The Response to Margaret Thatcher's Death - What is that all about?

The death of Magaret Thatcher this week seems to have unleashed a whole wealth of emotional outpouring and whatever your political point of view, no one can deny, that she left a legacy of some sort, good and bad.

As a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, I was interested more in the extremes of emotion that have expressed, so much anger, hatred, blame, violent language, cynisicm on the one side with affection, respect, loss and sadness on the other.

So what is this all about?

I am of the school of thought that whenever we express an emotion, it is a barometer of what is really going on for us at any one particular moment, or indeed life in general. It is the clue that our unconscious is letting us know that there is something that needs to be addressed.

If, for a moment,  we take this to be true, does this mean that Margaret Thatcher's death is an opportunity for people to express long contained negative emotions regardless of who it is aimed at or is it a reflection of what is going on for them at the moment?

Or, for those you who are more into the spiritual side, is it another step on our journey as human beings? As no one can deny that we are changing as a nation, faster than ever before.

Whatever, the reason, all those who are expressing these extreme emotions and views, such as hatred, anger, ridicule, sadness, fear, guilt, blame, jealousy etc, are are doing the right thing (although, arguably inappropriately). Again, my school of thought is that by bottling up or ignoring emotions, we create a pressure cooker effect where we just accumulate more and more of the same emotion, until they eventually erupt onto some poor unsuspecting soul or group of people, such as with Margaret Thatcher.

Some medical sources are now demonstrating how potentially holding onto these negative emotions, which we replay at varying intervals, could also be damaging for the body. (Read the book by Louise L Hay, You Can Heal Your Life)

This could be because the unexpressed negative emotions are stored in the cells within the body, as memory. So that when we encounter something that triggers that memory, we also access the emotional memory. Once the event has played out,  the original memory is then updated with the new information (emotion) and stored away until the next time. Resulting in an even bigger response than last time.

An example of this can be when someone has a phobia, of say, a spider. The moment they see or know of a spider, the body goes immediately to a response, be it to run, or stand still with fear.  And this happens so quickly, the person is unaware of the process that is going. Where their brain has recognised the trigger (the spider), accessed the memory and then produces a suitable response (the emotion).

So, potentially then, not expressing negative emotions, could lead to problems for the future.

Whether all the negative emotion is literally about Margaret Thatcher is questionable. As you can see, the emotions being expressed will more likely be the accumulation of memories. 

However, I am wondering that whilst it is not respectful, whether this might be just a good thing?  Allowing people to 'get it off their chest' all that they are angry about and at the same time to clear the air ?

I live and work in and around the  Hampshire (Basingstoke), Berkshire and Surrey borders working with people who are experiencing negative emotions that manifest themselves in many different ways. Email me in confidence if you would like to know how to help yourself let these go, kim@kimsearle.co.uk

The Glass of Water

A lecturer was giving a lecture to his student on stress management. He raised a glass of water and asked the audience, “How heavy do you think this glass of water is?”

The students’ answers ranged from 20g to 500gm.  
                       
 It does not matter on the absolute weight. It depends on how long you hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it is OK. If I hold it for an hour, I will have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you will have to call an ambulance.

It is the exact same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, we will not be able to carry on, the burden becoming increasingly heavier.

What you have to do is to put the glass down, rest for a while before holding it up again. We have to put down the burden periodically, so that we can be refreshed and are able to carry on.

So today at some point - put the burden down.  You can pick it up again tomorrow if you need to. Whatever burdens you are having now on your shoulders, let it down for a moment if you can. Pick it up again later when you have rested.

Recently I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, and we were talking about Starbucks reward cards. She had been poorly of late, and I offered to go and get the coffees and take them round to hers. “Swing by” she said “and pick up my reward card, so that I can get the points”.

Now if you didn’t know, Starbucks register each visit you make, and you build up the points until you qualify for a Gold card status. Not really sure what you get exactly, but my friend is close to the gold status and is keen to get there sooner rather than later.

I knew there was no point in arguing about it (she can be very persuasive!) although I did protest.  However, after getting the coffees, the conversation continued and I begun to feel quite agitated, mostly by the need to manage yet another ‘loyalty’ card. In fact, I then went onto to rant about how I now seemed to spend more time carrying out administrative duties for company’s services than I have ever had to do in the past.  

It was the look on her face that told me I was over reacting, and indeed I was, at which point I apologised and parked the topic.

Fortunately, my friend knows me very well.

But the point is, I was getting really agitated over something that was in fact very unimportant, so I knew that there was something much bigger going on, as I rarely get that cross these days. J 

I wonder how long I had been carrying around that burden!

