I have been very fortunate in my practice as a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist with the number of people who choose me to support them. I always see it as a privilege to be chosen to help someone and cheerlead with them as they move towards the next level. Whatever that maybe.
Spending some time in my twenties seeing therapists for my own mental health, one thing that stuck out for me during that time was the amount of beige in the room. Neutral tones of nothingness. I knew when I qualified six years ago that this wasn’t going to be how I would like my practice, and I have built what I and my clients consider a therapy lounge of comfort – enabling that therapy-at-home feeling.
Being solution focused has helped me to achieve this. I would never have had the confidence to just show up as myself before getting solution focused hypnotherapy. I was too scared even to put a bright idea into action.
This therapy helped me to embrace all the things I love, and, yes, some are weird. I love pineapples and so have pineapple wallpaper. And I love pink, so clearly my room matches my hair!
My weird has helped me to work with those who see that it’s OK to embrace crazy hair colours, wear clothes others may not like, but more importantly learn to be more YOU.
We are not here to be a carbon copy of someone else – a great line from a language pattern and one that resonates with my clients so often.
So many clients, especially the younger ones, begin to gain an insight into the fact that they too can embrace all of the weird and wonderful things about themselves, and grow in confidence to be able to achieve them. With so many life struggles on top of trying to find where you fit in, sometimes, it can be nice to embrace the fact that you don't and that’s OK.
It takes courage and bravery to take those first steps, but we all know, once that amygdala has sat back down and is behaving, that intellectual brain can have a funfair of imaginative experiences that can become reality.
One of my recent clients commented on her last session that this therapy should be called the “physics of craziness” because she has now realised lots of the things she enjoys, she had put off in case someone else judged her. She now embraces all the things she loves and continues to write down her “what’s been good?” every day.
Embracing all of the weird life throws at us and owning it confidently is definitely a superpower in its own right.
Nicole Woodcock