No excuses, I just haven’t made the time to do it and then when I did have the time I felt like what I posted would have to be SO good to make up for the long gap. Then, on the day that I thought that I should get on with it and just post, lo and behold, a link to a fabulous TED.com blog post landed in my inbox that I just had to share (thanks to Peta for that).

Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist, a brain scientist in other words, and in this talk she recalls the time when she had a massive stroke and how she studied every moment as it happened to her. Her descriptions are enthralling, informative, educational and certainly eye opening.  She asks and she answers the question “so who are we?”.

Wow was my reaction after watching it. What’s yours?

Bye for now,
Tracy

PS I won’t leave it so long next time

Let me share if I may.

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready.  The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.  A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”
Paul Coelho

Antony Gormley

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to know.”
Winnie the Pooh

And that is how I was inspired today.

How are you inspired? Who inspires you? When are you inspired?

Tracy x

It was a great morning and I thoroughly enjoyed working with a great group who were all engaged and raring to go. Also, hats off to Beth Alexander from The Image Zone who did a great talk on how to improve our self image on the outside – we all learned something new from that!

One of the topics we explored was the issue of limiting beliefs around weight loss and our self-image. The sort of comments that I’ve heard from clients in the past include:

• I’m the fat one in the family
• It’s harder to lose weight as you get older
• I’ll never be slim
• I can’t lose weight
• Losing weight is hard work
• I can’t lose weight unless/until/because
• I must diet to lose weight
• I can’t do it
• I don’t deserve it
• I’ll always be fat
• My family is overweight
• No matter what I do I cant lose weight
• I lose weight and then just put it back on again

Sound familiar?

And these statements appear to be so true to the people that hold those beliefs. Why’s that? Well maybe because they’ve repeated them to themselves over and over and over for a very long time. Maybe because they can find plenty of evidence to support them.

The problem is, that when you believe something as strongly as that,  you are always on the look out for evidence to support and reinforce that belief. And you won’t even see the evidence to the contrary – which does exist. The result is that the belief will continue to appear true for as long as you believe it.

Did you know how a feeble rope tied to a stick in the ground is usually enough to keep a huge elephant from wandering away? That’s because it’s keeper ties it up from as soon as it is born when the rope and stick are quite strong enough to hold the little elephant in place. And the elephant soon learns how useless it is to try and escape.

That learning stays with the elephant even when the it becomes so strong that there is no way the rope could hold it – if it tried to escape that is, which of course it doesn’t because it “knows” that it is futile to even try. Sad but true.

So I wonder, what are the tethers holding you back? Are you ready to pull on the rope and see where you can go it you only let yourself try?

Tracy x

The challenge I have been set is to write a blog about myself, specifically to tell you 7 things that you didn’t know about me. So here goes. In no particular order…..

1. I used to be a brass player in brass bands – I’ve played cornet, trumpet, baritone and tenor horn. I have also played percussion briefly, after having my tonsils out, but the less said about that the better.
2. I’ve had childhood illnesses as an adult – and found that you get very little sympathy at that age. I had my tonsils out when I was 17 and had chicken pox at 23.
3. I have a licence to drive counterbalance fork lift trucks (although I haven’t actually driven one for about 7 years so it’s probably out of date).
4. I used to be a bit of an evening class addict and have attended all sorts including art, bricklaying, garden design, belly dancing. I now tend to do one day or weekend workshops instead, my most recent being a hat making weekend where I made a green trilby.
5. I turn over crockery to see where it’s made (anyone else from Stoke on Trent will understand that little idiosyncrasy!) – usually when it’s empty, but not always
6. I’ve been volunteering since I was 25 and would recommend it to anyone (as long as you find the right organisation for your interests). I used to be a listening volunteer with The Samaritans (although you get involved in a lot more things than just taking calls if you are easily persuaded, like me – I joined the management team for a while). I now volunteer as a Business Mentor for The Princes Trust, mentoring 18-30 year olds who are just starting out in business.
7. I like going to UK seaside resorts out of season. I like eating a bag of hot, salty and vinegary chips out of the paper whilst sat in the car, preferably on the sea front looking out to a stormy, grey sea.

Phew! That’s it. Not too taxing – it only took me 2 days to come up with that list!

The next challenge is to tag 15 more people to do the same so here goes. 15 people whose tweets I enjoy to read who I think might not have already been tagged for the same meme…… let’s see how I do:

@nurturinglife

@tums2mums

@AnnGirling

@amazing_births

@fabulousand40

@NWalesBabyShow

@newstorktimes

@RedTedArt

@LincolnAndMe

@VoiceOverGirl

@HappyHippyMum

@The_Moiderer

@White76

@HatTherapy

@mumsmyname

If any of you busy, busy ladies have the time or inclination to write your own 7 things I’d love to read them

Tracy x

Lose weight with positive support & encouragement?

Change your eating habits for ever?

Stop feeling guilty about food?

Feel better about yourself?

Stop yo-yo dieting?

Then it’s time to

I’ve recently teamed up with fellow hypnotherapist, Karen Mills of Esteem Hypnotherapy, to develop a new programme to help participants to think differently about their weight, image and health.

We are running an Introductory Workshop on Saturday 12th February between 9.30am-12.30pm at Gwersyllt Community Resource Centre. The cost is £55 per person.

This is followed by an Advanced Programme which runs on Saturdays 12th & 19th March between 9.30am-4.30pm, same venue. The cost of the advanced programme is £265 per person.

We’ll be running a couple of competitions and promotions in the next few weeks so if you are interested keep an eye on this blog and also on the Facebook page for Rethink Your Weight.

If you want to make positive changes then join us on these empowering workshops!