So, what sort of issues cause your blood to boil, your heart to sink, your tummy to churn?

In a recent poll I carried out, https://www.facebook.com/#!/KimSearleHypnotherapy,  money seems to be the biggest stressor for people followed closely by time, or both and made me think about what causes stress.

Major Events

Everyone understands (and is probably more sympathetic) if stress is brought about by external events such as  bereavement, loss of a job, divorce, or illness. These events can wreak havoc in our life and threaten everything we have come to believe about ourselves and our lives. For most people there is usually plenty of support available from loved ones, and society to help us through this difficult time. These events tend to occur infrequently, and as a result, long term health effects can be minimal.

Daily Hassles

But could it be the daily hassles that cause us stress?

You know the sort of thing, the daily, minor irritations such as misplacing your car keys when you are in a hurry, traffic jams, minor arguments with family/colleagues, lack of sleep, job dissatisfaction, time pressures, money etc.  Research by Lazarus and Folkman (1984), at the University of California, indicated that it was these daily hassles rather than the major life events that affected us the most. 

Any constant, daily frustration caused by these hassles can result in our body frequently responding to what it sees as a threat, by releasing doses of adrenaline to help us react with the fight or flight¹ response.  Because these events occur so regularly, they become a natural part of our life, the constant release of Adrenaline which is not then used, can overtime, potentially begin to undermine our health. (Regular coughs and colds, headaches, poorly tummy etc).

And yet for many people even these daily hassles, are something that most people have learnt to live with, and do not experience any side effects.

Internal Stressors

Internal stressors, however, are more insidious stressors. These are caused by our own internal processes, and invariably we are completely unaware of their presence and effect.  

These internal stressors are like the programmes on your computer, happily running away in the background, and you only know they are there, when you experience difficulties. They can cause us to be have in ways that perversely lead to stress. Expectations of how we should be behave, finding that we 'believe' we can't do some things or constantly pleasing everyone, but ourselves. As we nearer Christmas, these internal stressors can become even louder when everyone has expectations of what a good Christmas should be, the need to make the whole event perfect for everyone or just endeavouring to keep everyone happy.

These internal stressors are more difficult to identify and then address, as it calls for some honesty in what we ask our selves and this is where hypnotherapists can help. We can find out if there are any internal programmes running that may be creating even more hassle for you than necessary, for example:-

·         Our own expectations of how things should be (particularly at Christmas)

·         Our belief in our abilities

·         Perfectionism

·         People pleasing

·         Low self esteem

·         Believing we have no control

·         Believing everyone else is better than we are

·         Lack of self belief

·         Lack of confidence

We can all recognise the major events in our lives that cause stress and have access to extra support. We can even recognise when the day to day hassles are beginning to be an issue and the various distraction techniques we employ help keep us sane.
But it is probably the internal stressors, that are running away quietly in the background that we need to be more mindful of.
If you think you may have an internal stressor causing you a problem, or carrying more than your fair share of the load of  life, then a chat costs nothing. Give me a call, or drop me an email and let’s start to explore what is really going on for you.

It doesn’t matter when you call, just that you do!

NB: Stress is an individualistic, subjective experience and therefore what one person finds stressful another may not. 

¹ flight or fight - http://psychology.about.com/od/findex/g/fight-or-flight-response.htm

"Come on! Come on! Start!..." The Immortal Words of John Cleese

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b67l_yxUc

John Cleese...Fawlty Towers....hitting the car with a branch....

A very funny scene when his car stalls and he can't get it started again, at which point he starts to lose his temper!

And who of us, has not been frustrated with a piece of machinery or equipment at one time or another? Felt under pressure to do something, behave in a certain way or be something we are not? And most of us have experienced a health issue that has prevented us doing something we need or want to.

STRESS

It means so many different things to people.

In a good way it can drive us forwards to achieve what we need to achieve, to do what we need to do, or be who we need to be.

Stress is only a problem when it becomes consistent over a period of time, and/or increases beyond our (perceived) ability to cope. And even at this point, it is just the body's early warning system that something needs to change.

If we do not recognise these early warnings and just carry on, believing we have no choice, then we can begin to store problems up for ourselves. Our ability to think clearly, our emotional state and even our physical wellbeing becomes increasingly volatile, haphazard, clumsy (making mistakes, bursts of uncontrolled emotions or increase in accidents and illness).

