CHARIS NLP

We all fall down!

2010-07-13T18:07:00.000+01:00

Hay fever has been terrible today, and I suddenly remembered that when I did my very first practitioner training in 1990, we learned an NLP allergy cure. It's working! The oldies are the best :-) If you decide to try this yourself though, please remember you should not use it for allergens that have caused you to have anaphylaxis or for severe generalised allergy.

Shoes or chocolate?

2010-07-12T21:31:00.000+01:00

Apparently some women buy shoes when under pressure. Others eat chocolate. Me - I buy websites! My new website www.joycecampbell.co.uk will launch next month to coincide with the release of my new book. And while I was at it, I chucked a few more domain names in the basket as well. A business can never have too many domain names :-)

5 things I wish I'd known 30 years ago

2010-07-10T09:02:00.002+01:00

The end of the academic year, and thousands of young people are thinking that this is it - it's finally time for life to start. I wish someone had told me this all those years ago:

All that learning was all well and good, but knowing myself was more important. Take time to explore your values and your goals, and work out what really is important to you. If the career path you set out on doesn’t deliver on what makes you happy, then do something else that does. Pay more attention to what you think and feel than to what others think and feel. Other relationships pass, but you have to live with you for the rest of your life.
Tough times pass: ask yourself what you can learn from the experience.
Don’t follow the herd! Be willing to take some risks. Have courage, be bold. You don’t have to be liked by everyone.
Take some risks every day – you don’t need to risk life and limb, but think what you might achieve if you just did one thing a day that stretched the edge of your comfort zone.
Build a strong network, and get some good role models. Look for people who have done the kinds of things you want to do, and work out how they achieved it. If it is possible in the world, it’s possible for you!

Dreaming....

2010-02-22T20:51:00.000Z

“The possible's slow fuse is lit by the imagination”

Emily Dickenson

Wearing your pulling pants...

2010-02-10T22:10:00.000Z

All my life, I’ve heard the adage “it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile”, but the relative numbers seem to vary with each telling. The first time I heard it the school dentist was attaching the hated braces to my teeth, and trying to make me feel better about them. As if! Snopes tells me that the jury is actually out on the veracity of the statement. Whatever the truth is about our physogimy, most people would prefer the emotions associated with smiling than frowning.

And yet sometimes it’s really hard to get there, as we strive to fulfil multiple roles, many pulling us in different directions. Our boss wants that paper tonight, but we promised the kids we’d make a cake with them. Our partner wants a romantic early night, but we would really rather sleep so we can have some semblance of coping the next day. We haven’t called our parents for ages, but we crave some me time.

The end result of all of this is feeling flat, depressed, anxious and stressed. NLP puts a lot of emphasis on the need for what is called “state management”. But how do you actually DO it?

First, make some time for yourself. This is YOUR life, and none of us know how long or short it will be. And if we spend all our resources on looking after other people, what happens when we get too burned out to go on? Remember the goose and the golden egg: it’s not selfish to look after the goose – otherwise, to take the metaphor to its conclusion, it’s one nice roast dinner, and then short rations. Even if all you can manage initially is a few 5 minute slots a day, take them, and do the breathing exercise a couple of posts below.

Define your priorities: what really matters to you? The dust doesn’t get much worse after the first couple of weeks, I've discovered! What are the stories you want to tell your great grandchildren about your life: “ I kept a clean house” “ I worked late at the office every night” Really?

What are a couple of things you can do that would enjoy, and would be good for you? Upping your fruit and vegetable intake, getting some fresh air every day can all make you feel better. Even if no one else is doing it, give yourself some positive strokes. Notice your achievements, big and small. When my daughter was a baby, some days my achievement was that I’d showered and cleaned my teeth! Be kind to yourself. If it helps, keep a journal.

Try new things – say yes to opportunities.

And at least sometimes, wear your fancy knickers – you don’t need to keep things for “best” you ARE the best - treat yourself well.

For more information about training in NLP, hypnotherapy, coaching or self-hypnosis, please do visit NLP and Coaching Scotland.

