Downloads Unwrapped November 2012

Stop yelling: PLEASE!

"If you're yelling, you're the one who's lost control of the conversation."
Taylor Swift

Some people use shouting as a means of general communication. Perhaps not so surprising if you have terribly rowdy kids, but still! It's as if they're forever standing on the deck of an 18th century ocean vessel in a howling gale where the only way to get the message through is to scream at the top of their lungs. The trouble is, if you make too much noise too often in real life, people eventually start to take you less seriously than they would if you yell occasionally (but mostly don't). Communication can be a wonderfully subtle thing, and yelling is like painting with one single primary colour when you have a whole palette of shades and colours to choose from. On top of that, yelling at people tends to put them on the defensive rather than make them cooperative. Of course, yelling may also be a symptom of 'emotional incontinence', an inability to express feelings in other ways, or just habit. Whatever the cause, the Stop yelling download should massively help you control the impulse to yell all the time, bringing a welcome peace to you and everyone else.

Saying goodbye needn't be so hard

"Every time we say goodbye I die a little..." Ray Charles

Some people just hate saying goodbye. I once observed a therapy session where a woman explained that she always felt highly upset when leaving home. Packing her suitcase to go away on business and having to say goodbye to her family - even just for a few days - always felt terribly traumatic. The therapist skilfully traced the origin of this feeling back to a time when she had been very young and had to go to and from boarding school several times a year. The pattern of excessive 'goodbye-sadness' had stuck with her all the way into the age of instant messaging and cell phones.

In this age of connection 'goodbye' isn't what it used to be. But it can still feel really hard, and some of us have a much harder time of it than others. But can we, with help, begin to feel connected with someone merely by thinking of them? The new Saying goodbye download has a surprisingly effective approach to helping us manage our goodbyes better in life.

Overcoming fear of the pregnancy 'journey'

"No, it's not fear of getting pregnant. I want children! It's more like a fear of the state of being with child, even though I really want that child!"

Danielle had come for help. She had suffered an awful experience some years before while pregnant and now that it was time to try again she felt panicky. She described it as like "being on a long journey that you have no control over, you can't get off and you can't see the end of it." She told me that all this was more about how she felt rather than how she thought. I have seen this before, the kind of panic that sets in when people travel the subway and feel like they can't get off between stops (which of course they can't) and so feel a terrible loss of control. I helped Danielle with hypnosis to feel more in control in some ways, to feel really comfortable with the 'journey' of pregnancy and more able to live fully as a woman during those nine months. While deeply relaxed, she calmly explored the reality of having opened up her 'home/womb' and of really enjoying this precious time.

She had the most beautiful little girl and later told me she sometimes even missed being pregnant now and then; just a little. The ideas and approaches I used to help Danielle are contained in our new download: Fear of pregnancy.