Develop Grow Change

What creates apathy?

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:04:00 +0000

This is by nature a slightly political post.

There has been for some time now a view that UK voters have become apathetic about exercising their right to vote.

The turnout in local elections often struggles to achieve 25% and even in general elections rarely achieves 50%.

Media commentators wring their hands and write essays on what should be done. They suggest everything from lowering the voting age to making voting compulsory.

Here's some suggestions for all those media pundits and hacks;
Stop treating the adults of the UK like children and they'll stop behaving like children. (I suppose
we could call this the transactional analysis approach). Who the hell needs to be told how to blow their nose and dispose of the paper tissue who is over the age of 6? Patronising video here.

Stop giving outrageous levels of snooping power to any man jack and his dog with RIPA and SOCA laws. Absolutely ludicrous use of powers example here.

Let the voting public have a real choice about the future path of the country instead simply choosing from one bunch of money grubbing politicos dressed in red and another bunch of money grubbing politicos dressed in blue (or possibly yellow). Outrageous money grubbing here.

When we all get a real choice apathy will disappear.

Apathy is only evident when choices are notional rather than real.

Given a real choice people will use their power; it won't happen because the levers of control and power would be ripped away from the current political classes. It would probably take a revolution for that to happen.

Check this out...old chool hypnosis

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:41:00 +0000

This is wonderful, a Pathe film clip from 1949 showing stage hypnotist Richard Payne doing what today would be a very mild act.

Worth 4 minutes of your time any day of the week, hypnosis in a smart suit.
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=47986

A quick thought on goals

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:07:00 +0000

I'm paraphrasing some comments from Brian Tracey here but they seem to make a lot of sense to me.

The reason why people don't write their goals down is because it becomes concrete in your subconscious and then must be acted on. We fail to write it down because of a fear of failure, if you don't write it down that won't happen (bit neither will you achieve your goals).

Only 3% of the population have written goals, only 5% have any goals at all. Would you like to guess if they do better or worse than the average in terms of life outcomes?

Yep, you guessed it they do LOTS better.

Staying organised (part 1,657432)

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:10:00 +0000

It's a rather flippant title but just an indication that staying organised is an ongoing process.

At the moment I am reading the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. He advocates getting all the information about current actions and projects out of your head and into some kind of external system.

This, he argues, frees you up to have creative thoughts and become able to deal more effectively with the 'stuff' that just arrives in your in tray each day.

Part and parcel of this concept is having a place or places to put all those project details. It could be a filing cabinet or a stack of index cards but the computer offers lots of possibilities.

One of these is to use a TiddlyWiki that is set up in accordance with the ideas in the book. Good news there is such a thing.

TiddlyWiki is lot like the Wikipedia idea except that you can keep it all on your disc drive or memory stick. You use it through a FireFox browser (other browsers work too) to create your very own Wikki.

It really neat; try these links to find out more
http://www.tiddlywiki.com/
http://tiddlywiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
The version I am trialing at the moment is D Cubed at
http://dcubed.ca/Welcome_to_d-cubed.html

I know it's going to take some discipline to put all my projects and actions on this way but I'm actually quite excited by this!

The TiddlyWiki programs are for free but most will accept PayPal donations to keep down their costs.

Bigger Breasts with hypnosis

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:32:00 +0000

Well, for some people it would be nice right?
Not for everyone clearly, most men would rather not have Moobs (man boobs) but many might be intrigued by the idea.

It hit the news (again) today as a BBC program called Inside Out (a local magazine that varies from region to region) investigated hypnotherapy.

They were alarmed to find out that is was possible for a cat to be registered with some hypnotherapy organisations. Well I have not seen the program but let sanity reign.

They copied an experiment first done in the USA where a cat got registered with a couple of small member organisations. It worked here in the UK too but not with one of the larger organisations and I still maintain that the only licence needed for the biggest hypnotist in the UK is a TV licence. That square box puts more people in a trance than anything or anyone else.