Looking for more cheese....

2010-02-09T17:55:00.000Z

I first read "Who Moved My Cheese?" in 1998, when one of my daughter's hospital consultants gave me a copy. She'd been very ill and had major surgery, and I was very much in "why us?" mode. It represented the kind but firm kick up the backside I probably needed to get me back on track.

Today I was sitting in Waterstones (see previous post about coffee shops!!), and noticed a few copies on the shelf. It's a quick read, only about half an hour I suppose, but re-reading it, I was reminded just what a fabulous book it is.

Who Moved My Cheese? is a metaphor, focused on four characters living in a maze. When one day their supply of cheese dries up, they all deal with it in different ways. In fact, one of them doesn't deal with it at all. Gently and with humour, the reader is invited to confront the realities of their own maze: whether it's about work, relationships, health, or our dreams and aspirations.

And in fact, as it did all those years ago, the book has inspired me to consider the changes I need to make, and to get out there and look for more cheese.

Just give me a minute....

2010-02-03T15:23:00.002Z

I’m a bit of a coffee shop addict. I think I have aspirations to be the next JK Rowling really. I find them an ideal place to work: internet, comfy chairs, enough of the “right” kind of noise to be relaxing, and nice coffee. Which may be on the pricy side, but really, where else would I rent an office for the morning for a fiver?

So today I was sitting in a coffee shop between meetings, and watching the world go by, and I was struck by how truly tense and miserable lots of people looked. Frown lines, shoulders around the ears, grumpy expressions. 21st century life can be tough: commuting, money worries, job worries, relationship worries, worries about the kids, the rent, the time to be a good parent, partner, or friend.

And yet we also need to remind ourselves of that mind body connection, that many physical ailments impinge on our mental health, and equally if not more importantly, vice versa.

One of the things we teach on our self hypnosis training is how to break into that cycle of stress and tension, by focusing on our breathing for a few moments. This shortened version is enough to give us, quite literally, that breathing space we need to turn things around.

Just for a moment, stop what you are doing. Pay attention to your shoulders, and allow them to drop. Let your eyebrows relax, and let your jaw go loose (you can keep your mouth shut, but just ensure that your upper and lower teeth at the back are separate). You can close your eyes, or leave them open, whatever is appropriate.

Just ask yourself: “How am I, right now? How do I feel? What are my thoughts?” This is not about judgement, or trying to “think positive” It’s simply about recognising and accepting your thoughts, even if they are unwanted, for about a minute.

Now, gently redirect your full attention to your breathing. Notice each breath in and out. If your breathing is high in your chest, just notice what happens of you move the focus of your breathing into your abdomen. As you notice your breaths say in your mind “in breath” then “out breath” or slowly count to four on the in and out breath. Do this for a couple of minutes, using the breathing to clear the mind and help you to become still inside.

Once you feel relaxed, check your body - do you have any remaining areas of stress or tension? If so, imagine breathing into that part of your body. Allow any tension to float away on the out breath, and feel the muscles softening and becoming more relaxed.

So take a minute now, and do try this at home.

Using social media to market your business

2010-02-02T19:07:00.001Z

I've just signed up for this Social Media event

It's being run by Business Gateway at Glasgow Caledonian University on 16 February, from 6-9pm. It looks good - anyone fancy coming with me (I'm afraid it's woman only)

Blister and Hurtle!

2010-01-22T12:49:00.000Z

When I was a little girl, my grandfather was always telling me to"No trudging - blister and hurtle!" He had no truck with the tortoise in the Aesop's fable, and derided the thought of slow and steady. I thought it was a saying peculiar to him, as I never heard anyone else say it till I read a book by the Scottish author Isla Dewar recently, where the main character, Cora, is exhorted by her father to blister and hurtle. And of course, she hurtles her way into a variety of scrapes.

