http://www.focusedhypnotherapy.co.uk/

Focused Hypnotherapy, Stamford (2025)

12/09/2025

You might feel like a knackered pigeon, but we don’t want to channel that energy.

Instead tell your brain the truth, you are braver than you think and smarter than you realise.

You might not feel ready to get s**t done but that doesn’t matter. Telling yourself you are changes your mental state and you muster up the determination to tackle those important tasks today.

We aren’t doing this to push ourselves and do too much. That won’t help if you are really tired.

We are doing it because our brain will respond to whichever information we channel, so if we speak negatively to ourselves we feel bad, and that feeds the behaviour that we don’t want. It keeps us stuck.

Be nice to yourself today because you actually are a good person and you’re doing just fine 😘

10/09/2025

If you witness yourself telling any of these absolute nonsense lies then you need to correct them straight away.

Lie: I should be able to do this on my own.
Correction: it’s normal to need help, I help other people so why am I any different.

Lie: if I don’t get it right I’m a failure
Correction: here’s another opportunity to learn.

Lie: I have messed up today, I’ll start again tomorrow.
Correction: Well that wasn’t what I planned, let’s start that again.

Lie: There are people much worse off than me.
Correction: I am finding this hard.

These lies do as much use as a single sheet of toilet paper after a vindaloo.
You’re not making a hard situation any better.

So instead why not try something that can actually help and improve the situation.

Kindness, understanding and compassion.

Ready to rewire your thinking organ 🧠 to actually help you live a happier life

09/09/2025

My hand is up 🙋‍♀️

Not saying I’m completely irrational in the depths of hormonal flux, but let’s just say my impulsive, emotional brain has a tendency to run away with itself.

Find people that understand. I am your person.

05/09/2025

Ever notice how you go straight to the 5* or 1* reviews on Tripadvisor?

Tell me the worst experience and the best experience.

If a restaurant has 100 5* and one 1* you might believe that one person was mad, had high expectations, it was a bad day etc.
you see all the 5* and think it’s going to be pretty good.

You create an argument based on your own logical reasoning.

We don’t know if there are actually 500 people that thought it was average and wouldn’t go back, but weren’t motivated to leave a review as they didn’t think it was worth their effort.

This is how our brain filters and adds logic to our own trip advisor reviews.

I guarantee there are hundreds of thousands of mediocre, fine, average moments we don’t recall. Because we don’t place significance on them.

Our brains flag all the 1* reviews and use them to create a map of things to avoid.

Even if there are 50 average reviews of that same thing. The one or two 1* are often enough to put us off. We don’t invest our time and energy into properly evaluating, we don’t bother taking the risk. Why drive all the way to a restaurant you might get a 1* meal at?

Every time we think of the 1* experience was had, it is like a disgruntled customer with a vengeance to get justice. So you leave another 1* review because just remembering how awful it motivates you to not repeat the experience.

This is why we can’t always trust our recollection and we do always filter our memories based on the best outcome.

It’s always why living in the past, reliving old 1* reviews makes us have a distorted view of the present. We keep adding more and more 1*. Those have a lot of weight and the map starts to fill with lots of things to avoid.

Suddenly we’re surrounded by 1* restaurants when we are hungry so we don’t eat out again.

If this analogy was useful give me a like or drop a comment. Better yet let your finger remind you again by saving this post or following

03/09/2025

You can’t be a bad b***h if you’re overtired and overstimulated, you’ll end up being a sad b***h and no one wants that.

01/09/2025

Change is part of living, seasons come and go and being with them memories and often predictions.

We don’t always realise but we can contradict ourselves often. The most recent thought seems to erase all memories of previous thoughts.

Today I welcome September as I’m tired and feel out of capacity to parent and work, to give myself to anyone else. I feel like this is who I am now. I crave routine and structure, time to focus on work.

But on weds when my son heads off to his new secondary for his first day I will feel the pang only a carer can. I will recall his tiny baby hands and new baby smell. I will worry this might have been our last proper summer together. I will feel guilt over not making it magical, working when I should have been giving my time to him.

Then by the weekend I will be feeling differently again. Thinking of the summer longing for a quieter week, less work, less homework, less routine.

You see we are tricked by today’s thoughts and feelings.

They are all true and the best bit is we can experience all of it. It’s normal to crave for something other than what it is now. When we have too much routine we want less, when we don’t have enough we want more.

That is what stops us from getting too far in the wrong direction. It’s awareness that change is needed and a motivation to do something that can pull it back towards the middle ground.

