Insomnia: TBTalks (again)

It’s that time of the month again…

Last month I was helping people rediscover sleep and I figures you might be interested, especially as I wrote & recorded a bespoke 20 minute Hypno-Slumber mp3 for you to listen to at bedtime. It’s free, gratis and for nothing. Entirely complimentary in a sort of no need to pay for it kind of way rather than being rather than being flatteringly nice. You might find you don’t remember listening to it once you wake up?

There’s always one more sheep

Here’s a quick excerpt.

Click on the link below to read more (or to get the link for the Hypno-Slumber mp3).

“…Estimates vary but it is thought that between a third and a half of British adults suffer bouts of insomnia. As the most common causes of insomnia are Anxiety and Stress, insomnia is a symptom that many of my clients are very familiar with.

The September edition of TBTalks looks at insomnia and how lack of sleep affects not only our ability to function but our health as well. Scroll down to find useful tips to help you manage insomnia and encourage restful sleep. 

The good news is that we can recover really quickly from lost sleep. Once your insomnia has gone, you’ll feel refreshed with just a few good nights sleep…” {READ MORE}

How do I get the newsletter?

If you want to get this month’s issue straight into your inbox, click here: {Subscribe me to TBTalks monthly magazine}

Flashbacks: Patterns of the Past (reblog)

This is a reblog from a post on my new website. I thought you might like it

We’re surprisingly well adapted to find problems.

In essence our unconscious mind uses our senses to scan everything in our environment like a multi-level radar system. Our brain, which by the way is the most complex system known to science according to that keyboard-playing Professor Cox, is superb at identifying patterns. It matches them to past experience and projects them into potential futures. In the blink of an eye it decides whether we are safe & sound or whether to sound the alarm to keep us safe.

It is simply stunning.

But…

Sometimes the patterns it matches to are out of date, belonging to a you that is no longer here. Things that troubled you as a child are innocuous as an adult but we still feel the fear of speaking to strangers or talking to those we automatically see as authority figures. We respond to bosses as if they were teachers and we were children, either acquiescing quietly or becoming tongue-tied. Being called into the office is so like the walk to the headmaster’s room that we feel the same sense of trepidation and dread. (Or is that just me?)

Sometimes the pattern is more recent but the rawness of it resonates long after it ought to have past.

I got clobbered with one of these last week.

Read More: Click here

Patterns of Anxiety

Algorithms; where would we be without them? Even though I know my mind is constantly firing off its equivalent complexes and striving to effect a cause, I still get caught out every now and then. There I was, having just vacuumed the hallway as you do pre-client, duly noting how there was no loss of suction in the way we’re primed to do by the no-so-young Mr. Dyson.

So far nothing out of the ordinary.

At exactly (and I mean exactly) the same time as I unplugged it to take it upstairs, the downstairs extractor fan stopped. Working on algorithmic autopilot, I found myself switching the socket back on to check that it hadn’t become the power supply for the extractor fan. Of course there is no connection but that doesn’t stop that still small voice of pattern hunting certainty from telling me that the extractor fan was now broken.

The really odd aspect of it all is that all the while, my Cognitive Hypnotherapist mind was telling me what was happening, even down to which algorithm was firing and which past experiences were colliding to form the triggers.

It made not one jot of difference.

Through trivial example, my Unconscious mind insisted on demonstrating how it tries to make sense of my universe. Needless to say, I defused the new pattern and laughed myself quietly free of a potential worry over miswired domestic circuitry.

It is from such misconstruances and misconnections that all manner of anxieties, fears and superstitions come into being. Coincidence isn’t something we’re wired to see. Cause and effect reasoning is much more persuasive. After all it gives us a far better narrative. Gods, demons and superstitions are born of such stories.

Mostly though, the connections are innocuous and leave us feeling just a little silly or out of sorts. Occasionally they are bold and brash and insidiously convince us that life is dangerous and filled with disasters waiting to happen. Herein lie the precursors of depression and anxieties; fears and phobias; destructive habits and negative self-talk.

So if you worry that something awful might happen or you’re frequently nervous, anxious or on edge, it might be interesting to unwind the patterns and triggers of the past and find yourself stepping out into a future happiness you didn’t think existed.

I’d be more than happy to be your hypnotherapeutic guide.

Effective connections

One step beyond

I ran 5k three days ago. For the first time in many weeks I found enough time and energy, on the same day, to actually return to the gym. One step at a time, I ran 5k.

I thought I’d be struggling far more than I did, especially as it seems that I’m carrying around one or two more bags of sugar than last time I was there. Never mind.

I’m so tired that a good night’s sleep seems to make it worse, ramming home even more just how long all this has been going on.

Perhaps it’s time to call it a day; package everything up and rename it as the Past.

Perhaps it’s time to begin the future.

Another chapter. A different phase of the story I tell myself.

Life from another perspective.

I hope it involves sleep.

That’s not random
© Tony Burkinshaw 2013

Tears and Tantrums

This one might stay with me. I’m not sure if I want to publish how I feel right now, which is a little weird because that means this 100 words a day habit could end up being a journal and that’s something I’ve never understood the point of.

Until now, I guess.

Prognosis has moved three times in the last 24 hours so in terms of rolling with the punches, I’ve given up. This is more about how hard can you get hit and still get up again.

And again.

In large part the determination comes because I have a choice. It isn’t actually happening to me, it’s happening to Rachael. I’m just playing a supporting role.