While I have generally been too sensible to hurtle into much mischief, I have hurtled at most things in my life - wanting them now, if not yesterday, impatient, working like a demon and expecting everyone else to do the same. And then 8 weeks ago I developed what has to be the most painful thing I've ever experienced. I raise money for breast cancer care, in memory of my dearest friend, who died 10 years ago, aged 38, and about 4 months ago I was training to power-walk a marathon. It's something I've done several times before, and while I'm not the most svelte person on the block, I have a fair bit of stamina for things like that. So while hurtling round a training walk, my leg gave way as if I had been shot. Diagnosis: hamstring tear. Treatment: rest, stretching and controlled exercises. Professional opinion: a 12 week recovery. My opinion: I'd be back training in 4 weeks. I lasted about 6 weeks doing it my way, when the pain became so intense even I couldn't ignore it. To add to the hamstring damage, I now had sciatic nerve impingement. And so started the most miserable 8 weeks.

Trudging would have been a luxury. Since the first week in December I have hobbled around, whimpering with pain, umbilically attached to an ice pack, an inflatable cushion (don't ask) and a tens machine. I eye the clock to ensure I take analgesia the minute the next dose is due. Getting settled at night takes about 8 pillows strategically supporting everything that hurts. My physio is my new best friend. This week is the first time I've started to venture out of the house by myself, and am pathetically pleased and proud that most days I have managed a two mile walk, with a break at the half way point. Painful but bearable.

So yesterday I had a supervision session. (Something that is often only marginally less challenging than a marathon!). And he asked me what I needed to learn from this experience. And I realised that there have been benefits - I've been more present at home than I have been for a while. I've made contact with people. I've just sat and thought. I've re-boosted my energies about the company, and what I want for myself and my students and clients. And while I do long to hurtle again, maybe what I need to learn is a also that sometimes we go fastest, by going slower.

First, find your therapist.....

2010-01-06T17:28:00.000Z

We get a lot of phone calls asking for help with finding a reputable hypnotherapist. If we have past students in the area where the caller lives, we can offer a named person, but that isn't always possible.

While there is no substitute for personal recommendation, sometimes we are embarrsssed to admit to friends and family about the fears, phobias, addictions, self esteem issues or anxieties that we might be struggling with. Finding appropriate help can become harder than solving the problem will be.

There are a couple of ports of call - all hypnotherapists certificated by Charis NLP will have taken a training validated by the General Hypnotherapy Standards Council, and many will have joined the General Hypnotherapy Register.

Another option to consider is a new website we've come across, called Hypnotherapy Directory, which has been set up to help people find a suitable practitioner.

To ensure professionalism each hypnotherapist listed on the site is either a member of a recognised professional body such as GHR, or has submitted a copy of their qualifications and insurance.

What I like about this directory is that it is simple and easy to use. The search tool allows postcode, town and county searches of the whole of the UK to produce a list of qualified hypnotherapists near you. Each profile has been written by the hypnotherapist and lists information about themselves, their training and qualifications, fees, experience and approach. This means that you can have some idea about what is offered before you even speak to the therapist.

The site also has a huge bank of information, including articles written by hypnotherapists listed on the site, as well as a comprehensive list of some of the areas of distress hypnotherapy can help.

So don't suffer in silence, visit the website today and find help for your problem. And if you are a hypnotherapist yourself, and you are looking for a way of promoting your business, then it could be worth having a chat with them about getting listed.

A New Year - Create your dreams

2010-01-01T17:03:00.001Z

Happy 2010! It hardly seems any time since we were welcoming in the 21st century. And last night as I watched the lunar eclipse and the blue moon, I celebrated the decision I made then to launch our training business. It took us a while to get everything into position, but we did it, and despite 2009 being the Year of Hard Business Lessons, I don't regret it for a minute.

So if this is the year where you are determined to do something different, then perhaps one of our courses is what you’ve been looking for. In addition to the popular self-hypnosis weekend, and an NLP practitioner training in Glasgow, we are also running a Diploma in Clinical Hypnosis in Aberdeen and in Brighton this spring.

See below for details of all our courses, or visit us at NLP and Coaching Scotland.

Self Hypnosis for Health and Happiness: Glasgow 13/14 February

Self-hypnosis is perhaps one of the most effective treatments for anxiety based problems; chronic pain management and for confidence and self esteem issues.

