Tag: <span>relaxation</span>

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.

Relationships • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Caught in a bad romance? How to stop attracting negative relationships

A man and a woman shouting at each other and raising hands and clenching fists showing a bad relationships

Caught in a bad romance?

Do you find that you keep attracting the wrong partner into your life? Do you always end up in a toxic relationship? Do you see old relationship patterns repeating themselves?

One of the most common problems therapists deal with is a repeating pattern of dysfunctional relationships. The client’s partners share consistent similarities, such as physical and/or emotional abuse, unavailability, drug/alcohol, instability, Jealousy, narcissism, infidelity etc. And each relationship eventually ends badly because of these repetitive dynamics. After a while, such destructive patterns which often seem to be obvious to other people around them start to become apparent even to the client. And the therapeutic question becomes: Why would anyone persist in pursuing relationships that are doomed to failure? What’s going on here?

There are various reasons that this could be happening. Sometimes this can be due to a fear of intimacy with the opposite sex so we sabotage the relationship by pushing a partner away.

However, more often than not, there is a neurotic defense mechanism afoot that Freud called a ‘repetition compulsion’. This is a neurotic defense mechanism and this is how it works. It is typically an attempt to rewrite history. Particularly troubled relationships with parents, more often than not being the opposite sex parent. If this pattern matches in a current relationship the client has the subconscious childish hope that if he/she can be good, perfect, smart, quiet, funny enough etc then we can win over mum and dad and they will finally love them, as they need them to, unconditionally. The subconscious mistakenly believes that the problem with the parental interaction resides with them. With that the client believes they have the power to rectify it in changing into someone more acceptable. The most common argument I get from a client in this position is “It’s me. I am in the wrong. None of my relationships work.” So that client always hold onto the hope of being able to change the parents response by becoming what he or she wants us to become to ward off abandonment depression. Only now it is not a parent but the partner that the client is trying to please. This can often lead the client into a controlling relationship. So the client tends to repeat patterns of falling in love or getting involved with a partner that can cause them many difficulties. It’s a blind spot and no one would consciously choose this but this is a subconscious process at play and is a very powerful repetition if those negative subconscious repressed emotions are not released.

Sometimes clients have also become almost addicted to the drama of these events. It can become a subconscious way  to get any attention. This can also be very destructive. They also persevere with the relationship because they think they can fix their partner and force them to change. The believe that if they can change them that will make them a more worthy partner. They become rescuers but this can often be futile. In some cases it can just be a fear of being alone or low self worth hence choosing to opt for just anyone that will give them their time.

Hypnotherapy and EFT can help make change to these negative relationship habits  by releasing those repressed emotions and breaking the pattern that keeps re-occurring in the client’s life. By releasing those repressed emotions and changing thought processes we can help change the type of relationships that they have been attracting and guide them towards a more emotionally healthy and happy life.

Life is too short to be stuck in the wrong relationship and if our relationships are not in check then negative emotions can cause us so much stress and negative symptoms. This can cause us both mental and physical illness. Take control of your life now, you know it makes sense. 🙂

 

Twin Peaks • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Twin Peaks is my therapy

Agent Dale Cooper (played by actor Kyle Mcklachlan) at the end of a long corridor of red curtains with a black and white zig zagged floor in the black lodge in twin peaks

Twin peaks is back after 25 years and in typical David Lynch style it continues to shock, confuse and amaze those who follow the series. It may have been over 25 years since the last episode was shown but it has never been far from my mind. In fact, it has taken that amount of time to process and understand much of what went on in the show all those years ago, watching the episodes many times along with the feature film ‘twin peaks: fire walk with me’. This is why I’ve decided to write about how Twin Peaks has been my therapy.