Call or email if you want more information or go straight to the online shop to book your place now.

Tracy x

As a hypnotherapist I spend most of my time listening and when I do talk, I will often use what the client has said and give it back to them – sometimes this is obvious and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes a client thanks me for a profound insight when actually it has come from them – they just needed someone to facilitate the thought process.

So that’s what I do.

I listen (at least professionally anyway, sometimes I need to try harder in my personal life!).

Try it yourself sometime. It’s not always as easy as it seems.

Tracy

Listening

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving me advice
You have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way
You are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problems
You have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I asked was that you listen
Not talk or do – just listen.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do
For myself, you contribute to my fear and weakness.
But, when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel
No matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you
And can get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.
And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious
And I don’t need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when we
Understand what’s behind them.
So please listen and just hear me.
And, if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn;
And I’ll listen to you.

(Author unknown)

I had an email from NHS Choices this week inviting me to volunteer to take part in a study to see if an online training programme could improve my mental wellbeing. Always interested in ways to do just that, I read on, only to find out that I can’t take part because I don’t live in England

However, I was interested to read more and found out that the project is called the Psywell Study and is being run by researchers at the University of Warwick and the Australian National University.  The aim is to help people to identify unhelpful patterns of thinking or behaviour and then helps them learn how to change these.

Come to think of it, I don’t know why I’m encouraging you to take part in this….. if the study goes well I could find that a computer programme could puts me out of a job! Only joking (I hope). I actually think that any research into how to improve mental wellbeing can only be a good thing and anyway, it looks like it would be an interesting project to be involved in.

If you want to find out more about the study you can follow this link https://www.psywell.org.uk/info

And if you do decide to take part I would be really interested to hear how you get on.

Tracy

Izzy’s was the 7th comment on the blog and number 7 was the one picked at random by by DH. Well done Izzy.

She wins:

Cariad Hypnotherapy Relaxation CD
Zita West’s Beautiful Belly Balm
Zita West’s Back Ease Massage Oil
Zita West’s Pre-Conditioning Down Under
Zita West’s Vital Essence 3 – supplements for weeks 28-40 of pregnancy
£25 voucher for bras4mums (thank you to T-J for donating this)
£25 voucher towards a HypnoBirthing Class or hypnotherapy session with Cariad Hypnotherapy

A big thank you to everyone who posted comments and liked my Facebook page. I hope you keep in touch and let me know how you all get on (and for those of you entering for friends, then let me know how your friends got on).

Tracy x

So, a few days later, I was interested to see a stall at the Baby Show for the Infant and Child Laboratory at the University of Birmingham.  I had a chat with a lovely lady who is a student at the University (sorry, I didn’t make a note of your name) and took away a few leaflets. I’ve now been and had a look at their website.

The Infant and Child Laboratory was set up by the University to study child development and they are looking for parents with children aged birth to 6 years to participate.

If you live in Birmingham or the surrounding area why not consider helping out, it sounds like a lot of fun. Your child is invited to participate in a fun and engaging game or task, something similar to an everyday activity, in a safe and friendly environment (I think the word laboratory makes it sound more scary than it really is!). There’s even a supervised play area for siblings. And, get this, in appreciation of your time and effort your child will be awared a “young scientist” certificate and a small present.

If you are interested in taking part in any of the different projects contact icl@contacts.bham.ac.uk or telephone 0121 414 7219.

They are also, currently, looking for breastfeeding mothers who haven’t yet introduced solid foods to take part in the “Comparison of vegetable acceptance in infants weaned at 4 months vs 6 months”. This research involves 3 home visits where they film your baby eating vegetables and a questionnaire to fill in at each visit. You will be given a free 10 day pack of organic pots of vegetables and a £20 voucher to spend on baby at the end of the 3 visits.

If you are interested in finding out more about this study please contact Dr Helen Coulthard at h.l.coulthard.1@bham.ac.uk or telephone 0121 414 4899.

I think it’s all really useful stuff and fascinating too and if I lived nearer to Birmingham I’d sign up both of my little ones.

If you decide to take part in any of these projects or have any experience of other baby scientist programmes I would be interested to hear your comments.

Tracy x

I am giving away an Expectant Mum Pamper Package worth £125 (RRP)

To enter the draw you have to do BOTH of the following:

Like the Cariad Birthing page on Facebook

Post a comment on this blog about your birth preparations – for example have you been to any antenatal classes (NHS, NCT, HypnoBirthing), are you planning to birth at home or in hospital and your reasons for choosing to prepare in this way etc.

The Pamper Package will go to the first person drawn at random from a list of entries at 12 noon on 21st June. This also marks the start of Breastfeeding Awareness Week.

One entry per person please – but feel free to tell you family and friends to enter.

I’m sorry but I can only post to the UK.

It would be useful if you used the same name to post your comment on the blog as you use on Facebook so I know who you are – thanks!

Expectant Mum Pamper Package contains:

Cariad Hypnotherapy Relaxation CD
Zita West’s Beautiful Belly Balm
Zita West’s Back Ease Massage Oil
Zita West’s Pre-Conditioning Down Under
Zita West’s Vital Essence 3 – supplements for weeks 28-40 of pregnancy
£25 voucher for bras4mums (thank you to T-J for donating this)
£25 voucher towards a HypnoBirthing Class or hypnotherapy session with Cariad Hypnotherapy

More information about the Zita West products can be found in the Gifts & Treats section of this website.

By the way, the giveaway is open to anyone – you don’t have to be pregnant yourself, you can give it as a gift to a friend or loved one if you like – in that case you can comment about birth preparations you have made in the past, would have liked to have made, or would consider making in the future.

I look forward to reading your posts!

Tracy x