Any way, back to breasts.....can you make them bigger with hypnosis? One of the chaps involved in the program says that it can work.

If asked, I could guess that the answer is yes, but I just don't know. It's tricky trying to measure this stuff because you would need to devise and experiment that looked at all the possible variables from weight gain to hormonal changes before you could tell if the hypnosis had had a profound effect on the breast tissue.

Still, if any university graduates would like to set up an experiment I'd be happy to take part.

Life, death and brain waves

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:35:00 +0000

I'm doing more evening sessions these days. It seems to be easier for those who use my services and means the days are spent on other activities.

A brief scan through the news this morning brought up an interesting piece (via The Daily Mail web site) about brain activity as we approach death (sorry if this sound morbid). It seems that there is a huge spike in neuron activity as a person dies.

The articles puts forward the idea that this happens as the blood supply to the brain fails and may coincide with so-called near death experiences.

All interesting stuff and it does make me think about the nature of life and death........well I'm not the first person to cover that territory am I.

Do we have a sixth sense?

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:56:00 +0000

There is an interesting article on the Daily Mail web site today about whether we have a sixth sense. (Actually it looks like a rehash of a press release for a book launch.)

It's worth a look though; it cites some interesting examples of times where people have claimed precognition of forthcoming disasters.

Here is the gratuitous link to Amazon so that you can help pay my web hosting fees!

Snippets & updates:Oil, music, diabetes & skinny eaters

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:18:00 +0000

A variety of interesting thing from the web that caught my attention in the last week or so.

Olive oil and Alzheimer's disease

It seems that one of the chemicals in olive oil that gives it its peppery taste may play a part in slowing down the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Having seen how this illness robs people of themselves, I'd love to see more research in this area.

DIABETES S PIRALS OUT OF CONTROL WITH 145,500 NEW CASES IN A YEAR

Type 2 diabetes is on the rise and we seem to be following the American example in terms of the health outcomes. Remember that too much carbohydrate especially highly refined types like sugar will lead to problems. This is especially true when you have a relatively inactive lifestyle and don't eat a balanced diet. (Balanced in this case means a good mix of fruit, vegetables starchy foods, fats and proteins. By the way, all the indications are that diet style drinks may actually make this worse. They are the devil's brew; try Googling Aspartame.

Learning a musical instrument helps to boost children's memory

I have suspected for some time, that playing (or learning to play) a musical instrument works parts of the brain otherwise untouched in the pencil & paper type learning that often passes for schooling. This article form the Time s newspaper seems to vindicate my views. By the way, I'm still learning to play the harmonica!
This is my current musical nemesis...

Want to Lose Weight? Avoid Skinny Overeaters

It seems that naturally thin people who eat large portions can cause us to eat more than we should. There is news about a fascinating study in the link where it seems that if you see a thin person pile up their plate your more likely to follow their example than if a fat person were to do the same.

After all no one wants to be seen to be eating more than a fat person but someone thin can validate a choice to eat more than we should; well if they can be thin with that size portion...

Weird dreams

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:31:00 +0000

Sometimes I wonder what is going on. A completely bizarre dream has me wondering about what I watched or saw that prompted it.

Keywords in the dream: cannibalism, France, Atlantic Coast, mince, pies and couple.

Freud would have a field day.

Search engines...the rise of Bing

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:15:00 +0000

Love them or be exasperated by them, search engines guide many of us through the search for information in this life.

At the moment Google is still my first choice although Yahoo seems to do a good job if you are hunting down people or a specific person. (I'm not sure hunting was the best verb there but never mind.)

However the kid on the block is of course Bing and I'll admit that up until now I have pretty much ignored it as a tool.

Perhaps I should pay more attention though as it has now overtaken both AOL and Yahoo for the number of visitors it brings to my web sites.

Google is still the big guy but Bing has moved from nowhere to around 6% of enquiries (Google is still around 80%).