So, why do I consider this surreal show therapy? Television in itself is hypnosis. When we are glued to that box we are taken places within our own minds and imagination. There is, however, no other show that hypnotises quite like twin peaks. One of the reasons I have watched the shows so many times is because I found that it relaxes me and opens my mind creatively. I have had some of my best creative ideas watching twin peaks. From the surreal images to the haunting and relaxing music of Angelo Badalamenti I can be taken right into the depths of my subconscious mind where creativity springs from. It’s quite ironic that a television series about the brutal murder of a high school prom queen can also relax and soothe the mind. Don’t get me wrong there are some very uneasy scenes of violence, horror and also hints of sexual abuse but there are so many different layers to Lynch’s film making. Of course, it isn’t just David Lynch but also Mark Frosts input that has made this such an incredible show. Forget the complexity of it. Although I don’t think there is any other show that causes so much discussion and different ideas and this in itself can be a form of therapy as it enables us to focus and think ‘outside the box’ but alongside this complexity there is also such an innocent simplicity. Many of the characters have a real  innocence about them that we instantly feel a warmth and rapport and a sense of protection to their very being. Lynch/Frost use many of these characters to bring humour to the show and bring a light heartedness, that, without it would probably make the storyline too dark and foreboding. One of these innocent characters is Lucy Brennan who is the Sheriff Departments receptionist who has an on/off relationship with Deputy Andy. She has some classic one liners and, although innocent, is nobody’s fool. Her sidekick Andy is also another innocent and enchanting character and the pair of them together bring a light warmth to some of the shows darkest moments.

Many of the characters are mysterious and enchanting, like the log lady who, as her title suggests, has a log that seems to know and understand much about the events that are taking place. ‘One day soon, my log will have something to say about this’ she teases very near the beginning of season one. Sadly the actress Catherine Coulson, who played the log lady, passed away during the filming of series three but not without filming her last scenes. And after watching these scenes in the first two episodes of series three it seems she very likely filmed these scenes on her death bed where she died from complications of cancer. This, to me, shows the dedication and passion that she had to the show and to David Lynch’s work who she had worked with many times over the years. In fact the idea for the log lady first came together many many years before in 1977 on the set of Lynch’s first ever, albeit low budget,  film ‘Eraserhead’ in which Coulson performed various behind the scenes functions. During the filming of ‘Eraserhead’, Lynch told Coulson that he had an image in his head of her holding a large log. Fifteen years later, he created such a role for her in Twin Peaks, on which she starred for 12 episodes through seasons 1 and 2.

Coulson went on to reprise her role in the film prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire walk with me, and in the 2017 revival. In the new series, her character (the Log Lady) appears in the first two episodes, where she passes on a message from her log for Deputy Hawk to resume the search for Agent Cooper.

There is a strong mystic element to the log lady where she almost seems to have a psychic connection to her log. Very much in the way a witch would have a familiar such as a toad or cat or a psychic would have a crystal ball as a tool or ‘prop’ to channel psychic abilities. In fact there are many spiritual aspects to twin peaks. The red room which resides inside the black lodge where agent Cooper meets Laura Palmer is almost like a plane between the earth plane and the other side. In fact, this where he gets messages from various ‘spirits’. Although it doesn’t seem you have to be necesarily dead to be in the red room. Obviously Cooper isn’t but seems to visit when in a ‘dream like state’ or sleeping (Hey, that’s hypnosis!) In a recent episode in a dramatically horrifying scene a young boy gets hit by a truck and killed and when an older character tries to comfort the grieving mother he sees the child’s spirit going up into the sky.

Lynch has also reported that during the filming of Erasurehead that is where Coulson started practicing meditation having observed Lynch himself practice the technique.

And that leads me towards why I find Twin Peaks such a therapy in itself. Meditation. Meditation is a form of self-hypnosis. Although we all naturally go into hypnosis from times to time. Maybe through day dreaming or focus (ie.watching television) or driving from A to B and suddenly arriving without any idea of how we got there, the art of meditation can bring us into  much deeper depths of our subconscious mind. It is not only relaxing because it slows our body down from the strains of our everyday modern life but it is also therapeutic in the way that it lets our conscious minds switch off. It occurred to me last week when I was watching the latest episode of Twin Peaks: the return how quickly the episodes seem to fly by. A fifty minute episode (I watch without the ad breaks) literally feels like under ten minutes. As a hypnotherapist in Essex I know that when a client has been hypnotised, or indeed from my own experience of hypnosis, there seems to be hardly any concept of time. Lynch and Frost definitely seem to be giving us such an intense focus along with relaxing themes and some symbolism that are putting us into a meditative dream like state.  Although I have experienced a similar phenomenon in the past with other programs it has never been to this degree. So, from the angst of my late teens where the escapism was such an intense form of escape from my problems of the time to the hypnotic and meditative relaxation of today Twin Peaks has definitely been like my own form of therapy along with the group therapy of sharing ideas and concepts about the show online with fellow peakies! Lynch and Frost you have been the most wonderful therapist. Therapy never ends and let’s hope the show goes on further too and if it doesn’t?  Well I’ll just have to keep watching the episodes that have been made because with every new viewing you find something that you haven’t seen before.

