Practical Wellbeing

Changing your life one step at a time

The Gulliver Club is an opportunity for anyone who has learnt EFT to come together in a supportive environment to practice their EFT skills. This is a place to do just that in a warm, friendly setting in which we use EFT to undo old hurts, put down the frustrations of the week and prepare for the next week and a better life

This is for people who want to use EFT but are not sure how. It all looked so simple in the course but when it comes to everyday life you don’t know what to say and where to start. Not only will you get to practice EFT you will learn some approaches that you can easily use at home on your own. Simple worksheets will guide you all the way.

It’s all right not to be an expert here, the exercises will be practised in the comfort of your own mind. Andy Hunt, an experienced EFT Practitioner and Trainer, will guide the group through a number of tapping exercises. It’s perfectly all right to sit quietly and work on your own stuff without saying a word to anyone – this isn’t the Jeremy Kyle Show or Oprah, no-one is going to have to confess anything to anyone.

If you know EFT then you will have heard about the Personal Peace Procedure, Gary Craig’s recommended approach to improving your life by neutralising unpleasant old memories one at a time. In this group you will have the chance to work on your personal peace procedure or join in with the specific exercises as you see fit. One of the benefits of EFT is that you can use tapping along with someone else’s issues and get relief on your own using Borrowing Benefits.

What do you need to attend the Gulliver Club?

Only a working knowledge of  basic EFT and a willingness to feel better.

Why ‘The Gulliver Club’?

If you remember in the story Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Gulliver is shipwrecked on the island of Lilliput and awakes to find himself tide down by a network of fine threads, or so he thinks, in fact the Lilliputians have tried to secure the giant with their heaviest cables and ropes. To Gulliver each rope is just like a cotton thread but together they hold him down and keep him stuck in place. We are in the same position, held in place by thousands of small threads of memory, beliefs and feelings. Each one of them can be changed with EFT, the Gulliver Club is an opportunity to start cutting those threads that hold us down.

The Gulliver Club is not a substitute for one to one therapy and is not a suitable place for dealing with serious mental health issues. It is suitable for the vast majority of people who want to feel more at ease with themselves.

How does it work?

At the beginning of each session we spend a few minutes tapping away the emotional stuff we’ve brought with us to the occasion, perhaps we’ve had an argument with our boss or spouse, experienced a disappointment or setback and we are carrying that feeling with us.

Then we tap away any charge on an incident that may have happened in the gap between your last session and this one. Or you can work on one of your Personal Peace Procedure memories.

Next we work on a specific Personal Peace Procedure memory or a current issue of your choice.

Then we tap on any upcoming events that may be causing you anxiety – such as an interview, medical appointment, etc.

Finally we do some EFT to feel confident in ourselves and to look forward to the week ahead.

We end with tea and biscuits.

You don’t need to commit to more than one session to take advantage of the Gulliver Club, you can just attend when you feel the need.

What does it cost?

The cost for the one and a half hour session is just £10.

Practicalities

The first Gulliver Club meeting is next Wednesday March 10th at St Oswald’s Hospice Teaching Centre, Regent Ave, Gosforth from 7pm-9pm as part of the EFT Cafe. Thereafter it will be on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month.

ChangeCamp is a one day low cost event in the North East for professionals and interested laypeople who want to change their inner and outer worlds for the better.

It can be about changing yourself if you want to explore your inner life and further develop your skills and resources.

It can also be about helping others if you work with other people to help them change, or it can be about changing groups if you work with groups and teams.

There will be a wide choice of presentations and workshops for professionals and the public including:

