Achieve your goals by letting go of the past

Following on from my last blog, I now want to dig deeper and take a closer look into goal setting for maximising future success.

The optimism and revitalisation that most of us experience when first setting a goal often fade when day to day worries and pressures begin to cloud our focus and weaken our resolve.  There are many reasons for this, but one of the biggest is firmly rooted in the past.

Ruminating about the past is one of the biggest obstacles to success.  So what is rumination?  Wikipedia defines this ‘as the compulsively focused attention on the symptoms of one’s distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions’.  It very often goes hand in hand with worry and self-blame, but there is a difference.  Whilst rumination focuses on negative past experiences, worry is all about what may or may not happen in the future.

People often find it difficult to develop the new habits required to achieve their goals, because they consistently repeat old behaviours, whether those behaviours relate to food, relationships, exercise, studying or household finances.

In my view, initial momentum becomes dissipated when people unconsciously remind themselves of past unsuccessful attempts; they erroneously believe that because that’s how they behaved in the past, they will inevitably repeat the same behavior.  In the end, they spend more time with their attention focused on how not to succeed than they do visualising their success - in other words ruminating”.

Incidentally, the negative effects of ruminating were also highlighted in a BBC Stress Experiment carried out in June 2011.  Preliminary results from the study of over 30,000 participants indicate very clearly that ‘a tendency to blame yourself for problems and, most importantly, a tendency to ruminate and worry are the most important factors when it comes to predicting your chances of suffering from stress.’

The good news is that rumination is actually fairly easy to do something about.  Solution Focused Hypnotherapists like myself actively discourage clients from ruminating about the past.  Instead they encourage clients to talk about their ‘preferred future,’ a future in which they are closer to achieving their goal.  New clients often express themselves in terms of what they don’t want, hanging on to their past behaviours.  Here, it’s the therapist’s job to help clients let go of those unhelpful thinking patterns, encouraging them to express themselves positively, and helping them to maintain motivation to achieve their goal.

In other words, we learn by repetition. For example, when we were learning to drive a car, we kept practicing the same manoeuvre until we could do it automatically, subconsciously.  It’s the same with any new skill.  I help clients by encouraging them to think about what they want, not what they don’t want.  I also help them to identify times when they have been successful, thus breaking the unhelpful, negative self-talk.  By letting go of the past, they are better equipped to achieve their goals in the future.

I work with all kinds of people, and all kinds of issues.  To find out more about how Hypnotherapy can help you, or to book an initial consultation visit: www.ChangesWelcome.com

For more information about the BBC Stress Test, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/results/stress/index.html

Managing Irritable Bowel Syndrome with Hypnotherapy

Let's take a look at how Hypnotherapy can help individuals manage their Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a condition which affects so many people and is often exacerbated by a mixture of the changes in diet and stress and anxiety in their lives.

Hypnotherapist Liane Ulbricht-Kazan, who works for 'changes Welcome Hypnotherapy' says: “Irritable Bowel Syndrome (or IBS as it’s usually known) is no joke for those who suffer.  Unfortunately, doctors still don’t know for sure what causes it.  It’s not always taken seriously nor is it easy to manage with traditional medical models of care.  There is evidence that IBS can be helped significantly with Hypnotherapy- in fact, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) includes Hypnotherapy on its guidance for IBS.  We do know that symptoms are exacerbated by stress and changes in diet.  A few days or weeks of stress and different food can take weeks and weeks to sort out”.

The problem with IBS is that it’s generally diagnosed by elimination- by what it ISN’T rather than what it IS.  Symptoms vary and can be seen in other bowel-related conditions, so tests are carried out to rule out cancer or conditions such as Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, and the tests can be invasive and take time. When these have been ruled out, and nothing else seems to be the cause of the symptoms, patients are often advised that they have IBS.

Unfortunately there is no real cure, as symptoms vary so much between individuals.  Dietary advice is often conflicting and confusing, and it can take a significant period of time to exclude foods which aggravate the symptoms- and sometimes dietary changes don’t help at all.  Anti-spasmodic and anti-depressant medication is sometimes used too, but unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all medical approach to IBS, or is there?

In February 2008, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), which gives guidance to the NHS on effective treatments, published guidance for GPs and consultants saying there was good evidence that Hypnotherapy was an effective IBS treatment and that it could be recommended for chronic IBS¹.

In the UK, research conducted by Professor Whorwell in Manchester demonstrated high levels of effectiveness, helping all the symptoms of IBS with those improvements sustained over long periods of time².  In the United States, Hypnotherapy for IBS is listed as a treatment for IBS on the highly regarded Empirically Validated Treatments List – which is similar in its level of regard to the NICE guidelines in the UK.

Liane explains, “Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a modern, research-based combination of psychotherapy and hypnosis, aimed at encouraging clients to focus on how they want things to be.  It’s great for people who have IBS, because one of the keys to dealing with IBS is to lower the sensitivity to stress and also reduce the perception of the bowel pain.  Hypnotherapy is really effective in lowering stress and anxiety levels and also helping with pain reduction".

“It’s very effective because IBS is defined by its symptoms, so if Hypnotherapy can remove the symptoms then the IBS will be reduced, which is so helpful for our clients.  This approach is very effective both Face-to-Face or via Webcam.”

'Changes Welcome' offers Hypnotherapy via Webcam and face-to-face at our practices in South West England.  For more information about 'Changes Welcome Hypnotherapy' about the  services we offer check out our Website www.changeswelcome.co.uk

Reference & Further Reading:

1. NICE guidance www.nice.org.UK/cg61

2. Issa B, Whorwell PJ (2011). “Will hypnotherapy help my patients?”
3. www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Irritable-bowel-syndrome/Pages/Introduction.aspx