For more information on hypnosis or hypnotherapy in please visit www.positivelycalm.com

 

Completing your therapy • • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Therapy is a journey – AND the rewards are SO worth it!

A man climbing up the side of a rock with the words "never give up on youself"

Therapy is a journey – AND the rewards are SO worth it!

Hello there everyone. I really hope that you are enjoying the summer! It’s so nice to get outside more often, have longer days and some nice healthy walks in the fresh air. I do apologise that I haven’t blogged for a few weeks but things here at Positivelycalm therapy have been busy busy busy!!

I’ve chosen to speak this week about the importance of sticking with therapy. One of the most disappointing aspects of any therapy practice is when a client quits therapy before it is complete. Although this doesn’t happen often there can be several reasons for this but the most common, especially when a client is going through analysis, is when a client is having difficulty coping with discharging negative feelings. Of course there are some problems that can be treated just with one or two sessions such as quit smoking but many symptoms require  full analysis. Every therapist would love to be able  wave a magic wand and make those negative feelings disappear straight away and if we could do it that quick I’m sure we would all be millionaires. The truth of the matter is that we do have to face up to these negative feelings before we can release them. To do this we have to relive or re-feel them in order for our subconscious and conscious adult minds to make sense of them to let them go. Therapy guides us to face up to those negative feelings buried in our subconscious but facing up to them and re living them as an adult is the most sure fire way of having an understanding of them and letting them go. During your therapy, over the weeks, there are moments when you can feel really good and this is an indication of how you shall feel once therapy had been completed. Not everyone’s therapy experience is the same and no one should be treated as a text book case as we are certainly all individuals. Some people start feeling better straightaway or after one or two sessions. Some people take longer and sometimes people are just very up and down throughout their therapy experience. These feelings are quite natural and all I can advise is not to give up and just ride the wave until the end. Therapy is very much a journey. It has its ups and downs but the destination is fantastic!

Another reason people may give up on therapy is that they just don’t believe that they are getting anywhere quick enough. They may have known someone who has had therapy and been better in two sessions yet they have had six sessions and are not yet anywhere near where they want to be feeling. Again we are all different. Our mind-sets and the way we all see things are different and our reactions to things are not all the same. Also some people’s problems are much more deep rooted than others. Any therapist would not be seeing you if they didn’t think that they would be able to help you and that is why I offer a free initial consultation so that I can ascertain wether I can be the best help for the particular problem  and the route of therapy to go down. If I don’t believe that I would be the best possible therapist for the particular problem then it is my duty to point you in the right direction and maybe towards a therapist who specialises in the particular area that you may need help. So, a therapist wouldn’t be seeing you if he/she didn’t think there could be an improvement. Some people just take longer than others. Some people take longer to subconsciously process things depending on how deep rooted the particular problem is and there are people that just need different therapy strategies and coping mechanism where there are some that alleviate their problem with one therapy which could also be alleviated in fewer sessions. SO DON’T GIVE UP!  Everyone deserves to feel good and not to carry around negativity. Don’t accept that’s just the way you are. We were not born negative. We can all change and we all deserve to change it’s just some people improve quicker than others. Please don’t give up because YOU ARE WORTH IT! 😉

Meditation Uncategorized • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Improve your life through Meditation

Improve your life through Meditation

A person sitting in the lotus meditation position meditating

Hello everyone and I hope that you have all had a positive week since my last blog and as you can see from the title of this weeks blog I have decided to talk to you about how you can improve your life through meditation as I believe that meditation is beneficial to each and every one of us. It is a natural mind state that many of us have become detached from. Everything has become so fast in our lives now that people find it hard to switch off. In fact we could all benefit from learning to LITERALLY SWITCH OFF! That’s switch off your mobile phones, your ipads, your wifi and all this other electrical equipment that is putting different radio waves and electric ions into our surrounding atmosphere. It is a good idea to first switch these things off before we can relax our minds and go into our own meditative state and SWITCH OFF our own minds. Our minds definitely need much more rest than they are currently getting.

