HypnoGeeks Podcast
Welcome to the HypnoGeeks Podcast, hosted by Amanda Joy, the Director of Studies at the Northern College of Clinical Hypnotherapy (NCCH). Each episode of this podcast is a journey into the world of hypnotherapy and holistic healing, guided by Amanda Joy's extensive expertise and passion for the field.
Amanda Joy brings her deep knowledge and commitment to education to the forefront, providing listeners with insightful discussions on the latest research, techniques, and practical applications in hypnotherapy and beyond.
Tune in to explore a wide range of topics, from the intricacies of clinical hypnotherapy to the benefits of mind-body psychology, neurobiology, and other profound healing modalities.
Whether you're a practitioner seeking to deepen your understanding or someone curious about the transformative power of hypnotherapy, the HypnoGeeks Podcast offers valuable information and inspiration.
Listen to Amanda Joy and her guests as they share their experiences, stories, and tips to help you harness the power of your mind and achieve your fullest potential. The HypnoGeeks Podcast is your gateway to living a balanced, fulfilling life through the power of holistic healing.
Find out even more at www.thenortherncollegeofclinicalhypnotherapy.com
HypnoGeeks Podcast
HypnoGeeks Episode 15 with Craig Fookes Clinical Hypnotherapist
Ever wondered why procrastination feels like an insurmountable hurdle and how it ties into our mental health? Join us as we unpack the complex web of procrastination, motivation, and mental health with Craig Fookes, a clinical hypnotherapist known for his straightforward approach. In this episode, we promise you'll uncover effective strategies to overcome the paralysis that procrastination induces and find new ways to stay motivated, especially in demanding professions like hypnotherapy and well-being.
Craig Fookes shares his transformative journey from financial services to becoming a clinical hypnotherapist and mindfulness instructor. Discover how his personal battles with mental health fueled his career switch and provided him with unique insights into the male mental health stigma. Craig and I explore the concept of the comfort zone, the neurochemical processes involved in learning new skills, and the often overlooked but crucial importance of pushing past our comfort zones to achieve long-term goals.
From examining the brain's prioritization of physical health to navigating the emotional intricacies of internal conflicts, this episode sheds light on why we fall into avoidance behaviors and how we can visualize our best selves through hypnotherapy. We touch on the pitfalls of over-scheduling, the importance of rest and boredom, and the dangers of conflating personal development tools with mental health recovery. Tune in to gain a nuanced understanding of motivation and learn practical tips for achieving personal growth and fulfillment.
This podcast is sponsored by The Northern College of Clinical Hypnotherapy
www.thenortherncollegeofclinicalhypnotherapy.com
well, hello and welcome to hypnageeks. This is the 15th episode, um, and it's really for hypnotherapists and, well, anyone that's looking to enhance their knowledge about well-being, about the power of the mind, and anyone who's looking to enhance their therapeutic skills as well for their private practices or however they work with clinical hypnotherapy Now, as a Director of Studies at the Northern College of Clinical Hypnotherapy, as a tutor, as a trainer and as a therapist, I hear from so many people all the time that they are procrastinating, and this procrastination that they talk about is making them feel anxious and guilty and horrific, and it causes them to do all sorts of mad, crazy things. So I wonder if you can relate to this.
Speaker 1:Are you one of those people who postpone things? Do you delay tasks? You know I'll do it later, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it at the weekend, I'll start on Monday. Do you put off tasks or actions that perhaps need to be accomplished? Do you put off urgent activities in favour of maybe less critical tasks? I often find myself finding that the washing up's really, really important around tax return time.
Speaker 1:I'd rather do the washing up than my tax return. But it leads to worry. It leads to often a sense of guilt. It can certainly lead to stress and anxiety and you know if you, if you're looking at that massive stack of paperwork, it ain't going anywhere, so it's possible that it's just going to start to haunt you and and yeah, you might find the washing up more important, but it's still looking at you when you've done the washing up and you know what. You're not alone. You're not alone.
Speaker 1:It's something that I hear all the time, because procrastination, well it's, it's really common. It's a common behavior that many, many people around the world experience to some extent, and research suggests that the majority of individuals engage in some kind of procrastination of some sort at some point in their lives. So it's not just you, it's everyone really, and studies have found that up to 20 percent of the adult population are what we call chronic procrastinators. I'm not quite sure I like labels, but I quite like a chronic procrastinators. I'm not quite sure I like labels, but I quite like a chronic procrastination label. This is like the remaining population, of course, are going to be exhibiting some kind of procrastination tendencies in some circumstances. I think we all put off things that we don't want to do quite often. But procrastination affects all people of all ages, from all backgrounds, all occupations, and so it's got really widespread prevalence in society. And from the little research that I've done about it, it seems that it can stem from all sorts of different factors Just not wanting to do it because you don't like doing it, fear of failure, perfectionism, lack of motivation, just a bit of poor time management skills, maybe, or avoidance of uncomfortable emotions that are associated with the task.
Speaker 1:Certainly, for me, I'm quite a high functioning person and I know that if it's something that doesn't interest me or inspire me, it very much gets put to the bottom of the list, or until there's a sense of urgency or panic that means I absolutely have to do it. And then, if I get frozen or paralysis about it, that can lead to all sorts of challenges and and I've um, I've developed some personal strategies that work really well to deal with that paralysis and to deal with that anxiety and to keep myself motivated and, on top of things, because I run a business as well as teaching us, you know, in a school and running and making and creating podcasts and writing and doing all sorts of other things and all of those things that are creative and fun for me. I love engaging with them, but there are things that I don't enjoy doing and there are things that I get like paralysis around. I get really stuck and I procrastinate and find that the washing up is more interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, I initially spotted my guest um on on today's episode ons. I was having a bit of a scroll and I absolutely loved his plain speaking, very much down to earth style of communication. Clinical hypnotherapist, but he specializes in in helping clients make really quite transformational but lasting and positive changes in quite a variety of areas, including lots of different areas of mental health and well-being. But what I what I read was about his work on motivation. But what I read was about his work on motivation, procrastination and actually so much more, and I am delighted to welcome him on to this week's episode. Welcome, craig.
Speaker 2:Craig Fuchs, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you here. Thank you very much indeed. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Well, you're a real kind of like wealth of knowledge, particularly when it comes to things like procrastination and motivation and anxiety. It was it was a post that you'd put on about procrastination that really drew me in. But just tell us a little bit about who you are and where you are, what kind of work you're doing at the moment.
Speaker 2:OK, so my name is Craig Fuchs, I'm a clinical hypnotherapist and mindfulness instructor and I've been uh now for approaching the decade. Um. I became a hypnotherapist? Um after a career change, uh, when I used to work in financial services previously and I really wanted to um give something back after a prolonged period that I'd had with mental health challenges myself, particularly in the areas of anxiety, which led me to become depressed, which led me to have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and all manner of problems that people with mental health problems will face. And I had some great support from various different therapists over that chapter of my life and, to be honest, I thought that becoming a therapist would be a much better and more meaningful use of my work time than counting rich people's money for them. So I decided to exit my previous business and to retrain in, initially, hypnotherapy, but other therapeutic disciplines over the years as well, and really my ambition was to be the therapist that I would have wanted when I started my personal therapy journey 15 or so years ago.
