E.S.P. – “Excellent Sensory Perception”

In each moment of our lives our internal computer, our brain, is making thousands of decisions based on the information it receives via our external receptors. These are our sight, hearing, feeling, taste and smell which collect information and relay it back to our bank of previous experiences to see if there are any familiar patterns.

For example, if we were to see flames, hear crackling, feel heat, smell burning and taste charcoal in the air we would cross reference this experience with fire.

The context of this fire would then be examined. Is this a fire safe i.e. housed in a hearth surrounded by brick? If yes, our brains will slow down our breathing, relax our muscles and produce calming chemicals that allow us to relax and enjoy the experience.

However is this fire dangerous i.e. has it been started accidentally and is burning the wood of the stairs? If yes, our brains will create our “Stress Response” also known as “Fight or Flight” and consequently speed up our breathing, heart beat, produce adrenaline and nor-adrenaline and increase and polarize our five senses in order to deal with the situation.

The fire is an extreme example to demonstrate a point, but it illustrates how our perceptions of situations are very important. Fire in fireplace = good, fire outside of fireplace = bad.

What if during our lives we created incorrect perceptions? For example, within a dating context I hear people make judgments based on peoples hair or its colour. Blondes have more fun. Dusky maidens are sexiest. You can’t trust men with beards. Shaven headed men are aggressive. From a psychological perspective this is untrue. However, if these people, with the different hair colours or styles, are treated differently because of other peoples misconceptions they may begin to believe this realty and allow it to become their truth.

When I meet somebody new I start with a blank slate, this often takes a moment or two because I have my own bank of experiences and perceptions but I also allow myself to get a “gut feeling” for things to protect myself from harm.

The interesting thing about “gut feeling” or intuition is that it is predominantly right when you are relaxed and predominantly wrong when you are in a state of stress.

Your stomach is one of the most important internal feedback mechanisms you have, every emotion can be felt to a greater or lesser extent in the body, coupled with other physical elements like your skin and muscles. When you are in love or excited you feel butterflies in your stomach and lose your appetite, when you are worried or nervous you have the same physical experience but your physiology and mental processes differ. When you feel guilty or ashamed it’s like a heavy sinking feeling and so on.

One of the reasons people overeat or drink alcohol is to suppress this response from the cells in the stomach. Effectively changing the way they feel by either filling the stomach with food to block the chemical messages from the cells or drinking alcohol which numbs these responders which is why we feel hungry when we’ve drunk a significant amount of alcohol.

I have spent a significant amount of time fine tuning my sensory perception in order to be the best I can be as a coach and therapist, because I feel it is my job to know what is going on in people’s minds before they do.

The only time I get it wrong is when I allow myself to get stressed, I’m only human and I work as much on myself as I do my clients. I feel that if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me! :0)

So my message today is learn to relax, develop your gut instinct and intuition and have an open mind with an awareness that occasionally some people will attempt to get you to do things that aren’t in your best interest and a lot of the time the opposite is true.

Whatever you think the world is, that’s your perception, your truth, your reality!

“Parent, Adult or Child?” (Transactional Analysis)

“Self Doubt and Criticism”

I had a request this month to talk about what could be done about “Self Doubt” and “Self Criticism”, as it was holding a few people back.

Firstly, this week is known to be the most depressing week of the year, with last Monday being the worst day.

This is because we set ourselves New Years Resolutions either consciously by writing them down, or saying to ourselves and other that this year will be better and we’ll do X, Y, Z, or not let A, B, C happen again.

As I’ve said before a new habit or behaviour gets instilled unconsciously roughly after 21 to 28 times or days.

Our minds have a protection mechanism to protect us from taking on any old behaviours, so in week three or the 21st demonstration of the new behaviour it makes it difficult for us.

It does this by making us struggle a little bit more, our minds start asking us questions like “Do I really want to give this up?”, “Is it really worth it?”, “I won’t be able to do this!” and the weaker 95% of us cave in because of this “Self Doubt” and “Self Criticism”.

However, if you persevere and push through this barrier of discomfort you create a new unconscious habit or behaviour which over time gets so easy you forget that struggle you had.

Do you constantly feel anxious and think exactly how to drive your car, or do you just hop in and drive? (Think of riding a bicycle for those of you who can’t or don’t drive).

O.k. now for the Psychology bit about why we have “Self Doubt” and “Self Criticism”…

These thoughts and behaviours are driven by our “Internal Critical Parent” (According to Transactional Analysis or “Super Ego” if you prefer Freud) and it’s there to protect you. It appeals to the “Adapted Child” part of your personality to behave, not take risks etc. in order to keep you safe from harm and (the topic of my book) embarrassment!

