"WHENEVER ATTENTION IS CONCENTRATED ON AN IDEA OVER AND OVER AGAIN, IT SPONTANEOUSLY TENDS TO REALISE ITSELF" Émile Coué Psychologist 1857 - 1926 I've not been feeling great today, so, in between sessions, I took myself out for a walk in my local woodland. It was very muddy and busier than normal, and there were a lot of dogs, and I'm a little afraid of dogs. I was walking through the woods, on a route that I usually really enjoy, but I was just feeling fed up and annoyed. Annoyed at the mud, and the people and the dogs. I took a deep breath and decided to just ignore all that stuff. It wouldn't normally bother me, so don't let it now. I made myself focus on the beautiful nature that surrounded me. I'm in the woods, of course I'm gonna get muddy! And then, I looked up and I saw this. A rainbow. Now whilst I do not condone graffiti on nature, it did make me smile. Had I continued to focus on the mud and the people and the dogs, I would have missed it. This is THE LAW OF CONCENTRATED ATTENTION. Due to the way our minds work, we continuously look for patterns. If you tend to think negatively, you will notice/experience things that are negative, because they fit the pattern. Something beautiful or exciting does not fit the pattern and so your brain will just let that come and go without giving it much attention at all. Think of it this way. Someone has a huge spider phobia. Every room they enter they look for spiders, spiders are constantly on their mind everywhere they go. Well, if there is a spider in that room, they're gonna see it, and they react with fear and their belief that spiders are everywhere and out to get them will be made stronger and to them, will be proven to be true. Now, someone that doesn't like spiders, but doesn't really think about them until they are there, enters the same room. And they just get on with what they are doing, with no idea that a spider there, and so, it has no affect on them whatsoever. THE LAW OF CONCENTRATED ATTENTION. What is your attention on? How stressed you are? How tired you are? How scared you are? Your mind will pick out things that will back you up in all of that. If you constantly focus on how stressed you are, your mind will pick out thoughts, or feelings, or sensations or experiences to fit your 'pattern' of being stressed. Now you know about this, pay attention to your thoughts. Acknowledge them. Be aware... And remember to look up every now and again, so that you can see the rainbow.
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Maybe you have, maybe you haven't.
Maybe you believe in it, maybe you don't.. Whatever your opinion, that is absolutely fine. I'm still not sure myself, and I am very open minded when it comes to these kinds of questions. Either way, it is interesting, isn't it! What I do know is your subconscious will bring forward what ever it needs to bring. Its up to you where you think these memories are coming from. If you feel like you have lived before, if you're curious about what it all is, or if you just want a bit of fun, why not have a past life regression session? Like all my sessions at the moment, they will be held online. You can even do a group online too, perhaps something a little different for you and some friends to do one night during lockdown a little past life regression party! Message me for details. Individual approach to therapy I've just finished a wonderfully busy day full of sessions and every single one was different. So I just wanted to talk about this a little more, so any new or existing clients can understand a bit more about it. An individual approach to therapy is just that, an individual approach. Every single person reading this is their own person, with their own experiences. No two people are the same, so why treat them that way? Two people could come to me for the same reasons. They could both be experiencing the same physical symptoms of anxiety or they could both be having problems sleeping or both could have the same phobia, but how they experience these feelings and where these feelings originate will be very different. Even if they were twins! So what an individual approach means is that I don't focus on the label 'anxiety' for example and I focus on you instead. I do this by gaining certain bits of information during a consultation but mainly just by listening to you. I then go away and think about YOU. Not the symptoms, not the label, not even your past. I think about you, all of you, and I put together a bit of a plan based on who you are, how you want to feel and your likes and dislikes. No 2 people will ever have the same session. You will have a consultation with me and then a session, that's what you will be aware of. However, in between those 2 appointments, I am working hard to plan the best possible way forward for you. I give a lot of time to thinking only of you and how I can help you to gain the things that you want. This isn't about what I think is best for you, or what your family, friends or society thinks is best for you, it's about what you FEEL is best for you. Because you are so important and worthy of that. And that is an individual approach to therapy. I have been seeing lots of social media posts from NHS staff that are really struggling at the moment, especially those working within the Covid wards.