Speaker 2:When I started my personal therapy journey 15 or so years ago, and to think about what I needed at that time, because I'm sure there are people like me and it is some of the things you referred to, kind of having the knowledge and the experience and the technical knowledge, if you want to call it that, to understand our psychology and our physiology and how our environment and our relationships affect our psychology and physiology, but also to have somebody that is quite straight and plain talking to, to offer some accountability and a sounding board and to kind of make peace with my own past and to talk about my experiences through the journey of recovery from mental health and the. I see that as the work of the rest of my lifetime to manage my own health physically and mentally, simply because, as a 41-year-old man, lots of men don't come to therapy. When I first set up shop, I set up all my advertising and marketing around offering therapy service predominantly to those that identify as male and assign fit male at birth and nobody came. Because even as recently as seven or eight years ago, there's still quite a big stigma attached to men's mental health that is pleasingly changing and it's developing week on week and I have more male clients and it's developing week on week and I have more male clients. So my practice in the first few years was sort of almost exclusively female clients, which gave me the need to learn about other areas that affected women and their psychology and different issues.
Speaker 2:So to try and give myself a much broader knowledge base to draw on, I think the other thing that I try and do is to think about my own experience and to acknowledge that all of our individual conscious experience I get a bit woo-woo now. You know, nobody else really knows what somebody else is thinking or how they feel or what it's like for that other person, but we all have a kind of an experience of our thoughts, of our subconscious, what it's like to have an inner narrative and an inner dialogue, what it feels like to feel lethargic or foggy in our thoughts, and how that affects our mood, how it affects our ability to motivate ourselves, why we might procrastinate, um, and to hopefully develop what I think is like a toolkit that everybody can carry around with them to help them to understand their own experience of their own psychology and physiology as they go about day-to-day life. And we started talking about. You know, the reason we're talking now is around the topic of motivation versus procrastination, and the prevailing idea that I see in the topic of motivation is that we find ourselves in a comfort zone zone and in order to get our long-term goals whether that's losing weight, going to the gym, learning mandarin, doing the degree, writing the book, starting the business, becoming a hypnotherapist, whatever it, whatever the long-term kind of aspirational cerebral goal that we've got is is that we find ourselves in a comfort zone and we simply need to push ourselves out of a comfort zone towards that long term promised land of milk and honey and rainbows and unicorns. And yeah, there is a great deal of truth in that that.
Speaker 2:If you are in a comfort zone and your life is going well and you're enjoying good mental and physical health at that time, then you will need to give yourself a bit of a boost in order to do the difficult thing and, from from a neuroplasticity point of view, learning something new and doing something new is always challenging because you need to have the chemicals in your brain which make you feel agitated, which is the mechanism for learning and your brain going through that neuroplasticity change. Those chemicals are adrenaline and acetylcholine and they make you feel that agitated sense. So it's always going to be difficult to learn something new and push yourself out of a comfort zone towards long-term goals. If it is easy, if you can do the thing that you need motivation for and you don't find it difficult, then it isn't working. You know if you, if you need motivation for and you don't find it difficult, then it isn't working. You know if you, if you want to exercise and you don't find it a challenge, then that you're not really exercising. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah where I, where I kind of made this kind of thought for myself, is, you know, when I'm thinking about my long-term goals. He kindly mentioned about my app earlier is that it is. I was assuming that I was in that comfort zone, that I was simply in a comfort zone and all I needed to do was motivate myself out of that comfort zone to do the difficult thing, the difficult work that I hadn't really got the experience to do and it's been I hadn't done before. I didn't have the knowledge how to do, and it's quite exposing to put yourself. You know, if you're sitting in a one-to-one session with a client, you can talk very, very openly, very, um, calmly, about your own experience.
Speaker 1:But when you start to record yourself and put it online for people to to comment on, it's very exposing very vulnerable, especially when it's something that involves emotion for you or it's something that you've been through your own experience. You kind of go oh, please say something nice about this, because I'm sharing this from my heart and it can feel very exciting, particularly vocal um, so, um.
Speaker 2:So when I was thinking about this, I thinking am I actually in a comfort zone to start with? Because that's kind of where we're told that if we want something to achieve a long term goal we're in a comfort zone. We must get out of it. I was like I don't feel particularly comfortable with the prospect of having to do this. So then I started to think about the human brain and how it's evolved over time and what the human brain is actually doing, what it's actually achieving for us.
Speaker 2:Every single second of the day it's processing two million pieces of information. A second is is the information or the the number that I've read? It's running 650 different types of chemical reactions within your body. It's working your cardiovascular system, digestion, immune system, endocrine system, lymphatic systems all of these different systems every single second, from the before you're born to the very second you die, and that's where its primary focus is. We could think of that as the brain's first gear of motivation. It wants you to be healthy and alive and your brain has got lots of kind of volume that deals with all of those different systems and processes every single moment of your life once that is dealt with.
Speaker 2:You know that's the first gear of motivation. Your brain wants you to be alive. If you're very hungry, it will tell you. If you're very cold, it will tell you. If you're very hot, it will tell you. If you're dehydrated, it will tell you. And if you're very hungry, it will tell you. If you're very cold, it will tell you. If you're very hot, it will tell you. If you're dehydrated, it will tell you. And if you're in pain, it will tell you. And those things would become overwhelmingly important. You'll be fantastically motivated to resolve those things before you. You think about your long-term goals.
Speaker 2:So once you get out of that first gear and you resolve your physical and physiological health as best as you possibly can, you then move into the second gear, which is all about comfort and discomfort and potentially principally, the avoidance of discomfort. Now, when you in the introduction, you were talking about doing things that are quite challenging tax returns versus washing up, yeah, it may be for me when I was thinking about doing my app, I've got to do something I don't know how to do, um, and could be quite exposing. It's quite an investment of time and energy and effort and it's a difficult thing to do. Yeah, and it's been known since the 60s that our brain has this in in carl rogers work, an organismistic valuing system. It's constantly like a set of old school weighing scales, weighing up the thing that you want to do versus the thing that you're going to do, and if something is difficult, then your brain is going to go don't do that thing. It's really difficult, do this thing instead.
Speaker 1:Sit on the sofa, find something on Netflix, put your pajamas on, open your phone, order something off, deliveroo yeah, yeah, you can see that, working in our physical movement as well, we end up with bad backs and bad necks and and aching shoulders and sore knees. Because our body automatically goes to move and to pick things up and to stand up and to sit down, we automatically pick the easiest route, don't we pick the easiest option and that can things up and to stand up and to sit down, we automatically pick the easiest route, don't we Pick the easiest option, and that can end up, you know, being quite imbalancing for us when it's repetitive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so your brain is kind of allocating the amount of resources that you've got available to you at the time. So a tax return is a very kind of cerebrally intense thing to do. You're going to need a lot of information. It's something you only do once a year. It's very kind of overwhelming. It's quite frightening to have to deal with majesty's revenue and customers and, um, you know, if you get it wrong, there's a kind of idea that scary people are going to come and knock on the door. So you know, around that time your brain's going to go. Well, instead of doing that, why don't you do washing up instead? Um, so there's that that kind of valuing mechanism that's going on, and part of that, I think, is you.
Speaker 2:You need to have quite a lot of energy and um esteem in reserve in order to do that thing I agree yeah and what happens is, if you leave your tax return until the the 30th of January, then then it becomes really, really important and the valuing system changes, because if you don't do it at that point, then the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of leaving it any longer yeah, yeah so that that kind of that type of procrastination, the avoidance procrastination that so many of us experience, um is the the pain of not doing it is is less painful for a time, and um of the the the pain of actually doing it.