 However…

…In a lot of people, myself included, it is turned up too high so it actually causes “Freeze” (the infrequently mentioned brother of “Fight” and “Flight”), which holds you back from making progress and therefore prevents you from achieving your dreams.

It is normally instilled because of anxious or critical parents (particularly if you are the oldest) and didactic Teaching methods.

In therapy I use “Parts Therapy” and sometimes “Regression” techniques to turn it down to normal levels in order to allow people to just get on with those things they want to do. But if you can’t get access to this help for some reason I would suggest the following:

Remember that this “Part” of you is there for a good reason, to protect you.

So with that in mind use “Self Talk” by talking to the “Part” calmly, understanding why it is there, reassuring it and asking for it to back off temporarily in order to allow you to achieve your goal.

Or if you don’t like a trail of thought or internal negative criticism you can just say “STOP!” in your mind, as a very good friend of mine and colleague does. He has changed and achieved so much over the last 12 months that he is an inspiration to be around, nothing is impossible in his world.

You can also reassuring yourself when you are doing something that feels as if it is outside your comfort zone helps, all world class athletes do this, whether they are aware of it or not.

Sometimes if I’m feeling nervous about a new project I’ll say to myself “Come on Nick, you can do this!”. I do this because there are so many things I want to do with my life, I want to be able to look back and know that I gave it my best shot and didn’t give into fear.

So get out there and do those things that you know you want to and enjoy it!

Have a fantastic week!

Nick

“Why Do I Keep Going Back?”

Be Careful What You wish For!

I jokingly posted a status update on my Facebook account wishing to be given Cheryl Cole this Christmas, which reminded me of something a lady said to me at a party some years ago.

I was in my 20’s and I thought I’d draw on this ladies experience (she was in her 40’s) and was known for her wisdom (she could read palms too!), so I asked her what she thought my chances were with a beautiful girl I had been engaging with earlier.

She said “Be careful what you wish for!” with a wry smile.

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

What did she mean “Be careful…”? How could anything bad come out of wanting to be with someone I was attracted to.

Then she went on to explain that we makes “wishes” a lot in our lives, sometimes when we feel good, sometimes when we feel sad or depressed and sometimes these wishes are just a response to a situation.

How many times when be told off as a child by a parent or teacher and thought “I hate you!” and not mean it and felt bad afterwards.

Luckily, our unconscious mind generally ignores single requests like this and responds when we have consistently and emotionally requested something. This is why habits are difficult to change without Hypnosis or Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

Also this lady went on to explain that when we wish for something not to happen, we also create an attraction to it. For example if I say to you “Don’t think of a blue bus now!”, you have to think of it, then un-think it.

I remember this happening to me when I trained most days with weights or boxing because of a fear of violence I had, but because I was making pictures in my mind of what I didn’t what to happen I seemed to attract these situations.

Now I create pictures of the things I want and create matching positive affirmative internal dialogue. If I catch myself thinking negatively I change it as quickly as I can, this takes practice and I’m still working on it, but the dividends it pays make it worth while.

So this Christmas I urge you “Be careful what you wish for!”, think positively and have the most fantastic Christmas ever!

Oh yes, my wish did come true.

Merry Christmas!

Nick

Prison Inmates

Locked up in a prison in North Vietnam for 7 long and arduous years American Major, James Nesmeth decided to use his time differently. Rather than focus on the harsh conditions of his incarceration and allow his bleak and harrowing existence to engulf his thoughts, he decided to take control of his mind.

Every single day for four hours, he closed his eyes and imagined in vivid detail that he was at his country golf club. He included every detail; visually (sight) – from the interior colours and design of the club house, to the different shades of green of the grass on the fairway. Auditarily (sound) – the swishing sound of each club being drawn from the bag, to the gentle rustling of the wind I the trees. Kinaesthetically (feeling) – the feel of the grip of his favourite driver to the feeling of his feet inside his golfing shoes. Olfactarily (smell) – the smell of the freshly cut grass to the scent of the leather of his golfing bag. Gustatorarily (taste) – he even imagined the taste change in his saliva with the anticipation of his sporting enjoyment.

He imagined this experience in every detail as if it were real, the drive to the clubhouse, the banter with his sporting colleagues, the walk to the first tee and the practise swings before taking each shot. Over 7 years he invested approximately 10220 hours of mental rehearsall, never leaving any detail out.

