How Does Stress Affect Your Body?

Stress is a word that is commonly used today but how much do we really know about how it affects our body and our moods?

One simple description of stress is as a state when a person has insufficient resources to meet his or her demands.

•  Too many demands + too few resources = stress, distress
• Too few demands + too many resources = boredom, apathy
• Demands match resources (or match resources at a stretch) = coping, interest

Each person deals with stress differently, depending on the resources available to them and the way they approach the situation. You can put two people in the same situation and they can produce different reactions. One may cope well with the situation where the other might struggle or even collapse emotionally.

A certain level of stress or challenging yourself is needed in life to keep you on your toes. Think how actors get butterflies before they go on stage, the adrenaline in their body begins to pump and they get the buzz for doing their job. This adrenaline helps to keep their performance fresh and exciting. Once the performance has finished the adrenaline levels go back to normal in their body as they relax after the show. This is a normal/healthy level of stress, keeping you driven and motivated to do the task at hand.

The effects on your body can be :

• Pupils dilate
• Mouth goes dry
• Neck and should muscles tense
• Heart pumps faster
• Chest pains
• Palpitations
• Sweating
• Leg and arm muscles tense for action
• Breathing faster and shallow
• Hyperventilation

It also has hidden effects too:  

• Brain gets body ready for action
• Adrenalin released for flight or flight
• Blood pressure rises
• Liver releases glucose to produce energy for muscles
• Digestion slows or ceases completely
• Sphincters closes or relaxes to empty bowls
• Cortisol released, this depresses the immune system

These effects are all part of the fight or flight mode. They are helpful in daily life, helping us to be ready to deal with situations. Like when you’re in the car and you hear the screams of an ambulance siren warning you to get out of the way. You start to look for a way to move your car and you realize you are bumper to bumper. You enter the stress zone, inside your body the alert goes out. “Attention all parasympathetic forces, urgent! Adrenalin is beginning to pump through your body, the chemical cortisol has just been released mobilising all internal defences.

Your body is full of adrenaline ready to tackle any situation that comes your way, your senses are heightened, you're“running on adrenaline”. This is the stage that people get in when they perform “superhuman” acts of strength, like a mother lifting a car off of her child.

When the danger finally passes or the perceived threat is over, your brain starts a reverse course of action attempting to bring your body and mind back into balance. This is when you tend to feel your heart pumping and you feel "wow that was an adrenaline rush".

Our bodies are built to deal with this level of stress, it is a vital part of our survival.

The problem comes when we continue to keep our bodies in the heightened state, stress state. Our body/mind can’t differentiate between a real threat and a perceived threat. You can get the same chemical reactions just by thinking about a stressful situation, for example, a bill needing to be paid, going over a situation you experienced – reliving it in your mind or worrying about an upcoming situation; then when it happens it was so much better/easier than you thought, but all that energy you spent worrying about it has had a harmful effect on your body. Our body tries to rebalance but the hormones are still flying around, gradually they begin to have a permanent effect on our health, long term health problems start to develop.

The wonderful thing to read is that you can control this; you can learn what your stressors are and how you can de-stress yourself.  A hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP session can help you by working out a range of mechanisms with Erika which will equip you to deal with stress better for the rest of your life.

Here are a few ways you can start to do this:

• Write down your personal strengths and support network· Things you are good at and people respect you for; your areas of good experience, etc
• Family, friends, networks; powerful contacts; resources you can draw on – assets, your standing etc
• Next, list your personal weaknesses and limitations in your life· Areas where you’re aware that you are not strong, or things that people fairly criticise you for;
• Lack of resources – where others at your level have access to these resources, or where the absence of resources impacts on your situation
• Bad situations – where you experience problems with your job or relationships, or where you have a poor living or working environment

Then brainstorm the opportunities available to you:

• Work through strengths you’ve identified. Ask yourself how you can draw on them to manage stress
• Work through the weaknesses you’ve identified. These are opportunities for positive change and for development of new skills

Finally, consider real-world practical opportunities open to you if you took advantage of those opportunities, to improve your stress management

• Look at managing your time and your expectations for the day - are they realistic?
• For threats, consider consequences of leaving your weaknesses uncovered· Consider damage to relationships, career and happiness that would come from failing to manage stress
• Use this consideration of the downside as a spur to ensure that you take stress management seriously

These are just a few things you can start doing today. To find out more about how you can manage your stress levels further, finding time in your day and coping mechanisms that you never knew you had, contact Erika and find out how Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to take the steps to a more relaxed happy you.

© EKTherapies

Could Laughter be the Key to Happiness?

Laughter is infectious; we all know the amazing feeling of losing yourself in the energy of laughter. But could laughter be the key to happiness? People have started to harness this and create laughter workshops, where you go to laugh, even if it starts out as a forced laugh, the endorphins and benefits still affect your body and mood.

