Increasing your potential and lessening your insecurities .....

Reese Witherspoon used hypnosis to battle insecurities .....

Reese Witherspoon was hypnotised to overcome her insecurities.

The 39-year-old actress - who is nominated in the Best Actress category for her portrayal of Cheryl Strayed in 'Wild' at this year's Oscars - admitted years of being told she was too fat or short for Hollywood roles had taken their toll on her self esteem, so she turned to hypnosis for a confidence boost before taking on the gritty role.

She said: "People may think I have this dream life, but for years I worried about my looks. 

"I thought I was too short or not thin enough to be a Hollywood star. I was constantly being told, 'No, not right, not tall enough, not pretty enough, not sexy enough'. I wasn't allowed to audition for roles because they saw me as too cute and girlie.  

"So I decided if I was to succeed I had to face facts. I could never be the sexiest, thinnest girl in Hollywood.

"[Hypnosis] was so helpful. I get panic attacks, especially right before I start a movie.

"Half the time on set I feel like I'm hanging on by the seat of my pants and I don't know what the heck I am doing."

The blonde beauty - who won the Best Actress Oscar in 2006 for her role in the Johnny Cash biopic 'Walk The Line' -also opened up about her decision to start her own film production company, Pacific Standard, in 2012, after realising there weren't enough lead roles for women being developed in Hollywood.

According to The Sun newspaper, she said: "Other than one studio, literally one, nobody was developing anything with a female lead.

"It just hit me like a ton of bricks and I was so mad.

"I had stories I wanted to tell and I'd become increasingly frustrated." 

(This article courtesy www.insidehalton.com) 

 

 

It's all in your mind .....

All, or at least most of us are aware of our physical state of health. People these days are generally aware that it's vital to look after the body. It's obvious to most when something is adrift physically. When this is the case we would usually take some action to rectify the issue. Self medication or a doctors visit will often be the resolving factor; but what about our mind? A great deal of denial and avoidance often takes place when we're psychologically troubled.

Read on, and maybe you'll fine some answers of interest:

We often use words like stressed or depressed to describe our mood, but when does a normal period of the blues or one too many drinks become a serious problem and what can you do about it?

Depression is a mental health condition characterised by sustained periods of unhappiness, feelings of hopelessness and physical symptoms such as insomnia or over and under-eating.
Most of us feel sad or miserable at times, but when these feelings are more severe than usual, go on for too long or interfere with everyday life, it often indicates that depression has become an illness.
This simple set of ten questions will assess your mood. If you answer yes to a few or more of the questions and have felt that way for a substantial period of time it may be an indicator of depression. If you agree with number 10, I would suggest you contact your GP immediately.
1. Do you feel unhappy most of the time?
2. Are you finding it hard to cope with things that used to be manageable?

3. Have you lost interest and enjoyment in activities that you used to enjoy?
4. Are you finding it harder to make decisions?
5. Are you having trouble sleeping?
6. Have you experienced a loss of appetite or have you lost weight?
7. Are you feeling worn out and tired?
8. Do you lack self-confidence in areas that you used to feel competent in?
9. Have you been avoiding other people or friends?
10. Do you ever contemplate suicide as a way out of your problems?
Stress and anxiety disorders are characterised by mental and physical symptoms from feelings of panic to an irregular heartbeat.
Stress and anxiety are normal human feeling and can be useful, for example when we are expected to meet deadlines a healthy level of anxiety will spur us on to complete projects on time. Stress and anxiety become a problem when the feelings are strong enough to have a detrimental effect on your life or if they go on for too long. Eventually they can become an illness affecting your mental and physical health.
Anxiety disorders have symptoms in the mind and the body. If you answer yes to around half or more of the questions over each of the categories below, it may be an indicator that you are suffering from an anxiety illness.
MIND
1. Do you feel worried almost all of the time?

2. Do you feel tired or lacking in energy all of the time?
3. Do you have episodes of panic?
4. Are you unable to concentrate on a task for more than for as long as you used to be able to.
5. Do you feel unusually irritable, with tasks or people or get angry quickly?
6. Are you finding getting to sleep difficult or are you waking earlier than usual?
BODY
7. Do you ever experience a strong or rapid heartbeat?(sometimes known as “palpitations”)
8. Do you find yourself sweating excessively when you are not exercising?
9. Do you have regular or constant pain or tension in your muscles?
10. Do you find yourself breathing quickly or more heavily at times of anxiety?
11. Are you experiencing indigestion or diarrhoea?
All of these issues are common states of mind, and each has a therapeutic approach which will help. Don't suffer in silence and feel stigmatised. Seek help, the benefits can be enormous and life changing.

All the best, and as usual you may find me on my site at www.cqhypnosis.com
You can even make an appointment with me from there directly by email, or, ask me whatever questions you may have relating to this amazing modality of therapy.

You don't HAVE to panic ...

Panic and anxiety disorders affect quite a large percentage of the worlds population. The figures vary according to the source, but it's certainly a figure between 3% and 6%. Globally, that's a huge number of people who will fall foul of this mind related issue at some stage of their life. In my hometown alone (pop approx 45,000), that could equate to some 2700 persons, or more, who will be afflicted now, or into the future.

So, what is panic, and what is anxiety. They are in fact two separate entities with similar physiological sensations. They both play havoc with the body's autonomic nervous system and create a plethora of frightening symptoms. These manifestations can be some, or all, of the following: rapid heart beat, tightness in the chest, dizziness, faintness, feeling 'distant', fearful and the belief that one could lose control or even die on the spot. What a ghastly set of symptoms to be lumbered with! The final irony is that when a sufferer tries to explain these feelings to a non sufferer, it's quite often misunderstood or even disbelieved. One can only postulate that this is because, to the observer, the afflicted person appears to be quite well. But, make no mistake, to the anxious person, these sensations are not in the mind, they are very, very physical indeed.

As I said, panic and anxiety are two separate entities, sometimes they are confusingly thought to be the same, but are not. It's simple really; panic "comes out of nowhere". It descends on the hapless victim like a smothering wet blanket. Anxiety, on the other hand, tends to lurk there in the background at all times. There is a feeling, a sensation which never really disappears, but instead peaks according to the situation at hand. These disorders can be termed as either mild or severe. The most severe manifestations may even cause people to become housebound; we would term this as agoraphobia.

So, the big question is, what causes these disorders? I really like the explanation given by the psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman. It makes sense, and sums it up neatly in one sentence (well almost!). Panic for instance, he says, is simply "the catastrophic misinterpretation of a bodily sensation". In other words, to those prone to it, a sensation of any of the symptoms which I mentioned before can very rapidly crash out of control, influence the autonomic nervous system, and there you have it. PANIC. Following on with that line of thought then, we can easily believe that by halting that "catastrophic" thought in midstream, we can bolt the door on panic and anxiety.

After consulting a GP, many people are prescribed medication to suit this issue, and that's just fine. Whatever is required to get you into a more stable state will assist you to move onto the next phase of recovery. Seligman himself believes, as do I, that some form of cognitive therapy, can alleviate your panic and/or anxiety. Of course, my modality of cognitive therapy is Hypnotherapy, the modern term for Clinical Hypnosis.

The bottom line is that sufferers need to know that it is not a life sentence. It may require determination and a deal of effort, but panic and anxiety can be either controlled to the point where they are a non issue, or, they can be completely eradicated.

I really do know which path seems to be the more promising. Good luck.