When he was released from prison, he had a real desire to return to his golf club and play “another” round of golf. In his first “real” game of golf for 7 years he scored an amazing 74!

Apart from proving that mental rehearsal is as effective (if not more) and assists physical practise, it also demonstrates what happens when we control our own minds rather than letting it control us.

The interesting thing for me is that a lot of clients I see are trapped in their own “prisons”, surrounded by concrete walls and bars of negativity, self doubt and low self esteem. There is nothing physical stopping them from making changes, just that critical parental voice telling them the downsides and pitfalls of any lofty ideas they may have to improve their lives.

Whenever we move forward and break out of that old comfort zone our internal parent seeks to protect us by warning us of what can go wrong and making it easier for us to slip back into the quilt-like warmth of our old behaviours. It’s essentially installed as a safety mechanism, but because of the government and media we live in fear and this safety switch is triggered far too soon.

It’s not a weakness to ask for help in developing yourself, even though those we have voted into power have stigmatized this kind of assistance and made people feel broken or abnormal, which is simply not true.

On my journey I didn’t have anyone like myself to help me, so I invested (and still do) massive amounts of time in learning about the mind; reading books, listening to audio CDs and watching DVDs on Psychology, Hypnosis, Neuro Linguistic Programming, anything to do with how our brains work.

I feel very lucky that I have put myself in a position to help those people who have the courage to look for help. I know exactly what it’s like, having escaped my own metaphoric “prisons” many times and I’m sure there will be many more to come as I keep pushing forward and developing myself.

One essential ingredient that is inherent in every successful person I’ve ever met is tenacity, a complete 100% resolution to one successful outcome, no back door, no plan B.

And remember, if you feel you can’t do it alone there are people out there that can help you.

Enjoy your week!

Take care,

Nick

Look for the Gold

Yesterday was a really good day for me.

I helped a few people with hypnotherapy and NLP, I was also working with two guys I respect in my field on a couple of projects for the New Year and my marketing assistant was all revved up and looking for new business opportunities.

To make this even better, I received an email from a discus thrower I had worked with called Kevin Brown who had won his third gold medal in October! He had sent me a photograph of the newspaper article dedicating his success to my Hypnosis sessions (picture attached). I was so pleased because this goal meant so much to him and he is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet, but also was touched by his kindness in not only saying I had helped him but sending a picture of the article to me.

I put the article on Facebook and was checking the “Newsfeed” (I’m still not sure how that works? LOL) when I noticed a “Sports Mind Coach” had set up a group site so I thought I’d take a look. As I began reading the page I noticed the words had once again, (he’d done this on his website previously), been taken directly from my Sports Psychology website www.NDSP.co.uk and I found myself getting annoyed. Anyone who knows me knows the amount time and effort I have spent over the last 4 years developing my website, skills and products, helping hundreds of sports people (mostly boxers), which I am extremely proud of.

My mood had changed because my intellectual property had been stolen by someone who had done this in the past…I felt annoyed, why would anyone do this?

But then something happened!

An unconscious insight came to me and I asked myself “Why does this matter to me?”

I looked into the situation a little more; this guy had little or no experience, no testimonials or any measurable results from sportsmen or women and had difficulty talking in public.

I laughed to myself as I thought if he’s copying my stuff word for word it must be good! It’s rather like a child wears a football top with his favourite players name on it because he wants to be like him. And in boxing terms it would be like Manny Pacquiao getting annoyed by a journeyman boxer who was telling everyone he was the best, so I began to see it in a different perspective.

I thought once again about how great my life was because of the hard work I had put in…

…and I felt brilliant again.

On the road to success you will experience a few “bumps”, it’s how we react to these that affects the way we feel and how much success we have.

David Beckham recently said about his difficult time with LA Galaxy “There’s never a smooth road. There are always a few bumps along the way and there has been. But that’s kind of been my career. There have always been ups and downs – more ups than downs but that’s the way it is, that’s life.”

What keeps me motivated and inspired is having the mindset that my successes are the result of my skills and hard work, rather than accidents or freak occurrences.

Stuff happens, people do things and circumstances happen that disrupt your plans. I understand this will always happen so I look for the “Gold” in every situation. When I say Gold, I mean the positive insight or message.

Say to yourself “How can I view this situation in a way that will help me learn something or feel differently?”

Emotions are just energy, if you are using that energy to feel bad, it can also be used to feel good or to take action to do something that makes you feel good.

So whenever you are faced with a challenge…

…Look for the Gold!

Have a great day!