Research has shown the health benefits of laughter are far-reaching, studies have shown that laughter can help pain relief through the releasing of endorphins, increase the immune system, decrease stress, change the “negative” chemicals in the mind, ease conflict, lighten burdens, inspire hope, connect you to others and generally just make you feel better, more energetic and happier, bringing your body and mind back into balance.

“Your sense of humour is one of the most powerful tools you have to make certain that your daily mood and emotional state support good health.” Paul E. McGhee, Ph.D.

This may all seem a bit far-fetched, can laughing really help you to feel better ? We know the benefits of exercise and how that helps us to reduce stress hormones. It helps our bodies to feel more energetic, it clears our minds and allows us to have clear focus again. So can laughter do the same thing? If we build laughter into our day just as we do with exercise we can increase our happiness. Laughter is an incredibly strong medicine for mind and body – it is free, convenient and beneficial in so many ways.

So how do you get more laughter in your life?

We can find laughter in so many ways, maybe for you it is laughing at films or the TV, laughing with friends, comedy clubs, funny clips on line, joining a laughter workshop, the list is endless. Or if all else fails you could just fake it. Just smile and start to laugh – as with listening to a song and how it change your mood, so can laughter. Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can also help. This combination can help you to look at the world with a different perspective, to see the funny side in life. It is too easy to allow life to feel like a weight on our shoulders, but you can learn the tools to see life in a different way. To allow yourself the freedom to let go and just laugh and enjoy the world for what it is.

Try it now - smile, laugh or giggle and feel better about your day.

© EKTherapies

Bye, Bye Olympics

It is the end of two amazing weeks; not only did Great Britain finish third on the medal table we also managed to host an amazing event that will be remembered for years to come, for all the right reasons. It has been wonderful to see all the countries supporting their teams with such pride and passion.

It has been inspiring to watch the athletes pushing themselves to their limits and achieving amazing things. It has also helped me to realise that we don’t have to be perfect. Perfection doesn’t exist. So many of us are striving to be “perfect,” but what is perfection? I watched in awe these athletes who spent their whole life dedicated to one sport and have been focusing on the Olympics for the last four years or sometimes longer, yet they still make “mistakes.” It makes me realise that we can forgive ourselves; we can do the best we can do and be happy with that. We can learn from our mistakes and grow. If we let go of the fear of failure and trust in ourselves and our ability we can achieve the most incredible things.

We are all always growing and striving to be better versions of ourselves, the day we stop doing that is the day we stop learning.

I hope the wonderful energy of the Olympics stays with us for a long time, helping us to unite and to realise that we can achieve anything we put our hearts to.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to have that same pride and self-worth, helping you to achieve your goals in a positive and focused way.

Personally I feel very proud to be British and to have been privileged enough to live in the host city of the London 2012 Olympics, I have some wonderful memories that will stay with me for a long time. I hope you do too and that the buzz and energy of the Olympics stays with you.

Looking forward to the start of the Paralympics, and watching more amazing, awe inspiring things.

© EKTherapies

Negative self-talk: how it affects us

What is self-talk? Self-talk is the internal dialog we all have ongoing through our minds every day. This internal dialog can take two forms, positive and negative.

Are you a positive thinker or a negative thinker? Do you tell yourself: Yes I can do this. I can reach my goal. Or do you tell yourself: I will never get that job so there is no point going for the interview. I am fat. I am stupid.

We all have moments of self-doubt where we question whether we can achieve something, but the difference between a constant negative thought pattern and a positive one is the difference between a person who never feels good enough and a person who feels content with life, happily challenged.

We all know those people who seem to have it all. They are always so happy. But when you stop and look at their life next to yours they have nothing more than you - sometimes they even have less than you. The difference is their internal dialog is set to positive; they look for the positive and they appreciate the things they have got.

Negative self-talk affects us in many ways. It can lead to stagnation, self-pity, depression and many more negative influences. When we repeat a negative statement over and over again we begin to believe it. “I am not good enough” may prevent us from taking the steps to achieve a promotion that we are easily qualified for. It gives us a lack of confidence that isn’t based on anything real, but reinforced by the internal negative dialog. Eventually these thoughts become all consuming and you find that you approach every aspect of your life with this negativity, beginning to feel stressed easily, depressed and having a lack of confidence and motivation.

Changing the internal dialog to positive statements makes our life better and assists us in moving forward, giving us the confidence to achieve our goals. If instead of saying “I am not good enough”, say “I can do this”. Not only will you achieve your goals but you will happier and healthier. Positive self-talk gives you a permanent cheerleader in your corner, one that carries positive messages to all areas of your life and helps you to move forward. Once you have this positivity no one can take it away from you, as it comes from within you, from your own though process.

