Tag: <span>psychotherapy</span>

Avoiding arguments • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

First Blog Of The New Year – Preventing Heated Arguments

Two people pulling on each end of a gold chain with a sign in the middle of the chain saing 'Why I'm Right'

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to my first blog of 2017. Sorry that it’s been a bit delayed but things have been busy here at positivelycalm. I hope we all had good Christmas and New Year celebrations. Did everyone got through it in one piece without too many arguments?;-) I say this because it can be a stressful time for some people and along with too much alcohol sometimes things get heated. We have all heard of the famous Christmas argument. Well with many people making new years resolutions concerning quitting bad habits and weight loss how about a resolution to keep calm and stop arguing? It doesn’t have to be the start of a new year to make a resolution; we can make change at any time. I always find arguing such a waste of energy. After all what is arguing? It is just difference of opinion and wouldn’t the world be a boring place if we all thought the same? Our opinions come from our different backgrounds and experiences which colour our thoughts and judgments in later life so, of course, we can’t all have the same ideas. And discussing things calmly is a fantastic way of learning from each other but when things get heated or aggressive then that is when it becomes an argument. And what is the best way to lose an argument? Exactly that! Getting aggressive really takes away all credibility.
So what is an argument? A dictionary definition of an argument is as follows:
1. Give reasons or cite evidence in support of an idea, action, or theory, typically with the aim of persuading others to share one’s view.
2. Exchange or express diverging or opposite views, typically in a heated or angry way.
So yes it is great to debate things but when people start getting upset or angry it can cause a bad atmosphere and bad feeling. How can we avoid this?
First of all listen! Just by showing the other person that you are taking into account what they are saying will make them feel better. It doesn’t mean that you have to agree to what they are saying.
Display open body language. Crossing your arms or turning away from a person is an aggressive gesture that is just going to aggravate the person that you are conversing with.
Try not to raise your voice. Keep it on an even level. There is a big difference between argumentative and assertive behaviour. It is much better to be assertive and get your point across without losing your temper.
If you feel yourself getting angry then talk about your feelings. It’s much better to discharge them by speaking before you get angry otherwise that leads to frustration. If you can both consciously take five minutes each at the beginning to talk about your feelings this can really help keep your anger down.
Don’t make threats. This is a very weak way of trying to convince someone to understand you.
Don’t bring up negative feelings that the other person may have done in the past. Try to calmly concentrate on the matter in hand.
Abuse is never acceptable. This includes verbal or physical abuse. If the discussion/argument reaches this point then walk away.
Don’t be goaded into an argument. Even negative attention is attention for some people. Some people actually do like to argue because it gives them a sense of power or gratification albeit temporary. Avoid getting sucked into their need for attention.
Listen to your body. When you are angry your body releases chemicals that may cause you to react in ways that can be destructive to you. Learn to understand your feelings and how the process of anger affects you physically and emotionally.
Sometimes if you start feeling negative feelings in your body from arguing you need to step back and take a deep breath and think about what you are saying. Our subconscious will always jump in before our conscious so a great deal of the time when you are having an argument you end up saying something that just makes the argument ten times worse before you have even had a chance to think about it.
If you are finding avoiding arguing hard that is where Hypnotherapy and Emotional Freedom Technique can help. No one really wants to walk around with these negative feelings and often we don’t have any idea why we are feeling them because they spring from repressed negative feelings in the subconcious. Working with a trained therapist can bring these negative feelings out and take a huge weight off your shoulders. Anger management is a big part of my client base here at positivelycalm where I provide a top class Hypnotherapy service in Essex.
For further information do not hesitate to contact me on 07795573280 or complete this contact form.
Wishing you all a positively calm and argument free New Year!

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

Success and what it means to you

Success loading pic

A question that I often get asked is how do you measure success? This isn’t an easy question to answer because success very much depends on the individual and what their own definition of success is. Some people measure success on financial gain and how successful they are in their career. Others measure success on how successful they are in love and relationships and on lifes achievements. As a therapist it is not always easy to measure success within your own practice because if you’ve made good progress with a client and they are ready to finish therapy you let them go off into the world and hopefully you don’t hear from them again because they are better and no longer need your help. I suppose I would consider myself successful in the way that I never usually have to work with a client again unless they come back for a completely different reason. For example I had a text from a client this week who had seen me for quit smoking hypnotherapy in Essex 6 months ago. After two months of not smoking he was so pleased that he had quit the habit so easily that he decided that he would go to the next step and stop drinking. This client was not an alcoholic by any means but he did realise that his drinking had also become a bit of a bad habit because of his lifestyle. So he returned to me for another two hour session but this time focusing on his drinking habit. During this session we used both emotional freedom technique and hypnotherapy. We chose a one off extra long session simply because he lives a long way away (he had chosen to travel to me for my quit-smoking session after a recommendation) so it was the best option in this case. I didn’t feel that there were any underlying issues to be dealt with so it was a much simpler process. So when I received the text this week saying that he was 6 months off the cigarettes and 2 months off alcohol I knew that it had been successful. The other way I can measure success is if I see a client as a recommendation from someone else who has seen me for therapy with successful results. I also offer a free top up if a quit-smoker is smoking within three months of seeing me. It is very rare that anyone returns for that. That’s says to me SUCCESS!

