The Head Trash Show | Mindset | Stress | Mindfulne 6y2a1g

I’m not the first person to say this so it shouldn’t be news to you, but if you want to change the world start with yourself. The “world” doesn’t have to be some grandiose idea about changing humanity, it can be as simple as changing YOUR world. And this couldn’t be truer when it comes to your stresses. If you find yourself being stressed out by LIFE and the people in it, maybe it’s time for you to take a look in the mirror, because maybe it’s YOU that’s creating the stress in the first place. Hear me out! When you’re stressed, people will pick up on your stress… maybe not consciously, but it will be affecting them on some level. And this is even more so when it comes to your kids. If your kids are running riot and stressing you out, maybe they’re simply responding to your stressy state; your stress is stresssing them out which is making them go a wee bit crazy. Something happened to me on holiday this year which really brought this home to me. And it involved VOMIT! I want to share it with you because it really brings this idea to smelly light. Our holiday this year involved quite a bit of driving… airports and planes with a 10 month old is NOT a holiday! But, my two girls are prone to being sick in the car and this is something that completely stresses me out. I think I was traumatised when my eldest was one and she was being sick in the back while I was doing a long drive on my own. We were in road works and I couldn’t stop the car… All I could hear was liquidy vomit gurgling in her throat and splatting everywhere, and I was panicking that she was choking on it. It was horrible! Not to mention the state of the car! And the smell! Ever since, long journeys get me stressed before we start because of my fear of vomit and either one of them being sick. Looking back, that was clearly the moment that my fear of vomit was instilled. So I was just starting one such journey; a 4-hour drive to Wales. I was picking up my French Aunt at the airport on the way. Timing was everything and stresses were high. Once we picked her up I knew we’d have to stop the car soon… preventative measures and a possible nappy change… We were just over an hour into the journey. We got back into the car and things seemed to go ok for a while. Then the the little one started whimpering. That was it! I was sure this was a cue to an imminent vomit fest, so you can imagine what state I was in. We stopped for some fresh air and a bit of a wander around some greenery. And then we stopped again. And again. There was no vomit, but as far as I was concerned this was because I was managing this situation beautifully… ha! #delusional My aunt dared to suggest that the only reason she was crying was because she was picking up on my stress-vibes, and that I needed to do the work i.e. clear my head trash! Ha! Perceptive lady! By the time we reached our destination, our 4-hour drive had turned into a day trip. Not good. So when the time came for the return journey I knew I had to do some head trash clearance before we started. I needed to shake my fear of vomit stress. The practical stuff was done as I had already covered the back seats in loads of blankets, so really I just needed to sort my head out. So I worked on clearing my fear of kids vomiting in the car , and then just vomit and people vomitting (loving and hating vomit etc). It didn’t take me long and I only did the super quick emergency version. Once that was done, I was super chilled about the thought of vomit. In fact I didn’t care. They could be sick all over the place for all I could care. The car would be fine, they would be fine. IT’S OK! So we set off on our 4-hour journey. It wasn’t long before they fell asleep. An hour into the journey and just before the motorway (we were in Wales !) I stopped for diesel and a pee. And then I could finally put my foot down. And I did! They were asleep so I wanted to get as many miles done before they woke up and felt sick. And then that’s when it started getting weird. Weird as in NORMAL. The 10 month old woke up and started singing and playing with her toys. Then after a bit, she fell back asleep. The 4-year old who never sleeps for more than an hour in the car just kept sleeping. My aunt and I were getting hungry and wanted to stop for a drink and a snack but as long as they were both asleep we thought we’d best carry on. Surely it would be better to just get back as soon as possible. Thank goodness I went for a pee back in Wales! The miles were zipping by and my two kids were still sleeping. I was super chilled because I didn’t really care if they would be sick, I just wanted to get home. And the crazy thing is that they just kept sleeping. They finally woke up when I got off the motorway 20 minutes from home. THEY SLEPT for 3 1/2 hours! They NEVER sleep for that long! EVER! Not on any car journey, nor at home! We ended up doing the journey in one go. I couldn’t believe it. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, because I know that doing this clearance work works. I’ve had so many tangible results over the years that I really shouldn’t be surprised, but I was. I never for one minute thought that them being sick was linked to the stress I was feeling at fearing the possibility that they might be sick. Now, I’m not saying that kids being sick in the car is because their parents are stressed, but for some it might be. And it was certainly the case for me. So, if you find yourself being triggered by situations and people around you, perhaps it’s time to take a moment to reflect and figure out if you might be contributing to it somehow. If you want to clear any fears or stresses using the technique that I used, just grab the free 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method and go for it!The post My fear of vomit made my kids sick appeared first on Head Trash.

Do you find that you’re holding on to patterns of thought, behaviours and bodily dis-ease that you’d just rather shake? Well, you’re going to love today’s podcast. Today I chat to Matt Sison, who is an author, speaker and a coach who shares his approach for letting go of what he calls the conditions and programs that hold you back from your authentic voice and action. “Matt Sison is the guy who other therapists go to when they have problems. I have seen him work with the most difficult cases imaginable, cases that other therapists have given up on, and he works magic. More importantly, he has done his own work, he’s faced his demons, and has come out on the other side as an embodiment of love, caring, sincerity, but most of all peace. I absolutely love his Reflective Transformations system, which is a synthesis of hypnosis, hypnotherapy regression, Emotional Freedom Techniques, affirmations, yoga, meditation, martial arts, and a whole lot more. Matt’s system is worth its weight in gold.” Eric B. Robins, MD Urologist and Mind-Body Healing Expert Co-author, Your Hands Can Heal You, and The Power of Prana Letting go Three months ago, just before the scheduled launch of his book, Matt had a stroke. At 46 years old, it was unexpected to say the least. He lost all control of one half of his body and the doctors told him that it would take him months if not years to recover. But, being someone who firmly walks his talk, he went inward to try to understand the message that his body was screaming at him. During our fasinating chat, he shares how he creates the space for himself to be able to “hear” what his body is telling him … clue: it’s usually about letting go of something emotional how we can detect when the body is trying to communicate with us the steps he uses when working on letting go of whatever emotional baggage needs to be let go of the power of opposites in doing this kind of work (< I love that bit!!) Matt even does some clearance work on me using his simple framework, which will help you to try his approach for yourself. It’s so simple, that you’d be silly not to give it a go! Matt then finishes off our chat by talking about his book and what you can expect to gain from reading it. His book is available right now from Amazon on Kindle and in print. You can find out more about Matt at his site www.MattSison.com and his book here www.LifeIsThePerfectSystem.comThe post Letting go, with Matt Sison appeared first on Head Trash.