If you are NHS staff (in any department) and you are finding this time difficult, I'm offering completely free Relaxation Sessions. These sessions will be held online via video call and will only last around 30 minutes, but the benefits will stay with you for a lot longer! I will help you to go into a hypnotic trance, where we will then do a full body relaxation. It will give your mind, and body, time to slow down and relax. If you are interested, please contact me. [email protected] Be sure to let others know too! Touch a tree. Yes, really, touch a tree. That is my answer to the current mental health crisis that we are facing due to another lockdown. Touch a tree! Okay, okay, so hear me out… I am currently sat in my living room, curled up in a blanket, warm from the fire, with Attenborough in the background telling me all about volcanos. In my world, all is well. But it has not always been this way. 2 and ½ years ago, I was in a very dark and lonely place. In May 2017, I received terrible news. News that not only changed my life, but that changed me too. My life is a before and after of that day. After the initial shock and grief, I got back to living just as I was before. I was getting on with it, and I got on with it for about a year. I got on with it until I could not anymore. I guess you could say I crashed, burnt out, broke down… All would be fitting. For me, I just felt like I was done. I was done with it all. I was done with feeling as I was. I was done with caring. I was even done with dreaming, and that was when I knew it was bad. People speak about depression a lot these days, which is great, but until you experience it yourself, you don’t really know what the word ‘depressed’ truly means. Yes, I felt sad and I cried. I cried a hell of a lot! I cried on the bus, I cried at work, I cried walking down the street, I cried in Superdrug whilst trying to choose a mascara (I actually started crying because I knew I should probably buy a waterproof mascara because of all the crying I was doing, and that just made me feel even worse!). Yep, I cried. But that wasn’t the worst bit. I can deal with crying. Everyone cries and I had cried before and I’ll cry again. No, the crying wasn’t the worst, the worst bit was the nothingness. The emptiness. And the despair that that would bring. I am an emotional person. Always have been and I always will be. I trusted my emotions, they were real, they were a part of me. Then, suddenly and without warning, some kind of black hole had sucked them all away. And who am I if I feel nothing? These days I am back to feeling everything again, which of course has its downside (and to those that have been on the wrong side of my emotions, I apologise). I feel everything again in the way that I am supposed to. I am supposed to cry when I feel sad, that is totally allowed. I am supposed shout when I’m angry, again, that’s totally allowed. Humans are emotional beings, that is how we are made. You are supposed to feel, you are supposed to have ups and down, you are supposed to feel sad and happy, frustrated and excited. They are a part of living. I could go into more detail about that time and how I felt, but I suspect, as you are reading this, you likely have a good idea about how it feels. Shit, right? So I’m not going to talk about that, I’m going to talk about the things I did to get better, positive and practical steps that I took, and you can take, to start feeling better. And even if you are not dealing with depression or anxiety, or any other mental health problem, you can still benefit from the things I am going to talk about. So where to even start?
Those are the first two steps you need to take. That is what will kind of get the ball rolling. After that, we need to start looking at things in a different way. It is time to start getting philosophical about it all… Soz, but I am an actor turned therapist! What did you expect??? My dad died when I was 13 years old. I miss him. I miss him so much. What I would not give to have a phone call with him. To hear is voice, to know his opinions, to be told off! I would give anything. I understand how hard it can be to not see your loved ones, I can’t see mine either. But I can ring them. I can video call them. No, of course it’s not the same, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. We need to stop looking at the things that we can’t do, or what we don’t have and start focusing on what we do have. If you have people in your life that you love, then my god you are lucky! Just think about it. There are people, out there in this world, living their lives, that think about you, that care about you, that will sit and listen to you talk about what you are having for your tea just as much as they would let you cry down the phone to them. A hug from them is magical, I know that, but in person or not, they love you the same. Just as you love them. One day, in the not-too-distant future, you’ll be able to see them and hug them and do whatever you want to do with them… for now you can’t do that. But you can love them, and they can love you. It would be a dream to have a chat with my dad, knowing I can’t breaks my heart. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t get upset over the current situation, or that you’re wrong to feel lonely, I’m not saying those things at all. I’m just saying to focus on what you DO have, because you have some really wonderful things. “Be content with what you have; rejoice In the way things are. When you realise there is nothing lacking, The whole world belongs to you” -Lao Tzu- Ancient Chinese philosopher Have you heard of the 90/10 principle? Basically, what it means is 10% of life is what happens to you, 90% is how you deal with it. In some ways it reminds me of one of the biggest principles in acting too. All acting is reacting. Same kind of thing. What really matters, what really choses which way the story is going to progress in not the situation you find yourself in, but how you react to it. So how the hell do we react to this current situation that the whole world finds itself in? Well, the first thing is to remember that it is the whole world! Never has the saying “you’re not on your own” been truer! Like it or not, we really are all in it together. For the rest, I’m going to go back 2 ½ years… First, I talked, then I asked for help. Then I tired to focus on the good things I had, yes, I tried positive thinking. It was at that point that I realised that I’m naturally quite a positive person, so it came quite easily for me. The problem was, I was thinking only positive things (apart from when I wasn’t!) yet I was still feeling the same. It takes a while for everything to catch up with each other, so when it comes to being positive, keep at it. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” -Viktor Frankl- Holocaust survivor & author of Man’s Search For Meaning Throughout that time, I was off work. The doctors signed me off, and they were right to do so, I could not work, but it also meant I had endless days and nights to fill and that was hard. At first, I just wanted time to speed up, I just wanted to go to sleep and wake up at the other side of it all. Sound familiar? It took a while, but I eventually realised that that time was a gift. Time is a gift. Time is the most precious thing we have. Remember when you were little, and the grown-ups would tell you not to wish your life away? Well, they were right, yet even though we are now grown-ups ourselves, we still wish it away. How many of you are just wishing for the next few weeks to speed by? I’m guessing a lot! Instead, what I would like you to do, is work out how much extra time you’ve been given. Sit down and work it out. For example, how much time do you save by not travelling to work? Work it out. Some will have hours, some not so much, but we will all have been given the gift of time. So use it. Back when I was off sick, I used it to start doing my art again. These days, I sell my artwork and its spread into me trying other forms too. I am now quite fond of embroidery… That would never have happened if I had not have gone through those bad times. What have you stopped doing? What have you always wanted to do? Use that time to read one chapter or a book a day, or to start a new hobby, or to exercise or to bake, or to give yourself an extra 30 minutes in bed. Whatever! Just use it. In fact, one thing I would like you all to do is to choose a time of day. Any time, one that fits around you, and set an alarm. Every time that alarm goes off you must put on one of your favourite songs. Whatever you are doing, just stop for a few minutes and listen… and a sing and a dance would be good too! “The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention” -Sharon Salzberg- Teacher of Buddhist and mindfulness meditation And now, we are finally at the whole point of this entry. Touch a tree. The biggest thing that helped me back then, and the biggest thing that has continued to help me every day since, including during lockdown, is getting outside. Back when I was really ill, when I used to think that I wouldn’t even care if a car knocked me down, I made myself go out every single day. Sometimes I’d be out all day, other times I’d walk 2 mins and turn round and almost run home. But I always went outside. Somehow, slowly but surely, I began to feel better. I didn’t really even notice it happening. But I was healing. I was healing in the same way your broken leg starts to move more freely. The same way you suddenly realise you can breathe clearly again after a bad cold. It just sort of happened. Had I not done the things I had, I think I would be telling a very different story and I would be in a very different place. So, what is this tree thing about then? Well, I would like to start a bit of a campaign. A touch a tree campaign and I would love it if you could join in and spread the word. Every day during lockdown, you touch a tree. That’s it. Simple. You can choose any tree you want and it’s doesn’t always need to be the same one. One day you can walk to the park and find the biggest tree there is and touch it. The next could be the tree in your garden. The point is every day you leave the house. Every day you dedicate some time for you to focus on the beauty that is nature. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin” -William Shakespeare- I ask you all to join me in touching a tree. A simple act that I am sure can grow into something beautiful. Maybe even life changing – now wouldn’t that be something! “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste” -Paul Romer- Economist, Co-recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize to edit. Hi, as I begin my career as a clinical hypnotherapist, I will share my experiences through a blog which you can find here, on my new website, so be sure to check in every now and then!
In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram @emmahewitthypnotherapy or Facebook Emma Hewitt Clinical Hypnotherapy. |
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