Something to keep an eye on.

Somedays.........

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:49:00 +0000

Somedays it's easier to stay focussed.

Somedays it's easier to let your mind wander.

I'm not sure that either is wrong but it's probably not a good idea to stay in either frame of mind for too many days at a time.

Is LighterLife the weight loss answer?

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:17:00 +0000

I have worked with several people over the last few years who had previously been on the LighterLife program of weight loss.

In the main they had lost weight but had been unable to sustain that body weight after they returned to eating normal meals.

It is an aggressive low calorie program that typically limits intakes to around 500 calories per day. At that level anyone will lose weight and fat and even more importantly muscle.

Muscle is important because our heart is a big muscle that works hard for us every day. On very low calorie diets the heart itself may be damaged by the extreme dieting.

If you are considering this path, please research the health implications. It may take longer to lose weight in other ways (including with the aid of hypnosis) but it will be sustainable and you will still get to your target weight in the end.

Full story here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1212909/Revealed-The-obese-woman-whos-millions-extreme-diet-blamed-death-bride-be.html

Spotless Mind?

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:56:00 +0000

Once again a team has supposedly come up with a way to erase bad memories; according to the Daily Mail newspaper.

According to the paper, a team at Friedrich Miescher Institute in Switzerland could develop a memory-cleansing drug that has the ability to remove any recollection of unhappy or embarrassing incidents, like childhood teasing and upsetting memories of a failed love affair, from people's minds.

We are told that it works by dissolving the membrane around the amygdala; the almond-shaped organ in the brain where mammals store their memories of fear.

It seems to have worked in animals, but do you really want to lose all of your fears? Fear is what keeps us safe from dangerous situations. It is a response that enables us to survive.

So while it may sound like a wonderful way to let go of love affairs that went wrong or a powerful way to deal with PTSD, it may not be possible to use it safely.

Both Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and hypnosis offers real drug free alternatives to this with the advantage that natural useful fears are kept in place.

Derren Brown; how did he do it?

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:10:00 +0000

I watched Derren Brown 'predict' the lottery numbers on TV last night.

I love the stuff he does but I don't think this was much more than an advanced slight of hand (or camera).

It was alleged that he had written the winning numbers on what appeared to be table tennis balls before the draw but crucially they were turned away from the camera's view before the draw.

This was supposedly because the BBC and Camelot would not allow the numbers to be shown in advance of the draw, ho hum.

I don't know how it was done, but I'm fairly sure the numbers were written on the balls after the draw happened (but still with seconds of the numbers being shown).

There was a curious delay whilst Derren was watching the TV screen with a small whiteboard in his hand but did not write the numbers down as drawn; all a little odd. It did make for intriguing telly though.

We are told he will reveal all on Friday night!

Hypnosis by TV?

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:31:00 +0000

I have often felt that television is the number one hypnotist around the world and often people become very receptive to message that are transmitted by the TV.

This chap has an interesting take on it; he is discussing who the TV in America is responsible for spreading the messages of large corporations and Government departments in the USA but I expect it is very similar here in the UK.

Follow this link to read the story. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Mass-Mind-Control-is-Upon-by-Nathan-Janes-090827-627.html

New articles online

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:37:00 +0000

I've just updated the the Somerset Hypnotherapy web site with an article page.

It will be home for the articles I have written on the topics of personal development and hypnosis.

The first article is up now and you can download it in PDF or MP3 format. I'll add more over the next week or so and hopefully improve the recording quality of the MP3s as well.

Go here to check it out http://www.somersethypnotherapy.com/articles-by-john-burns.html.

TV Advert tricks

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:06:00 +0000

I have recently become aware of something that seems to be a very sneaky trick by advertisers on the TV to get your attention.

I specifically notice this trick on the recent NatWest Bank advert playing here in the UK where a man is buying Euros for his trip to a wedding in Italy.