Speaker 2:And it's not until that valuing system changes on the inside where if I don't do this thing right now, then it's really going to cause me a much bigger problem. And then there's a huge surge of energy that we have. We go and do the tax return and then we sit back afterwards and go well, it wasn't really that bad anyway, was it? You know, it's quite simple and straightforward once you get into it, and but we and we go on. Next year it's going to be even, but I'm going to do it as soon as the tax year rolls around, I'm going to have all my accounts and all my bookkeeping right ready to go. And then we're faced with the same problem again that the complexity and the energy that it takes to do the thing is greater than what we have in reserve at any given point.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? Makes sense, yeah, it does make sense. Um, it's interesting. I, I mean I often say to people I don't really believe that procrastination exists. I tend to believe that it's. It's a limitation or it's an experience that you've had that's led you to believe yeah, but it's really difficult, it's traumatic, it's dangerous, it's gonna, it isn't. I'm not sure that I'm really a believer in it. You have to get out of your comfort zone and I think that's what, what really kind of went.
Speaker 2:Oh, somebody else you know is thinking along those lines I think procrastination is is a label that it gets chucked around for for many, many different, many different things. What I say to my clients is nothing happens for no reason. There is always a reason why your brain has decided to do something in the way that it has. You may not want to know what that reason is, you may not like what that reason is. That reason may be obscured from you, but there will be a legitimate, protective reason that your brain has said don't do that because it's going to be difficult. Now. That reason may be as a result of your, your esteem, your relationships. What the meaning is you draw from that situation? That, how it might negatively impact you if it went wrong or this, that and the other. Maybe that you don't feel worthy or deserving, deep down on the inside to have the, the outcome or the product of whatever it is that you're putting off.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to share with you a little bit of a of a story from from my own experience, um, related to the tax return, um, and it's, it's, it's, it's something that it's a story, that it is going to reflect numerous other experiences that I've heard and and things that I've experienced as a therapist as well.
Speaker 1:Um, where you, you, you, the discomfort, um, kind of imbalance, comfort, discomfort, pain, pleasure, imbalance gets you know, you get to the point where, okay, you need to hand this tax return in now, it needs to be done by tomorrow, or else, or it's getting to a point where I haven't been able to clean up my house for ages and it's got worse and worse, and worse and worse, and now we know it's becoming a health hazard to me, my life, or I really need to get this work done, meet this goal, whatever it is, and at the last minute, you become so overwhelmed and so paralyzed I like to use the word paralyzed because it kind of reflects what I hear when people talk about procrastination so overwhelmed and so procrastinized, so paralyzed procrastinized that's a new word paralyzed that you just hit the fuck it button and just think fuck it, I'm not doing it, just not gonna do it.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna go shopping, I'm gonna go drinking, I'm gonna do anything else, but I am, I'm just, I just don't care. I do not care about the outcome. You do really care, quite deeply, I think, but it just becomes like such a massive challenge, such a huge task, so incredibly all-encompassing or overwhelming, that you almost go into self-destruct mode to get out of it. You create excuses, you start to move into a different way. I think it's interesting to dive into the intricate workings of the human brain a little bit more, um, when we're understanding this kind of I I I'll explain how yeah how I approach the and I'm pleased to use the f-bomb before I did, because the chances of me getting through and I was talking about none.
Speaker 2:So I'll talk about my, my uh approach the, the fuck it button, in a moment, because it's something that I have personal, a great deal of personal experience in um. So just just to tidy up that last point. So our brain deals with our physical health first, then it is dealing with comfort versus discomfort. It is always going to lean towards comfort. Once we get to a state of comfort, we are then in the comfort zone and we can then progress towards our long-term goals. And for my, my personal experience is I spent a long time of my life, until very recently, below the level of the comfort zone, and I'll talk through that in a moment. So so my kind of take on why we have the discomfort zone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the discomfort zone. That's kind of our second gear. If we can get out of that second gear we can find ourselves in the third gear, which is our comfort zone, and then we can push out of that. So we have an idea of who we should be in our mind at any time. This pinches a bit from Carl Rogers again in our mind at any time. This, this little, pinches a bit from carl rogers again. It pinches a bit from internal family systems, which I think is is a brilliant um tool to use alongside hypnotherapy is very hypnotic anyway. Uh, for the your, the people listening that are hypnotherapists. Um, I'd strongly recommend no bad parts by richard schwartz.
Speaker 2:Um, it's a book that might change my, my life personally and and professionally, um, and it it forms the basis of many conversations that I have with clients all the time that when we think about rogerian um, the, the humanistic approach to, to counseling, it's something that clients find very easy to drop into and associate with quite a lot, and and so the way I approach it with somebody is to say you know, if I asked you to describe yourself who you are on a good day not the best day of your life, but on a good day, what your friends, your colleagues, would say about you. Just give me two or three words and I know we're British and that you're going to be modest and you're not going to want to say something bragging or boastful, but is a therapy session. You can say whatever you like and nobody's going to know, and, and generally I'll get words along the lines of kind, caring, loving and generous. They're quite common um, I have things like I'm a good person, I'm a hard-working person, um, or I'm quite academic, or um, you know, that would be something an attribute that they hold on to, all perfectly understandable, laudable things to have in your life. And and you, you get instantly the idea of somebody who they should be on their best day. They are kind and caring, loving and generous. So they're hard working, they're a good person, they're an academic, they're whatever. Yeah, now if that person isn't those things for any reason whatsoever, we then get an insight into who they are, kind of what Carl Jung might call the alter ego. We get the shadow side. You know where they are when they're not that. So if somebody's hardworking, if they're not hardworking, then they may take the message from that that they're lazy or they're not productive or they're not good enough because they're not being as efficient or as effective as they might be.
Speaker 2:Now, if you've got an idea of who you should be positively when you're at your best, in my experience personally and professionally, that most of us have got a set of negative core beliefs limiting beliefs, as they might be called in NLP and they'll generally be hung around a few different types of things for those that are, I mean, male at birth and identifies male. The big one this comes from Brené Brown's kind of work on shame is about being weak. That is absolute kryptonite to men. They don't want to be seen as that. They don't want to go anywhere near that. Coming to therapy means they're weak. Any kind, any emotion that isn't anger is weakness. And you're allowed to love your nan, your dog and your football team, but other than that you're not allowed to show love for anything else your dog and your football team, but other than that you're not allowed to show love for anything else. Um, and you know that that's kind of what's drilled into to men, those at the sign mount for female. This is brené brown's work. It's more subtle, it's more nuanced, it's about being perfect, not being a burden, not being able to be seen, to be struggling, you know, to have all of your shit wired tight all of the time and that anything that that and touches on those nerves becomes like kryptonite, for for those of a female.
Speaker 2:And when we have a that, we've got these two different versions of ourselves that are alive and well and breathing on the inside. On a good day, we find ourselves as good and hard-working, or kind, caring, loving and generous, and those are really positive traits that we we find in ourselves. And and hardworking or kind, caring, loving and generous, and those are really positive traits that we we find in ourselves and the world confers on us, and it's good to be those things. Now, if they get disturbed or shaken or we make a mistake and we're not those things, then we're right over here, on the other side of whatever our set of negative core beliefs are that are obscured from us. We don't want to go anywhere near. And if you imagine those two versions of ourselves when they get far apart, when they're in conflict, then we have a third version of ourselves, which is the, our emotional state, which is either anxiety, it's depression, it's burnout, it's fatigue, it's procrast, and then if you sit in that third state for long enough.