Very often the nature of our self-talk originates from a very early age. It may be a teacher that said you weren’t good enough, or a parent that always made you believe anything is possible.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to challenge the source of the negative thoughts and change them to positive ones. Eventually you will surround yourself with positive thoughts and that will create an environment that will allow you to live your best possible life.

Here a few easy steps to start to become positive:

· Smile more.

· Replace your negative thoughts with positive ones. This can be hard at first. Start by talking positively. When you have a negative thought or catch yourself about to say something negative, stop yourself and see if you can spin it on its head and turn it into a positive one. Soon this will become second nature and you will find yourself thinking in the positive first.

· Expect positive results. When you set a goal expect that not only will you achieve it but you will be better than you thought.

· Actually visualize the success you want. Picture it in your mind, picture what you DO want, rather than having a list of what you DON’T want. Have an image of what you DO want, and see yourself achieving your goal.

We all have the ability to retrain our minds, we do it every day. Give it a go. What do you have to lose? Nothing. What could you gain? Everything.

© EKTherapies

Does the Past Form Our future

Does the past form our future? Just because we are used to acting a certain way or something happened to us in the past, does that mean that that is how we are going to be for the rest of our lives?

The past does form who we are, it helps us to learn and to get a better understanding of what we do or don’t want out of life, but it doesn’t have to control our future.

In my work I work in a positive direction, looking at where you want to get to, how you want to feel and what you would like to achieve. Although we may look into what contributed to you feeling the way you do, to me it is more important to focus on what you DO want rather than what you DON'T want. We can expect that the past is always part of us but we can choose whether or not to allow it to rule our future. It sounds so simple but we can choose whether to give a thought energy and momentum, be it a positive one or a negative one. We are the ones in control of our own minds - this in itself can be one of the most powerful thoughts. Look how powerful it can be if we start on a negative spiral for example. We can imagine things so vividly even though the chance of them happening is less than .001%, but we still feel the physical and physiological responses as if it had already happened. Or there are the psychosomatic cases when you tell your brain you are ill and it starts to give you the symptoms as if you really were.

It is also important to accept that even when you work with the positive, it doesn’t mean that you won’t have the odd "down" day - life is after all a wonderful rollercoaster - and we need the “down” days to appreciate the good ones, but the “down” days should be few and far between.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to realise any emotions/blockages from the past, and maybe not forgive, but overcome the power of the past so that you can focus on how you want to be.

There is no doubt that there are some things that may have happened in the past that form you and are hard to let go of, but if we accept that they are there, then we can either let them rule us or we can learn from them and allow ourselves the space to continue to grow.

In both my professional life and my personal life, I find great strength from my grandmother who was an Auschwitz survivor ( German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp 1940–1945, her story is told in her book, From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Back ). Undoubtedly Auschwitz left her with her demons, haunting her throughout her life, but nevertheless she was the most positive person I have ever met; she found the strength within herself to forgive what had happened and used that strength to create the most amazing life. Her positive energy is always with me when I work, helping me to stay strong and be the best therapist I can be.

There are countless examples of people who have changed their destiny, let go of the past and focussed on what they do want rather than what they can’t change.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP are amazing tools in helping you understand what drives you, helping you to become a more positive person. So many of my clients turn their lives around even though nothing has physically changed; they still have the same car, job, house etc, but simply their perspective has changed. Rather than allowing themselves to focus on the few tiny things in life that aren’t quite right they start to focus on all the things that are right, giving them the strength to challenge themselves and take on tasks they never thought possible.

© EKTherapies

Does Hypnotherapy Really Work?

When I tell people I’m a hypnotherapist, they often ask “does hypnotherapy actually work ?”

For years within science, there were debates as to whether hypnosis existed or worked and sceptics often claimed that people in hypnosis were play-acting. But that has now all changed. In February 2002 the first conclusive scientific proof that hypnosis produces clear changes in the mind was presented by Professor David Spiegel of Stanford University School of Medicine in California at the America Association for the Advancement of Science conference.

Eight subjects were hypnotised and monitored using special scanning techniques called PET (Positron Emission Tomography) which measures blood flow to the brain.

Professor Spiegel said: “When people believe there is colour in the picture, their brains process the colour even if it isn’t there. They are not just telling you what you want to hear; the way their brains respond to the information is actually being changed. Under hypnosis, believing is seeing.”

Spiegel’s findings demonstrate that hypnosis has biological as well as psychological effects, disproving the cynics and supporting the application of hypnosis in a medical setting.

Spiegel said: “There has been a whole school of argument that hypnosis is nothing more than an exaggerated form of social compliance. This is evidence that they are not just telling you what they think you want to hear. They are actually perceiving things differently.”

For many of us, having scientific proof will help us to believe in hypnotherapy but there will be people who ask: “Is it all just a placebo?” With any therapy or drug there is always a placebo element to it – you believe that by taking this pill or receiving that therapy you will get better. By telling this to your mind it begins to happen. Hypnotherapy in that aspect is no different from any other treatment but it is also highly effective at changing the patterns we get into so that we can look at things in a new way and achieve our goals. Even the NHS has now recognised the benefits of hypnotherapy.