Feeling rejected sucks! I’m saying that because that’s how it felt to me when I felt rejected a few weeks back. It all started with an email landing in my inbox. Without going into masses of detail, the email basically said “We don’t want you anymore! We changed our minds.” It was a business thing…  I had jumped through hoops and done a shed-load of work to be part of this THING, and I ed! I made it… all my hard work had paid off. When I got the email back in April letting me know that I was in, I was over the moon. So to get this new email a couple of weeks ago saying “aah well, we’ve changed our minds” really sucked! The email arrived in the first hour of the day and totally ruined my morning. I really struggled to get any work done because feeling rejected like that felt so rubbish. By lunchtime, I decided that I really should clear this silly head trash. So after some thought, I realised that I was feeling rejected so that’s what I decided to clear in myself. As I sat down to use the 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Methodto clear my feeling rejected head trash, I thought I’d video myself clearing it. I figured that feeling rejected was something that a lot of people must experience too, and that it might be useful for people to see me clearing my head trash to see the 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Methodin action. So, that’s what I did. If you want to see the video, you need to make sure that you’ve signed up to receive the 5 step method as I’ll only be sharing that video with the people who are interested in using the 5 step method… so if that’s you – sign up! (that big flaming arrow on the right is where, or on any of the 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Methodlinks in this blog post) Now, the interesting thing for me is what’s happened since. Sure, once I’d finished clearing it, I was feeling soooo much better about that crappy email. In fact, I was laughing about it and how silly it was of me to even get emotional about such a thing. But, later as the work started to settle, I realised that being part of the THING that I was feeling rejected from, was actually keeping me commited to doing a whole bunch of stuff in my business that I no longer wanted to be doing. And so now I could release myself from that stuff and focus on what really mattered to me. I felt liberated! Since then, the clarity, the energy and the motivation that I’ve experienced has been phenomenal. And to think that was all from spending 20 minutes doing some head trash clearance work. So, now I sit here grateful for that email and how it made me feel. Because without it I wouldn’t have felt the need to clear my feelings of rejection, which wouldn’t have led to this increased clarity and focus that I’m experiencing.  The post How to cope with feeling rejected appeared first on Head Trash.

If you’ve been wondering how to stop smoking then you are are going to LOVE this week’s podcast. This week I chat to fellow Head Trash Clearance specialist, Shaun Hopkins, about how to stop smoking using our 5 step process (Reflective Repatterning). I’ve been asked many times What makes this podcast brilliant is Shaun’s story. Shaun has been smoking since he was 14 years old and due to certain life events was also sufferer of PTSD, so smoking was a huge coping mechanism for him. But, Shaun was not only smoking cigarettes, but he as also smoking weed… LOTS OF WEED! In fact in his words, he was smoking GARGANTUAN amounts of weed. And he means it! You have to listen to find out exactly how much. Over the years Shaun had tried lots of things to quit smoking, but none of them had worked. So once he trained in Reflective Repatterning, he thought he’d tackle some of the fears that he had around stopping, without trying to actually stop. He never thought for one minute he’s end up stopping WITHOUT EVEN TRYING! You read that right. When he sat down to clear his fears around stopping, it was not his intention to stop, because that was just too scary for him. So in today’s podcast, Shaun shares with us exactly what he did to stop smoking. How to stop smoking using Reflective Repatterning In a nutshell this is what he did; Asked himself this “what is stopping me from stopping smoking?” Smoked a t. Brainstormed a list Smoked a t. Cleared each item on his list in turn using the 5 step process. In between ts. Cleared the opposite for each item on his list. In between ts. That’s it! So if you’ve been desperate to find out how to stop smoking, then look no further. It’s now been 4 months since he smoked and he simply not interested in smoking. He’s achieved total neutrality around smoking, both cigarettes and weed / cannabis. Stop Smoking Sessions When we finished recording the podcast, Shaun I were chatting and decided to come up with specialist sessions to help you to quit smoking. So if you feel you need additional in stopping smoking, then we are there to help you. You can find out more about our Stop Smoking Sessions right here. Have you tried to stop smoking before? How did you get on? What did you do? If you decide to try this, we’d love to know how you get on. Let us know in the comments!The post How to stop smoking appeared first on Head Trash.

There’s a psychologist called Eric Robinson who has a surprising tool for weight loss. Clue: we all have one, but we don’t use it as much as we could and we are always losing it. Our memory! I first came across Robinson’s work in this BBC article How to curb hunger pangs with your mind and immediately I was intrigued. I’ve long believed that we underestimate the role the mind plays in our eating habits, but had not read much about this… until now! Here’s a bit of backstory to save you from reading the BBC article. Robinson stumbled across this idea when he noticed that people with terrible memories – those suffering from anterograde amnesia – would have no recollection of any of the food they had eaten 20 minutes prior. In a study, two men were given a plate of sandwiches and cake which they ate until they were full. 15 minutes later they were given another plate, and the the two amnesiacs tucked in a second time. They had forgotten that they had already eaten! Isn’t that interesting? You would think that our bodies would know if we had eaten or not and whether we were ACTUALLY hungry. But apparently not. In fact, our body and brain can be easily fooled. Here’s a brilliant study that proves it. Jeff Brunstrom at the University of Bristol asked his study participants to eat a bowl of soup. Simple right? Ha! well, unbeknownst to them he hooked a pipe to the bowl through the table which meant that he could top up their soup without them noticing. What he found was soup-er interesting. How much they snacked later, depended only on how much soup appeared in the bowl at the beginning – big bowl or small bowl – and NOT how much they actually ate. So, if you thought that hunger was completely controlled by your body, think again! The mind has a much bigger role than we thought. Brunstrom did another study. This time he asked people to eat with one hand while they played solitaire with the other and what he found was that because they were distracted, they struggled to recall the meal later and pigged out on more biscuits later in the day. This now starts drifting into the idea of mindful eating; being present and focused on the food you’re eating… noticing the colours, the taste, the sensation of the food in your mouth, the smell and how it feels going down your throat. In fact Brusnstom asked some obese women in another study to eat a plate of sandwiches mindfully. When it came to snacking 3 hours later, the mindful eaters ate 30% fewer calories. That’s pretty staggering! But wait! there’s more… There’s a group of researchers that have found that by simply visualising you cravings – in full glorious technicolour 3D – seems to trick the mind that it’s actually eaten. Now this visualising trick is nothing new. We know that the mind can’t tell the difference between something imagined and real, which is what makes visualisation such a powerful technique for athletes. So we shouldn’t be surprised that we can use it when it comes to food.. but who would have imagined it would work, when we thought that our hunger pangs were controlled by our body? Now, if I had to choose between mindful eating and visualisation, I know which I’d rather choose… the eating one! So how do we become more mindful when it comes to eating? Well, you might be interested to know that there are some core principles of mindful eating. Michelle May’s book, Eat What You Love Love What You Eat: How to Break Your Eat-Repent-Repeat Cycle she shares the mindful eating cycle which is basically a series of questions designed to create a gap between your I-want-food-trigger and your response; eating. Since most people eat for reasons other than physical hunger, “Why do I eat?” is a great place to start if you want to change your behaviour. “Why do I eat?” may include triggers such as physical hunger, challenging situations, or visual cues, which often spring from stress, fatigue, or boredom. “When do I want to eat?” The answer may depend on the clock, physical hunger cues, or emotions. “What do I eat?” this helps you to take a closer look at the factors you consider when choosing food, such as convenience, taste, comfort, and nutrition. “How do I eat?” Which are you when you eat – rushed, mindful, distracted, or secretive? In our technological, on-the-go society, exploring the this aspect alone can be eye-opening. “How much do I eat?” Quantity may be decided by physical fullness cues, package size, habit, or whether someone else is serving your food. “Where does the energy go?” Eating may be invigorating for you or could cause sluggishness. It might even lead to guilt or shame. How do you use the energy from your food during work or play? Here’s a great little diagram that shows the cycle in action that I’ve taken from this brilliant article that shows a ton of research that s this approach for people who might be wondering how to lose weight with your mind and fancy seeing the science. This approach (Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT)) has had quite a bit of research done into it and it works. particularly with binge-eating disorder (BED), One of the studies that examined MB-EAT showed that the number of binge-eating episodes among participants decreased from slightly more than four per week to about 1.5, and that many patients no longer met the diagnostic criteria for the disorder. That’s pretty amazing for something that is essentially so simple. So, if you want to tap into the power of your mind to lose weight, here are some exercises that you can do. How to lose weight with your mind Here are some exercises that you can try when you’re hungry Rate Your Hunger Create a hunger scale ranging from 0 to 10 (0 being the most hungry and 10 being the least hungry). To help you do this, ask yourself : What does a 0 feel like physically when you’re extremely hungry? (Common answers are headaches, irritation, shakiness, and fatigue.) What does a 10 feel like, when you’re as full as you can imagine? (Common answers are nauseous, bloated, fatigued, swollen, accompanied by feelings of shame or guilt.) Where are you right now on a scale of 0 to 10? What do you notice about your body that made you choose that number? Why not keep a journal of your hunger rating before, during, and after each meal for three days,  noting any triggers or physical cues that led to the choice of that rating. Now that you have a hunger scale, you can rate your hunger every you feel the need to have food. When you get a hunger pang… 1. Rate your hunger 2. Ask yourself, Why do I want some food? If the hunger rating is high, then maybe you’re actually hungry, but maybe you’re doing it for other reasons. Note what they are. If it’s a social trigger, then ask yourself whether eating is the only option. If it’s an emotional feeling that you’r trying to mask or escape from , then try clearing that emotion using our 5 step process: 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method If after going through the rest of the mindful eating questions, you decide that you really are hungry, then drink a half A pint of water and wait 20 minutes. Hunger is often dehydration. If after your glass of water, you’re still hungry – you have 2 options; Option 1 – EAT! But, when you do, eat mindfully. Like this… How to Eat Food Mindfully Take a raisin, grape, strawberry, piece of cheese, or chocolate.* Observe the appearance and texture. Is there an aroma? What kind of changes do you notice in your body as you observe this food? (Answers may include salivation, impatience, anticipation, and nothing.) Place a small amount of the food in your mouth, and do not chew it. After 30 seconds (wait 1 minute for chocolate), start chewing. After you’ve finished eating, ask yourself the following questions: • What did you notice about the flavor or texture before you started chewing the food? After you started chewing? • How does that compare with your typical experience? Option 2 – Visualise eating your food Instead of eating when you’re hungry, visualise eating your favourite food. Maybe do a mini meditation for 5 minutes as you visualise everything about that eating experience.   Have you tried doing any of these? Have they worked for you? Tell me about your successes in the comments!The post How to lose weight with your mind appeared first on Head Trash.