In the next  Journey's of Discovery workshop in January, we will be looking at how we can identify our own personal stressors and what we can do about it. And over the next  few blogs, I will explore the typical reasons for stress, what happens in the body when we get stressed and the latest thinking about how to manage it for yourself.

Look for me on Twitter to see nuggets of information, Facebook for polls and links to other sites that may be of use or call me if you want help with Stress.

It doesn't much matter when you get in touch, just that you do.

Who Do You Think You Are? Updated

I have been preparing for the first in my series of workshops called Journey's of Discoveries, "Who Do You Think You Are?" starting on Thursday 1st November in Basingstoke.

In this first one, I am going to talk about personality types and how we all differ.

We are each of us unique, and whilst this evening looks at just one model of how we can measure this, (based on Myers Briggs Type Indicator) there are so many ways that we can we differ.

Myers Briggs, (a mother and daughter psychologist) used Carl Jung's theory of archetypes and developed  a more usuable format for everyday life by identifying 4 key preferences

• How we re-charge our batteries
• How we communicate with the world
• How we make decisions
• How we live our life.

Within each of these areas, there are 2 opposites ends of a spectrum and altogether Myers Briggs suggest there are 16 'types' which enable us to identify our preferences.

And it is here that I issue my own health warning! Any model that tries to 'pigeon hole' us, say who or what we are should be used with caution, as it can only ever be a guideline. We are, each of us , complex human beings, and always much more than any model says we are. For example, for many of us, who we are as parents maybe different to the person we are at work or  when with  friends. It really does beg the question "Who do you think you are?"

We had a brilliant evening walking through our different preferences and discussing how we work, and just as importantly how others do! Fortunately the group was large enough to have some of each type which made it more interesting.

If you would like to find out what your preference is for each of these, then drop me an note and I will send you out the questionnaire.

Two Frogs in a Milk Churn

Two frogs

This is the story of two frogs. One frog was fat and the other skinny. One day, while searching for food, they inadvertently jumped into a milk churn. They couldn't get out, as the sides were too slippery, so they were just swimming around.

The fat frog said to the skinny frog, "Brother frog, there's no use paddling any longer. We're just going to drown, so we might as well give up." The skinny frog replied, "Hold on brother, keep paddling. Somebody will get us out." And they continued paddling for hours.

After a while, the fat frog said, "Brother frog, there's no use. I'm becoming very tired now. I'm just going to stop paddling and drown. It's Sunday and nobody's working. We're doomed. There's no possible way out of here." But the skinny frog said, "Keep trying. Keep paddling. Something will happen, keep paddling." Another couple of hours passed.

The fat frog said, "I can't go on any longer. There's no sense in doing it because we're going to drown anyway. What's the use?" And the fat frog stopped. He gave up. And he drowned in the milk. But the skinny frog kept on paddling.

A little while later, the skinny frog felt something solid beneath his feet. He had churned the milk into butter giving him something to help him hop out of the vat and to safety.



In this story the fat frog believes that there is no use, “it’s Sunday and nobody’s working” that they “were just going to drown”. I wonder how he come to that decision?

Have you ever wondered how you make decisions? You know the ones such as the instant ones, whether to ring a friend or get a drink; others that require some thought, like what you are going to do later or how you are going to get from A to B; to those that need more effort, like where to go on holiday or which car to buy, where to live etc.

We make decisions every day and generally without thinking about how we make them, but have you really thought about it? I mean really ever thought about HOW you make them?

If you are anything like me, then you won’t have done….you just make them. And yet it can be a powerful thing to understand.

So, yes we will reason, learn all the facts, take into account practicalities and weigh up choices before making that decision…all very important stuff, but all that is doing is providing you the evidence for your decision, it is not the decision itself…does that make sense? A decision is actually that split second moment where you are still deciding and then you move to having done so. In that fraction of time, something else has helped us make the final decision.

In the story above, the fat frog made a decision that they were “doomed”, and certainly there was a possibility that they were, but the real issue was that he made a decision to give up. But based on what?

Behind our decision making, there are a number of complex processes that takes place within the body, which involves our beliefs (the rules we live by), our values (what is important to us), our emotions and our own past experience.

Beliefs (or the rules we live by) then, tend to have been learnt during our lifetime and they are very powerful as they do not tend to be based on reality, just something that we hold to be true. They may not even be our own beliefs, just ones we have inherited from other influential people in our lives and that may not always be a good thing!

In most cases our beliefs work well for us, (fire will burn, the sun is warm, our family love us) but as in the case of the Fat Frog, sometimes they do not.