Speaker 2:Eventually, that will morph into online shopping. It will morph into doom scrolling through socials. It will morph into comfort eating into sexual behaviours, drinking, drugs, gambling you know any of those kind of high impact, high dopamine activities which provide that fuck it moment, to use your phrase. Yeah, and don't give a shit that you're not the person that you thought you want to be in the world, and you don't have to go anywhere near the person that you've become. You can just sit outside in a little protective bubble of a fuck it. I'll just do what I want for a period of time Now in that bubble.
Speaker 2:If those behaviours are left unchecked, it starts with procrastination, it starts with avoidance, because we're not the person we wanted to be and we're this version of ourselves that we can't tolerate. For a period of time, we can sit and procrastinate. We can sit and doom, scroll up on our phone. We can sit and internet shop or any of those other other types of behaviors and and in those moments it feels good that that's why we do it. There's another reason why nobody's becoming addicted or using kale smoothie or crocheting or mindfulness coloring in books in order to to achieve that state of something like what carl rogers would call congruence.
Speaker 2:It's always the big stuff that we're using, that stuff that changes our physiological state immediately. Chocolate is the most you know, of all the things that have approached, of all the people that have approached me for therapy over the years, for hypnotherapy, chocolate is number one. You know, I can't stop eating chocolate. Yeah, yeah, um. So that's because it has this incredibly potent effect on our physiology very, very quickly. Um it. It makes us feel good, we get the, the dopamine kick from it, we get some oxytocin, maybe some serotonin, we get an increase in blood sugar, um, that that will change our balance of insulin and cortisol, which will relieve some stress. And it tastes nice. It reminds us of childhood and it reminds us for if we are good, we get a chocolate um, and all very, very potent, um, psychological and physiological kind of triggers for us not a big fan of the word trigger, but that's that's where we're at.
Speaker 2:So that kind of that idea of there being three different versions of ourselves on the inside. And there is, there is a, there is a kind of. There is a conscious mind, there is an executive function, as it would be called in in neurobiology. There is a bit of my brain that can hear these other voices playing out. There's a bit of my brain going right, come on, other voices playing out. There's a bit of my brain going right, come on, craig. You've got all these bright ideas, mate, are you ever going to do this app?
Speaker 2:And there's another version of me going I'm really tired, I can't be bothered. You know what? If it's shit, nobody, nobody signs up to it. And then there's the middle version that goes ah, do you know what, craig? Just laugh it off, just go and watch some telly. Um, find something on some. Find something to eat on. Deliver room, just chill out for a bit. Do it tomorrow. You know you've done enough work for today.
Speaker 2:You know, there there is those three different versions of Craig on the inside that I can have almost like a two-way conversation with, or that they certainly can have a one-way conversation with me and, depending on who's prevailing at any given time determines what I do now from therapist, once somebody gets that conceptually in going through a hypnotherapy session, we can take somebody to kind of a place of relaxation and ask them to visualize who they are on their best day, to see them as a third party, as an external person, and often that's a really pleasurable, pleasant experience to be, because then somebody that may be struggling with self-esteem can see themselves as other people might see them, and they can see them in a positive light.
Speaker 2:And oftentimes people would say, oh, that person's really happy, they're glowing, they're they're, they're wearing really smart clothes, they've got the things that they want in life and that is the person that you can become.
Speaker 2:That person's waiting for you in the future. Now, if you ask that person to come back a little bit towards you, to here and now, that person will support you. It may be that that version of you is giving you a lot of pressure because you're not quite where you could be, and it can often be a very relieving effect for my clients to know that there is the future for them. There is the version of them that they can grow into and become with a bit of elbow grease. And then from that we'd go to meet the kind of the other versions, the shadow version or the alter ego, the kind of the other versions from the shadow version or the alter ego, but the one that's really downtrodden or um, is struggling with those, those core beliefs of not being good enough or not being worthy, not being a victim of life or being weak or whatever else, and that was kind of the truth of that, that there is this version of on the inside that is really struggling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and it's for them, to them as they actually are, the consciousness, if you want to call it that, the soul, the self, the spirit, the executive function, to actually really embrace that version of themselves or the trauma they've experienced, the fact that this version of them does feel like that. And then the third part is to go and meet the, the, the fuck it version, the protective part, the bit that says just sit on the sofa and drink beer and eat deliverable and doom scroll on your phone. And that version is there to protect. It's to protect that, that kind of alter ego, downtrodden version of ourselves, and it's to block it out. It's to block out the pain of it. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And it's to block it out, it's to block out the pain of it. Yeah, absolutely so. I love, I love that three, the three parts of it, and it really resonates with my own experience of therapeutic intervention that worked for me. I very much was in the fuck it button space for a number of years and nearly died as a result of that number of years and nearly died as a result of that. And I went through recovery and I went to rehab and I did all of the the program but I didn't really know how to live as a happy, healthy, drug-free sober, if you like to use that word. I didn't know how to live as a free, happy person, um, and, and I was. I was constantly haunted by the guilt and the negative and I was very aware of my shadow and aspects because I had seen the destruction and the darkness and the horrible things that I had done and felt dreadful about it. And my therapist used parts therapy with me. Um, which is how we refer to it on on our training at the Northern College, we do parts therapy as a part of our diploma course. Um, and and and parts therapy, um, she took me to reconnect with, or to get to know again the part of me that knew how to live happy, healthy, joyous, free, be a light, be. You know the things that I wanted to be, that blueprint of the person that I wanted to become. And I had I felt so disconnected from that part of me. I felt really stuck, really trapped in that negative space. And she introduced her to Amanda from the future and looked at Amanda's world in a visualisation. What did it look like? What sort of activities did Amanda do in the future? And we went to Amanda's world and Amanda was happier and healthier and and funnier and was doing singing and was using her voice to help people and was doing all sorts of different things.
Speaker 1:And up until I'd had that session, I could not see a future. I was really stuck in that, in that, oh, I'm a horrible person, fuck it. Oh, I can't do this, it's not for me, I don't know. And and person fuck it. Oh, I can't do this, it's not for me, I don't know. And the fuck it for me sometimes meant I wanted to check out as well.
Speaker 1:You know, of life it was a really, really dark place to exist in between, that kind of no man's land, almost of those spaces, and just seeing that dimension in my mind gave me something to feel like this is potentially achievable for me. I can do that, and they were really simple things like listening to music that I like and singing along, having a dance around my living room, having a bit of a disco in the kitchen and you know, and doing just reconnecting with things that gave me a sense of of joy, happiness, movement, um and peace as well within me, um, and, and that part of me was called joy, um, and it, you know, my name is amanda joy, but I was kind of, you know, for a long time I was just meh, meh, what's your name? Meh? Because that's how I felt.
Speaker 1:And then I became Amanda, and then I became Amanda Joy, and it was because I'd had that an intervention in my life where I was really able to to, to see all of the dimensions of me, love all of the dimensions of me. Reflect on that.