What's the trick? The almost imperceptible sound of a mobile phone ringing in the background. Keep in mind that the audio track on the advert has background music, the sound of a voiceover artists and the two actors all in the mix at various times......and that mobile phone.

The most annoying thing is that it works! On more than one occasion I have looked up from whatever I was doing to see if it was my mobile (even though I have a different ring tone set!)

I 'think' I have heard the same trick on other adverts too but have not noted what they were in the same way as the NatWest one.

Has any one else become aware of this?

Recording Hypnotherapy CDs (actually any audio CD)

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:41:00 +0000

Like many other therapists I record CDs to give away to clients as part of the therapy process. In my case these were recorded in a professional studio and then edited on my PC to produce the final mixed audio track.

These are burnt to CD-Rs as needed and in the past I have always used the free version of Nero I got with my DVD burner to do this. These are audio rather than MP3 files I'm talking about.

I'm not sure why but I started getting more CDs that would skip tracks and sound distorted when using this process. Sometimes clients would report that a CD would be ok up to a certain point and then sound distorted. Not good.

It only seemed to happen to audio CDs, data style CDs always played on every PC I ever tried them on so I figured it had to be some odd combination of media and software.

After much head scratching and plenty of trial and error, here is what I found.

Most modern CD players that have a motorized drive to load the CD will play just about anything. They seem to tolerate all kinds of media; sadly most of my clients had older style manual load CD players.

Lesson 1
Stick with 'silver' style CDs. Take a look at the disc on the spindle in the shop. (I usually buy spindles of 25 CDs). Look at the track side of the disc; if this is blue, green or gold reject the CD. It's not that they are no good, its just that these dye based surfaces do not get read easily by older CD players. Save them for data discs.

Lesson 2
Give your PC a break, if you are recording a CD, shut down unwanted applications that are using CPU time and memory. I frequently have multiple browser tabs open plus outlook and a bunch of other programs to. Shut them down and have open only your CD burner software. In this way the burner software can have plenty of memory and CPU cycles to play with. The older the PC you have the more important this is.

Lesson 3
Select some software that works. I am now using Image Burn which is free for personal use and you can download a copy from this link. The software is great but the interface has more features than you are likely to need. To avoid frustration, take 30 minutes or so to read the online 'how to' guides. It will as the name suggests burn ISO images to a disc but it will also burn a bunch of tracks to a CD; as long as you remember to create a CUE file first. Like I said read the online guide first (I didn't and wasted some time and discs).

Lesson 4
Do not try to burn the CD at maximum speed. When you load a CD Image Burn will check the CD to see what speeds it can be written at. It may well say that it will burn at 48X speed but I recommend that you choose the SLOWEST speed that the disc reports it will work at, typically 8X these days. Once again it's about given your system an easier time of it so that you get the best possible CD at the end.

Burn your CD and then wait for the happy jangly song that Image Burn plays when it has finished. Job done.

Since switching to working this way I have had no rejects after the CD has been written.

If you record your own CDs for music or therapy work I recommend you try these tips, they may save you some headaches later.

If you would like to hear my therapy tracks then go to www.gift4life.com where you can buy the MP3 or CD online.

Gift4life.com Web shop & Actinic

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:50:00 +0000

My own e-commerce web shop (www.gift4life.com)was set up for me using Actinic 8 software. It handles everything from didgital downloads to shipping costs.

It's not perfect though, or possibly I have been doing something wrong. I was first alerted to this by a lady from Switzerland who wanted to buy an MP3 hypnosis track but found that the web shop added £10 for post and packing! Not surprisingly she decided not to buy but thankfully she did let me know.

The digital download parts of Actnic seem to work well but I'm not sure how fully integrated it is with the rest of the sytem. There is a system setting tick-box to say don't apply shipping to MP3, this was ticked. So far so good, however I had not defined a shipping zone that included Switzerland, it therefore dropped into a default 'rest of world' class with a default shipping charge of £10. This is potty, this seems to take precidence over the global don't charge shipping setting!