Self-hypnosis is more powerful than simply telling yourself to do something—it brings far more powerful mental processes to bear, using the power of your unconscious mind. Therapeutic self-hypnosis has widespread respectability, and doctors, dentists and psychologists will often teach it to their clients. It is nothing like stage hypnosis, and you will be respected and supported throughout the workshop. You will never be asked to do anything that will make you feel humiliated or embarrassed.

During this course, you will learn how to:

Use self-hypnosis induction and deepening techniques.
Give yourself post hypnotic suggestions.
Apply what you have learned to your own specific issues.

This is a skills-based course, with lots of practical sessions, and lots of fun, in a supportive and caring environment. It is popular with both qualified hypnotherapists and people wanting to learn hypnosis for their own use.

If you are already a hypnotherapist, then this course will provide you with the ideal basis for running your own self hypnosis groups. Qualified hypnotherapists will receive and electronic copy of the course manual which they can personalise and use as the basis for running their own courses. Book your Self Hypnosis workshop in Galsgow here.

Diploma in Clinical Hypnosis: Aberdeen between 9-12 April and 8-10 May 2010 (modular) and Brighton 1-7 March (intensive)

Hypnotherapy is an incredible way to help you to access your unconscious resources. Hypnosis is nothing like you see on shows - it is a relaxing and enjoyable way to get the most out of your mind and to help other people do the same. This is a certificated training validated by the General Hypnotherapy Standards Council, The UK's most respected hypnotherapy organisation.

Hypnosis is an essential toolkit for anyone wanting to harness the full power of their unconscious mind and also anyone considering working with clients in any therapeutic context. Hypnosis is also a very powerful way to improve your own results in a variety of different contexts, for example sports performance, confidence and overcoming unwanted habits. The course will also give you deeper insight into your unconscious mind and how to achieve greater results through harnessing the resources of your unconscious. You will learn a variety of different ways of using hypnosis and also explore how to use Ericksonian language patterns in depth.

This training also counts towards the additional days training required for INLPTA NLP Practitioner Certification - if you have completed an 8 day NLP training and would like to upgrade to INLPTA, then this module will allow you to do this. You can book your Diploma in Clinical Hypnosis in Aberdeen or Brighton here.

NLP Practitioner Certification: Glasgow 12-15 March and 19-22 March

NLP Practitioner training can change your life in powerful and exciting ways. It's about an attitude, a set of skills, techniques and empowering principles, which combine to offer you the possibility of excellence in every area of your life. It sets out to discover how people learn, how people think, how people do things excellently and how to replicate success.
Just imagine, for a moment, how your life will change when you can:

Be more influential
Set and achieve clear goals
Boost your confidence quickly and easily
Change unwanted habits
Manage stress, and be free to choose your emotions, thoughts and feelings
Let go of past hurts, and build a compelling future
Be more successful in whatever area of life you wish.
AND THEN: be able to help others do the same!

NLP Practitioner training can help you do this, and much more. Come and train as an NLP Practitioner with NLP and Coaching Scotland, and discover how to apply your NLP skills in a range of contexts, and how you can coach others in their personal growth and development.

Once you complete the training, you will be eligible to apply for membership of ANLP at Practitioner level. And that's not all - if your goal is to achieve the prestigious INLPTA Practitioner qualification, combine this course with our Diploma in Hypnosis. You will then have a dual qualification, which will entitle you to join the General Hypnotherapy Register at Practitioner level, and also to join INLPTA as a Practitioner of NLP. This gives you huge flexibility, compared to having to undertake a very long training, without any qualification for several months. This way, you get a recognised qualification in a short period of time, and can be out there using your skills while working towards the INLPTA standard.

Book here for the NLP practitioner training in Glasgow.

If you would like to talk to us about any of our training, then please do give us a call, we will be delighted to chat to you, and we promise never to deliver a hard sell.
Make this the year you do something different!

You can save a life

2009-12-22T15:56:00.000Z

Please help....