Speaker 2:The dark stuff has actually really brought some real beautiful dimensions of light into my world and there's there's that kind of loveliness I think that the, the messages that we have on that kind of dark side, if we want to use it, that the shadow side, that the alter ego they actually create, who we become on the outside world, that if you feel and those messages go in from, most likely before you can even remember they, they come in in childhood and they can go in very subtly, very nuanced way, it doesn't have to be malicious although for lots of people, sadly, that this is a result of neglect and abuse but it doesn't have to be just. You can latch on to one, one negative message from from your childhood and and it will form a negative idea of yourself. And then from that negative idea then we we try and bury that, we try and hide that from ourselves, hide that from the world, and we'll be the opposite of that on the outside.
Speaker 1:Um, so if we feel and I think we can end up with multiple dimensions of those parts of us that are protective um that are helping us to feel good with the chocolate. That are giving us the extra gin and tonic on a friday tea time that I have it causing us to have fish and chips on a weekend, instead of creating healthy foods or healthy ways of living and being that it was that feeling of security and safety yeah, there's that, there's the tone of each, though we've got the ideal, we've got each.
Speaker 2:So we've got the ideal, we've got the logical, we've got the rational, we've got the, the, the actual sense of who we are deep down on the inside, the bit we obscure from us. And then we've got the protective. You know what what ends up. You know if you amplify it ends up being self-destructive and self-abusive, but really is intending to be the fuck it moment and to get you out of the, the torment of being pulled in an opposite direction. So then I took that a little bit one stage further. So you've talked about it there and in in my life it that you've got how you can be at your very very best. So at my very very best is, you know I've run the marathon, I've climbed kilimanjaro, I've run a run. A business of this is my second professional career. You know I've run the marathon, I've climbed kilimanjaro, I've run it, I've run a business of this is my second professional career. You know they're big moments of, of happiness and joy, and you know achievement in my life right there's. You know, and hopefully most people listening will have half a dozen of those, 10 of those, in their entire lifetime, if they're really lucky, first off, and if they work hard for for them, right? So there is a version of craig that's done all those things and some people go. That's quite impressive. If you, if you think I'm trying to impress you or be boastful or bragging, hang on a second because, you know, hang on to your hats, it gets a bit. So there's a craig that has done those types of things and if we think of that him as kind of at the penthouse of the top of a of a tower block, we'll that's level 10, 10 out of 10, living your best life. Craig, right, that version of Craig has existed. There's also a version of Craig that existed in the basement of that tower block Acute mental health problems, suicidal, abusing alcohol, abusing drugs, abusing his body, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I've had a pretty good go at most things. And now that both of those people they are entirely different people there is a transformation that the guy that was living in the basement, tormented and drunk and out of his face, um, is not the same guy that that can run a marathon. But they are both me, but just not at the same time, um. So if we think of who I can be. My potential as being 10 out of 10, and then who I am as a result of mental health problems is what we might commonly call addiction. I don't, I don't believe in the word addiction.
Speaker 2:I find it hard and shameful um definitely moving away from pain yeah, well, when the when the fuck it moment has just got gone a bit too awry, um, and then we can imagine then in our imaginary tab like I've got it here on my whiteboard but for those that are watching, but those that might be listening, um, that I think our comfort zone was. To come back to that idea of the three gears, I think our comfort zone exists about level six of our tower block. Now, if I ask someone how they are out of 10, ask them to give me a number out of 10. Most people, in my anecdotal experience of this, if I said, how are you now? Give me a number out of 10., how well are you doing? And people would go, oh, they're not about six. So you know, six is our comfort zone, that's our target, and I think that what we really need is a much more effective way to think about how we are actually feeling and doing in our life at any given moment. So then what I do is this I say to somebody right, ok, so you're about a six, seven out of 10 right now.
Speaker 2:So next I'm going to ask you to tell me yes or no. Do you feel energized? Do you feel like you've got enough energy to get through the rest of the day without feeling kind of overwhelmingly tired. They say no, I no. I say right, knock a point off. So we go from six down to five and I say right, just think about how easy it is for you to concentrate and focus.
Speaker 2:Now, if I gave you a relatively complex task to do that's within your skill set, would you find it easy to concentrate? Would you be picking up your phone every couple of minutes, looking out out the window, picking your nose, whatever it might be? And if they say no, then I'll say right, knock another point off, because clearly you're not as cognitively, there isn't as much cognitive availability capacity to you at that time. It's where we move on to talk about motivation, because I don't like the word motivation. I'll talk about that in a minute.
Speaker 2:I said if I the word motivation, I'll talk about that in a minute. I said if I gave you that complex task that's within your skill set to do, but it's going to be quite complex and and demanding for you, how much enthusiasm would you have to get that done? If it's an, would you have enthusiasm to get that done? And if they haven't got energy and concentration generally, the answer would be no, because you haven't got the energy and kind of the mental capacity to do that. So if it's a no, knock another point off.
Speaker 2:So we've gone from six down to four already yeah and then, and then if then I'll say you know, how healthy do you feel right now? Do you feel well, nourished or rested, you know, do you got any aches and pains that are noticeable, like digestive stuff? You know how, how well do you feel overall? Do you feel full of vitality, um, or do you feel a bit groggy and a bit kind of sluggish and a bit, you know, aches and pains, whatever else. Well, you know, if I'm honest, I do, shoulders are aching, I feel a bit tense a bit. You know, digestion isn't great, whatever it might be, okay, we'll knock another point off then. And then I say, realistically, you know you may have got.
Speaker 2:You know relationships are going well, work might be all right, might be a few quid in the bank, but have you got any problems in your life? Whatever they might be, it might be the boiler's on the way out, or you've got to ring the garage to get the car serviced or whatever else. But have you got any problems in your life that are bothering you to the point where they keep cropping up in your mind? You go, well, yeah, who hasn't got problems? Okay, right, well, if you've got something that's popping up in your mind constantly, then knock another point off so we go from a place of yeah, I'm six out of ten happy.
Speaker 2:But realistically I don't think we spend a lot of our time in that comfort zone. Because if we don't feel energized, we don't feel like we've got a lot of concentration, we don't feel like we've got a lot of concentration, we don't feel like we've got a lot of enthusiasm, we don't feel maybe particularly well or we've got problems that are bothering us. We're actually kind of not in a comfort zone at all. We're much lower down.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I think the target for for us, if we've got a long-term goal with something that we want to do with our life from that logical, rational future version of ourself, then that version that's communicating to us on the inside thinks that we are in a comfort zone, thinks that we are up there at that level continuously. But for many of us, in particularly if we've had mental health challenges or we've had trauma in our life or challenges of addiction, or we struggle with our self-esteem or we experience chronic fatigue, you know, to get to a comfort zone is a job of work on its own absolutely yeah, and that we have in our society nowadays and I saw a lot of it in lockdown.
Speaker 2:Before we started recording today, we talked about lockdown um that if we are not constantly busy and productive and learning mandarin, or doing salsa classes, or baking banana bread, or doing joe wicks pe lessons or whatever, if we're not in a constant and perpetual state of busyness and productiveness and taking a selfie of ourselves to put on social media at the same time, then somehow there is something wrong with us, that we we are procrastinating when in fact we're not. The first thing that we may be doing when we are so-called procrastinating is resting, because human beings have a legitimate and fundamental need to rest in addition to sleep. We're not designed to be running at 100 miles an hour, 24 hours a day. We're meant to work for eight, rest for eight, sleep for eight. That's the kind of the premise of how we're designed, but now we think boredom is quite a good thing as well.