And yet when we have that thought we panic that something is wrong. We feel taken over by the current thought not realising it’s actually just showing us we are complex and change is good.

Next time you find yourself stuck in a particular thought or feeling try asking how much do I believe this is entirely true. Don’t worry about challenging the thought just be curious as to how much it feels true right now. You will realise that many of the thoughts you have seem true but also contradict each other.

That is being human.

When you become aware that you have many thoughts that all feel true and important you can see trying to be one thing or have one way isn’t real.

How will you try to catch those thoughts over the coming weeks?

26/08/2025

Yes Taylor & Travis are engaged 💍

Why not let your brain find its perfect partner (it’s me)

Anxiety, people pleasing and perfectionism are not invited to the party they can watch through the window.

Self acceptance, compassion and perspective are very much in the running order for the event.

Let me be your Travis and find true love (self love, I’m married and it’s not ethical 😜)

19/08/2025

It’s quite simple really.

If you feel triggered by a thought, situation, behaviour, then something here is saying I don’t feel safe with this.

Whether the actual situation is safe or not, if your nervous system reacts you need to create safety for yourself BEFORE you assess the situation.

When you feel glimmers you think you are safe and happy. Something here is making you feel happy, grounded and connected.

You know it’s a safety situation when you have no feelings of urgency or need to create the feeling. You leave these situations feeling good and positive about yourself and life.

There are fake triggers and fake glimmers, these are the illusions of safety or threat that are coping mechanisms that have been programmed into our subconscious.

The way that we start to rewire our brains is by actively noticing moment of triggers and glimmers.

If we feel triggered by something that doesn’t seem to make rational sense when we are reflecting from a place of safety, it’s a sign we have some misfiring that needs to be addressed.

If we feel a sense of guilt or shame after a glimmer, then we need to understand what about that situation didn’t feel good, and look at if it’s actually a real glimmer or a quick fix feel good to avoid other feelings and thoughts.

The better you get to know your own feelings the easier it is to create more moments of safety and connection.

Want to find out more? Follow or get in touch for a free discovery call ☎️

❤️

08/08/2025

DISORDERED EATING ⛔️

I have a very very long history with body image, food and exercise. Spanning from 17 - 36.

For many years I didn’t even see a problem. It seemed to slowly creep, what started as a fad diet and a love of sports and fitness gradually became darker and more unhealthy.

There are many reasons for this but I fit the profile of someone who had a lot of the key factors involved in eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

I will post more on that in future posts.

The point here is that I kept it a secret. I rarely spoke about my eating or exercise, I never told anyone what I used to do. I hated how I looked with such an intensity I felt a huge amount of shame around my appearance.

I was embarrassed to tell anyone. I felt like a complete fraud.

This photo stands out to me as I was 15 months post partum with my second child. I had extreme OCD, anxiety and most likely depression. I was not happy, I hated my body so much I couldn’t bear to look at myself. Yes it’s very sad when I reflect on this as it is was such a hard time.

Two children under 4, we had financial difficulties and had moved away from all friends and family. I was convinced a new job would make me better so I left my job of 7 years. My husband started a job where he went away for 4 months.

Food and exercise became my method of ‘control’.
At my new job I was told I can’t believe your baby just turned one, you look so good. This was a great sign. I was doing something right. It motivated me to keep pushing, restricting, exercising.

I remember this holiday thinking I was a beast, disgusting. I weighed about 12 st, I am 5ft 9. In my ‘best’ ED days I weighed 10st 5. So I had failed.

My recent GP letter advised me my ideal weight is 10st 5. What do you think that triggers? For me a time where I was in the depths of ED and extremely unwell mentally and physically. I had more GP appointments at 10st 5 than at my current weight.

I am physically and mentally more healthy and happy now than I ever was in that period.

Your weight is not a goal or a stick to beat yourself with. It’s the least interesting thing about you.
We have to protect people. The system is broken.

02/08/2025

If your nervous system keeps going into fight or flight and you don’t know how to read the signs or how to move back into safety then any work we do will be 10x harder to actually implement in day to day life.

It’s why CBT is great for managing the negative thoughts that become habit and reframing them. But so hard to implement when your body thinks you’re under attack and your life is in danger.

Anxiety can be triggered by actual events that are happening now. For example, someone you love is going through a traumatic experience. But it can also be triggered by the past, your body has remembered a time you experienced a traumatic event and it’s responding automatically based on its stored memories. This is why we can feel anxious even when the thing doesn’t directly affect us.