• Taking your life in your hands: Iain Mackenzie, Gestalt psychotherapist and coach. This is a taster session for anyone interested in exploring and sharing a range of strategies to enhance inner strength. (Counsellors and therapists may also find this useful for personal development and for use with your clients.)
• Quick Start EFT: Andy Hunt, NLP & EFT therapist and trainer. A brief introduction to EFT that will give you an introduction to the basic skills and strategies of Emotional Freedom Techniques
• How to get well and stay well: Lyn White, Reverse Therapist. Come and learn how you can listen to your body to get rid of symptoms and keep yourself well.
• Compassion, self awareness and the paradoxical nature of change: Iain Mackenzie, Gestalt psychotherapist and coach. An experiential introduction to gestalt therapy
• The Good Feeling of Practice Well Done!: Andy Hunt, NLP & EFT therapist and trainer. Using NLP to enhance mental rehearsal so you can improve your performance at work, at home or at play.
• Bring More Laughter into Your Life: Keith Adams, accredited life coach and training manager who specialises in the science of happiness and laughter as a coach and laughter facilitator. The workshop explores the psychological and physiological benefits of laughter. Its aim is help you to generate more fun and humour into your life and uses NLP techniques to get you smiling and laughing.
• The Gulliver Club: Andy Hunt, NLP & EFT therapist and trainer. Using EFT in a gentle way to bring relief and relaxation and to work on long term issues that restrict our inner freedom.
• Resolving Your Inner Conflict: Alan Scott, NLP Trainer, this workshop introduces you to tools and techniques to resolve inner conflicts, allowing you to feel strong calm and in control
• Feeling Good and Loving Yourself: Alan Scott, NLP Trainer, workshop presenting tools for helping yourself feel good and appreciate yourself even in difficult circumstances.
• Laughter workshop: Keith Adams accredited life coach and training manager who specialises in the science of happiness and laughter as a coach and laughter facilitator. This is the Laughter workshop – 45 minutes of serious laughing – this is the workshop that will leave you smiling for days and is a perfect way to round of the ChangeCamp experience.
• There’s more: More workshops are being added as we get closer to the event ….

Who can attend? Anyone who is interested in this kind of work: therapists, trainers, teachers, social workers, doctors, nurses, anyone who works in the helping professions.

Where and when is it on? Spring ChangeCamp 2010 will be held in Gosforth High School, Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne on Saturday March 20th 2010 from 9:30 – 6:00

How much does it cost? The cost for the whole conference is just £10 (that’s right, just £10) and a contribution to a shared lunch.

To find out more and book your place go to  www.changecamp.co.uk

It’s been snowing here.

The already rutted and grit stained street is covered with a fresh clean blanket of white powder.

It’s been cold here for a few weeks now which is unusual in a time of globally warmed, wet and windy winters.

If you would believe the news and bus stop conversation you would think that the snow was a terrible thing, the worst thing that could possibly happen.

Personally I love it!

I had a snow starved childhood. The closest we usually got to a white Christmas on the North Wales coast was if it was misty! Now when I see snow I’m pleased, I love the crunch of it underfoot, the quiet of its falling and its dazzling whiteness.

I realise from many practical points of view it’s a real pain in the neck. Paths are slippery, driving is difficult and it’s cold. I still love it.

I love it because it throws everything into sharp relief, it covers up the annoying little details of the world and shows the overall shape of the world.

I love it because of the clarity of a deep blue sunny winter’s day.  It’s a different view of the familiar.

I love it because it’s a challenge, you have to get kitted up to go out, you can’t just go out as you please. You need to be prepared. When you are out in it, it can be so much fun. Walks with friends are wonderful, sledging is exciting and convivial (how many people do you see sledging alone?)

I love it because it brings out the big kid in me

I love the contrast between the seasons. A vivid demonstration of the majestic, passage of time. A chance to reflect on what has been and what is to come.

All these feelings are important to me

• seeing the big picture
• clarity of vision
• challenge
• shared enjoyment.
• fun
• a chance to reflect.

To me this is the value of snow.

I think we often fall into the trap about thinking about things rather than considering what feelings are produced by the things. These feelings or values are quite personal, I’m quite prepared to believe that no-one else will have the same set of associations with snow that I do.

Maybe your feelings are mixed about snow, parts of the experience you enjoy and others you don’t.

I can even imagine that many people will have a lot of negative associations with snow (after all I am living in Britain).

What are the feelings that go with things? Everything elicits its own emotional reactions. What emotional reactions are important to you? What do you want to feel more of what do you want to feel less of or even avoid?

Feelings that are important to us, our values, guide our behaviour, provide our motivations or deterrents. Sometimes they can be straight forward and positive, as is my reaction to snow. At other times they can be conflicted or even hostile. However we feel about what’s important to us will play itself out over time in our behaviour and our experience. The funny thing is that these emotional responses are not fixed in stone, you can change them if you want to, clarify them, resolve conflicts within and between them and be more conscious.