Speaker 1:Boredom can be painful for people. But I think I worked with a mum a number of years ago and she was like on a Monday they've got the kids, they've got rugby, and on a Tuesday they've got scouts, and on a Wednesday they've got computer classes, on a Thursday they've got arts and this, that the other. And she said my sons, and every day of the week there was some event, there was something happening and school and homework and loads of stuff, and every weekend they were off having a lovely life. What an incredible blessing to be able to have all of those dimensions in your life. But our kids were suffering from anxiety. And she was like why are my kids suffering from anxiety? And I'm like when do they ever get bored? Like they need a day, at least a day, to just be bored, have absolutely nothing to do. But I want to hear Mum, I'm bored. I'm bored Because boredom, I think, is actually really important for us to have a time of nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for children, absolutely to encourage creativity. When I work with weight management clients, lots of people will say to me in very hushed tones do you know what, craig? Now you've kind of said about the three different versions of myself? I think one of the reasons why I might eat chocolate is I might be bored. Okay, so what's it mean to be bored?
Speaker 2:As an adult, you've got a much more complicated emotional experience, I think, because, first off, you've got the pressure of, well, I shouldn't be bored because I've got all of this stuff available to me 24 7 that I should be enjoying. Yeah, um, if you are, um, bored and you're on your own, then that might mean that you're lonely and that once you get under the lid of that, that's a very different emotion as well. If you are bored and you are living with a significant other, in children or parents or whatever else, that's an. That's an even more complicated, uh, emotional state, because it probably means you're feeling a bit disconnected from the people around you. And then, if you've got that feeling of disconnection and you've got the kind of lethargy that comes up with boredom, then you've got depersonalization, lack of motivation, lethargy. Then I would be thinking more along the lines if you're not bored, you're burnt out yeah um, and that that's.
Speaker 2:That's a an entirely different phenomenon on its own.
Speaker 2:If you're procrastinating because you're burnt out, you're not procrastinating at all, you're burnt out, you're knackered yeah, and that doesn't that kind of feeling of clinging on to the bottom rung or that was just being on the hamster wheel just long enough in order to fall out at the weekend and collapse into a heap on the sofa. Yeah, that isn't procrastinating. A lot of what I hear in terms of procrastinating. People feel low motivation, disconnected from, from others around them. Their esteem starts to um to to be affected and their motivation. They become less and less productive and there's tiredness that isn't resolved by sleep. Well, all of that stuff is indicators of burnout and fatigue.
Speaker 1:That isn't procrastinating no, and I think that's what it's what's really interesting, isn't it? It's like we were saying at the beginning, procrastination is a label that we give to lots of different things and and it's usually used to beat yourself up with oh I'm procrastinating. Well, actually, are you or do you have some kind of like what we're talking about, some limiting beliefs? Are you, or have you had some experiences that have caused you to feel kind of quite restricted in what you're doing, or limited in some way? Are you absolutely just exhausted? Do you just need to have a rest? Um, you know, is there fatigue? Is there burnout? Because I think a lot of people are on that hamster wheel all day, every day go, go, go, go, go, and they're continuing to push through with burnout constantly, so they're not in their comfort zone ever, are they?
Speaker 2:they're definitely in the in my power, yeah then they're.
Speaker 1:They're heading for the basement time to get off the elevator. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:I think there's an elevator down and there's a set of stairs going back up. It's very difficult to climb back up each level from the basement. The other thing I see and it really does, you know, grind my gears, to use the modern phrase is that lots of coaching and personal development tools are being offered and presented as if they are mental health recovery tools. Now, I'm a big fan of mindfulness and kind of visualization and all that type of stuff. It's great and it's wonderful and it has a place. Positive affirmations, vision boards, gratitude, practice all of that fantastic, right, but that those are not mental health tools, they're not physiological tools. If somebody finds himself in my analogy, in the basement, go and say have you tried manifestation? Have you tried practicing gratitude for, for the food in your fridge? No, fuck off, right, because those things do not work for people that are in the throes of depression or in the throat of a panic attack.
Speaker 2:Um, they, they are there. If in, in my kind of tower block analogy, if you find yourself having dropped out of your comfort zone to level five out of ten and you need a little lift, a little boost to remind yourself of the wonders of life and and how great it is to have oxygen in your lungs and all that sort of stuff that may be the thing that lifts you back up.
Speaker 2:That one level yeah, somebody's, you know, in the throes of depression. They haven't left the house in five days. They haven't got out of bed for three and they're laying in bed. They haven't showered for two days. You don't plonk them in front of the mirror and go. Why don't you tell yourself that you love yourself? Because that person right then doesn't? They are kind of in despair and and they are so far into it that that just wouldn't help yeah.
Speaker 1:And and I have all these people who say fake it till you make it. Yeah, that sounds like a lovely idea. But if I feel ugly and I tell myself in the mirror that I am beautiful, I am beautiful, I am beautiful, in in my inner voice, I'm going no, I'm not, I'm not, no, I'm not, no, I'm not, no, I'm not, and I'm actually just making myself feel even worse. Yeah, it's bullshit, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I think it is bullshit, but I also think it's now becoming toxic.
Speaker 1:It's almost narcissistic. I yeah narcissistic. Well, wellness practices, if you are.
Speaker 2:If you are struggling with your mental health in terms of anxiety, in terms of depression, in terms of developmental trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder or substance abuse disorder, adhd or you know any kind of mental health presentation that is so common nowadays. Yeah, and people go on tiktok and they say, right, improve your mental health. By just writing down three things that you're grateful for today, that that doesn't do anything to help somebody's mental health. It may help somebody's emotional well-being if they're enjoying good mental health, but our emotional well-being for somebody in good mental health, yeah, on a bad day isn't the same as somebody's having a mental health crisis absolutely and and it is becoming toxic to the point of dangerous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that person that's having a mental health crisis, that's functioning in life, going right, okay, well, I found this, this uh course online how to improve your mental health from manifestation. Right, I'll just write down all these things that I want in my life and I'm sitting, manifest really, really hard until they happen. That isn't going to do anything to that person, they'll just. It may make them worse. It may make them realize how far away that they are, how deep into their basement that they are at that time yeah, I worked with somebody, um, who was talking about how they'd felt quite low, really low mood.
Speaker 1:They'd had moments of of thinking about having suicidal ideation. They weren't quite planning it, but they were definitely having moods and and thoughts of it, fleeting thoughts of it and they'd gone to see the doctor. The doctor that said they didn't want to have antidepressants and the doctor had put them on a waiting list for counselling. And while we're on a waiting list for counselling, they were offered a mind, an introduction to mindfulness course and I was like, oh, that's great, I love that NHS are off in mindfulness. That's brilliant. The introduction to mindfulness told them to become really aware of their emotions, really aware of their feelings, to really, really listen to that inner dialogue. That inner dialogue was was a really dark inner dialogue that those inner emotions were really heavy and really unhelpful and it put them off mindfulness forever. Not doing mindfulness never again made me feel awful and I was like, well, yeah, of course it's gonna. You're focusing your attention and your own awareness on the negative stuff yeah, and it's not.
Speaker 2:And for somebody that's having suicidal ideation to focus and become aware of the depth and the breadth of that.
Speaker 1:To do that unsupervised is incredibly risky dodgy as and to just do a bit of I'm grateful for sausages and sunshines and unicorns is not really gonna it's not gonna over overcome. That is it. So how do you, how do you work with people who are, who are down there? How do you work with people who are realistically not in that comfort zone that they're heading down towards the basement? What do you do with not motivation?