Most of us understand what it means to love another person. The emotional investment coupled with feelings of intense desire and iration is familiar territory for us. In fact, we consciously take time to nurture and develop our live with others… we say nice things, we offer gifts, we do nice things, and importantly we let them know how we feel. But loving ourselves? Some people just find that plain weird. So what is self love? Well, maybe we should start with what ISN’T self-love… Here are some tell tale signs of not loving ourselves regular negative self talk putting ourselves down with talk of discouragement and you push yourself to do things you don’t like doing you become angry at yourself when you make mistakes you are critical about yourself; your body, your decisions, your behaviour, the way you look, your choices you tend to put others first you find it hard to speak up for yourself you find it hard to exercise, eat well, or break bad habits. you don’t look after yourself – No concern for your outward appearance: Putting on dirty clothes, skipping showers, or just plain looking like a mess. you feel insecure when other people are doing well: perhaps getting offended or feeling bad somehow when other people have what you want What is self love? Self-love is a combination of self-acceptance, self-awareness, and kindness and respect for ourselves. Self-love is both an idea, a concept in our minds that we are worthy of self respect and gentleness, and an action; treating ourselves with comion and love. This all sounds fine and dandy, but how on earth do we turn things around? How to love yourself On a conscious level, you can begin by Spend some time coming up with a list of all the things that make you awesome and brilliant… ask your friends and family! to take the time to celebrate your successes, no matter how small… just not to fall into the trap of ‘rewarding’ yourself with takeaways, junk food, excessive alcohol on a regular basis, because that is probably more about a LACK of self love. Do things that make you feel amazing Come up with some positive affirmations and cite them regularly to yourself Catch yourself saying the negative things, and re-write your internal script But, as you will know if you follow this blog and podcast, I’m more interested in how we can dive down deep into the subconscious and do a bit of rewiring… all this conscious action can take a while to take effect and I’m a bit impatient. So I prefer to take the shortcuts even if I pick up a few scratches along the way! Of course, what I’m about to suggest will involve using our 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method, so if you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, do it now. Create neutrality around the core aspects of Self Love This is important if you’re to make any progress. Here is a list of things that you could start by working on using the 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method love, loving myself , self love respect, respecting myself, self respect acceptance self acceptance kindness, being kind putting myself/one’s self first Take a look in the mirror and say I LOVE YOU Put some time aside to sit in front of a mirror. Look yourself in the eyes and simply say to yourself “I love you”. Keep repeating this and notice what you feel. You might find this quite hard and it might even make you cry. But stay with it. Even if you just do this, you’ll be making progress, but I want you to take this further. Notice what you’re feeling when you say this to yourself. What is the resistance that is popping up into your head? Notice the phrases that appear in your mind. Also, notice where your feelings are showing up in your body. Then I want you ‘catch’ what you’re thinking and feeling and add that to the list of things you need to clear using the 5 step process. You might want to start by putting all of these thoughts and feelings in an imaginary bucket and then refer to the bucket contents as THIS and simply add THIS to your list – your subconscious will know what you mean, but be sure to bring all of THIS to your mind when you’re working on it. Once you’ve cleared THIS, repeat the process again and notice the difference. Notice what’s changed in your mind and your body. The more you go through this, the more easy it will be to identify the dominant thoughts and feelings that need one-on-one attention and that need to be cleared individually. So, how did you get on? What resistance came up for you? What shifts have you noticed? Let me know in the comments!The post How to love yourself appeared first on Head Trash.

In this podcast I thought I’d spend a bit of time talking about how head trash might show up in your life and to help you to trace it back to its roots cause and what you can do about it. Today I’m going to talk about something that I think we all feel at some point… feeling trapped. What is that all about then? And is there anything that can be done about it? Well, yes there is something you can do about it. If you’re feeling trapped for whatever reason… maybe in your job, in a relationship, or in the town that you live in… then NEWSFLASH!! … it’s just a feeling. You’re not ACTUALLY trapped. Unless you’re locked in a cell or a cage, or tied to a wall, then your feelings of being trapped, are just that… FEELINGS. And the great thing about feelings is that we can change them. But I’m not talking about positive thinking stuff.. I’m talking about some rewiring of thought.. some repatterning! Why are you feeling trapped? If you’re feeling trapped, then it’s likely that one of your key values in life is freedom. You LOVE freedom, and so you HATE being trapped. The thing is, these are natural opposites and so the love for one will feed the hate of the other. And the more you love one, the more you’ll hate the other. Why? Newtons 3rd Law of course! Newton’s 3rd Law states that: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that for every force there is a reaction force that is equal in size, but opposite in direction. That is to say that whenever an object* pushes another object* it gets pushed back in the opposite direction equally hard. *objects are matter and matter is energy, and I’m talking about emotional energy so the same universal law applies So how do you get out of this mess? Well the answer is to clear the excessive emotional energy that currently exists at both ends. Or to put it another way, to create neutrality. Neutrality is the absence of emotionally charged negative thoughts, feelings and emotions… giving you freedom choice and flexibility.   What can you do if you’re feeling trapped? Practically, that means using our 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Methodto clear FREEDOM and TRAPPED… it’ll probably take you around 45 minutes… but could be one of the most transformational 45 minutes you’ve ever spent. But, doing this might not totally resolve your problem because you might have some value conflicts going on too. Specifically you might have a value conflict involving freedom…. Freedom Vs Family Family is often on a direct collision corse with freedom for some people… their need for freedom is so strong that some people check out of the family set up, just to FEEL free. Freedom Vs Success Success requires knuckling down and doing the work, which might mean compromising on your freedom in the short term… but if freedom wins short term, then success might never succeed. Freedom Vs Love Some people are afraid of commitment because they value freedom so much, and yet love is really important to them, but freedom wins short term and love is never given the space to grow… and yet true love ultimately means freedom but their fear or hate of being trapped prevents them from ever getting to that place. If you think you have value conflicts then you need to neutralise your values (and their opposites using the 5 step process and that will enable you to find a way forward that enables your values to exist collaboratively rather than competitively.  The post Are you feeling trapped? appeared first on Head Trash.

