My chance to practise what I teach

Yesterday morning I had a decision to make that many do. I needed to have an endoscopy (gatroscopy) and I had the choice to be sedated or not. Having a busy afternoon planned, I decided not to be sedated. In the waiting room, the other patients, all of whom had experienced this procedure at least once before, advised sedation - all had bad memories of earlier experiences and there was a sense of stress and anxiety in the room... I began to worry about my choice, and phoned to arrange a lift home if I 'bottled it' and went for the drugs... Then I thought about the pregnant women I teach to use self-hypnosis for birthing and decided (to use a phrase often used by my friend and colleague Richard Nicholls) to 'practise what I preach'. In the waiting room I got myself as comfortable as I was able to in a hard chair, closed my eyes and visualised myself on Saunton Sands in Devon. The nervous conversations in the waiting room became the background chatter of other beach users. I smelt the sea air, saw my dog running on the flat sands and felt the warmth of the sun, relaxing my muscles.... When I went through to have the procedure, the nurses asked me what I did for a living and I said I'd tell them afterwards... I lay on my side as instructed, closed my eyes and took myself to Saunton. As they arranged my relaxed arms, I heard them say, "she's almost asleep" I stayed relaxed and kept my breathing slow and kept my eyes closed until it was over, which was a few short minutes. When I sat up, the nurse said "So what do you do?" When I told them, they laughed. Afterwards, reflecting on the anxiety of my fellow patients and the 'stressy' atmosphere, I wondered how I could use my hypnotherapy skills to help make the experience of endoscopy less of an ordeal and to help reduce anxious thoughts prior to the procedure. I am also pondering recording a self-hypnosis CD for preparation for endoscopy....Watch this space!

Thursday 8th March was International Women's Day and I celebrated this day with 100+  women in business and mumpreneurs at the Social Media Magic event inWimbledon put on by London Mums Magazine and Way to Work Magazine. It was a very interesting event, and handily for me it was in Wimbledon, conveniently close to The Hypnotherapy & Natural Health Centre. Sadly, Lorna (my massage therapist and reflexologist colleague) who specialises in pregnancy treatments was unable to join me as she had a bad cold, which was a shame. As we both specialise in working with pregnancy and childbirth, we were looking forward to networking with women who also do business with mums and mums to be as well as any working mums looking for advice on hypnosis for childbirth (hypnobirthing). Surprisingly there were few obviously pregnant women there, but several women came over to my exhibition stand to wax lyrical about their positive hypnobirthing experiences. I did however have several enquiries from women who wanted help to overcome phobias. I have seen an increasing numbers of clients over the last year who wanted help with acute fears and phobias although this may be as a result client referrals. Prior to me opening my therapy centre in SW19 in 2010, my hypnotherapy practice in SW London was actually called Fix your Fears because fear of some kind is at the root of most people's concerns, whether it be fear of rejection, fear of failure or even fear of success. (My Twitter username is @fix your fears).