Beyond The Swinging Watch - Hypnosis and Psychology in Everyday Life

  “I know what I should do, but I’m not sure that I could do it.”  This is a ‘what if?’ comment. When we think about making changes in our lives we can sometimes put blocks in our way with ‘what if’s”. What if I fail? What if it is a mistake? What if I regret it?  More often than not we spend time thinking about the downsides of the change rather than the benefits, even though the positives were exactly what created the desire to change in the first place.  Negative focusing is a powerful force in stopping us from progressing in the way we should. The key is to get into the habit of reframing the negative ‘what if?’ into a positive statement of what is going to happen. I am all in favour of positive imagination and dwelling on what our life will be like when the goal is achieved, but it is important that it is always framed in a positive way.  The most important thing to understand is how to reframe or rather change that negative view into dwelling on what if you succeed? What if it

  The term Smiling Depression has become more common over the last few years and refers to the way many people can have low mood while still functioning day-to-day.  Often they are so successful that friends, family and work colleagues would be surprised to know how they were feeling behind the smile. Typically a client will explain how they have learned to put up a front of being okay because that’s what everyone expects from them. They go through the motions of playing along with the ‘role’ they have learned to play which hides the truth that their low mood is more persistent than many would believe. When we think of famous people like Robin Williams it is clear that he was smiling through his depression, playing the comedy role the world loved him for. What does this tell us? How people look on the outside is not a good indicator of how they feel on the inside. Low mood and mild depression are not just feeling sad, it can be an absence of emotion. Often we refer to a flattening of

  What’s your Talent? Have a think about it… because you do have one, I promise. You might not know that you do, but we all have a talent for something. If you haven’t recognised what it is yet, think of what a benefit it would be to you and other’s once you understand your talents and exploit those in your day-to-day life. The experiences we have (including our interactions with others) shape our expectations about future outcomes. As a way of dealing with potential ‘threats’ in our lives, we use models of past experience to inform us about what we should do. Of course, we haven’t experienced everything, so we used the best fit option. We match similar experiences with future ones and develop an expectation based on those. It stands to reason that a person who has had experiences and interactions that were interpreted as evidence that they are not as good as others, will be less successful and just have to make do with what they have. They are more likely going to find it difficult to