There’s a lull between Christmas and the New Year, when you’ve sufficed sufficiently but can’t yet relax your guard because there’s one more day of celebration ahead and depending on your heritage this could be a really big day.
Whilst I’m partly descended from those lads north of the border, the bloodline is thin enough for me not to feel the compulsion of first-footing and all that downing of multiple not-so-wee drams. That’s not to say I’m planning to abstain nor that I won’t partake of another drop or two from that freshly opened bottle of Talisker, more that I’m hopeful that I’ll surface sometime before mid-day on Wednesday with a more or less intact inner constitution.
Given that I’m booked in to the local pub New Year’s bash from 7.30, that could be a bit of a tall order.
Then again, 2013 has been a year of expanding horizons and honing new talents so you never know. As this will be my first New Year’s Eve as a published columnist and hypnotherapist, anything is possible. I’ll be starting the New Year with clients booked in for exam-anxiety & learning coaching, stress and anxiety management, pain & illness hyper-sensitivity, PTSD, and weight loss.
I’m advertising through Adwords & our local village magazine and the next column is out in early January. Although website views are increasing, it’s time to begin the first proper website overhaul and maybe transfer it over to WordPress.org so I can SEO the hell out it. Time will tell.
On top of that, my Financial Services consulting career has taken a turn for the complicated and is bearing fruit with high-level competence assessments and some learning coaching courses booked in already. It’ll be an interesting first quarter. Not only that. I find myself in a better place than I’ve been personally for some while.
This is in part because as my Cognitive Hypnotherapy career progresses, I’ve become adept at identifying and dealing with issues that I’ve either long-ignored or taken for granted. It’s also in no small measure because a beneficial side effect of a career in Cognitive Hypnotherapy, is that you spend your working life eliciting trance phenomena in others in a calm and gentle manner which you have no choice but to listen to as well. I find that I leave most sessions having received therapy by proxy. In some measure, the all hypnosis is self-hypnosis philosophy applies even for the therapist.
Whatever the reason, I find the end of 2013 to be a pretty chilled affair.
People are even downloading and benefiting from my mp3 recordings. I spent some considerable time deciding how long these should be. If you search out there in Google & Bing land, you’ll find a whole host of hypnotherapy mp3s & CDs.
I wanted mine to be long enough to provide serious help but short enough to be something you can pick up and put down when you find yourself in whatever form your own ‘bit-of-a-pickle’ might be. It is a strange truth but if you are for example, extremely stressed, it is nigh on impossible to find 20 minutes to listen to something which will relax you. People in pain quite simply hurt too much to be able to spend time listening for half an hour to something which may relieve that pain.
In the end I settled on 10 minutes. This seems to be long enough to make a difference and short enough, in most cases, to allow the listener to find the mental effort needed to sit down and listen. I wrote and recorded them through they year to cover areas I found clients needed most:
Relief from Chronic Pain Conditions
Pre & Post Surgery Healing
Relief from Breakthrough Pain
Migraine Relief
Mindfulness Meditation
and just for Christmas,
Deep Relaxation
And they’re all designed so that the effect builds with each listen, achieving best results after about 4 weeks according to feedback so far. If you could benefit too, why not try them. They work. And if you’d like to know more or if you want book in to see me, (face to face or through Skype), I’m always pleased to talk and offer advice. Keep in touch. 2014 is full of untapped promise.
The colouring bin
© Tony Burkinshaw 2013
Posts of Hypnotic Suggestion 
Hi Tony! So I was thinking of you today because I just downloaded a new MP3 player with my music and I was listening to it while I was cooking tonight. All of a sudden I heard your soothing voice come on! It must have downloaded the great mediation you sent me when I was having such issues with my headaches onto my media player. I recall how kind you were to do that for me and wanted to thank you again. I’ve been feeling better–I’ve started yoga which has helped, and doing some self massage too. I also just recently realized that I might have an under-active thyroid. I’m trying to treat it myself first, then will see my PCP if that doesn’t work! 🙂 Thanks again!
Hi there! It is good to be back in touch. Isn’t it surprising where my voice turns up! I’m really pleased all is better & good luck with the thyroid.
There’s a free Deep Relaxation mp3 on my website at the moment if you want a change of meditation & there’s a really low cost Mindfulness Meditation on there too. They could both be helpful with where you find yourself at the moment.
As always, I wish you the best
Have a fabulous 2014
Tony
PS did you see the award yet… 🙂
Lang may yer lum reek 😉
Likewise!
Consider the lum to be duly reeking!
Have a fabulous 2014,
Tony
Happy New Year Tony. I love how sometimes serendipity plays out for ones better mental health. I was ‘hooked’ by the post’s title and as usual you did not disappoint.
In self reflections of the past year in my life I see clearly the need to find even more modalities to quiet my mind long enough for my emotional intelligence to be refueled and renewed with all the new possibilities that life is prone to introduce me to.
And then I find your post in my email alerts. To be really honest I needed this kind of mindful gentle reminder for just how important that space between time.
Thank you Tony. May I wish you the very best in 2014.