiday. I always choose to go away somewhere nice and warm as it is coming to the end of winter here. It’s nice to soak up the sun after the many months of early darkness and dreary grey days knowing that on my return home that it is nearly spring and the days are getting longer and the sun is beginning to shine much more warming us both physically and mentally. Sometimes it’s not until you actually go away that you realise how much the rest is needed. While I was away it got me thinking about people that have a phobia of flying (aviophobia) and how awful it must be not to be able to just escape to another country when they feel like it. The interesting concept of phobias is that there is not normally a rational fear behind them. Even if the fear doesn’t actually prevent a person from travelling anywhere it can greatly impair their enjoyment of the journey. We all know that flying is actually one of the safest forms of transport but many still hold a fear which is out of their control. So, what can they do about it?  After all there is far greater risk, statistically, of being kicked to death by a donkey than dying in a plane crash.

I have had a very high success rate with fear of flying using a combination of Hypnotherapy and Emotional Freedom Technique. EFT is a great self-help tool that can be used to bring down any anxiety about flying and the beneficial aspect of this therapy is that, once learned, it can be used anywhere. On the way to the airport, at the airport or sitting on a plane. That is the wonder of emotional freedom technique. I would, however, look deeper into the root cause of the problem to help clear the phobia using hypnotherapy. In my experience the majority of the time it’s because of one issue – CONTROL. People feel out of control in a plane. The average person does not have is a great understanding of how planes work and what the noises are that they hear and where there is a lack of understanding people feel out of control with many not able to put their trust in a pilot that they don’t know and a machine that they don’t understand. If a client feels out of control in their life then this problem will just be exacerbated. This may not  necessarily mean that the client is feeling out of control presently but using hypno-analysis we can look into the past and find out the originating cause of the phobia. This may not necessarily even have anything to do with flying or planes but may just simply be a control issue or a deeper set condition.

I once had a client, many years ago, that had never flown and even if she saw a plane flying overhead she would duck in panic! Hypnosis regressed her to eight years old where she remembered watching a news report about a plane that crashed onto a motorway. This had made the news as it was such a rare occurrence but the fear of seeing that at her young age was repressed into the subconscious causing her phobia. Reliving this event as an adult helped release the negative emotion stuck in the subconscious and we used some suggestion therapy for another couple of sessions re-framing any negative thoughts related to flying. She wrote to me after, happily informing me she had taken a short flight and actually enjoyed it and had booked a much longer flight for her honeymoon.

So, what should you do and not do should you suffer from fear of flying?

  • Don’t avoid flying. It is a treatable problem. Fears and phobias have one of the highest success rates for treatment of psychological problems. We tend to make ourselves feel safer by avoiding things but we truly grow by stepping outside our comfort zone.
  • Think about the destination you are going to. Really focus on all the positive things about being there.
  • Challenge any negative thoughts. There is a big difference between discomfort and danger. Think about your triggers. If turbulence is a trigger, for example, think about it logically. ‘Ok I might spill my drink but the plane isn’t going to fall apart.”
  • Learn some relaxation techniques. Deep breathing exercises, meditation and of course emotional freedom technique will all help. Reading is also a very good distraction or listening to music.
  • Keep hydrated. Try to avoid alcohol and drugs. Before and during the flight, it’s important to keep blood sugar levels up. Stick to water and juices to keep hydrated and remember to eat little and often to maintain your energy, which can help control anxiety levels. Rest if you can, though sleep is not essential.

To learn more and for further support with any of these issues please contact me for a free initial consultation.

Happy Holidays! 😉

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