Look at other aspects in life where we are driven by our subconscious and the messages around us, such as in the media where the subliminal messages we pick up around us can influence our choices.

Marketers use branding to tap into our subconscious – take McDonalds for example. Their colours are red and yellow/golden, that’s because, according to the colour theory, these colours are known to subconsciously trigger hunger and/or induce excitement. These colours encourage guests to spend more and leave quickly, which is exactly what fast food restaurants want you to do. McDondalds has now started making the stores green, which is a colour we associate with health and the environment. As the world is becoming more conscious about the effects that certain foods have on our health and the damage we are doing to the planet, McDonalds is moving with the times making their fast food restaurants remain appealing.

Personally I have experienced many clients changing the way they look at a situation, their perception and becoming much happier people. I find my work so rewarding, seeing someone transform from the very first session full of anxiety to now enjoying life far more.

It is time to start working with your mind, take the first steps today to achieving your goals.

Click here to see what kind of things can be treated using Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP.

© EKTherapies

How does Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP work together

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP are powerful therapies in themselves but used together they give you the chance to look at your challenge from lots of different angles, giving you the best chance to have the tools you need to become the person you want to be.

To understand how these therapies can work together, I think it is good to have a general understanding of them as individual therapies first. There are many descriptions for what Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP are and some of them are very technical in depth. Rather than setting out a long technical explanation I am going to explain them in nice easy terms.

What is Hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is a way of quieting the conscious mind so that you can talk to the subconscious mind. Sometimes even though consciously we want to do something if we don’t have the subconscious mind thinking the same thing then the outcome will always be the same even though consciously we want something different. By talking to someone’s subconscious you can help the internal thought process to be working towards what they want and not still on the old auto pilot. Allowing our subconscious to take over (on autopilot) is something that we do on a daily basis, like when you "zone out" for a while. There are lots of different ways to get a person into trance (a relaxed state of mind where you can speak to the subconscious), it depends on individual characters and expectations, but rest assured almost everyone can be put into a trance.

What is NLP?

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), the fundamental dynamics between your mind, language (internal and external) and how the programing of them affects our body and behaviour.

Neuro – the neurological system regulates how our bodies function

Linguistic – language, the words we choose to use to communicate with others and ourselves

Programming – the models/links of the world we create (learned behaviour)

Once you understand the mental programming then you can use the power of words and imagery to help someone change their neurological path and therefore produce different behaviour.

What is CBT?

CBT (Cognitive behavioural Therapy) focuses on the ‘here and now’ to help you feel better. Through talking you challenge negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Instead of focussing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind now.
With all of these therapies the client remains in control with the therapist helping the client to make the change they are looking to make. You will leave the session with the tools to continue the work started in the sessions and develop into the person you want to be.

Hopefully you now have an outline about these three therapies. As I said they work very well by themselves and often I end up using only one with a client as that is what they respond to best. The great thing about being able to use all three is that I can give my clients the best chance to achieve their goals because if one therapy doesn’t work so well for them then I can use another.

I tend to use a combination of all three therapies, using CBT to ask clients questions that challenge them to see a different way, NLP to help integrate the mind with their new thought pattern and Hypnotherapy to tie the three together and help make sure the subconscious is working in the same direction and not still on the old track.

To find out what kind of things can be treated with this powerful combination click here.

© EKTherapies

Stop and Say Thank You!

Happy May Bank Holiday. We are already in the 5th month of 2012; as with every year 2012 is flying by at a healthy pace. This year has had so much focus on it with the Olympics, which is now fast approaching.

It can feel like we are on a constant treadmill - the days, weeks and months pass us by.

Whatever you are doing today take a moment to stop and say thank you. Look at the world around you. You could take a moment to sit on a park bench and breathe in the spring smells in the air. Take a few moments to stop and look at the life that you have created for yourself. Even if you are in the middle of creating a new path for yourself and you feel that it is all an uphill struggle, look at how far you have come. Even if you have only just started your journey realise what an achievement it is to have started it at all. Be grateful for what you have achieved, take it all in, the good bits and the harder bits.

If you really feel that you have nothing to say thank you for, then see if maybe you need to change the life you lead. Find your drive.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to focus on the positive and enjoy this life for all its wonderful twist and turns. It is so easy to be focused on the negative - to focus on what we don’t have, what we are still striving for - and whilst it is brilliant to have goals and improve ourselves, it is also as important to stop and appreciate the journey along the way. See how far you have come and say thank you for the world that you are in now.

It is so easy to take for granted what we have now, sometimes only if the carpet is whipped form underneath us do we realise just what we had.

So take a moment today to stop and say thank you. I am sure you will be amazed at what you see.