If you want to become clearer and more conscious of what is important to you, you can attend the Aligning Your Values workshop that I am running at the beginning of February in Gateshead.

Now, it’s started snowing again, the sun has gone behind a cloud, flakes are spiralling down and I feel unreasonably happy.

How to use EFT to make those resolutions last longer than the 31st of January.

Have you ever had the same resolution year after year that only ever makes it to February?

Have you ever had a project that you really would like to complete to find that you couldn’t even start?

Have you ever had a project that you did start only to find that somehow it all grinds to a halt?

We often have things we want to do, goals we would like to achieve but somehow we get stuck. We may try our hardest but we find ourselves sabotaging our efforts or ‘driving with one foot on the brake’.

If this has ever happened to you then you will appreciate how frustrating or disheartening it can be.

In this month’s EFT Café Andy Hunt will guide thorough ‘The Ultimate Truth Statement’ process designed by EFT Master and Coach Lindsay Kenny. This process uses EFT to uncover and resolve the blocks that are getting in the way of achieving those goals.

The EFT Café is on Wednesday 13th January between 7pm and 9pm in the Coleman Teaching Centre at St Oswald’s Hospice. The cost is just £10.

Note: You will need some experience of EFT to attend.

Photo courtesy of katerha

How do you want to feel in 2010?

Image via Wikipedia

It’s that time of year when we start to think about those New Year’s Resolutions. All the things we want to do, have and be in this New Year – new car, exotic holiday, lose weight, a new career, etc.

Often we don’t realise consciously that what we want to have or achieve are just a means to an end. What we really want from our possessions and experiences is the feeling or emotion that it gives us.

Perhaps you want to have an exotic holiday. As you imagine the holiday of your dreams what feelings and emotions arise for you? Maybe you imagine feeling relaxed, excited, enthusiastic and happy. Have you ever spent time day dreaming about what your holiday is going to be like – enjoying the feelings you’ll have before you even get there. Or perhaps you want to lose weight. That might make you feel fit, healthy and attractive.

Advertisers figured this out a long time ago. It’s obvious from all the sofa adverts at this time of year that having a deluxe leather sofa with recliner options will give you a happy contented family or an appreciative and attractive partner. Or you could join an exclusive health club and become fit and attractive like the lithe young people in the advert (who obviously don’t need it).

The seductive voices of advertising tell us “just get this thing or take part in this activity and you will be rewarded with these feelings”. I think a sofa is not the only way to have a happy family. Joining a health club is not the only way to feel fit.

I think there is a more useful way to think about New Year resolutions that gives us a better chance of getting what we want and many more choices in how we get there.

How do you want to feel in 2010? What feelings or emotions would you like to feel more of?

How would your New Year resolutions be different if started by choosing the emotional states you wanted to experience?

Read the rest of this entry »

mastery: (noun) comprehensive knowledge or command of a subject or skill

There’s a big difference between a good driver and someone who has just passed his test. There’s a big difference between a cook and a chef. There’s a big difference between a hill walker and a mountaineer.

One of the differences is practice and experience. There’s no substitute for practice, getting good at something means putting in the time and effort. Another difference is training in new skills, learning deepens the perspective and expands the range of choices available to you.

In an NLP Practitioner course you learn the fundamentals. In an IntegrityNLP training we visit and revisit the skills needed for communicating effectively with ourselves and others. It’s a hundred and twenty hours of training and practice. That might sound like a lot of time but it’s only time to scratch the surface of what’s possibles with this material. We have to leave out a lot of stuff: working on beliefs and values, even more skillful use of language, modeling the success of others to name but a few.

In the IntegrityNLP Master Practitioner we take you way beyond the level of Practitioner – opening up your skills and understandings – If you thought you learned a lot on your NLP Practitioner training be prepared to go much further.

In January 2010 IntegrityNLP will be running it’s first six month NLP Master Practitioner Training.

This training, and only this training, will cost you just £500.

This will be the only one offered at this price. If you have an NLP Practitioner certificate and you want to take the next step. Click here.

Photo courtesy of Andreas Rueda