During my training as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, we were shown 3 types of belief issues that may arise when seeing clients:

·         Hopelessness – Where a person believes a positive outcome is not possible, so why  even try

·         Helplessness – Where a person believes that they are not able to do something

·         Worthlessness – Where a person believes they don’t deserve something/someone and then sabotage anything that may prove the belief wrong.

Part of our role as a Cognitive Hypnotherapists is to get to those underlying unhelpful beliefs that may no longer working for  the client and explore different ways in helping the client to change them. Beliefs that can result in decision making may not be full of confidence, may cause undue stress and anxiety or comes from low self esteem.

In my Journey’s of Discovery series, I look at the different ways we react in our world, including decision making. If you would like to know more come along to the event on 1^st November in Basingstoke, check out the details here https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/279363592183467/ . Alternatively you could call me now on 07843 271 249 to discuss how we might be able to work together or just like  my FB page to keep up to date with what is going on https://www.facebook.com/#!/KimSearleHypnotherapy

Who can forget Matt Lucas’ Hypnotist character Kenny Craig and his immortal words  “Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, the eyes, the eyes, not around the eyes, don't look around my eyes, look into my eyes….you're under “

Most people’s impressions of hypnotherapy, comes from similar stage and TV shows, as well as from the idea of an old man using a pocket watch to induce a hypnotherapeutic trance.

"So what is hypnotherapy?" I am asked frequently. 

Whilst I cannot remember the first time I was hypnotised formally, I do know that the hypnotic state (also known in the trade as a trance) is one that I and many others, easily move in and out of on a regular basis during the day.

You know what I am talking about, particularly when I say have you ever found yourself having driven for several miles without being aware of doing so.

Or maybe you have been so engrossed in doing something you had no idea where the time has gone?

Perhaps you have been concentrating on what you were doing, and someone has said something that made you jump, because you have been completely unaware of what is going on around you.

This is the altered state or trance which results when a person narrows their focus of attention.

I like to close my eyes when I am hypnotised, purely  because I can focus on what is being said and to limit the distraction of everything around me, but I have seen people who prefer to keep their eyes open, only closing them once they feel comfortable to do so. 

Usually there is some form of induction, (although this is not always necessary) that helps the client relax and to get in the right state. This might be something like "And as you sit there with your eyes closed, you can begin to relax, noticing your breathing, in...and out and with each easy breath in you can begin to ...." once the client is relaxed, a Cognitive Hypnotherapist (my particular training of hypnotherapy) will then move onto the desired positive states that has been discussed with you.

They say that your mind is like a parachute - best when open, and in this instance it is true. 

Whilst your conscious mind keeps busy with what is being said (your desired state, using your words), your unconscious mind focuses on the meanings that are relevant for you and this is what makes it completely unique for you - clever eh? And this approach works for most things, more happiness, greater peace, calm, relaxation, more confidence, less stress, anxiety, as well as typical issues such as phobia's and habits etc.

To end the session, you will either be counted back into the room, or something like "and with each deep breath  you take you can feel more energised and ready to come back to the now"

Contrary to popular opinion, you are in control at all times. I have been known to open my eyes to discuss something that came up during a  session, and after having dealt with it, closed my eyes re-entering a state of relaxation.

Responses to the hypnotic state can vary from  drifting away to somewhere very lovely, to remaining conscious all the way through.

Invariably, the hypnosis may not seem long enough!

KimSearleHypnotherapy

Self Esteem

Self esteem allows us to hold our held up high, to believe in ourselves and feel confident whilst being amongst others.

But it is not a given, and under the wrong circumstances can quickly be eroded.

How often have you felt that sinking feeling when you see someone else who is more beautiful, successful, clever, more talented than you? Each time you do this, you erode your own self esteem. Each time you compare yourself to someone, and you come off worse, you are knocking yourself that little bit more, chipping away at who you really are.

Despite what we are led to believe, we are not all made equal. Some of us excel in sport, others in the classroom. Some of us are made to be leaders and others of us followers. And we all play a vital part, our contribution may just be different. Where would a sportsman be without spectators? Where would a leader be without followers?

So it is very important to keep the Bank of Self Esteem in credit at every opportunity you can.

Maybe you are brilliant at listening? Or maybe you are excellent at solving problems? Managing your money and still having some left at the end of the month? Or making a great meal? Or if your self esteem is so very low, as simple as making a fantastic cup of tea….Everyone (no exceptions!) has some good, strong and excellent points…focus on them.

Start topping up your self esteem, by noting (preferably written down, as the very act of doing so changes your perspective) all your good points.

When was the last time you did that? Notice your good points?

Just for today, focus on your good points