Nick

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Shocking Relationship Statistic!

Fight or Flight…or Freeze?

Have you ever noticed that when you try to do something new, a new sport or hobby, speaking in front of people or approaching someone you find attractive, your body reacts in a certain way that can make you feel uncomfortable?

I worked with a young man recently who wanted to improve his confidence so he could find a girlfriend and share his life with her. The problem he found was that when he found somebody attractive, his whole body froze, including his ability to talk.

Now this is more common than you think. People, including therapists, often forget that the stress response includes “Freeze” as well as “Fight or Flight”. This is an area that really interests me as a proportion of my work involves working with boxers, who literally deal with the threat of being physically hurt every time they step into the ring.

So why would the body create a “Freeze” response? Well, its true name is “Animal Hypnosis” and its response is to stay perfectly still so as not to pose a threat in order for the aggressor not to notice the person or choose a more challenging victim.

Is it useful? I don’t think so, you could site exceptional circumstances, but in everyday life it limits our choices and that creates more stress.

So what can we do? Well in order to create any emotion or state, certain things have to be happen and most of the time we are not consciously aware of this process. Firstly we make pictures in our mind; secondly we will hear sounds associated with those, including our own internal voice and then there will be a change in our physiology and breathing. These components create our state, which in turn influences the way we behave.

In the example of the young gentleman earlier, he made big pictures of the lady in question rejecting him loudly; he berated himself with his internal voice and consequently his whole muscular system tightened in order to protect him from his perceived outcome.

The funny thing was when I asked him how he would react to asking an old lady the time, he smiled and said “That’s easy!” and I noticed his whole body soften and he stood taller.

So what was different? The pictures he made were of the old lady responding positively to him in a warm tone, didn’t notice any negative chatter in his mind and he breathed softly and his muscles were relaxed.

Remember, it’s important to focus on what you DO want, NOT what you don’t.

Kindest regards,

Nick

Do You Believe in Voodoo?

Do You Believe in Voodoo?

In Alabama one evening, Vance Vaders got into an argument with a local witch doctor in the town’s cemetery. The witch doctor became agitated and waved a strange smelling substance in front of Vance’s nose and told him he was going to die and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Vaders became ill and deteriorated quickly, after a few weeks and nearing death his wife contacted a local doctor in desperation and told him of the spell.

Luckily doctor Drayton Doherty was aware of this phenomena, so he planned a way to lift the hex. He told Vance and his wife that he had found the witch doctor and strangled him until he admitted that he had rubbed a lizard’s egg on his stomach causing a lizard to grow inside him and eat him from the inside out.

The doctor injected Vance with a substance to cause him to vomit violently, then took a lizard he had stored in his bag with the dexterity of a magician and seemed to produce this from Vader’s vomit. Vance seemed to go into shock when he saw the lizard and whilst in this state of suggestibility Doherty said “Look what has come out of you Vance, the voodoo curse is lifted!”.

Vaders was clearly shocked and fell into a deep sleep, he woke the next day with a raging hunger, recovered quickly and was discharged after a week.

This story was corroborated by four independent medical health professionals.

Another example is Sam Shoeman who was misdiagnosed with terminal liver cancer in the 1970’s and given a few months to live. Shoeman did die within the predicted timescale, however his autopsy showed that not only was the tumour a lot smaller than he had been diagnosed with, but it was tiny and had not spread at all. Clifton Meador, a doctor at Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee who has documented many cases like this said “He didn’t die from cancer, but from believing he was dying of cancer,” says Meador. “If everyone treats you as if you are dying, you buy into it. Everything in your whole being becomes about dying.”

This is what’s known as the “Nocebo Effect”, the term “Nocebo” which means “I will harm” a negative suggestion which gives rise to an expectation of a certain result.

A funny looking chap dressed in a robe with a necklace made of Aligator teeth, chanting incantations may not spook you into believing his suggestions. But imagine a Doctor with his white coat, stethoscope, certificates of qualification on his wall telling you have a certain condition, would you question it or take it as written in stone?

Our beliefs are very important to the creation of our future.

Most of us are all aware how the “Placebo Effect” works.

When trialing new drugs, they are tested against a control group who are given a substance that has no effect on their health. In all cases some of the control group are shown to make an improvement in whatever condition is being treated.

I am even aware of one person who asked to be kept on the placebo pills as they helped improve his Parkinsons.

So our own beliefs and expectations shape the outcomes we experience in life.

What would it be like if you could consistently think about positive outcomes?

Have a great day!

Nick