I learned meditation myself at quite a young age. I did have some trauma in my life and I now believe that meditation saved me from quite a lot of psychological damage. Of course at a very young age I didn’t even really realise I was meditating and I certainly didn’t realise that meditation was a form of self- hypnosis. So, for me, at that time it was escapism, turning my mind off to the real world. This used to be more in the form of reading fictional books or pretending I was someone else. It was all a coping mechanism I naturally used to help me through some harder times. It was later on when I was in my teens that I discovered what meditation, as we know it now, really was. I believe everything that happens to us happens for a reason and I was lent a book on meditation and astral projection that I found fascinating. I found that, with some practice, I could learn to shut down my conscious mind and enter a state of extreme relaxation. I say with some practice because it’s not something that you can learn to do it one sitting. Like everything worth having you really have to practice and train yourself as it is a discipline. It is a fantastic practice to learn though for your own physical and mental health.

To begin with it was just a case of sitting down quietly somewhere I wouldn’t be disturbed and trying to switch off my thoughts. This wasn’t always an easy task so I often used my imagination to focus on something. I remember imagining a flickering candle in my mind and concentrating on that until I felt my mind and body relaxing. Sometimes I would put relaxing music on (with no words) and I would focus on this, again, until I felt my mind and body quietening down. The more I practiced this, the easier it got, until I was finding myself in deep meditative states. I didn’t realise it at the time but when I became trained as a professional Hypnotherapist I realised that I was putting myself into self -hypnosis where I could often find answers to questions and solutions to problems that would naturally come to me. I believe that this is our natural way of being. How we should be much more of the time than we currently are.

So, what are the benefits of meditation?

Calmness – Letting go of negative thoughts so that the mind doesn’t dwell on them until they are blown completely out of proportion causing anxiety. The act of the deep breathing exercise also helps to slow and calm our bodies down.

Anti-Inflammatory – Stress cause inflammation which has been linked to heart disease and asthma and skin conditions such as psoriasis. Relaxation through meditation helps switch off this stress response. This is also very good for Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Lower blood pressure – A study at Harvard Medical School found that meditation lowered blood pressure by making the body less responsive to stress hormones, in a similar way to blood pressure-lowering medication. Meanwhile a British Medical Journal report found that patients trained how to relax had significantly lower blood pressure.

Increased Fertility – Studies at the University of Western Australia have revealed that women are more likely to conceive when they are relaxed and men have a boost of sperm count through relaxation.

Helps cure neurosis – Helps to find emotional balance and cure neurosis and un healthy emotional states. It helps cleanses emotionally soaked memories.

Boosts Immunity – Relaxation has been shown to help boost the immune system making it very beneficial to recovering cancer patients. A study at the Ohio State University found that progressive muscular relaxation, when practised daily, reduced the risk of breast cancer recurrence. In another study at Ohio State, a month of relaxation exercises boosted natural killer cells in the elderly, giving them a greater resistance to tumours and to viruses.

Aside from the regular sitting still and closing your eyes and trying to clear your mind there are many other ways to meditate from using guided imagery to breath focus, yoga, saying mantras and guided imagery. I find the most beneficial meditation for me is a tapping meditation using Emotional Freedom Technique. An introduction video to EFT can be found here. And a video showing me demonstrating the basic recipe for tapping can be found here. If you would like a guided imagery relaxation audio you are welcome to download my relaxation mp3 FREE OF CHARGE here.

You may want to try some different forms of meditation to see what works for you. The important thing is to find the time to do it, even if it is just twenty minutes a day. We all deserve at least that. Give it a try and see how much more positive your life becomes. GO ON! YOU ARE WORTH IT!

HAPPY MEDITATING!

 

Brad Mace, Dhp, MAPHP (acc).

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