The subconscious mind is always working and reacting in the way it believes helps. Our conscious mind doesn’t know why it’s doing what it does and tries to make sense of it by adding a story to the feeling.
‘I’m stressed because my partner is stressed and I’m worried about them’

While this is true the worry part is anxiety caused by conscious thinking, the future possibilities of what might happen. But the nervous system has picked up on the stress from the partner and automatically responds. If you grew up with a very stressed and reactive parent your body will remember the feeling of being scared, hyper-vigilant to signs and revert to coping strategies such as fawning or freezing. It might also make you prepare to run and fight. So your nervous system is completely dysregulated.

This makes your rational and problem solving mind less effective and you move into damage control- all your thoughts are now operating from fear and anxiety and will be adding more of the negative emotions which keep you in that dysregulated.

When you learn your own signs you can start to be aware of where your nervous system is. That will help you to understand what you need to do to feel safe and regulated.

Your first priority is to learn how to move out of panic/freeze as this is not a space you need to be in.

Then, you can actually decide what needs to happen to improve the situation.

14/07/2025

Have you ever thought about how you think? 🤔

We all use different thinking processes depending on the context but we default to one that feels most familiar.

It is possible to train your brain to move between different thinking styles when needed and that can be an excellent tool for getting s**t done.

We have ways to process information, these are typically:

Analytical Thinking
Small chunks, seeks logic and evidence.
Best for: problem-solving, data analysis, diagnostics.

Holistic Thinking
Bigger picture, associations and context.
Best for: systems thinking, planning, understanding complex issues.

Sequential/Linear Thinking
Processes information step by step in a logical order.
Best for: following procedures, learning in structured environments.

Nonlinear/Intuitive Thinking
Jumps between ideas, sees connections instantly, relies on gut feelings.
Best for: creativity, brainstorming, innovation.

You may identify when you use each or a combination of these. But when you are in your natural state you might lean towards one over another.

Under each definition is the most beneficial situation to use each. This can be really useful as we can decide what the objective is and when to utilise that type of thinking.

For many of us it is difficult to notice when we are thinking a certain way, so the practice of observing and identifying your thinking process can in itself help you to see if that was actually the most effective way to approach the situation.

We can grow and improve when we use the right tools for the job at hand. The more you practice something the easier it becomes and the better your brain gets at choosing the best option.

It can help to work with someone else to explore this especially if you are wanting to improve your habits, systems, decision making, problem solving skills.

I will be posting about other thinking styles so make sure you like and follow to keep updated.

Let me know if this was helpful ❤️

13/07/2025

For YEARS I was told I had ‘social anxiety’ but something about it just didn’t make sense.

As a child I was described as a social butterfly, I would ‘fit in’ in most situations, I was very adaptable and generally got on with most people.

Honestly though I just liked simplicity. Things started to get more complicated when the social unwritten rules became more complicated.

I just didn’t get it, i couldn’t figure out the girl code.

I think college was my first real awareness that I might be a bit ‘different’. I became very self aware. I didn’t want to be in the ‘popular’ group- I don’t think I would have been invited tbh. I didn’t really feel like I fit into any of the groups. I didn’t have a sense of identity.

Thank god for university. I could come and go, join in or do my own thing. No one really cared that much, you were always welcome.

But back in the real world, there were rules, jobs, comparison, feedback, judgment, competition.

It was structured, loud, busy, distracting.

I felt overwhelmed by everything.

I was supposed to make conversation, be interested, be interesting, say the right things to the right people, don’t say what you think, say what is expected. Comply, engage, listen, don’t interrupt, and never ever expose problems that they don’t want to look at.

Argh. My poor brain felt so overwhelmed and confused.

I struggled to understand the rules, what to do, what was expected.

I just wanted to get on with things, I didn’t want to have to jump through hoops, I hated the political processes, the cliques, influencing people.

So i became anxious.

I stayed anxious because I didn’t get it, I just don’t understand.

I felt like I was always going to be rejected for being me.

This is what I now have a label for. Neurodivergent.

I wasn’t supposed to get it all, my brain doesn’t work the same way. I wasn’t getting it wrong, it wasn’t because I was stupid, broken, bad.

I don’t have social anxiety. I have a brain that doesn’t always understand and is super sensitive to sensory input and perceived rejection.
This creates a dysregulated nervous system.

I don’t feel safe.

I don’t need to do more to fit in, I need to regulate.

Focused Hypnotherapy

12/09/2025

10/09/2025

09/09/2025

05/09/2025

03/09/2025

01/09/2025

26/08/2025

19/08/2025

08/08/2025

02/08/2025

14/07/2025

13/07/2025

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