Is it possible to hypnotise an entire nation? The truth may surprise you.

My mission in life is to help people overcome the emotional and psychological challenges they face in their lives. 

Sometimes – often, in fact – the origins of the problems I treat lie buried deep in the past and it takes years of training and experience I have to help my clients meet and address them.

But my training wasn’t always just limited to therapeutic practice. Once upon a time, I also trained in stage hypnosis. I did it because i was curious about the different aspects of the master tool that is hypnosis. 

...

Continue reading...

Walk into any of the big three fast food restaurants these days and the chances are the emphasis will be on getting you in and out as quickly as possible.

The technology is designed to allow you to order your food, pay for it and then collect it from a collection point when it’s ready.

In possibly the only instance where it was actually ahead of the curve when it came to retail trends, this ‘convenience’ approach to buying was originally pioneered by catalogue store Argos.

On the surface, this ‘hit and run’ approach is a good thing when it comes to the fast food industry because in principle – and the words in principle are the kicker...

Continue reading...

I have a friend whose favourite theory is that Hell isn’t a place you go to when you die, it’s the place you go to live. And you get to do it over and over again, until you become a decent human being.

He’s fond of arguing that reincarnation is simply the re-taking of life’s exams. Then again, he’s also fond of arguing that the people who learn the fewest lessons in life are destined to live in Middlesbrough, so I’m not sure how much credence we can attach to his ramblings.

But if you ignore the religious context for a moment, there’s something of truth in the notion that life will continue to give you the same lesson until you finally learn it.

...

Continue reading...

As a concept, it’s a fantastic script. Two star crossed lovers wounded by a past littered with one failed relationship after another. Life gives them one last battle to fight: the battle to find each other.

It’s a sweeping, soaring, tear-fest of two people hampered by fate and shackled to a future they can’t yet see but which they both know lies somewhere just beyond their immediate reach. It’s Gable and Leigh, Bogart and Bergman, Tracy and Hepburn. It’s Keira Knightley and Andrew Lincoln in that scene in Love Actually. Except in your version, Keira doesn’t let him walk away.

You have the script and, because this is your love story, you have a ready-made cast. It...

Continue reading...

In the grand scheme of things, you know something might have gone wrong when you’re heating something up in a microwave and there’s a sudden loud bang, a shower of sparks and the house is plunged into sudden darkness.

Like most ordinary people, I know what electricity does, but not how it does it. I can change a lightbulb and, if the circumstances are right and there’s a diagram to work from, a plug. When there’s a normal power cut – in other words, the sort that isn’t accompanied by loud noises and sudden fireworks in the kitchen – I also know where to look to see if a fuse has blown (though what to do next would elude me).

But that’s pretty much as far as my expe...

Continue reading...

All of us have, at some time or another, experienced grief. While it’s an emotion we most commonly associate with death, it’s not limited to the loss of a life. We can grieve for friends or family who move far away, for a lost item that had powerful sentimental worth or for an opportunity we should have taken but didn’t.

As children many of us have lost treasured pets or older relatives. And as we get older, death’s footsteps fall closer to our daily lives, claiming friends, parents, siblings and others we cherish.

Grief in all these circumstances is entirely normal. In fact, it’s also entirely healthy. And most of the time it’s transitory, a process with a beginning and an end that we move through on the wa...

Continue reading...

All new things are weak and tender. This can include the beginnings of a romantic relationship or friendship, a business partnership, a new creative project, a move to a new location, job or country or even the learning of a new skill. Whenever we make a change it is important to also recognise that even positive changes are often challenging. It takes time, energy and focus to adjust. So in a way we could say all beginnings possess a delicacy that is important to respect.

However the beginnings I am particularly focused on here are the beginnings of recovery; recovery from heartbreak, anxiety, divorce, addiction, trauma, depression, an abusive relationship, chronic illness, grief. Recovery from whatever it i...

Continue reading...

Did you know that we live 95% of our lives led by the beliefs of the subconscious mind, and that 70% of those beliefs are negative? By the time we reach the age of 7, we have downloaded and installed a set of programs and beliefs from our parents that become our software for the entirety of our lives, unless we change them. Our subconscious is the part of our mind that stores our emotions, memories, skills, instincts and behaviours, as well as running biological functions.  If we are trying to change anything in our lives with the conscious mind, and it goes against our previous unconscious conditioning, then we might as well conserve our energy. Basically, to be blunt, those early programs will direct the course of your life, whether you like it or not. The Matrix movie was totally on the game, either we...

Continue reading...

We are all familiar with the treasured items that get passed down through a family from generation to generation, perhaps a piece of jewellery or a painting, they can possess great financial or sentimental value. These items are family heirlooms and can become part of the lives of consecutive generations, paying homage to our perceived roots.

However the same applies to the non-physical – and not-so treasured – familial patterns.  These are the unconscious burdens and inherited belief systems we carry from generation to generation.  We can inherit not only their genes but also their self-limiting beliefs, their psychological shadows, their anxieties and much more across generations.

You may see this in the way you have worked extensively on your issues but they simply refuse to ...

Continue reading...

Make it this:

Trust yourself.

It’s simple, yet admittedly not always easy. Trusting and acting upon your intuition can be frightening, yet if we don’t we end up buffeted about by the winds and wills of others’ desires and advice. If we continue to ignore or override our inner voice we will end up feeling dissatisfied at best, deeply resentful and unwell at worst.

Your intuition is actually an unflinching truth-teller committed to your well-being; it’s your own best friend. If you allow yourself the time and space to practise listening to, and most importantly acting upon, your intuition you can begin to rely on it as the most incredible vehicle to navigate you through life’s waters.

So how do we access this potent form of inner wis...

Continue reading...