This is a photo of a former hypnotherapy student of ours, Jo Isaac Jones. Her husband, Steve Jones, is a 44 year old air traffic controller.

In August this year during the family summer holiday, Steve developed a sore throat.It didn’t clear up with antibiotics, and when he came home, Steve visited his own GP, who took blood. Within a day, Steve had been referred to hospital and was diagnosed, completely out of the blue, with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML).

After three gruelling rounds of intensive chemotherapy, he has now been told that for long-term survival he needs a bone marrow transplant. But Steve is of mixed race: part Sri Lankan and part white (British) and has no siblings. This means that it will be a world-wide search to find a donor for him. Jo and Steve are urgently appealing to people of mixed race, Asian/white, to go onto the bone marrow register.

Steve is a kind man, a wonderful husband and fantastic father of two beautiful children, Amelia, 11, and Sammy, 7. His family love him so much and desperately hope to find a match for him so that he can live to see his children grow up.

If you are of mixed race, please consider putting yourself on the bone marrow register and contact the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust. Many of you reading this will not fit into that category - but the world has become a small place with the internet - please, please put this appeal on your blogs, on facebook, on twitter, and email to your address books. Someone out there WILL be a match. Please help us find that person. Help Steve and others like him to get the life saving treatment they need.

If you are white, and would like to register as a bone marrow donor, please contact The British Bone Marrow Registry or the Anthony Nolan Trust rather than ACLT, who can only process enquiries from people of mixed race.

If you would like to help ACLT to fund its on-going search for donors, please text ACLT to 84424 to make a £3 donation. For less than the price of a scented candle, or a bottle of wine, or a box of chocolates, you can make a difference.

Please don't wait. Please take action now. Help save a life.

Thank you.

Pass the advocaat

2009-12-22T11:15:00.000Z

In NLP anchoring is defined as a stimulus which brings about a specific response. It's roots lie in behavioural psychology, building on the conditioned reflex studies of Edwin Twitmyer and Ivan Pavlov. Film makers and advertisers use anchors all the time - in Jaws, we all just KNOW when that pesky shark is going to re-appear when we hear that music. There is probably not a person in the UK over the age of 30 who doesn't know what a Mars a day can help you do.

In just a few moments, we can help people easily access resourceful and empowering states to assist them with future challenges. And how useful it is to help people collapse those negative anchors - that teeth grinding fury we feel when someone looks at us in a certain way for example, or that extreme anxiety we feel in some situations.

Ann-Marie was a young teacher who came for help with performance anxiety. She was fine when teaching the class by herself, but as soon as she was being assessed in any way, she went to pieces. Ann-Marie had an unhelpful strategy running, which we helped her change, but she also had a strong anchor negative anchor which fired when she saw someone with a clip board. We agreed that it would be useful to her to collapse this anchor, and I explained that the process was built on the premise that it is impossible for the brain to hold two conflicting thoughts simultaneously, and that this process would give her more choices in the future. There are several ways of doing a collapse anchor, I find this one useful as it involves the client in not only accessing the positive states, but also noticing their submodalities, which appears to make it a more powerful experience. It also avoids them having to engage too much with the negative state.

First, I asked Ann-Marie to recall a series of positive experiences: states she chose were feeling supremely confident, feeling invincible, feeling that she really knew her stuff. As she accessed each state, I had her make a fist to anchor each experience.
Each time she added a new state to her fist, I encouraged her to look into her hand and describe what she was seeing in sensory rich details. I directed her to notice sounds, feelings and visual representations of the state. These are called the submodalities of the state.
Ann-Marie was then asked to put the negative state once into the other hand, without paying it too much attention.She was then directed back to the hand with the positive states, and encouraged to review the submodailites again.
Now, holding the “good hand” over the" negative hand", she poured the positive states, including the feelings and the sounds, into the negative hand, making a glugging sound as she did so (Ann-Marie represented her good states as golden, glistening liquid, had she had a different representation, it would have been appropriate to use a different type of sound). The client should continue pouring until the contents of both hands are the same. When both hands look, sound, and feel the same, then they can stop.
Once she was sure the two hands were the same, Ann-Maire was encouraged toclap her hands together, and then rub them together briskly.
Finally,ask them to think about that experience they used to have a negative response to, and notice what is different now, and then to go into a time in the future, which had it happened in the past would have caused them to have that old response, and notice what is happening. As Ann-Marie did this she looked puzzled, and said "well, its only a man with a clipboard". She no longer associated any emotion with it - neither postive nor negative.