I resolved the issue put putting every single country into a zone even if that zone was 'rest of world'. It feels like a messy work around but it seemed to fix the issue.

Back off holiday and wanting to change

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:45:00 +0000

As is usual at this time of year things go a bit quiet on the personal one to one work as people go away on holiday. There is nothing to do except maintain the web site and wait for the phone calls.

The first of the 'post holiday' calls have now started and is sometimes the case, a husband will call on behalf of a wife (or vice versa). I always do my best to assist people in this situation by providing information but there is a limit on what can be achieved until the person in question contacts me directly.

I am always aware of the potential for one partner putting pressure on the other to make some kind of change. That does not make for positive results.

Take part in a happiness experiement today

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:24:00 +0000

Would you like to take part in an experiment to raise the happiness of the whole country?

Great!

Professor Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire is conducting an experiment that aims to measure the change in happiness possible by doing a short, easy excercise.

If you go the the web site (in the link in the title of this post) you will see a short questionnaire and a short video.

The idea is to fill in the questionnaire to measure the before and after effect of the experiment.

Professor Richard Wiseman, who is leading the study, has high hopes that it will, if enough people participate.

"It's well known that happiness is catching," said Prof Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire. "We hope to spread happiness around the UK. No-one's ever tried cheering up a whole country before, and it's the right time to do it with everyone feeling gloomy from the recession.

"Whether or not it will work depends on how many people take part. I've no idea what the tipping point is. Potentially somewhere like London, which is densely populated, you might find people smiling a lot more. It's a mad idea but it might just work."

For the experiment to succeed, at least 10,000 people need to take part, said Prof Wiseman, adding: "We're hoping for more than that."

Let me know how you get on!

Holidays and contemplation

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Now that the summer holidays have arrived the number of clients I see for the next few weeks is likely to drop away considerably.

The pattern is repeated each year; people go away on holiday, they get some time to reflect on how things are going in their life, they decide to make a change when they get home.

Some people will make those changes without any outside assistance, others will get on the phone and start to find out more about hypnotherapy.

If you are about to go away on holiday it's useful to take some of that time for yourself. Create a space where you can have time to reflect on the goals that have some how slipped away from you, the relationships that have become nothing more than an exchange of Christmas cards and the habits that you would like to get rid of.

It's helpful to think about the positive goals you want to achieve, the new skills you want to acquire, that instrument that you always wanted to learn.

Then when you come home; TAKE ACTION!

Thinking about your goals will achieve nothing unless YOU TAKE ACTION.

This is about YOU and what you want, not what other want you to want. There is a huge difference in those two things.

Seduced.....and disappointed

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:47:00 +0000

I recently acquired a new Blackberry 9000 for work purposes. Initially I was seduced by all its geekiness. It's got push email, a camera that takes video and still pictures, it can use WiFi, it's GPS enabled so you can see where you are, it's 3G download capable and it hooks up to the Bluetooth hands free in the car, the screen looks fantastic. It has everything that your inner geek could need.

But.....I'm coming to the conclusion that actually it's a bit rubbish. Why?

Well all that techno nerdy stuff sucks the life out of the battery in less than a working day, frankly that's crap.

I have resorted to turning off the WifI and Bluetooth connections in a vain attempt to extend the battery but the effect is marginal at best. Not only that but the GPS seems very sulky indeed and says it cannot see any satellites and asks me to go somewhere with 'open sky' , even if I'm stood in a field!

Maybe I just have a clunker, perhaps I'm being unfair but none of the nerdy stuff means anything if the bloody battery is flat.

Until this techno beast arrived I was on an old data only Blackberry and a mobile phone. Charged up, the that combination would be good to work for at least two days, sometimes three with light use.

It seems we have gone backwards. It's just a bit shit really.