If your body is suffering from some physical conditions or dis-ease, then maybe a good place to start is by taking a closer look at what’s going on in your head. The link between mind and body is finally being acknowledged by the scientific community and the field of psycho-neuro-immunology (PNI) is where some of the latest scientific thinking in this area is taking place. Using your mind to heal the body In today’s podcast I chat to Dr Eva Detko about this new exciting field to try and understand more about what it can teach us in of using our minds to heal the body. During our fascinating chat, Dr Eva shares some great ways that we can begin to tap into the power of the mind to heal the body including; using visualisations of the body healing itself of toxins giving the body time to heal making time to relax perhaps through a meditation practice keeping a rain check on your beliefs, minimising the presence of negative emotions Dr Eva also talks about the importance of a clean diet – filtered water, organic, gluten free, no sugar – and how when we feel sluggish or low in energy, that this is most likely to be down to our mental wellbeing. When we talk about the power of our beliefs, Dr Bruce Lipton’s work is mentioned, as well as the scientific field of epigenetics. I interviewed an epigenticist on this podcast a while back so you might want to listen to that episode too – you can listen to my chat with epigeneticist Charan Surdhar here. Dr Eva also talks about the power of hypnosis in helping with things like Chronic pain and talked about a Yourtube video where a man undergoes a hernia operation without anaesthetic but simply by using hypnosis. You can watch this video below. Hypnosurgery live   What do you think ing the mind to heal the body? Have you tried to heal yourself using mind techniques? What success have you had? Let me know in the comments.The post Using the mind to heal the body, with Dr Eva Detko appeared first on Head Trash.

In today’s podcast, I’m thrilled and honoured to bring you an interview with Kevin Laye. Kevin is one of the leading Jedi masters of the personal change industry who’s been personally mentored by the co-creator of NLP, Richard Bandler, and the creator of Thought Field Therapy (TFT), Roger Callahan. It was his friend Paul Mckenna who encouraged him to start working in the therapy world fifteen years ago and since then he’s studied pretty much every method for bring about personal change that exists. He describes his niche as SPEED and only ever wants to see his clients once and so he only uses stuff that delivers results fast. He has a busy practice on the infamous Harley Street in London and is often called upon by the rich and famous including Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin Spacey and Robert DeNiro. You can read his full bio below. During our chat he talks about many of the techniques from what he calls his toy box including hypnosis, EMDR, NLP, TFT, Havening and his new technique PsyTap. PsyTap is Kevin’s unique blend of all the bits of everything he’s learned that works and that has science to back it up. Kevin shares much of the science that underpins the work he does including heart math, heart rate variability including how science can be used to demonstrate that changes are being being made. During our chat, Kevin also shares a great story about how he deals with people who want to see the evidence behind personal change techniques why the heart is the real brain why we DON’T see more evidence and research to personal change techniques why he thinks that the NHS doesn’t really want us to get better why Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is used as the go-to technique for personal change among health professionals and why this is failing many a brilliant quick technique for clearing anxiety or panic attacks in the moment a super simple technique for stimulating oxytocin in bucket loads what his new PsyTap technique is all about and how you can learn it yourself Here’s more information about Kevin Laye UK trainer and practitioner Kevin Laye’s efficient, no-nonsense approach has helped thousands of students, hundreds of veterans suffering from PTSD, and a host of actors, musicians and athletes including Leonardo DeCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Kevin Spacey, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, singer Natalie Imbruglia, and golfer David Banks. The late creator of TFT himself – American psychologist Dr. Roger Callahan – had high praise for Laye’s work: “When Kevin teaches TFT, people are inspired and many become vitally enthused with the potential of TFT. One cannot ask more of a teacher. Thank you, Kevin, for all you do,” he said. “You can use TFT to work on whatever emotional or stressful circumstances you’re experiencing in your life right now,” Laye says. “My approach is not about managing the issue, but to get rid of it as soon as possible, then teach you how to keep it away.” Kevin Laye has a varied and diverse background from being a former member of the military and European Karate Champion currently ranked as a 6th Dan Black Belt by the W.B.F.O.M.A. Kevin has also worked in the Middle East for the Ministry of Defence and Aviation and designed and managed Gymnasiums from 500 member clubs to a 1.2 Billion dollar sports complex in Saudi Arabia. In corporate life Kevin rose very quickly from being a top salesman to being a Sales Director of a multi million pound company. Seeking change again Kevin has settled on his ion of helping people overcome a multitude of issues as a highly successful Harley St Therapist dealing with athletes, pop stars, actors and a host of celebrities along with anyone else who seeks what he can offer in his clinic. He is a qualified trainer of Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Thought Field Therapy having been trained in the main by the originators of each discipline wherever possible. Using a cocktail of techniques including those mentioned and more besides Kevin has developed a highly effective no-nonsense style of therapy focusing on speedy resolutions and effective outcomes rather than going through problems over and over again as in many more traditional forms of therapy, that’s why it is called ‘Progress – Therapy’. You can find Kevin online at his personal website Kevin Laye or at Psy Tap where you’ll find information his new technique including course information. Kevin also has a Facebook group. To get your FREE audio session that Kevin has kindly shared, just click on this link and it’s all yours. It usually retails for £12.97 so a bit of a treat! The post Interview with Kevin Laye appeared first on Head Trash.

This week on the podcast I chat to Kathryn and Julian from the Changeability Podcast. With a background in business followed by over 35 years between them in education and training, Kathryn Bryant and Julian Illman left the world of education to set up BrilliantLivingHQ.com where they explore mind management techniques to help people have their best life and business. Kathryn is author of international Amazon Kindle bestseller, ‘Changeability: Manage your Mind – Change your Life’.  And Kathryn and Julian’s Changeability Podcast is a chart-topping self-development podcast listened to in 128 countries, and regularly featured in ‘What’s Hot’ on iTunes. The Changeability Podcast is based on Kathryn’s book Changeability: Manage your Mind – Change your Life. In a nutshell, Kathryn has made sense of many of the approaches and techniques that exist for managing your mindset. But what makes her book, and the podcast, so interesting is that she has created a framework for weaving all of these techniques together so that they get you results. During our chat, Kathryn and Julian talk about some of these aproaches, such as mindfulness, affirmations, visualisation and rewards. We probably spend a bit more time than we should talking about food! But all in a super relevant way! We discuss mindful eating and how doing so can help with weight loss, among other things. I’m sure cake was mentioned a few times! Julian also shares with us what they’re trying to do with the Changeability Podcast inclusing the use of storytelling to help some of these important concepts stick. I had a really enjoyable chat with them, just as we did when I was invited on their podcast late last year. You can find out more about Kathryn and Julian at their digital HQ over at BrilliantLivingHQ.   What did you think of the chat I had with Kathryn & Julian? Have you heard Kathryn & Julian’s podcast? Have you read their book? What do you like most about it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!  The post Changeability, with Kathryn & Julian appeared first on Head Trash.