Please do try this at home - a couple of pointers to make it effective for you:

What you're doing is diluting the negativity with the positivity, so the positve anchors need to be stronger than the negative ones.
The easiest way of doing this is to use several positive states, and only one negative one, and to ensure that you are fully associated into the positive experiences - really experience them!
While you need to briefly associated in to the negative state, don't stay there too long, and if the actual experience is negaitve, don't re-live it - you can access the state without re-living the experience.

And where does Advocaat fit in all this? When I was a little girl, we never really had alcohol in the house, there wasn't really money for it. But every Xmas, a bottle of Advocaat would appear, and over the course of the celebrations, would be drunk by all the women in the family. I remember that magical sip of my first snowball - Advocaat well diluted with lemonade. And so eventually I only need to see that bottle appearing on Xmas Eve, and I felt that anticipation of Christmas. And so every year, though I can't bear the stuff any longer, we simply have to have a bottle in the house (it usually gets used briefly to make pancake sauce in February, and then discarded). Because Advocaat takes me back to being that little girl, sitting in my granny's house, just waiting.....

Where did the decade go, then??

2009-12-07T20:57:00.000Z

I woke up this morning with a little surge of horror that it is nearly mid-December. In 2009!! Clearly I have been in denial for some months, as we've had Christmas music, decorations, trees etc in the shops for around three months. I was asked three weeks ago to confirm what I would like to eat for dinner at an event in late December. How can people be so organised? It's 8pm, and I don't know what I'm having for dinner TONIGHT!

The last month certainly has been a DIY horror is chez Charis NLP. I was convinced that three new bathrooms would be fitted in 10 days. 6 weeks later, we still appear to be living in a building site, there is dust everywhere, and the house is never warm. (Do workmen not feel the cold? Or are they just unable to shut a door behind them?) We do however finally have a full complement of flushing toilets which is a relief, although we will draw a veil (actually make that a thick black-out curtain) over the aesthetics of the situation. We have decided we will make one last push till next Saturday, and then shout stop, put the tree up and live with whatever stage we've got to till after Xmas.

Meanwhile, it's time to hit the internet to get some shopping done :-) It's the first year my dd hasn't had any toys or games on her list, so I'm looking at a list that has clothes, cds and money (!?) on it. She'll get a stocking and like it ;-)

In the midst of all that, we've attended a few Body and Soul events, and the recent class of hypnotherapy students have just graduated. I was so proud of them - they all worked really hard, and came a long way in only a few weeks. Yesterday we ran one of our NLP foundation days (ably assisted by Colin from New Day Hypnotherapy). The first event in the New Year is the Self Hypnosis weekend in Glasgow. Ideal for people new to hypnotherapy, and also for therapists wanting to begin offering self-hypnosis groups, we hope to see you there!

Button phobia

2009-11-15T18:23:00.003Z

Now and again I intend to publish some case studies of hypnotherapy treatments. All the clients have agreed for their cases to be used in order to further understanding of hypnotherapy, and for marketing purposes. All identifying details have obviously been removed.

As phobias are bread and butter work for hypnotherapist, I plan to cover a range of phobias over the coming months – this month the focus is on a young man, Andrew, who had experienced button phobia (koumpounophobia) for many years. He had not willingly worn buttons since the age of three, and had developed increasingly complex avoidance rituals. However, he was now in the job market for the first time, and felt that he was not projecting the image he wanted, as he was turning up for interviews in t-shirts and casual jackets, as he could not contemplate wearing a suit. His aim was to be able to choose and wear a shirt and suit comfortably, doing the buttons up himself, and feeling relaxed while wearing it.

