» Listings for March 2022

1. What's This Madness. Can you be hypnotised?

   Posted on 12:30pm Monday 7th Mar 2022

   

   Hello again.  I have just seen an online article by the Daily Mirror with the Headline 'Can you be hypnotised' and a brief explanation that only some people can be.  I thought I needed to examine this potentially fake news or at least check that it was a headline aimed at grabbing attention,  expecting a bit of an anti-climax. I couldn't even open the quiz so I am still wondering what that says about me.

   You might be asking "What's the problem Andrea, why are you getting so uppity."

   Here's the problem.  In my formative years as a hypnotherapist back in 1995, I spent most of my time doing everything I could to explain what hypnosis and hypnotherapy is.  I actually thought that over this period of time my efforts along with those of my fraternity gradually took the mystic and magic away from hypnosis and established it as a bonafide option for healing and breaking free from self imposed limitations.

   Of course, it's always great to have  a bit of magic around. I won't deny that sometimes when people who have been suffering all their lives with unnecessary restrictions suddenly turn it around and experience a great sense of freedom, it can feel magical.  Truly it is just the proccess.

   So let's start at the beginning.  Don't believe anyone who starts by talking about trances, that's all part of the mystical control they like to promote.  Hypnosis is simply a deep relaxation, the type that you experience when you're about to drop off to sleep or just after you have woken.  You're less alert than when fully awake and even feel as though you are in a bubble of tranquility but still in full control.  The aim is that this state quietens the thinking mind and gives more access to the stored limiting beliefs and fears that are harboured to the rear.  This part of your mind is often active when  you are fully asleep and you sometimes remember those dreams that are lurking there.

   Whether or not people are suggestable is a different matter.  It is true that some people are very open to suggestions and some totally closed.
   Hypnosis doesn't come into it, this is an every day phenomenon.  You can tell a suggestable person that they are looking ill and they will start to feel ill, whereas there are those who would shrug it off and never think about it again.  That means that the highly suggestable people are open to suggestion while hypnotised.

   Suggestion therapy as it's very basic and raw is just that a suggestion that you will stop or will feel something desireable.  It is a bit hit and miss and has the potential to wear off in most cases.  It is also what the stage hypnotists depend upon.

   Hypnotherapy is able to identify the sources of limiting beliefs in oneself, of fears and anxieties that influence our reactions to events in our lives.  Whether that is a phobia or a compulsion in contrast to a habit, in fact anything that prevents one from being who they would prefer to be.

   So, if they want to be, everyone is able to be hypnotised, don't believe anything else.

2. Beginners Yoga

   Posted on 12:00pm Friday 4th Mar 2022

   

    

   While I have been practising yoga for some 40 years I have only been teaching yoga for about 16 years and in those latter years I have often thought it important to give my students a reason for practising yoga. That has often been played out on the yoga mat, why are we practising this particular posture, why are we doing this breath technique, why are we are we doing this particular relaxation technique or meditation.

   By giving students a good reason for doing what they are doing I have found it inspires them to continue with their practice with greater encouragement and purpose. 

   But if you are a beginner or someone who is thinking of starting yoga what might be a good reason for taking up this practice? 

   As we have moved into the 20thC many people are taking a fresh look at the idea of exploring spirituality and yoga can play an important role in that quest. Nevertheless, spirituality apart, yoga practices can give clear and meaningful benefits to everyone.

   At this point I would like to just make reference to one of the great yoga Swamis of the last century, Satyananda Saraswati who once said words to the effect: Don't just practice yoga because I say it is good for you but if you do practice yoga have faith for a while in the technique you are using and then decide for yourself if it has brought value to your life.

   Beside the spiritual quest, yoga can simply be a means of maintaining health and wellbeing in our increasingly stressful global community.

   We probably will never completely irradicate stress in our lives. After all stress is the nature of matter in the universe. All atoms contain an element of agitation or stress and remember we have evolved from that matter. But we can do a lot to alleviate some of that stress.

   Even gentle yoga postures assist in removing some of our physical discomfort that can build up during the day from our activities at work and other interactions that can leave us with tensions and sometimes feelings of anxiety.

   Yoga breathing is an underated practice but it is probably the glue that holds the whole practice together and as your yoga journey unfolds you often come to see its ever growing value. I would even go as far as to say that our breath is the key to experiencing Samadhi, that blissfull state when the stilling of the body/mind brings us to a place of exquisite calmness.

   Yoga relaxation and meditation can help us to make better use of our ever decreasing time off. We live in a time of mobile phones, laptops, 24 hour online shopping, a pandemic, political conflict and increasing hours of working from home. In this pressurized lifestyle practising yoga makes good social and business sense.

   You could say that the underlying principles of yoga give us a most useful implement for helping us combat social despair. Yoga helps us to start reconnecting with our true selves so as to bring harmony to our body, mind and spirit in this current age and compassion where it has often drifted beyond sight. Besides the benefits already mentioned remember that yoga practice is an experience that cannot be understood in a scholarly way but can only really become part of your knowledge through regular practice and experience.

   Barry Todd (Yoga Teacher M&B Bury)