Stress is here to stay. So instead of fighting and resisting it, how about you make stress your friend instead? I’ve talked about how we can stop those things that normally stress us to stop stressing us in my podcast episode how to elimniate your stress triggers. But, that’s not all you can do when it comes to stress… you can make stress your friend! Now as you know, I’m a big advocate of recognising the good and bad in everything. So while many think that stress is bad, there is also a lot of positive and good in stress. Stress helps us to hit deadlines and it motivates us to take action, but as with most things in life it’s about balance; too much of it and it becomes bad. So we don’t really want to eliminate stress, we simply want to have it under control so that we can tap into the positive aspects. We want to embrace it! This podcast is very much inspired by a TED talk I saw recently called Make Stress Your Friend by Kelly McGonigal . Kelly is also the author of an book called the Upside of Stress and here’s some of the book blurb from her website…. Stanford psychologist and bestselling author Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., – she believes Stress isn’t bad…. In The Upside of Stress, McGonigal highlights new research indicating that stress can, in fact, make us stronger, smarter, and happier—if we learn how to embrace it. The Upside of Stress is the first book to bring together cutting-edge discoveries on the correlation between resilience—the human capacity for stress-related growth—and mindset, the power of beliefs to shape reality. McGonigal’s TED talk on the subject has already received more than 6 million views. Her message resonates with people who know they can’t eliminate the stress in their lives and want to learn to take advantage of it. The Upside of Stress is not a guide to getting rid of stress, but a guide to getting better at stress, by understanding it, embracing it, and using it. So, if stress is big feature in your life, a great place to start might be pre-ordering the book! But here’s the talk… The key message in her TED talk that really jumped out for me was this; how we feel about stress is MORE IMPORTANT than the stress itself I put in bold because it’s THAT important!! In a nutshell, the research says that those people who believe that stress is bad for you, will suffer the damaging effects of stress, whereas those that believe that stress is good for you won’t. This is even if both groups are living stressful lives. The key difference here is the perception of the stress and not that actual stress. If you want to get the juicy stats on this, seriously, just watch the TED talk… Kelly puts it all acrosss so well.. a delight to watch! So it’s a question of belief! All you need to do is to change what you believe about stress … AHA!!!!  Now we’re getting somewhere! The reason for this is all to do with how our body responds to the stress, and how the body’s response changes depending on how we filter that experience. When we filter the stress through the BAD filter, the body’s stress repsonse is more damaging than when we process stress believing that it’s actually good. The physiological difference in response is staggering..again GO WATCH THE TALK!!! What I’m interested in HOW we make stress our friend. Well, I’ve got great news for you. If the science says that this is all in the mind, then you’re in the right place, because this is what we do best here! I’ve come up with the 3 things you need to do to make stress your friend. The 3 things you need to do to make stress your friend   1. Write down 30 reasons why stress is a good thing This is a great exercise because it gets our logical rational mind thinking. Much our work here at head trash is deep, deep in the subconscious, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get some work done on the surface too. This is a great place to start. The reason it’s 3o on the list is that you’re going to have to get creative and really think about it. You might even come round to agree, who knows?! 2. Change your belief about stress The important thing to do here is to neutralise your negative beliefs about stress. This will create the space for a positive belief to take hold and grow. If you want to find out HOW to neutralise your beliefs around stress, the listen to the Busting Bad Beliefs podcast which tells you the exact steps you need to take. it doesn’t take longer than about 20 minutes.. You’ve just got to do this – it might just give you an extra 20 years of life!! 3. Clear your emotions around stress This one is easy. Just use our 5 Step to Clear Head Trash Method to clear stress. Simply insert “Stress” into the mantras and you’re good to go. If you haven’t got your copy and you have no idea what I’m on about, grab your free copy of the 5 step method right here. This method allows you to clear negative thoughts, feelings and emotions nice and quickly – like in 15 minutes! Now, if for whatever reason you can’t be bothered to do #3, you could cheat… I have an audio session that you buy right here that will do the job instead.   So, there you have it. how to make stress your friend. What do you think? Have you tried this? I’d love to know how you get on with trying this out. Let me know in the comments! Here are the scientific papers that Kelly refers to in her TED talk and that I touch on during the podcast. Keller, A., Litzelman, K., Wisk, L. E., Maddox, T., Cheng, E. R., Creswell, P. D., & Witt, W. P. (2012). Does the perception that stress affects health matter? The association with health and mortality. Health Psychology, 31(5), 677. Jamieson, J. P., Nock, M. K., & Mendes, W. B. (2012). Mind over matter: Reappraising arousal improves cardiovascular and cognitive responses to stress. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141(3), 417. Poulin, M. J., Brown, S. L., Dillard, A. J., & Smith, D. M. (2013). Giving to others and the association between stress and mortality. American journal of public health, (0), e1-e7.  The post 3 ways to make stress your friend appeared first on Head Trash.

What are your deepest darkest fears? to have a life-threatening accident? fear of death or dying? to risk losing use of your arms / legs / eyes etc? What if it were possible to find out what it’s like to experience all of those? And what if you actually found out that they’re not as bad as you might imagine? Well, stop right there… you can! Just by listening to today’s podcast. On today’s podcast, I’m hugely honoured to have Catherine Holland on the show. Catherine is the survivor of a horrific bike accident that left her bleeding to death in the middle of the road with her leg smashed in over 12 places. The medics can’t believe she survived… apparently if you lose 15% of your blood you die… Catherine lost 50% of her blood and is here to tell the tale. But not only that, but she has regained her active life. Quite a remarkable story of recovery and healing. Are you afraid of death? During our chat, Catherine shares her incredible story that includes her near-death experience: the moment she decided to “come back” and choose life to see her children grow up what dying feels like what she did to help her not only survive but recover remarkably how her experience as a breathworker helped her to stay alive until she made it to hospital what she believes she can owe her healing ability to how her near death experience helps to inform her work with people who want to die or are close to death how her experience of rebirthing gives her a perspective on the reasons why some people feel attracted to dying how our birth experience can form the blueprint for our pattern of head trash that we wrestle with throughout our lives As you can see, this conversation doesn’t hold back and take it from me, it is incredibly fascinating. Let me tell you that during our chat, my mind was being blown the whole time… you can probably tell from my voice! In fact, I was so absorbed by it, that I completely forgot to let Catherine share her online details. So here they are… You can find her website right here and at the moment she is running a special deal 50% off her Beta Programmes so if you’re tempted to work one-to-one with Catherine now is the time! Catherine Holland’s Books      Breathwork This short film explores the journey of breathing consciously, through the eyes of those who have been practicing breathwork for varying lengths of time. Breathwork is a little known practice, which has been used for millennia to transform states of awareness. “Choosing Life” presents conscious breathing as a choice to grow and expand awareness, rather than to remain in the unconscious limited breathing pattern of survival. What did you think of what Catherine’s story of her near-death experience? What are your thoughts of what she said about the impact of our births on our emotional lives?The post Birth, Life, Death & Beyond: Interview with Catherine Holland appeared first on Head Trash.