Success for me was learning to walk again after a serious hit and run accident. I will never take walking  far granted again! Yet to someone else walking is just a natural everyday activity. A client that is suffering from a social phobia or a general anxiety disorder would feel successful by being able to walk into a room full of people without those nerves with their head held high and a big smile on their face for the first time ever.

A big mistake many people make is to compare themselves to others.  They may see a colleague in a better job earning better money with a lovely car. That same colleague could be looking at you in a solid happy relationship thinking they would give up everything that they have to be in that position. So it’s all relative to the person.  If you are working in a sales environment then success would be meeting and exceeding your targets. Many people thrive on the adrenalin rush that this brings.

My aim at positivelycalm is to help you achieve the success that is important for you. Part of this would be removing barriers that may be stopping you achieving all that you want to achieve. Emotion Freedom Technique is very good for this because sometimes our anxieties play havoc with us achieving our goals. So if we can remove our blocks then there is no stopping us getting to where we want to be and even further! Our believe system is so important in this process. A common problem all therapists find with clients is that they don’t feel good enough. If you believe that you are not good enough for something then you probably won’t be. If you believe that you are good enough then you will be. It’s all there for you in the power of your own mind. All of us are good enough. We just need to believe. Sometimes we just need some help in untapping our potential. There is nothing wrong with seeking help along the way. Whatever your goal, wether it is hypnotherapy for weight loss or hypnotherapy for quit smoking, just making that decision to go ahead is your first step to SUCCESS! So if you would like some help to achieve your dreams come and see me at positivelycalm for some therapy in Essex.

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

Hypnotherapy and Addiction

Hypnotherapy and addiction

Image saying addiction there is a way out

This week I am talking about addiction and how hypnotherapy can help. The word addiction comes from the latin word addiction which mean a ‘giving over, surrender to.’ The dictionary would describe the noun for the word addiction as ‘the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.’ Some scientists  believe that some of us have naturally addictive personalities which could be a make up of our genetics. It may be harder for people with certain genes to quit once they start. Or they may experience more severe withdrawal symptoms if they try to quit.

Habits are not addictions, but bad habits share traits of addictive behaviors and bad habits can become addictions. Things like sex-addiction and gambling can have a huge control over peoples lives. And there is the key word ‘control’. If something has such a control over our lives there is nothing more empowering than taking that control back.

Cocaine addiction seems to be becoming more common and I have noticed quite a dramatic rise in clients with cocaine addiction since I first started working as a therapist fifteen years ago. Smoking has, of course, always been a popular one for addicts and also alcohol. This is also where we cross into a grey area with the difference between addiction and habit. I see smoking as more of a habit which is why we can use some psychotherapy and suggestion to break the habit rather than having to get to a root cause of the problem. All that is needed for this is one 2-hour quit-smoking session and that session has a high success rate. If, on the rare occasion, this is not successful then I would look into some analysis to see if there is an emotion being fed.

 

Factors that make it harder to become addicted also may be genetic. For example, someone may feel sick from a drug that makes other people feel good. But someone’s genetic makeup will never doom them to inevitably become an addict. Remember, environment makes up a large part of addiction risk. This is where I believe that hypno-analysis is very important to get to the root cause of what may be causing the addiction or indeed root causes as this is often more than one factor. Hypno-analysis is a tool used in hypnotherapy to discharge any negative emotion from the subconscious that may be causing symptoms. We refer to these trapped negative emotions as ‘repressions’. During our former years from when we are born to when we mature, this could be 16,17,18, we are all different, if something happens to us that we cannot emotionally deal with then that emotion gets repressed into our subconscious and it can sit there causing us to do things that are out of our control. In my experience these memories are normally remembered consciously but when hypnotising a client and suggesting to the subconscious that it release anything that may still be bothering it what the client is not normally aware of is how much emotion is still attached to that memory. It is that very emotion which has been causing the symptom wether it be anxiety, bad habits, addiction or fears. Because our subconscious always overrides our conscious that is why we feel we don’t have control over our addiction. It’s a bit like the smoker who has a cigarette  lit in his/her hand before they have even consciously thought about lighting a cigarette. This is why hypnotherapy is effective for quit-smoking because it does some re-programming in the subconscious stopping the client thinking about smoking all the time. This is where suggestion works comes into play. So where hypno-analysis uses regression to let go of past trauma suggestion is used to re-frame negative thoughts in our subconscious to help us overcome our symptom. Therefore I would normally use a combination of hypno-analysis and suggestion when helping a client overcome an addiction using hypnotherapy.

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) also known as tapping can also be used alongside hypnotherapy as a tool to ‘tap away’ our negative emotions that may be related to a particular habit or addiction. This is a great tool to give a client to take away with them to use should they get any unwanted urges towards their particular habit or addiction. Using this tool they can bring down the strength of the particular emotion that could be driving their addiction or habit. It’s another great way for the client to take control back. Please see my Emotional Freedom Technique Page and video for further information.

No one should be kept from living the life of their dreams because of an addiction or a bad habit.

 

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