Sometimes the cracks appear and it’s time for tears and tantrums.

Sometimes they’re not cracks at all and it’s time to let the emotions out to play until the pent up pressure is released.

Yet again, the final answer is surgery next week.
Or perhaps not.

Ah well. Publish and be damned.

what’s down there…
© Tony Burkinshaw 2012

Coughs and sneezes

I’ve been fighting a cold for 3 days and now that it’s at its peak, the central-heating’s packed up. Typical.
According to theory, this is an opportunity.

Really?

Difficulties are easy to find. My immediate challenge? I have to keep away from my hospitalised daughter. Heavily immunosuppressed, a cold ridden parent does not a welcome visitor make. Tough but there you are. Gill’s having to take it all on. Again.

What’s love got to do with it? Every damn thing.

Anyway in the work/cold balance of the last few days, I decided to let the slight-edge habits drift. And to keep doubling them up so that I would be on back track as soon as practicable.
It could have been the start of a long-term slide but in accepting it as my decision, the responsibility stays firmly in my own backyard and I keep control.

As it turns out, a bad cold (trust me, it’s pretty nasty) is an opportunity to practice. It provides essential feedback. An opportunity to find out whether I’m at least a little serious about my intention to be in charge of my own fate.
To accept the risk that I might fail despite my best efforts.
To take the risk that I might succeed even though I don’t know what success looks like yet.

And the upshot of all this?
Well, to paraphrase a good book:

Feel the Sneeze…
And do it anyway.

It isn’t easy
© Tony Burkinshaw 2013

…and the plumber turned up in good order. We have heat.

Plan? What plan?

I love it when new learnings lend themselves to practical issues. (Note the nominalisation, a concept my spell check still struggles with).

Complex therapy took place today.

Not the event itself, rather the immense internal barriers to a meaningful reframe. So with new found skills in hand, a neat segway into gestalt flowed seamlessly into words being spoken and forgiveness being freely offered and accepted.

It was really interesting to watch the therapy unfold as it followed apparently carefully planned off-the-cuff statements linking directly into the brains unconscious algorithms. When the time for resolution, the barriers simply had no option but to collapse and allow the reframe in.

Sunshine and light.
Calm where there used to be broken chaos and hate.

I love it when a plan comes together.

And it wasn’t even my plan?

Somewhat Zen
© Tony Burkinshaw 2014

It’s about Time

Time to look forwards.

There’s a new Quest course on its way and in the way of Quest, graduates assist the new students. It’s too good an opportunity to miss. The assistants on my course were fantastic and I’m still in touch with most of them. They were an important part of the experience.

Time to pass on what I’ve learned.

It’s also time to refresh what I thought I’d picked up originally because as these things go, you generally miss things first time around. It’s why I like watching films more than once. Subsequent viewings are when you pick up the intricacies of the complex plot. Or the finesse in the special effects.

So even though I’m now the proud possessor of a certificate that proclaims me to be a master wizard, there’s always more to learn.

Time for new beginnings.

Time for fun.

It’s a matter of perspective
© Tony Burkinshaw 2012

The Choice Option

There’s a glimpse of sunshine. Perhaps two.

Option 1:

Here we go again. Dare to hope or hunker down and wait for the punch that’s always turned up so far.
Every time it’s improved, it’s turned around and slapped us.
Hard.
It’s beyond us. Out of our control.
Life just keeps on happening to us.

Option 2:

Every time it felt like we can’t carry on, there’s been hope. Something has come along and lifted our spirits. A new fact. Uncovering a way of looking at the problem, which gives pause for thought. Get’s the medics thinking again. Trying something new. Adjusting the balance.
Whatever comes along, we’re up to it.
We have to be.
No. It’s more than that.
We choose to be.

External Locus of Control vs. Internal Locus of Control

Simple.
Not easy.

I’ve made my choice.

Enough said.

It’s a delicate balance
© Tony Burkinshaw 2013

Yoda, Tears & Time Travel

Role reversal is always interesting but when it’s an AD/K reversal it seems that the K demands more than one tear. It was time for hugs and more than one tissue.

Unheard of.

Yet again the brief respite was all too brief and the improvement turned out to be illusory. It’s hospital time again. At least this time we were able to use the respite to move her across country and she’s now only 15 minutes away. Two and a half hours each way had taken its toll.

In theory it was simply a visit to reconnect with the old Consultant once more to ensure continuity of care. They took one look and it was back to A&E. Yet another episode of Emergency Ward 10, for those who are old enough to remember.

On the other hand, I’ve made a discovery. We’ve been talking at cross purposes for a little while and it’s been really frustrating. I should know better and ought to have been able to think my way past it. In itself that was a signal. If I couldn’t think past it, it was more than likely an emotional barrier.

I even found myself recognising the limiting belief (well you’d hope so, I just got my Master Practitioner qualification, so in theory I have some skill in this arena).

I discovered myself thinking that now I had uncovered the belief, I possessed sufficient skill to try to find the way past it.

That got me going. Try.

Yoda turned up again, as he does when someone says Try.

Try not.

Do. Or Do Not.

There is no Try.

So armed with Jedi wisdom, I let the reframe in.

I have sufficient skill to find the way past it.

I haven’t yet worked out the how but given that I’m good at Age Progression and mental time-travel I know that when the time comes, as come it surely will, I’ll be standing exactly where I need to be.

I’m listening…
© Tony Burkinshaw 2012