Like all phobias, to the non-phobic, button phobia seems irrational, but it actually is a fairly common fear. Some people believe it might be caused by an unobserved choking incident as a baby or toddler, or by other people telling them that they might choke on a button. I have had success in the past with treating button phobia with regression techniques, and with the NLP phobia cure, but Andrew was very against this conceptually, so we agreed to use a hypno-desensitisation.

This involved Andrew producing a hierarchy of anxiety in relation to buttons, and sorting these into a logical order, from least to most frightening. This is called the SUDS (subjective unit of distress) scale.
Andrew’s scale looked like this:

Handling disc-like objects such as coins
Hearing the word “button” in conversation
Looking at pictures of buttons
Seeing other people wearing buttons.
Handling clothing that had buttons
Handling small buttons (like shirt buttons)
Handling larger buttons
Handling a blue button with four holes (many sufferers have variations in their anxiety around the size, colour of number of holes a button has)
Wearing jeans with a button (his mother was currently cutting them off and attaching Velcro)
Wearing a shirt with buttons (he currently only wore pull-on tops, and had done since the age of three)
Wearing a suit with large four-hole buttons.

Trance was induced using progressive relaxation, and IMRs established. I then worked through the scale, describing each event, and making suggestions for increased relaxation at each stage. Andrew experienced minimal anxiety a levels 1 and 2, but signalled anxiety at stage three, which was reduced to manageable levels with additional suggestions for relaxation. At level 4, however, the anxiety could not be managed with relaxation, so the session was ended, with general ego-strengthening suggestions.

At the second session, after inducing trance, we began with level three (the highest level at which he had been able to manage his anxiety), and within the next 45 minutes, he progressed to level 8 with minimal stress. And level 9 he become uncomfortable, and unable to manage his anxiety with relaxation, so the session was terminated with general ego-strengthening suggestions, and a post hypnotic suggestion that the next time we worked together, he would proceed quickly and easily towards achieving his goal. He also agreed to use the relaxation techniques to do up to at least level 6 in real life.

At his final session two days later, Andrew arrived holding a large blue button with four holes (level 8). He was immensely pleased, and said that he had suddenly felt a compulsion to prove he could do it, so had given himself lots of suggestions about feeling good while handling buttons, gone into a fabric store, and looked through cards of buttons till he found this one. He had had to do some deep breathing before he could handle it, but had been able to take it to the till, purchase it, and carry it in his pocket to the session.

During this final session he moved rapidly to level 11 with minimal anxiety, and agreed as a task that he would leave the session and put on trousers and a shirt with buttons (levels 9- 10) and wear them for at least two hours. I taught him the NLP technique of anchoring, so that if he experienced any stress whatsoever, he could immediately return himself to a state of relaxation and calmness. After he had achieved this in real life, he would then move onto wearing a suit jacket.

Two days later, Andrew sent me a photo of himself wearing his first ever suit, shirt and tie. The accompanying note said the buttons were dark blue, and had four holes.

Come and join us for an NLP foundation day!

2009-11-13T20:48:00.001Z

Sunday 6 December, Glasgow City Centre will be THE place to be :-)

Visit our sister site, NLP and Coaching Scotland for more information and to book. Hope to see you there!

I think this is a great website..

2009-11-06T20:17:00.003Z

Business Blog Angel I do have a three or four websites for various business groups, but they can take time to update and keep fresh. I've found business blogging as a great way of keeping my site high in the natural listings, and in the past, a great way of getting a dialogue with customers. Claire Raikes has lots of great advice, although there is no need to use a "paid for" typepad blog - Blogger or Wordpress.com are free, and have lots of functionality.

Playing with Scribd...

2009-11-05T17:28:00.000Z

....and will be very chuffed with self if it works. The technophobe joins the 21st century!

Charis NLP Charis Power Point Auto Saved]

It all depends how you look at it....

2009-11-04T09:26:00.000Z

Two things have happened to me over the last week which has made me consider how I view certain things. The first was I read a fabulous book by Stephen M R Covey called the Speed of Trust – how trust changes everything. And the second was that I got my first ever pair of varifocals. While there is no relationship between these, together they caused a shift in my world.