© EKTherapies 

Bob The Busking Cat

I came across this article written by Richard Godwin, writer for the London Evening Standard and it filled my heart with a big smile.I thought it would be a great article to share. Enjoy.

If you've never noticed James Bowen playing Nirvana songs around Covent Garden, or selling the Big Issue in Angel, or minding his own business on the 73, thenyou’ve probably noticed his pet. It’s a ginger tomcat. On a lead. (Or sometimes James’s shoulders.) His name is Bob — and he has entranced London like no feline since the days of Dick Whittington.

The first thing you notice about Bob is he’s not like other cats. Dogs do notfaze him; police sirens do not startle him; he’s cool with the Tube (in fact, he has his own Travel card). “It makes you wonder what he did before I found him,” says Bowen, who first met Bob five years ago, when he turned up as a stray on the threshold of his flat in Tottenham. When Bowen tried to leave the house, Bob followed him onto a bus. “I thought,‘My goodness, what is going on here? Somebody’s decided they like me.’ Isn’t that right, Bob?”

Bob says nothing, just twitches his whiskers.

“He knows we’re talking about him,” says Bowen.

The second thing you notice about Bob is that he’s irresistible. Curled up on a chair outside a Covent Garden café he attracts a steady stream of admirers. Paul McCartney once stroked him, apparently. Today, a young Swedish couple say,‘How you doing, Bob!’ while an Australian girl wants to take a picture of his tiny scarf. “People bring him presents from all over— and he doesn’t mind wearing them,” says Bowen.“That’s the thing. He really thinks he’s a person. When I put his scarf on, he gets all proud, he’s like ‘Great! We’re going out!’ He’s one of the boys for sure. Aren’t you, matey?”

Bob keeps his counsel.

He hopes that his new book, A Street Cat Named Bob, which he wrote in collaboration with the writer Garry Jenkins in an Islington café, will challenge some misconceptions. He got the book deal through a literary agent, Mary Pachnos, who used to pass him each day outside Angel station and was curious enough to ask about his life story. “It’s a pretty damn good story, isn’t it?” he says. “And it’s the truth, every word of it. Yeah, it’s a pretty interesting life Bob and I have led.”

Bowen was born in England but after his parents divorced he moved with his mother and stepfather to Australia. He loathed his stepfather and, with the family moving regularly, he found it hard to settle. He was often bullied at school, becoming a “tearaway kid” with a glue habit — and was diagnosed with ADHD, schizophrenia and manic depression.

In 1997, he escaped Australia for England, where he moved in with his half-sister in south London, but her husband did not take kindly to having a volatile teenager hanging round in black clothing and he was eventually asked to leave. He spent the next few years in a spiral down, from friends’ floors, to squats and finally to the streets, where he spent the best part of the next 10years.

“It became a bleak haze for a while, until I got my s**t together. It was a long, long trek — I spent many years in hostels and in cold-weather shelters, Centre point, St Mungo’s, all that sort of stuff.” It wasn’t long before he started using heroin. “In the hostels, everybody was either a druggy or an alcoholic, so it was such an easy trap. Once you’reon that path it becomes a real Catch-22.”

Bowen broke the cycle, he says, with the help of a strong support network, including his on-off partner Belle (herself a former heroin addict), as well as charities, including Connections at St Martin-in-the-Fields. He has developed a philosophy of self-responsibility. “People who go to these NA [Narcotics’Anonymous] programmes and say ‘I am powerless, God has made me like this’ — I don’t believe that. I believe everybody is in control of their own destiny,” he says. Still, it was touch-and-go until he moved out into the Tottenham flat, which he found through the Peabody Trust and Family Mosaic. The cat showed up on his doorstep a few months after he moved in. Bob (whom Bowen named after the psychopath in Twin Peaks) was injured— a nasty-looking wound on his leg was leaking pus — which meant Bowen had to take immediate action.

“We’re two injured souls looking for someone we can trust — and we trust each other. I still have a hard time trusting people. But one thing about Bob is that he never lies to me. Even if he’s not hungry, he won’t pretend to be, like most other cats do, just to be greedy.” Bowen is not religious, but he does believe in karma. “I think I must have been doing something right for him to come along,” he says.

As he describes in the book, Bob changed his life. “I believe it came down to this little man. He came and asked me for help, and he needed me more than I needed to abuse my own body.”

Although the recession has made life far harder for street performers, Bowen discovered that when Bob accompanied him, he picked up a lot more money from busking. More than that, however, it is his pride in the animal that helped restore him. But the is at pains to point out — often pleading — that he has not exploited the animal. “There is nothing you can do to force a cat to do anything. You have to make that clear.”

Bowen still lives in the flat in Tottenham — it is the longest he has ever spent in any one place — and it has been six years since he used heroin, though he still relies on “scrips” (prescription drugs) to deal with his mental health problems. Despite the turn-around, his relations with his family remain complex, while Belle’s family refuse to speak to him.Whatever pain remains, Bowen is as optimistic as he has ever been.