Car accidents and terminal stupidity

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:38:00 +0000

I had a car accident in June. I was stationery, got biffed from behind by a huge Nissan 4x4, who didn't stop.

Not too much damage so I go about my business for the day, report it to the claims handling agent at the insurance broker, stop by the police station and let them know as well.

I had spotted the registration plate for the other vehicle as it drove away; it didn't stop.

Did the police prosecute?No, I don't know why, I thought not stopping after an accident was a criminal offence but it seems not.

The car was repaired (huge variation for prices on this, if you have the same problem get at least three quotes) and is now looking good.

Except............

It turns out that even though I emailed the worlds most comprehensive accident report to the claims broker......they didn't action it. They have no record of it....the chap I spoke to is on a different team and he is away sick at the moment (or some other bollocks).

So instead I have to go through the same shit all over again with a girl whose IQ seems to be in single digits.

"Can I send you the pre-prepared document by email" I say?
"That would be no good I don't have a file to put it in" she replied.

Well bloody well make one is what I thinking but I doubt this girl would last five minutes if she went "off script" and so I'm stuck wasting another 30 minutes of my life telling her what happened, to cover for the stupidity and lack of intelligence of the claims company operative.

Massively annoyed and pissed off by the whole bloody system.

What a fucking shambles.

Ethics Doctors and Depression

noreply@blogger.com (John Burns) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:11:00 +0000

When a prospective client gets in touch with a therapist, there is a good chance that they will have already been looking for ways to deal with whatever their issue appears to be.

Often that first port of call is the Family Doctor, the GP.

I have a lot of respect for GPs, they spend their time seeing a huge variety of patients with an almost infinite number of ailments. It's not an easy job, I'm sure.

That said, it is often reported that up to 60% of the problems that patients bring to the GP surgery are psychosomatic, that is to say as much guided by the thought processes and thinking patterns as anything else. Depression arising from redundancy, marriage breakdown or some other cause might get some low intensity CBT, some limited counselling or more likely a dose of anti-depressants.

The way that these issues are dealt with will vary from Doctor to Doctor and from one health authority to another. That Low Intensity CBT might even be delivered by means of PC connected to the internet.

So where is the issue?

If this patient has been through this particular mill and found it lacking, he or she may well call their local Hypnotherapist.

They may talk through the issues at some length before even attempting to construct a therapeutic response. It may be clear from this discussion that the depression is a symptom of other life issues (low self esteem, poor self confidence etc.) that can be dealt with successfully using hypnotherapy. Great!

As part of that discussion the topic of what medications the 'would be' client is taking will be raised. So it will become clear at this point that the GP has diagnosed depression and very likely written a prescription for Prozac or something similar. Unfortunately it seems to be all too easy to reach this conclusion and attach the depression label.

In an ideal world the therapist might write to the GP asking if there was any medical reason why the client/patient should not use hypnotherapy to deal with the root cause of their problems. Hopefully the GP says "it's ok" and we work towards a positive outcome.

Sadly life is rarely that simple. GPs will often refuse to sign anything from outside their office and since as therapists we have a duty of care to client, we probably should not go ahead with any hypnotherapy.

I say probably because the reason most often used by the Doctor for not signing is that they don't understand hypnosis or hypnotherapy. I look at the style of work I have adopted bits of it look like CBT, bits of it involve an element of counselling and of course the use of hypnosis.

If I referred to what I did as Psychotherapy & CBT then I guess life would be easier all round. Perhaps I should forgo the letter to the GP; the Hypnotherapy Society Code Of Ethics does not explicitly call for this but is often considered good practice.

At the moment the outcome is a Doctor's patient who is dealing the symptoms by medication instead of getting to the root cause of the issue.

There has to be a better, more effective way to work than this and perhaps part of that better way forward could be improving the education of GPs as to the usefulness of hypnotherapy.

Anyone out there got some useful ideas to contribute?