Hello 2022! Life, but not as we knew it….
It is no wonder so many people contact Brixton Hypnotherapy, feeling anxious, fragile and overwhelmed. What seemed to be a curb on our freedom (just for a few months) turned into a year and then another. The result for many of us, has been a feeling that life might never get back to normal. My heart breaks for Brixton Hypnotherapy clients who didn’t spend time with loved ones these last few years or lost them without a proper goodbye. I think it’s also been tragic for young people; missing rites of passage, friendships, lifelong memories of birthdays etc As a therapist in South London, I see young people suffering. I certainly have witnessed a huge increase in young clients seeking a therapist for help with issues such as anxiety, overwhelm, depression and insomnia.
One of my favourite exercises, last year, was a ‘worry-buster’ which works for adults and children alike:
On paper, they write down all the things that worry them. We then cut and fold them, putting them in two boxes. One box is for the things we (or someone else) can do something about so the worry can go away, and the other box is for things we can’t do anything about. Most things go in the first box. The client then tells me what they can do to help or what they need others to do to help. I hold the worry and they tell me what will solve it. I write the solution on the back and put it back in the box.
Then we turn to the other box. Often, a few worries on reflection, will end up in the other box. But there are a few left; things like the weather always end up in that box. National and International policy around Covid is also out of our control, so in the second box that goes.
What follows, is a chat about outlook and attitude. The ‘thing’ might be out of our control but our attitude isn’t. I saw a lovely sketch yesterday; X saying to Y; 2022 can’t be as shite as 2021 and Y replying ‘I’m expecting flowers’ to which X grumpily says ‘how can you?’ and Y says ‘because i’m planting seeds’. It’s a modern take on ‘you reap what you sow.’
My point is this; however hopeless we feel in the face of current times, we can focus on what we sow; whether that’s a change in direction, a new commitment to give up a bad habit, a decision to flip our outlook, to get on top of anxiety, to take back control of issues like alcohol or sleep. This is exactly what people come to Brixton Hypnotherapy for me to help them with. Hypnotherapy is a talking therapy, just like others but using hypnosis to nudge your sub-conscious to achieve your goals and desires. Someone wrote to me this morning asking if I could ‘cure’ them – hypnotherapy doesn’t cure anyone, but I certainly see a lot of people change their life around!
You might be able to change it by yourself; simply by willpower but you might want a bit of help and that’s where Brixton Hypnotherapy comes in; a good therapist will hold you to account, to nudge and direct you and put boxes in front of your face to show you we have a lot more solutions in ourselves than we ever realised!