“It’s nice to know people will be able to sit down and read the story in black and white instead of just assuming things in their mind,” he says. “And also, with the money that I’ll be making from it, it will be nice to make up my flat nicely. It’s not a hell of a lot of money, but it’s enough so that I won’t have to work seven days a week, I can work five days a week. That’s the plan. To have, you know, a normal lifestyle.”

He’s busking at the moment (his signature song is Hurts by Nine Inch Nails, in the Johnny Cash version) as it’s easy to fit around promoting the book. Eventually, he will return to his main source of revenue, which is selling the Big Issue. As for the future, he is thinking of registering Bob as a Care in the Community animal, so he can take him to old people’s homes and care centres. “Animals are great for calming the spirit when you’restressed,” he explains. “He certainly helped me in that way, and I’d like to help other people in that way. Maybe I’d have to take some courses in community care or something like that.”

The first thing he would do if he makes any money from the book, incidentally, is to buy Bob some pet insurance. “I can’t afford it at the moment, I’d love to be able to do that.”

I shudder to think what he would do if anything happened to that cat. “He is what I wake up for every day now. It will be horrible when he leaves me, cos I know cats don’t live as long as human beings…” he drifts off. “But he’s definitely given me the right direction to live my life.”

It’s like a love affair, I say.

“You could say that,” he says, half-laughing, through gritted teeth.“Are you my lover, Bob? You little secret lover? What’s your answer to that?”

Bob’s response is inscrutable.

“He is special. You’ve got to make that clear — that he’s a special little man.”

Article from http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/bob-the-busking-cat-7573094.html

Such a wonderful story of how two lost souls found each other in by doing that found their direction and love for life again. I hope it gives you a little spring in your step as you think of little Bob, and if you walk the London streets you might just see him and say hello.

© EKTherapies

Everyone Has Ups and Downs, it is What You Do With Them That Sets Us Apart

It is easy when we see successful people to think that they are just lucky, that they haven’t really had to work for it, that they don’t know the meaning of being poor or having to dig themselves out of a mental pit.

For a few people fortunes do just fall in their laps; since the creation of the National Lottery there are the lucky few who become millionaires overnight. I am sure even this wealth, although amazing, comes with big demons that if not confronted could mean the old ways are not far away.

For most of us though we get to where we are through hard work, sometimes hitting rock bottom, learning what we needed to learn and then building ourselves back up again. A great example of this is J. K. Rowling.

This is her story, I hope it inspires you and gives you hope that you can find happiness.

Before she became the world famous and wealthy author she is today, things were very different for Rowling. Separated from her husband, living in a rented flat in Edinburgh while looking after her young baby, Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression. During this period she sat and wrote in cafes while living on social security; she even contemplated suicide. Yet at every turn, Rowling found inspiration. 

The death of her mother gave her a clear insight into loss, causing her to rewrite Harry Potter's experience as an orphan. Her experience of depression brought her the idea of the Dementors, soul-sucking creatures that feature in her books.

Even with what we now know is an amazing novel in her hands, seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as "the biggest failure I knew." She managed to learn from this feeling too. Rowling recalls: "Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set free... I was still alive... I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

Even with her novel completed, and getting ready to become a teacher, she still had her setbacks. Amazingly, "Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone" was rejected by 12 publishers. Then, the daughter of the chairman of Bloomsbury read the first chapter, found it utterly compelling and demanded to see the rest.

This was the start of the turnaround in Rowling's fortunes, and as they say the rest is history.

Sometimes in life we need to recognise when we are heading up the "wrong" path and help ourselves to learn what we need to learn before we embark on the "right" path. Hypnotherapy, CBT& NLP can help you to release negative emotions, let go of old beliefs, forgive yourself for what has been, and help you to walk on the "right"path. The "right" path will still have highs and lows on it but we are working with ourselves, our knowledge, our passions, and striving to achieve what we want to achieve, making life worth living.

© EKTherapies

Live Life!

The Guardian published a fascinating article in February about the top five regrets of the dying, written from the findings from a palliative nurse. I found it an interesting read, thought-provoking and well worth sharing.

“ Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

"This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it."

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed, deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

"Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. How many times have you thought: “I wish someone had told me that before?" So often people do advise or warn us but we carry on regardless. It is important that we learn from our own mistakes but we can also learn from the wisdom of others – if so many people realise retrospectively that they should have changed their perspective on what is important in life, maybe we should listen more. "

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to change your perspective on life and see where you need to focus your energy. It can help you to realise your goals, release any anxiety, fears or old expectations, allowing you to be the person you want to be. This gives you time to focus on the wonderful life you have created, with all its wonderful twists and turns.

© EKTherapies

Could Laughter be the Key to Happiness?