I don’t know how many of you have tried varifocals – the concept of one lens merging seamlessly into another so one pair of glasses is enough to read a book, use a computer, and drive a car. Suddenly the world as I knew it changed – shimmering uneasily at the edges, curving alarmingly around me, and undulating around my ankles as I walked across the floor. It reminded me of the NLP concept of framing – nothing actually changes, but our view of it is transformed forever.

Covey’s book had a similar effect. In business things sometimes happen that challenges even the greatest optimist. I had one of those weeks, when trust was shattered. I talked to my family, my associates and my professional advisors angrily about the injustices that had been perpetrated, the lies that had been told, the insults I had met. I ranted that from now on I was going to trust no one. Basically, I got nicely at effect. I was feeling sceptical and jaded.

Ronald Reagan once said “Trust, but verify”, and I realised when I read Covey’s book that was what had been missing. In my effort to be “nice” I had trusted too easily, and unwisely. I hadn’t listened to my gut (which had, to be honest, been screaming nicely at me for months), nor had I analysed the risks adequately. Much as I didn’t want to acknowledge it, I had indeed invited an unpleasant situation into my life in order to learn from it.

Covey describes a “smart trust” matrix. I had been running my business in the blind trust quadrant, and when that trust had been violated, had bounced into the distrust quadrant, seeing it as the only possible alternative. I had flipped from gullibility to suspicion. Studying the matrix, I realised there was another option – the use of judgement. I could continue to have a high propensity to trust, and I could combine it with enough analysis to manage risk wisely. Smart trust doesn’t mean I need to be nice and trust everyone – it’s actually OK to extend no trust or limited trust if the situation warrants it. But I realised that neither was the distrust quadrant where I wanted to live – not only did it violate my business ethics, but I realised this quadrant would actually make me less successful. One of the great things about small business is it can move quickly, adapt to the market, and be responsive to customer needs. Thinking of the communication model, distrust was NOT something I wanted sitting in my filters. I could see how it would slow me down.

My MBTI type is INFP, and I understood the risks of the total lack of forgiveness that this type can show when their values have been abused, and Covey’s book made me realise that was where I was heading. What I want in MY filters is a high propensity to trust, coupled with the ability to analyse carefully, and actually listen to that screaming gut in future!

So while the jury is still out on the varifocals, if you need to develop smart trust, this book is for you!

Charis NLP bookstore is now live!

2009-11-04T09:25:00.000Z

Our Amazon bookstore is now live. No book makes it into our store unless we've read it ourselves. If we didn't think it was worth reading, it didn't make it into the store. The prices will change daily to match the best price on Amazon, and you will also get any special deals that Amazon are offering on postage. Follow the link on the side bar for the Charis NLP Bookstore.

Here we go again......

2009-10-19T21:15:00.000+01:00

I love blogging. I have a range of blogs for different purposes. Personal reflections. Keeping in touch with friends. Home educating. Creative writing. But somehow business blogging never took off for me. I've decided that was because I tried to keep in too focussed, so this time, if it all gets mixed in together - so be it!

But I will try and start with a bit of discipline......

There are two fabulous books I've read recently, and I think they are both worthy of a place on the bookshelf (no mean feat in our office!). My accountant once asked with a degree of awe, what we actually DID with all the books we buy. Um... we read them. Mostly.

Anyway - in 1988 I started an MBA, and the marketing module was focussed on those traditional 4 Ps: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The first there perhaps haven't changed that much, but what has changed dramatically now is the promotion. A few years ago we counted press releases sent, we kept cuttings files, and we had very little dialogue with customers, beyond the odd focus group. I've been struggling with how to ditch my old marketing education and work with social media, and The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Merrman Scott motivated and inspired me.

Another book I've found really useful is Successful Seminar Selling. This book has helped me generate income from seminars and workshops on a range of topics - so if you are looking to find a new way of boosting your income, this is definitely one worth checking out.