Speaker 2:it's a time I get to the way I describe.
Speaker 2:It is, you know to be, to be completely objective and to observe the situation as it actually is, not what we want it to be, not how it should be, not how it would be if only this has happened or that person treated me different.
Speaker 2:It's to get to a state of complete objectivity with your own reality. Yeah, that we. We have those three different voices, we have the three different narratives. We have how we want it to be the idealized, actual, the future version of events. We've got this meaning side. You know that these events in my life have meant that people treat me badly, or I'm unlucky, or I'm weak, or I'm fat, or I'm ugly, or I'm pathetic, I'm useless, I'm not capable, I can't look after myself. You know, all of that kind of negative core belief sits in on on that side of the coin. And then we've got the fuck it button, how we protect ourselves against not being where we should be and, um, the reality of our situation. So the the first thing I do is kind of that tower block technique. You know how do you feel right now. And they go oh, six out of seven. But there's these other things going on, but realistically that puts you at about a two or a three, and that can be quite jarring for people to go. Well, yeah, I suppose, if I'm honest, I'm sitting here in your therapy chair, craig, so things can't be going too great for me.
Speaker 2:It's that accepting of the start point and if you think about lots of 12-step programs, lots of recovery um programs, it always starts in the same same kind of thing. Whilst I wouldn't necessarily agree with the wording of the first of the 12 steps, it is you know you are where you are, um, and that you've got to kind of take that on board fully. There's the idea of the dark night of the soul, there is the intervention, or there's hitting rock bottom. In order to start the journey, you have to start it from the start point. You can't start it from six paces down the line. So I would say to people right for weight management clients, for example they are aware that they are overweight and the outcome that they want is to lose weight, to feel more happy and comfortable and to be healthier and to be able to have a greater choice of clothes. You don't just become well, I'm aware that I'm uh, there's something going on with my weight and I need to lose weight.
Speaker 2:There is a there is a journey that you go on, so you're aware of the problem. Then the next thing you must do is understand it. It hasn't fallen out of the sky. There is a reason that your your body is responding to food and stress and your physiology in this way, and it is for you as an individual to go on that journey to understand it. Now I can support you on that journey and help and provide you with information, and we can do some hypnotherapy.
Speaker 2:We can do this, that and the other, but that journey is one that you must do inwardly, on your own. I can, I can guide you on it, but you must understand it for yourself. That I don't know why I I eat the things that I do or I drink the way that I do, that will not help you. Um, you go well, I just don't know why. Can't you just hypnotize me? No, is what I say to clients. There are lots of hypnotherapists there may be some watching that say I can hypnotize you to xyz, and for those people, then they can't. They are, they're offering something, they're making false promises. The client is doing the work and we enable it, we facilitate I tend to find that those kinds of approaches have a temporary fix.
Speaker 1:They kind of get people through like a two or a three week period and then they regress back. It's not really a regression, but it's called a regression. It's not or you've fallen off the wagon or whatever it is you want to talk about, or you've fallen off the wagon or whatever it is you want to talk about. But I completely agree that if you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, you're never going to be able to break the back of that unhealthy behaviour.
Speaker 2:So once somebody's understood it fully and completely and observe it, the reality of the situation is I'm bored, and boredom to me means that I feel lonely and that means I feel disconnected and that reminds me of when I was growing up and this xyz happened. That's right for somebody to be able to paint that story for themselves and to hold it out in front of them as if they're looking at a painting in an art gallery, watching it's a film player in their mind, then that gives them the chance and it is the chance to manage and regulate that themselves, to change their behavior. Yeah, as we're talking about the beginning, in order to change the behavior you must go through the pain of changing it. You've got to unwire your brain from the old pattern to put in place the new pattern. That's right, and you can do a bit of that in the hypnotherapy chair. But there's always has to be a bit out in the real world. I always say to my clients in here is the theory, out there is the practice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think what hypnotherapy does is it creates a space where we can compassionately inquire about what is at the root of this, what's really going on, where are we really at? We've got some amazing tools that can really help us to do that and I think once we've recognised where we're at when it comes to things like internal conflict, where we've got different dimensions of ourselves pulling in the opposite directions, we can work with what's going on with that part. Where did that come into existence? What experiences or traumas or difficulties or what, what lie have I have?
Speaker 1:I heard that I've, because that's become part of my, my belief system, that is, that is pulling me in a direction that is not serving my life, that's not fulfilling me. And working with those inner conflicts and then for me, what really helped was just having that vision of a future me that I actually did like, that I did want to become, that did feel good for me. That kind of gave me an energy and and a belief and some hope and and a desire to live and a desire to do the work and and it really kept me. It kept me sane when I was having to work out how to like, do like adult life stuff the loss of that future self, or losing connection with that future self is.
Speaker 2:It is dangerous, I think, because if you become trapped in that loop between the, the kind of the, the reality of your negative core beliefs and the, what we in our conversation call in the fuck it button, you you'll get trapped in a feedback loop of it, because the bucket button will work for a period of time.
Speaker 2:It will take you out of that, that, that situation, um, and then you'll be straight back into the shame and the guilt and the embarrassment and the self-incrimination that happens as a result of the behavior of the fuck it button yeah so if you lose contact with the future version of yourself, the person that you have the potential to grow into that's too far into the future then you're just in this feedback loop and I've been there and that's when you end up in the basement and it isn't.
Speaker 1:The lights go out in the basement, the rats start coming in, it starts filling up with and, uh, you are in trouble yeah, I've partied down in that basement myself as well, and I think I think one of the thing, the things that also can really help you get out of that basement, is to recognize things like am I safe? Do I feel safe? Do I know myself and am I meeting my own needs? Am I, am I being supported by people? Do I feel love? Can I feel love? Do Am I able to be loved? Will I let people love me? Am I loving others? Do I know who I am in this world? Do I fit into my gang, my tribe, my community? Have I got some kind of a purpose? Do I have a sense of self-worth?
Speaker 2:and also.
Speaker 1:I think that's where hypnotherapy can come in and really very holistically draw on all of those dimensions and go okay, well, we can help you to move towards this, we can help you to harness this emotional state and we can look at this dimension of your life, because now we have an understanding of where you're at, we can, we can start moving you back up again. Tell me a little bit about what you were saying about motivation, because I would like to just explore that point a little bit further with you, because, yeah, I don't believe in motivation I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't like the word motivation because I I believe that we are fantastically motivated at all times, that if we weren't motivated at all times, then our brain would just stop breathing, it wouldn't run our cardiovascular system, it wouldn't run our immune system. It's in this constant state of fighting the environment to stay alive. Right, what we, what we in our modern language, talk about motivation is motivation to do long-term goals, long-term difficult things whether for me it's running a marathon or starting a business, whatever it might be long-term cerebral, human, difficult, logical, conscious, cognitive things to do. If you are struggling with anxiety or depression, your brain is fantastically motivated in trying to resolve whatever that problem is. If you are unwell, it will fire up your immune system and motivate your immune system to resolve that issue. And if you are starving, hungry or you're freezing cold, your brain will put you in an incredible state of motivation to resolve those issues. Once we get out of that gear of motivation, motivation, we then come into the comfort, discomfort gear. Now, lots of people that will come to see us as hypnotherapists are in a state of discomfort. They just don't know what that is. Now it may be to do.