Laughter is infectious; we all know the amazing feeling of losing yourself in the energy of laughter. But could laughter be the key to happiness? People have started to harness this and create laughter workshops, where you go to laugh, even if it starts out as a forced laugh, the endorphins and benefits still affect your body and mood.

Research has shown the health benefits of laughter are far-reaching, studies have shown that laughter can help pain relief through the releasing of endorphins, increase the immune system, decrease stress, change the “negative” chemicals in the mind, ease conflict, lighten burdens, inspire hope, connect you to others and generally just make you feel better, more energetic and happier, bringing your body and mind back into balance.

“Your sense of humour is one of the most powerful tools you have to make certain that your daily mood and emotional state support good health.” Paul E. McGhee, Ph.D.

This may all seem a bit far-fetched, can laughing really help you to feel better ? We know the benefits of exercise and how that helps us to reduce stress hormones. It helps our bodies to feel more energetic, it clears our minds and allows us to have clear focus again. So can laughter do the same thing? If we build laughter into our day just as we do with exercise we can increase our happiness. Laughter is an incredibly strong medicine for mind and body – it is free, convenient and beneficial in so many ways.

So how do you get more laughter in your life?

We can find laughter in so many ways, maybe for you it is laughing at films or the TV, laughing with friends, comedy clubs, funny clips on line, joining a laughter workshop, the list is endless. Or if all else fails you could just fake it. Just smile and start to laugh – as with listening to a song and how it change your mood, so can laughter. Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can also help. This combination can help you to look at the world with a different perspective, to see the funny side in life. It is too easy to allow life to feel like a weight on our shoulders, but you can learn the tools to see life in a different way. To allow yourself the freedom to let go and just laugh and enjoy the world for what it is.

Try it now - smile, laugh or giggle and feel better about your day.

© EKTherapies

Happy Valentine’s Day

Tomorrow is Valentine ’s Day and whilst for a lot of people it is a day to stop and tell their loved ones just how much they mean to them for many of us it can also be a time of sadness; a reminder that we don’t have that special someone in our lives.

Valentine’s Day, whilst it has its place, is a man-made holiday. We don’t need this one day to tell our loved ones how special they are, it should be part of our day or week to stop and tell them just how wonderful they are. Rather than seeing it as only a day for people to stop and shower their loved ones with gifts it can be the day that you just stop and say thank you for your life. Maybe you don’t have that special someone to go out for dinner with but I am sure that you have a lot of wonderful things in your life. Take this moment to stop and appreciate the wonderful world that you have created.

It is far too easy to focus on the small percentage of our lives that isn’t right. But it is far more beneficial and rewarding if you can learn to focus on the larger percentage that is right and see the remainder that isn’t quite there yet as an exciting challenge. We need these challenges in life to help us grow. Admittedly sometimes they can feel like they are all coming at once or that life “has it in for us”, but if you work with the positive and focus on the positive you will be surprised at just how much lighter life can feel.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to learn the techniques to focus on the positive, to turn around the negative cogs and realise that we can put the energy where we want to and if we put it toward working with the positive we will feel so much happier even though nothing may have physically changed.

Whether you are sitting at a candle-lit dinner tomorrow or just enjoying your own company, have a wonderful day, stop and take in the world that you have created. Smile and allow the happiness of love for yourself and your life to flow.

© EKTherapies

New Job, New You

It is that time of year when many of us get restless and we start to look around for our next job. Just as important as ensuring you have edited and polished your CV before applying for the job you’re after, is making sure you are full of confidence and energy and ready to sell yourself to prospective employers.

Many of us have mixed emotions when it comes to the idea of starting a new job. Even if it is something that we have been dreaming of or a career stepping stone that we know is the right one, it is perfectly natural to feel nervous or anxious about the process of applying for a job and being interviewed. We feel the excitement as we begin to imagine what it would be like to be in our new role, but we also feel fear as we begin to think about the possibility of rejection. We begin to consider whether or not we have what it takes to be successful. The fear of failure begins to creep in and we worry about not succeeding, so our confidence can get knocked before we have even started.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to overcome any anxieties you have. It can help you with public speaking fears, confidence and anything else you feel you need to build on. You can learn how to walk into the interview room feeling calm and confident, ready to “sell” yourself to the company without being overly confident or arrogant. We all need to build on our skills, even if we are good at our current job, we need to learn how to adapt to a new company.

During a session of Hypnotherapy with CBT & NLP we can look at dealing with the weight of expectation you may be carrying and help you to challenge any negative beliefs, building on your strengths and understanding your weaknesses. We will then aim to turn any weaknesses into positives, putting you in a place to grow and develop from.

Even if the job you are going for is an internal promotion, you may still need help to combat old beliefs. We tend to feel that we need to know everything; to admit we have weaknesses can be seen as a negative but that’s not always the case. Often it is actually the opposite – the greatest things can be achieved if we let go of the fear of failure and accept that with a bit of help we can continue to grow.