Pregnancy, while a beautiful and wonderful thing, can also be hugely stressful. It’s a time of massive change, both pysically and emotionally. If it’s your first pregnancy, then your life is about to change forever. Not only will you trying to prepare mentally for something which is impossible to prepare for, but you will also be mourning the ing of your current life.. the end of an era.. the end of the time when it was just the two of you. None of this is insignificant. By the end, you’re more than ready to give birth. Even the easy pregnancies can make you feel like this. Looking back, I can safely say that first time around, I pretty much had a stress free pregnancy. I hardly noticed I was pregnant, other than the obvious bump that was growing … My life just carried on as normal. I hardly had any symptoms or challenges and yet, by the last month I was done with it. The night-time peeing, the inability to lie on your back in bed, not being able to reach your feet… I could go on! Compared to my first pregnancy, my second pregnancy was a total nightmare and I was done in by month 5! As well as having a load more pregnancy symptoms, those that I had were cranked up to max… it all felt pretty hardcore. The idea of a stress free pregnancy seemed very far away at that point. My pregnant state was totally stressing me out! Why have a stress free pregnancy? De-stressing in your pregnancy should really be up there on the list of important pregnancy to-do’s along with eating well, avoiding alcohol and cigarettes and staying fit. After all, we do all this “for baby” and yet de-stressing is as important as all of these and here’s why… Do it for baby! When we’re pregnant, we’re bombarded with lists of all the things that we should stop doing, eating and drinking. But nobody tells us that we should stop with the stressing too. ittedly , is not such as easy one to fix, but given that we know there are links between maternal stress and the health and wellbeing of the baby, de-stressing should definitely be on that list. And, for those of you who are hopeless at doing anything worthwhile for yourselves, but don’t hesitate doing something for others, then this your chance to shine.  Not only will baby thank you for putting the effort into aiming for a stress free pregnancy, but you’ll love yourself for it too!  “if I can’t do this for me, I must at least try for my baby’s sake” The hormones! Your hormones are going to go crazy during your pregnancy and it’s possible that your mind will be unrecognisable. In my first pregnancy, my hormones were very well behaved, but in my second pregnancy they were vicious little beasts. The thing with hormones is that they amplify what you’re feeling, so if you’re feeling delicate and vulnerable then by the time your hormones have finished with you, you’ll be sobbing in a pile of tissues over even the tiniest thing. So to help you manage the hormonal craziness, it’s worth taking the time to de-stress and be calm, otherwise a stress-free pregnancy will be but a dream. Stresses change throughout your pregnancy One thing I noticed, was that my stresses had a life all of their own during my pregnancies. They would come and go, evolve, disappear. New ones would show up, some would increase, others would disappear as quickly as they arrived. My hormones clearly didn’t help me with my aim of a stress free pregnancy, but given that it’s a period enormous change, on the inside and the outside, this is not entirely surprising. So as you think about your stresses, bear in mind that you need to •    Consider where you are in your pregnancy •    Remain self aware and revisit them often so that you capture the new ones that have popped into your life It’s a time of huge change in your life, but we’re adaptable beings. And for some of us, once we get used to something, the stress that it might have caused us initially, starts to subside. But that often means that new stresses jump right in to replace them – it did for me anyhow! Listen here If you’re interested in finding out more about how to have a stress free pregnancy then why not sign up for my FREE email series “How to have a stress free pregnancy” below How to have a stress free pregnancy – email series   If you’re pregnant, what kind of thing stresses you out? When you were pregnant, was there anything in particular that you found particulalry stressful? If so, how did you cope with it? Let me know in the comments. The post How to have a stress free pregnancy appeared first on Head Trash.

The aim of this site, and my podcast, is to help you to clear your head trash. There are loads of methods and approaches that exist to help you to do that. Some work better than others, but also, some people respond better to some methods than to others. So, that’s why, I want to bring you alternative approaches for you to try. It maybe that out of all the things that you’ve tried so far, that you’ve not had any luck… but maybe all of that could change once you try something else. So in today’s podcast, I want to explore Kinesiology and muscle-testing. Kinesiology and muscle testing Kinesiology is a great way of clearing head trash and it is often what people are wrestling with when they decide to visit a Kinesiologist. To help shed light on what Kinesiology is and how it might help you, on today’s podcast I’ve got the fabulous Kerry Rowett from Awaken Kinesiology. Kerry came to work as a Kinesiologist as a result of the transformation that she experienced as a result from her Kinesiology experience which she shares during our chat. You can find out more about Kerry right here Another reason why I really wanted to share more about Kinesiology and muscle testing is that, when you combine muscle testing with our Head Trash Clearance Method, you’re able to crank up the results you can achieve for yourself, simply because you’re able to communicate directly with your mind and body. Kerry shares more about how she does this during our chat. Here is a video where Kerry explains more about Kinesiology and how it works   During our chat, we also talked about the book, The Emotion Code, by Dr. Bradley Nelson. It’s not the first time this book has come up – testament that it’s worth getting a copy of! The reason we mentioned it today is that it’s a great place to start if you want to learn the basics of muscle testing for yourself. Have you tried Kinesiology? Or, having listened to Kerry, is it something that you think you might want to try? Let me know in the comments – I’d love to know!  The post Clear head trash with Kinesiology with Kerry Rowett appeared first on Head Trash.

Insomnia and not being able to sleep is a nightmare. Not only can it be horrible when you’re in that dark sleeplessplace, but it’s the aftermath and the rubbish day that follows when you’ve not had enough sleep. Persisent insomnia can soon spill into other health issues as the body becomes stressed from lack of sleep, and it struggles to maintain a healthy balance and keep the healing function working 100%. The thing is, it can be difficult to pin down WHY we’re suffering from insomnia and not sleeping. Why do we suffer from insomnia? is it the racing thoughts in our head? is it something that we ate? is it because we’re stressed? is it something else entirely that is buried so deep that we have no clue?! I’ve received quite a few emails from listeners asking for help on this… mainly because for them, it’s the racing thoughts that they’re struggling with. So, I thought I’d seek out someone who helps people to overcome sleep problems. In today’s podcast I chat to Chel Hamilton. Chel is a Hypnotherapist who specialises in helping people who struggle with insomnia. During our chat Chel shares some brilliant insights and tips to help you get back to having a good nights sleep… things like why you need a “caving down” habit the importance of a dark room… and why it matters why we need a sleep ritual… and what it might involve a super simple quick technique for clearing negative thoughts During our chat, Chel shares some brilliant resources; Book on “caving down” Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival by T.S. Wiley Chel’s book ReWire It iPads and Sleep study easy to ready post or the head researcher’s page with a list of peer reviewed publications on light/electronics/sleep Blue Filter Android App Flux screen adapting software The post Say Bye Bye Insomnia with Chel Hamilton appeared first on Head Trash.

