Your Second Appointment
Support Guide
Please read the following carefully before listening to your recordings.
Your comfort and safety matter to us.
Before you begin, please ensure:
- You are not driving or operating any machinery
- You have set an alarm for the time you have allowed for this practice
- You are lying down comfortably on a soft surface
- You have nothing crossed - this helps protect your veins and arteries
Phase Two - Recording One
Managing Feelings
You are moving closer to developing better management over your body. Just a little more practice required now. Please listen to the first recording below.
As always, do not focus on getting this right. Simply allow yourself to experience it.
Delete this box once the video is in place.
Phase Two - Recording Two
Taking Control
Fundamentally, you are now making time for yourself - and this is imperative when allowing your body to respond naturally. Developing the ability to care for yourself is vital when building and maintaining natural body function and self-esteem.
Please listen to the second recording when you are ready.
Delete this box once the video is in place.
Between Sessions
Your Practice Sequence
During your first session you gained the skills to reduce your stress hormones and achieve a biological balance (homeostasis). During your second session you learned to use self-hypnosis to enter your favourite place of relaxation.
These two techniques now work together. Your practice sequence is as follows:
Your favourite place of relaxation is not just a pleasant image - it is the bridge that will eventually allow you to access calm in the real world, in any situation, without needing thirty minutes to yourself. It is worth nurturing.
Managing Your Mind
Working With Intrusive Thoughts
Please do not try to resist intrusive thoughts by pushing them away - you will find they resist your efforts and become stronger. Instead, accept the thought, allow it to reach a positive conclusion, and then return to your practice.
For example: if a concern about a task at work arises, imagine yourself completing it successfully, then step back into your place of relaxation. This satisfies the concern and allows you to continue.
If you need to, set aside a short period of “worry time” after your practice - no more than fifteen minutes. What needs your attention will still be there when you have finished.
High levels of anxiety are accompanied by intrusive thoughts. The more relaxed you become, the less intrusive those thoughts will be. You are taking the right approach - keep practising.
Mindset
Do You Want to Be Right, or Happy?
It is not attending your weekly sessions that is changing you - it is the quality and consistency of your daily practice. A real change happens when you change yourself in your own environment.
If your happiness depends on someone or something else being a certain way first, that is what we call an external locus of control. Becoming more accepting - of life, of others, and of yourself - will lead you to a much happier place.
If you are still arguing with yourself about what is right and wrong, or what others should or should not be doing, please consider this: whilst the way you think is your choice, you are choosing to feel the way you do by thinking the way you think.
Please be patient. It took more than two one-hour sessions to develop your current patterns - but these things can shift relatively quickly when you practise consistently.
Mental Rehearsal
Imagine Yourself There
As you practise, continue to see yourself already having gained what you came here for. Notice what comes to you:
Please make a note of the positive changes you experience and wish to repeat - we can amplify these together at your next session.
Please do not aim for perfection. That approach offers only permission to feel stressed, or to give up. What you are doing is enough.
If you have any concerns at any point, please reach out rather than waiting for your next appointment.
Looking Ahead
Your Next Session
At your next appointment we will be developing the ability to manage the mind more directly - taking a more cognitive approach to being in control. Further on, we will begin implementing these skills in the real world on a daily basis.
We look forward to working with you then.
With warmth,
Alex & Gary Holland Connect Hypnotherapy Gibraltar · Estepona · Costa del Sol · Online WorldwideDownload your session two support notes to keep as a reference.
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