© EKTherapies

Negative self-talk: how it affects us

What is self-talk? Self-talk is the internal dialog we all have ongoing through our minds every day. This internal dialog can take two forms, positive and negative.

Are you a positive thinker or a negative thinker? Do you tell yourself: Yes I can do this. I can reach my goal. Or do you tell yourself: I will never get that job so there is no point going for the interview. I am fat. I am stupid.

We all have moments of self-doubt where we question whether we can achieve something, but the difference between a constant negative thought pattern and a positive one is the difference between a person who never feels good enough and a person who feels content with life, happily challenged.

We all know those people who seem to have it all. They are always so happy. But when you stop and look at their life next to yours they have nothing more than you - sometimes they even have less than you. The difference is their internal dialog is set to positive; they look for the positive and they appreciate the things they have got.

Negative self-talk affects us in many ways. It can lead to stagnation, self-pity, depression and many more negative influences. When we repeat a negative statement over and over again we begin to believe it. “I am not good enough” may prevent us from taking the steps to achieve a promotion that we are easily qualified for. It gives us a lack of confidence that isn’t based on anything real, but reinforced by the internal negative dialog. Eventually these thoughts become all consuming and you find that you approach every aspect of your life with this negativity, beginning to feel stressed easily, depressed and having a lack of confidence and motivation.

Changing the internal dialog to positive statements makes our life better and assists us in moving forward, giving us the confidence to achieve our goals. If instead of saying “I am not good enough”, say “I can do this”. Not only will you achieve your goals but you will happier and healthier. Positive self-talk gives you a permanent cheerleader in your corner, one that carries positive messages to all areas of your life and helps you to move forward. Once you have this positivity no one can take it away from you, as it comes from within you, from your own though process.

Very often the nature of our self-talk originates from a very early age. It may be a teacher that said you weren’t good enough, or a parent that always made you believe anything is possible.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to challenge the source of the negative thoughts and change them to positive ones. Eventually you will surround yourself with positive thoughts and that will create an environment that will allow you to live your best possible life.

Here a few easy steps to start to become positive:

· Smile more.

· Replace your negative thoughts with positive ones. This can be hard at first. Start by talking positively. When you have a negative thought or catch yourself about to say something negative, stop yourself and see if you can spin it on its head and turn it into a positive one. Soon this will become second nature and you will find yourself thinking in the positive first.

· Expect positive results. When you set a goal expect that not only will you achieve it but you will be better than you thought.

· Actually visualize the success you want. Picture it in your mind, picture what you DO want, rather than having a list of what you DON’T want. Have an image of what you DO want, and see yourself achieving your goal.

We all have the ability to retrain our minds, we do it every day. Give it a go. What do you have to lose? Nothing. What could you gain? Everything.

© EKTherapies

How to be Happy

Do you know how to be happy or are you waiting for happiness to find you? Would you recognise if you were happy or would you focus on the next goal? To be happy isn’t something that happens to you without intervention, it is something that you can make happen to you; it is a state of mind. So what are you waiting for? Start discovering today how to be happy, to enjoy life and to appreciate what you have.

Be realistic

Nobody is happy all the time. Life is a wonderful roller-coaster and we need the highs and the lows to feel challenged, to learn and to appreciate the good times. If we didn’t embrace life’s challenges we would never have learned to walk, we would have just given up and crawled our whole life. Be kind on yourself, when you are having a ‘bad’ or hard day then learn from it and strive to make the next day a happier one. Forgive yourself for having an ‘off’ day rather than berating yourself.

Be in the moment

Stop, breathe and enjoy! Be in the moment, don’t think about what happened yesterday or what is about to happen or what needs to be done. Just be! When you walk somewhere look around at where you are, try and see a different thing every day. Spend time every day just living life for today, having an idea of where you are heading but enjoying now.

Realise your achievements

We are so good at striving for our goals; we work towards certain things, dreaming of how life will be when we reach our goal. Then we achieve it and rather than basking in our wonderful achievement we move onto the next goal. Appreciate what you have; appreciate what you have achieved. Be grateful for what you have in your life, try not to take what you have for granted. Stop and ask yourself, if someone told me I would be here last year how would I feel. The chances are that you have made some amazing steps in the year. So appreciate them every day. The more you focus on the good you have the happier you will become.

These three steps will help you to be happier. Life is ever changing and adapting and we seem to have forgotten how to just be and enjoy being. Being positive, letting go of stress, managing your time and being a happy person is something we can all learn. Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can teach you these tools, teaching you techniques to let go of any fears or stresses and be a happier, more carefree person enjoying life.

To find out more about how Hypnotherapy, NLP & CBT can help you to realise your potential please contact Erika for a no-obligation chat.