Are you stuck in your thinking? Do you continually repeat the same unhelpful and self-sabotaging behaviours? Well, how about trying to expand your thinking so that you can invite new thoughts, see things from new persepctives, find new solutions, experience new ways of thinking and surprising people with new behaviours…. DOESN’T THAT SOUND AWESOME?! In today’s podcast I encourage you to tap into the law of opposites by having some F.U.N! But serious fun.. serious because by doing so you can create real change in your head and in your life. There are many emotions, valiues and beliefs in life that are labeled as BAD and yet we seem to forget this important point; THERE’S GOOD AND BAD IN EVERYTHING So, when we label something as bad, we’re denying ourselves all that is good about it. Similarly, when we label something as good, we miss that there’s also polenty of bad lurking.. and so we may not be prepared for it. To illustrate my point I thoight I’d have some fun with selfishness. Being selfish is often thought of as a bad trait. And yet, there is much good in it. There’s a reason that the airlines want you to put your oxygen mask on before others… you can’t look after others, if you’re not looking after yourself. Except the problem is, some people get the balance wrong.. and so those people that exhibit a ton of selfishness give it a bad name. But that’s not all I’m rtying to encourage you to do here. By opening up your mind to the possible reasons as to why something you think is bad might in fact be good, you are opening up the possibility of new ways of thinking. So my challenge to you is this… if there is a trait in others that annoys you, or that you think is bad.. say… dishonesty, lack of integrity, then try to come up with at least 20 reasons why it’s a GOOD thing. Equally , if there’s something that you LOVE then come up with 20 reasons why it’s BAD. The reason I say 20, is that it forces you to get creative and maybe even be silly just to hit the number… this creativity is magical because it’s opening your mind…. So how about cranking open your mind and let some magic in….. Here are my starters for 10 on why being selfish is a GOOD thing, and why Generosity (its opposite, at least for me) is BAD. Being selfish is GOOD because…. you don’t have to worry about other people you get to do what you want you look after your own needs you don’t waste time doing things that you don’t like or need to do your days are your own and you get lots of ME time other people around you learn to toughen up and get on with things it shows self love and respect you don’t have to spend time with people you don’t want your selfishness teaches others how to be selfish – you’re a role model! you get to keep more of your money you have more time to yourself you don’t have to put up with watching crappy films or TV shows people stop asking you to do stuff, because they know you’ll probably say no Generosity is BAD because… your time is never your own – you’re too busy doing stuff for other people you have less money for yourself because you spend money on others “being generous” people start to expect your generosity and you start attracting selfish types and takers people start to advantage of you you attract people who want your money/what you offer and are not there for you you’re being generous for your own emotional needs, so it’s actually quite selfish you find it hard to say no you’re constantly buying gifts for other people.. although the gesture might be appreciated, they might be gifts they probably don’t even want… you’re contributing to waste if you’re generous to expect back, then you’re definitely selfish! If you’re being generous to show that you have money, then you’re insecure… especially if you can’t really afford that round of champagne The post Why being selfish is GOOD appeared first on Head Trash.

Childbirth without fear: why FEAR equals PAIN in childbirth When I first found out I was pregnant for the first time, along with the delight at my news, I was also utterly terrified. It wasn’t the idea of having and raising a child; it was the idea of GIVING BIRTH! I’d tell anyone who would listen that I’d want to be given ALL THE DRUGS in the WORLD just to COPE with the PAIN! And then one day I was having a conversation with someone while I was on a course (the advanced course of the method behind the head trash clearance technique), who told me that she had a pain-free birth with no drugs. PAIN FREE?! With NO DRUGS?! What?! I didn’t realise that such a thing was possible, but sure enough it was. Not only that, it gets better. Apparently, children who are born naturally (i.e. no medical intervention) are more likely to sleep better and sooner, cry less, breastfeed more easily and generally be a lot calmer. WOW! This deserved further attention. And so began my journey of discovery of natural, pain-free births. This culminated in me developing a range of products to help women clear their fears to increase their chances of a natural pain-free birth, using myself as the guinea pig. Let me tell you – this shizzle works! I went from being a terrified, panic-stricken emotional mess when it came to thoughts of childbirth, to “Amazonian woman of nature” (the midwife at my birth said this, not me! I’m sure it was a compliment!) who was so excited when my waters broke that I was finally going to meet my poppet that I gave birth naturally at home in 6 hours. But I digress.  Let’s get back to the PAIN! And I know what you’re thinking… How is it possible to give birth and NOT experience PAIN? In a word: FEAR! Or, better still… a childbirth without fear is a childbirth without pain. Everyone has seen enough births in their time on TV and in the movies and they always look like complete and utter nightmares. Midwives are screaming PUSH! PUSH! PUSH! Mothers are screaming in pain. Add to that all the birthing horror stories that women are more than happy sharing and you’ve got yourself a perfect recipe for complete and utter terror of childbirth. But this is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy. A lot of women experience difficult and painful births because they have been conditioned to believe that it WILL be painful. You never see a childbirth without fear in a movie… you know the ones that are calm, peaceful and magical. And yet, not only is that possible, but it happens ALL the time. Tragically, for most women, by the time they get round to getting pregnant have seen enough “painful” births and heard so many horrific stories, that they just expect the same will happen to them. Understandably this makes them scared. Who wouldn’t be? I know I was. But I didn’t know any better. I thought that that’s just the way it is. The whole idea of a childbirth without fear just seems silly and downright impossible. Let me ask you this: do cats, dogs, horses, cows scream in labour? Or do they just get on with it and give birth with no fuss? But, guess what? In the context of childbirth and labour, FEAR CREATES PAIN. So, the more fearful you are, the more pain you will experience. This is all down to what is widely known as the fear-tension-pain cycle. The fear – tension – pain cycle When a person is in fear, their state of mind triggers the body to go into the fight-or-flight response.  When the body is in this state, it is flooded with adrenaline to help the person either to escape (run away) or fight.  As such, the body tenses up and blood is sent to the extremities (legs and arms) to help with the fight or flight action. This state is meant to be used sparingly by the body as the body suffers when it’s subject to this level of stress for prolonged periods. So, let’s imagine for a minute… You’re about to drop and you’ve decided to take a walk while on holiday in the Bush in Oz when labour kicks in. So, you find a nice spot under a tree. Things start happening… but your man spots a dingo and says you’ve got to run. That mahoosive muscle that’s been squeezing the little fella out decides that now is not a good time and tightens up, thereby allowing all the blood to go to your legs so that you can scoot off at high speed to ensure you and your baby’s survival…. stay with me…. So, your lady wotsit is now well and truly tightening and clo. So, how do you think it would feel to go against nature at this point and continue to push the little fella out? IT WOULD HURT! While you’re in a state of fear and stress, your body doesn’t feel safe enough to allow labour to unroll at full pelt, so it slows it down, if not stopping it altogether. 2-3 days of labour anyone? Guess what’s happened there: fear and stress has slowed labour right down, if not to a halt. So why does stress stop labour? Adrenaline is a bully When you’re stressed, your adrenal glands release a load of adrenaline into your body. Adrenaline sends blood to your extremities so that you can defend yourself or run away. The thing is, adrenaline inhibits the flow of other hormones, namely endorphins and oxcytocin. Endorphins are the body’s natural painkiller and are more effective than anything man-made. Not only do endorphins alleviate pain, but they also promote feelings of love and happiness. Oxytocin is known as the pleasure hormone. It is present during lovemaking and is the hormone that triggers the labour process and keeps it moving resulting ultimately in the birth of the baby. Unfortunately, it’s also a very shy hormone and is easily scared off. So when adrenaline floods your system, not only does it mean that there are less endorphins flowing (no pain relief) but oxytocin stops flowing too, which slows labour down, maybe even stopping it. Once you’ve understood these simple things it’s pretty obvious to see how so many women have horrific births. Their terror not only inhibits the body’s natural process for evicting the littl’un, but it robs them of the best pain relief known to (wo)man. Once I’d got my head around this lot, it was pretty obvious what I needed to do: I needed to clear my fears! DISCLAIMER: Now of course, I want to point out that this applies to healthy women who are undergoing healthy complication-free pregnancies. There might be a whole load of other things going on with your body and baby that can create complications in birth and so eliminating your fears is by no means a guarantee, but you’re definitely giving yourself and baby the best chance by making the effort. So if you’ve diligently given up alcohol, and made extra effort to eat all the right things – for baby – then isn’t it worth considering taking the time to clear your fears too? During this podcast episode, I mentioned my new book Fear Free Childbirth: How to have a stress-free pregnancy and a positive pain-free birth. Visit the website and grab yourself a FREE chapter… and there’a a little pre-launch offer to be had too!The post Childbirth without fear: why FEAR equals PAIN in childbirth appeared first on Head Trash.

