HypnoGeeks Episode 15 with Craig Fookes Clinical Hypnotherapist

Ever wondered why procrastination feels like an insurmountable hurdle and how it ties into our mental health? Join us as we unpack the complex web of procrastination, motivation, and mental health with Craig Fookes, a clinical hypnotherapist known for his straightforward approach. In this episode, we promise you'll uncover effective strategies to overcome the paralysis that procrastination induces and find new ways to stay motivated, especially in demanding professions like hypnotherapy and well-being.

Craig Fookes shares his transformative journey from financial services to becoming a clinical hypnotherapist and mindfulness instructor. Discover how his personal battles with mental health fueled his career switch and provided him with unique insights into the male mental health stigma. Craig and I explore the concept of the comfort zone, the neurochemical processes involved in learning new skills, and the often overlooked but crucial importance of pushing past our comfort zones to achieve long-term goals.

From examining the brain's prioritization of physical health to navigating the emotional intricacies of internal conflicts, this episode sheds light on why we fall into avoidance behaviors and how we can visualize our best selves through hypnotherapy. We touch on the pitfalls of over-scheduling, the importance of rest and boredom, and the dangers of conflating personal development tools with mental health recovery. Tune in to gain a nuanced understanding of motivation and learn practical tips for achieving personal growth and fulfillment.

Support the show

This podcast is sponsored by The Northern College of Clinical Hypnotherapy
www.thenortherncollegeofclinicalhypnotherapy.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
well, hello and welcome to hypnageeks.
This is the 15th episode, um,and it's really for
hypnotherapists and, well,anyone that's looking to enhance
their knowledge aboutwell-being, about the power of
the mind, and anyone who'slooking to enhance their

(00:23):
therapeutic skills as well fortheir private practices or
however they work with clinicalhypnotherapy Now, as a Director
of Studies at the NorthernCollege of Clinical Hypnotherapy
, as a tutor, as a trainer andas a therapist, I hear from so
many people all the time thatthey are procrastinating, and

(00:48):
this procrastination that theytalk about is making them feel
anxious and guilty and horrific,and it causes them to do all
sorts of mad, crazy things.
So I wonder if you can relateto this.
Are you one of those people whopostpone things?
Do you delay tasks?

(01:09):
You know I'll do it later, I'lldo it tomorrow, I'll do it at
the weekend, I'll start onMonday.
Do you put off tasks or actionsthat perhaps need to be
accomplished?
Do you put off urgentactivities in favour of maybe
less critical tasks?
I often find myself findingthat the washing up's really,

(01:32):
really important around taxreturn time.
I'd rather do the washing upthan my tax return.
But it leads to worry.
It leads to often a sense ofguilt.
It can certainly lead to stressand anxiety and you know if you
, if you're looking at thatmassive stack of paperwork, it

(01:53):
ain't going anywhere, so it'spossible that it's just going to
start to haunt you and and yeah, you might find the washing up
more important, but it's stilllooking at you when you've done
the washing up and you know what.
You're not alone.
You're not alone.
It's something that I hear allthe time, because
procrastination, well it's, it'sreally common.

(02:13):
It's a common behavior thatmany, many people around the
world experience to some extent,and research suggests that the
majority of individuals engagein some kind of procrastination
of some sort at some point intheir lives.
So it's not just you, it'severyone really, and studies

(02:36):
have found that up to 20 percentof the adult population are
what we call chronicprocrastinators.
I'm not quite sure I likelabels, but I quite like a
chronic procrastinators.
I'm not quite sure I likelabels, but I quite like a
chronic procrastination label.
This is like the remainingpopulation, of course, are going
to be exhibiting some kind ofprocrastination tendencies in

(02:59):
some circumstances.
I think we all put off thingsthat we don't want to do quite
often.
But procrastination affects allpeople of all ages, from all
backgrounds, all occupations,and so it's got really
widespread prevalence in society.
And from the little researchthat I've done about it, it

(03:25):
seems that it can stem from allsorts of different factors Just
not wanting to do it because youdon't like doing it, fear of
failure, perfectionism, lack ofmotivation, just a bit of poor
time management skills, maybe,or avoidance of uncomfortable
emotions that are associatedwith the task.
Certainly, for me, I'm quite ahigh functioning person and I
know that if it's something thatdoesn't interest me or inspire

(03:47):
me, it very much gets put to thebottom of the list, or until
there's a sense of urgency orpanic that means I absolutely
have to do it.
And then, if I get frozen orparalysis about it, that can
lead to all sorts of challengesand and I've um, I've developed
some personal strategies thatwork really well to deal with

(04:10):
that paralysis and to deal withthat anxiety and to keep myself
motivated and, on top of things,because I run a business as
well as teaching us, you know,in a school and running and
making and creating podcasts andwriting and doing all sorts of
other things and all of thosethings that are creative and fun
for me.
I love engaging with them, butthere are things that I don't

(04:31):
enjoy doing and there are thingsthat I get like paralysis
around.
I get really stuck and Iprocrastinate and find that the
washing up is more interesting.
Well, I initially spotted myguest um on on today's episode
ons.
I was having a bit of a scrolland I absolutely loved his plain

(04:53):
speaking, very much down toearth style of communication.
Clinical hypnotherapist, but hespecializes in in helping
clients make really quitetransformational but lasting and
positive changes in quite avariety of areas, including lots