Speaker 2:Commonly, the things I see a very low self-esteem as a result of childhood trauma, chronic fatigue and burnout, as a result of incredible pressure on people's lives and, um, lots and lots of people with very poor diets, um, because they just don't have the time and energy and effort and money to cook um decent, whole, healthy food. And people work in shifts, um, that disrupt their sleep. You know that there's lots of these challenges that we overlook in our society that have a big impact on somebody's physiological well-being, um, and that we completely disregard them. We go right, well, you're working shifts and you don't go to the gym four times a week. What's wrong with you? You're just not. You're clearly procrastinating and it just does people a massive disservice. Yeah, so the word motivation and the other word that can get in the bin is positivity.
Speaker 2:That can get in the bin the idea when people are procrastinating as a result of their mental health or their fatigue or their burnout, and they say I just need to be more positive. And and then they, they list off the problems and challenges that they've got in their health and their relationships, in their financial position, um, in their you know, things going on with their kids, things going on with their parents. I just need to be more positive. I'll sit there and go about what? Which bit of this do you need to be more positive about what?
Speaker 2:What it would be really useful to do is to be really realistic about the limitations that are placed on your time for your external responsibilities and commitments and be a bit kinder, a bit more patient with yourself as to what can realistically be achieved in the next eight sessions that you've booked with me. That might be a bit more. That's a positive thing to do, rather than to look for the, the, the silver lining in every cloud, because not every cloud has a silver lining. Some things are just shit and if we approach them with that and go, right, this, this thing is shit, what? What are my options in order to deal with it, that's a really positive thing to do. But to go oh, I need to be positive about this chin up, keep calm and carry on, and that can get in the bin.
Speaker 1:That doesn't help anybody yeah, I think sometimes the, the, the gift of life, is the shit, um, you know, when we're in, that we're in, we're in the darkest place and we feel like we're just surrounded by shit and we're covered in it. It's that that is the best place to grow from, isn't it? That's what we do with these.
Speaker 2:Where mushrooms grow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we want to, and it is not an easy process to move up and out of the shit.
Speaker 1:But I think I think just being positive positive, yeah, it's. It's quite narcissistic, isn't it I? I did some work in some call centers and on the walls were like these amazing slogans about being positive and thinking positive and doing positive. But they were paying people an absolute pittance. They were working incredibly long hours, they were dealing with really snotty customers and they were being under massive amount of pressure to achieve certain tasks, otherwise they would be fired. So all of their kind of like maslow's hierarchy needs stuff was all being shook about.
Speaker 1:But they were told it, told to be positive and you're not positive enough, you've got a negative mindset. And I was like get me out of here. Oh, I wasn't there for a long, um, but to go in as a well-being practitioner into that environment, I was like take them slogans off the wall, because it's just, that's just mean, that's that you can't. You can't say to someone be positive when they're hungry, when they're angry, when they're tired, when they're under pressure, when they're living in perpetual fear of losing their, their income and being thrown into into into a place of poverty and possibly even homelessness next week.
Speaker 1:No, um, so it's refreshing super refreshing to to speak with you about this, craig. I absolutely loved the conversation. I could probably talk to you for another, another hour, um, and, and possibly even longer, but tell us, before we finish, just a little bit about your mind works app, because you are currently developing this incredible app. Tell us a little bit more about it.
Speaker 2:So my kind of journey through my mental health started off looking at anxiety. I then spent a huge amount of time thinking about motivation, procrastination and probably using that as a tool for procrastination, like research and motivation and procrastination. While I'm doing that, I don't have to do any proper work, um, and then then I realized that I wasn't procrastinating until I was burnt out as a result of, you know, having a big client base and working as hard as we all need to work hard in order to make a living and whatever else. That my problem wasn't really about procrastinating and motivated. I was motivated to do the thing all the time. I just there was this block and this barrier that was stopping me doing that, and that was to do with my physiological health. Um, and then all this wonderful stuff that I've researched and all of it is relevant to everyone because of this idea of the tower block and the comfort zone and that we can be 10 out of 10 happy, but we've all got the potential to find ourselves in the basement that we all need to be looking after our psychological, emotional well-being proactively all of the time, in the same way as we try and eat our five fruit veg a day, and the same way as we need to drink two liters of water, and same as we need to do half an hour of exercise, we all need to be looking after our mental health as well. It's not a given that we'll enjoy good mental health for the rest of our lives, even if you've enjoyed that to your life to date. And for me personally, a big part of looking after your mental health is actually learning how the mind works. Hence the name the Mind Works with Craig, because a lot of it, what we're told, is utter bullshit.
Speaker 2:What motivates us isn't the achievement of long term goal. What really motivates us is what happens if we don't now. If you have got to stop smoking, for example, this is just a common one that people come to hypnotherapy about. If you're a hypnotherapist that is trying to get people to stop smoking because, um, just think of all the money that they'll save and that they'll be able to have, that they'll be able to take the kids to disney world and they'll have a long, happy retirement running around with their grandchildren that doesn't do it. What does it if you want to stop your clients from smoking, is to take them forward in time to where they're laying in their hospital bed on machines, wheezing and in agony. That will do it every single time. We are motivated by the avoidance of discomfort, not the pursuit of long-term goals.
Speaker 2:Um, so the bringing those types of things to mind, letting people know that they, it is possible to access the state of neuroplasticity through meditation, through breath work, in order to help to reinforce positive behaviors and get rid of old, negative behaviors. And it's studied in science now that the first thing about improving your mental health is actually getting some proper science and proper knowledge about what is going on with your brain. So you avoid that. I don't know why I think like this, because there is a reason why, and it can be very empowering, very therapeutic and life-changing to just simply go oh, that's why that happens. Um, your subconscious brain is plugged in directly to your eyes and your ears. You'll hear the things that your, your brain is programmed to look for. Um, so if you're, if you're currently low down in your tower block and you think you're a piece of shit, you'll, you'll find your biases will be tuned in to looking for evidence that you, you're a piece of shit. You'll, you'll find your biases will be tuned in to looking for evidence that you you're a piece of shit and looking for people that will treat you that way. But if you feel better about yourself, you'll go into environments. You'll actively seek out um environments, situations, relationships with people that will support that idea of you.
Speaker 2:So knowing things like that and sharing this knowledge, I think, is as important as one-to-one therapy. The other reason is that one-to-one therapy is a is a significant investment nowadays, and the the reality is lots of people are struggling financially. I think we all, as therapists, have a responsibility, if we want to remain therapists, to, to go to our clients in a way that we can help them rather than just going oh, it's x number of pounds an hour. Oh, you haven't got that money, all right, we'll see you later then. Just that's not really. What I signed up to do is to sign up to to help people, and I've now got to think of a different way to reach more people in a way that still still helps I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it, thank you. Thank you so much for your time and sharing all your goodies with us.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm definitely going to be looking out for your app. When it comes out, it's gonna be absolutely brilliant and I'll pop all your links and everything so people can stalk you on social and jump on your website and find all you, what you're doing, and get in touch with you if they want to work with you or if they want to find out more. But it's been. It's been so, so informative. Um, really enlightening. I have said what the fuck? A few times in my life. Sorry, you couldn't.
Speaker 2:I couldn't resist it I've never heard that before I bet you haven't.
Speaker 1:it's been an amazing episode. Thank you so much for being on it. I really appreciate it and thanks for listening. Cheers.