In this week’s podcast I bring you the Brain Stare, the EASIEST technique EVER to clear your stress, fears, negative emotions, traumas… in fact anything negative that’s impacting your head space. Chris Milbank, the founder of Reflective Repatterining, the technique that is behind our 5 steps to clearing your head trash, has come up with yet another incredibly powerful technique for clearing head trash – the Brain Stare. It’s ridiculous how easy it is. Put simply, it just involves staring. Now I realise that this just sounds ridiculously easy and you’re probably wondering “How on earth can staring clear my stresses, fears and traumas?!“. And I wouldn’t blame you – this is exactly what I thought when I heard about it. So, I figured that the best thing I could do, was to get Chris on to the podcast to explain himself. During my chat Chris shares how he came up with the technique Brain Staring why it works how to do a Brain Stare what you can use it for what you can expect from using it Some of the things that Chris expands on during our chat are; Brain Stare for Sexual Issues Brain Stare can help things such as sexual tension, relationship problems, suppression issues that the  LGBT  may experience. You can read more on this in his blog post Sexual Brain Stare. Brain Staring to Heal the Body He also talks about how you can use the Brain Stare on physical conditions in the body. Again, if you want to dig deeper on this, his blog post Brain Stare Get Well is the place to read more. Chris also mentioned that he has a Facebook group that you can drop into to ask questions and read other people’s experiences of using it. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will be soon, and when I do I’ll be  sharing my experience of doing the Brain Stare here on the podcast. If you give it a go, I’d love to hear how you get on with it. Let me know in the comments!The post How to Brain Stare: the EASIEST way to clear stress appeared first on Head Trash.

As is typical for any given day in January, I’m sure there are quite a few of us who have words withourselves and challenge ourselves by thinking “hey, why don’t you reinvent yourself some how?”. So that’s what I’d like to help you with today. The new year is always a time for new starts and fresh thinking. We might not need to turn our lives upside down, but we can’t help trying to inject a bit of life into what we do. Sounds like the perfect time for spot of reinvention! Reinvent yourself But reinvention doesn’t always need to happen on the outside, it can happen on the inside. In today’s episode I want to encourage you to think about reinventing how you express yourself. By talking about how we feel, what we do and what we think in a different way, can help to reinvigorate our relationships and perceptions, and ultimately our life experience. Re-engaging with others like this can bring about new conversations and insights. And new conversations and insights might lead to new opportunities and life experiences. When I say reinvent yourself, I guess a more accurate way of describing it would be to reinvent how you express yourself. For me there are a few ways that you can do that and that’s what I talk about on today’s show; Reinvent yourself by changing the language you use I don’t mean learn a new language like French or Spanish. Instead I’m inviting you to add some new vocabulary to your repertoire so that you can express how you feel and think more specifically and eloquently.  In doing so, you’re more likely to reveal a more authentic you, which will help you to connect better with others which in turn will help you to build stronger relationships. When describing how we feel, there are so many words available to us, and yet we tend to use the same handful. The habits that we have in our life, extend to the words that we habitually use. How about injecting some new words into your emotional vocabulary? Hear some new suggestions for words to describe your emotional landscape in the podcast. Reinvent yourself by ditching the negatives Ditch the negative language and negative perspective. Whether you’re using negative language because you’re always complaining, or because you tend to see the negative in everything, it might be time to pull back a tad. No-one wants to be surrounded by negativity. There is good and bad in everything, so how about re-framing your perspective occasionally to see the positive aspects. Reinvent yourself by giving yourself a new job title If there’s one question that most of us face time and time again it’s this one… “And, what do you do?” So how about reinventing the way you answer it?  There was a great article on Inc.com encouraging business leaders to let employees pick their own job titles. I love this idea and encourage it wholeheartedly. But even if you’re not in charge of such decisions, it can be useful to consider your own job title and how you might change it. Doing so forces you to really consider what it is that you actually do and what value you really add. Looking at our roles in this way can be enough to reinvigorate our enthusiasm and motivation for what we do as we reconnect with why we’re doing it. Reinvent yourself by changing your bio In this digital age, when we express ourselves, it’s not just verbally, but it’s also online. And the one place we do that most often is on social media in our bios. It’s where you get to state your identity for others to read and decide whether they want you in their life. So while we’re reinventing how we want to express our inner selves, this seems a great, yet practical, place to start. If you’re re-writing your bio, it’s worth taking your time to craft a good one. If you have your own website, the likelihood is that your about page is the most visited page on your site. Your bio is important so don’t rush it. Other tips for writing a great bio include If it’s on your personal site, write it in the first person. If it appears on a company site, then third person is better. Use storytelling to engage on an emotional level and create interest. Avoid showing off. No one likes a show-off. Share your human side. It’s OK to talk about failures and your vulnerabilities. Include aspects of your personal life; your ions, hobbies or reveal your inner geek. It’s these things that people will connect with. When you’re able to express who you are and what you’re thinking more authentically, you’ll notice shifts begin to take place as people feel better able to connect with you and trust you. So even though you didn’t completely reinvent yourself, by doing these simple things you’re reinventing your thinking which can often feel like actually did reinvent yourself. Because on some level you did.The post How to reinvent yourself through better thinking appeared first on Head Trash.

The idea of being able to reduce pain with your mind was not something that came to me until last year when I was pregnant. Faced with my second childbirth experience, I was super keen to repeat my first childbirth experience which was pain-free. Worried that it might have been a fluke I didn’t want to leave anything to chance, so I decided to do a bit of digging into pain, and what I found out was pretty interesting. But essentially it’s this… Pain is a construct of the mind For me this was great news as I know that we can ALWAYS change our mind! And that means… We can reduce pain with the mind No two people have the same experience of pain. Why do some people experience pain, while someone else going through the same thing don’t? Well, the answer lies in how they FEEL about the pain. If you’re fearful or anxious about the pain, you’re more likely to experience it, or make it worse. So basically anxiety or fear of pain makes pain worse! This idea is backed up by some research into pain carried out at Stanford a few years back. So, when I learned this, I knew what I needed to do to help me reduce pain in childbirth… clear my fear of pain! But that’s not all. From all the reading that I did about pain, particularly in childbirth (but I’ll cover that in another podcast. or 2!), then I realised I had a bit more work to do. I came up with 4 things that I believe I needed to do to reduce my experience of pain, and which having now come out the other end, I completely stand by. So here are the 4 things you can do to reduce your experience of pain 1. Don’t anticipate the pain Imagining that you will experience pain, makes it more likely to happen. You’re basically conditioning your body into a response. If you want to reduce pain, then simply don’t imagine that you will experience pain. 2. Visualise a pain-free experience Let your body know that this will be a pain free experience and your body is more likely to co-operate and reduce pain that you experience. This won’t always be possible as we don’t always know when we’re going to be hurt, but use it when you can. Childbirth is a great one to use this for. 3. Clear your fear of pain Just use our 5 step process that’s available for FREE right here and you can do this in about 20 minutes. Reduce pain by working on things like “fear of pain”, “scared of pain” as well as simply working on “pain’. (the inverted commas refer to what you need to insert into the head trash clearance mantras – the 5 step process if this is all too confusing for you!) 4. Seek out evidence of positive pain-free experiences By finding evidence that a pain-free experience can be possible you can your belief that it’s possible to reduce pain, as well as super-charge your visualisation work. Google, YouTube are great places to start, as are your friends and colleagues.  The post How to reduce pain with your mind appeared first on Head Trash.