(05:17):
of different areas of mentalhealth and well-being.
But what I what I read wasabout his work on motivation.
But what I read was about hiswork on motivation,
procrastination and actually somuch more, and I am delighted to
welcome him on to this week'sepisode.
Welcome, craig.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Craig Fuchs, welcome to the podcast.
It's great to have you here.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, you're a real kind of like wealth of knowledge
, particularly when it comes tothings like procrastination and
motivation and anxiety.
It was it was a post that you'dput on about procrastination
that really drew me in.
But just tell us a little bitabout who you are and where you

(06:00):
are, what kind of work you'redoing at the moment.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
OK, so my name is Craig Fuchs, I'm a clinical
hypnotherapist and mindfulnessinstructor and I've been uh now
for approaching the decade.
Um.
I became a hypnotherapist?
Um after a career change, uh,when I used to work in financial
services previously and Ireally wanted to um give

(06:26):
something back after a prolongedperiod that I'd had with mental
health challenges myself,particularly in the areas of
anxiety, which led me to becomedepressed, which led me to have
an unhealthy relationship withalcohol and all manner of
problems that people with mentalhealth problems will face.
And I had some great supportfrom various different

(06:46):
therapists over that chapter ofmy life and, to be honest, I
thought that becoming atherapist would be a much better
and more meaningful use of mywork time than counting rich
people's money for them.
So I decided to exit myprevious business and to retrain
in, initially, hypnotherapy,but other therapeutic

(07:08):
disciplines over the years aswell, and really my ambition was
to be the therapist that Iwould have wanted when I started
my personal therapy journey 15or so years ago.
When I started my personaltherapy journey 15 or so years

(07:29):
ago, and to think about what Ineeded at that time, because I'm
sure there are people like meand it is some of the things you
referred to, kind of having theknowledge and the experience
and the technical knowledge, ifyou want to call it that, to
understand our psychology andour physiology and how our
environment and ourrelationships affect our
psychology and physiology, butalso to have somebody that is
quite straight and plain talkingto, to offer some

(07:50):
accountability and a soundingboard and to kind of make peace
with my own past and to talkabout my experiences through the
journey of recovery from mentalhealth and the.
I see that as the work of therest of my lifetime to manage my
own health physically andmentally, simply because, as a

(08:12):
41-year-old man, lots of mendon't come to therapy.
When I first set up shop, I setup all my advertising and
marketing around offeringtherapy service predominantly to
those that identify as male andassign fit male at birth and
nobody came.
Because even as recently asseven or eight years ago,

(08:34):
there's still quite a big stigmaattached to men's mental health
that is pleasingly changing andit's developing week on week
and I have more male clients andit's developing week on week
and I have more male clients.
So my practice in the first fewyears was sort of almost
exclusively female clients,which gave me the need to learn

(09:02):
about other areas that affectedwomen and their psychology and
different issues.
So to try and give myself a muchbroader knowledge base to draw
on, I think the other thing thatI try and do is to think about
my own experience and toacknowledge that all of our
individual conscious experienceI get a bit woo-woo now.

(09:24):
You know, nobody else reallyknows what somebody else is
thinking or how they feel orwhat it's like for that other
person, but we all have a kindof an experience of our thoughts
, of our subconscious, what it'slike to have an inner narrative
and an inner dialogue, what itfeels like to feel lethargic or
foggy in our thoughts, and howthat affects our mood, how it

(09:45):
affects our ability to motivateourselves, why we might
procrastinate, um, and tohopefully develop what I think
is like a toolkit that everybodycan carry around with them to
help them to understand theirown experience of their own
psychology and physiology asthey go about day-to-day life.
And we started talking about.

(10:07):
You know, the reason we'retalking now is around the topic
of motivation versusprocrastination, and the
prevailing idea that I see inthe topic of motivation is that
we find ourselves in a comfortzone zone and in order to get
our long-term goals whetherthat's losing weight, going to

(10:28):
the gym, learning mandarin,doing the degree, writing the
book, starting the business,becoming a hypnotherapist,
whatever it, whatever thelong-term kind of aspirational
cerebral goal that we've got isis that we find ourselves in a
comfort zone and we simply needto push ourselves out of a
comfort zone towards that longterm promised land of milk and
honey and rainbows and unicorns.

(10:50):
And yeah, there is a great dealof truth in that that.
If you are in a comfort zone andyour life is going well and
you're enjoying good mental andphysical health at that time,
then you will need to giveyourself a bit of a boost in
order to do the difficult thingand, from from a neuroplasticity
point of view, learningsomething new and doing

(11:14):
something new is alwayschallenging because you need to
have the chemicals in your brainwhich make you feel agitated,
which is the mechanism forlearning and your brain going
through that neuroplasticitychange.
Those chemicals are adrenalineand acetylcholine and they make
you feel that agitated sense.
So it's always going to bedifficult to learn something new

(11:34):
and push yourself out of acomfort zone towards long-term
goals.
If it is easy, if you can dothe thing that you need
motivation for and you don'tfind it difficult, then it isn't
working.
You know if you, if you needmotivation for and you don't
find it difficult, then it isn'tworking.
You know if you, if you want toexercise and you don't find it
a challenge, then that you'renot really exercising.
Does that make sense?
yeah, yeah where I, where I kindof made this kind of thought

(11:59):
for myself, is, you know, whenI'm thinking about my long-term
goals.
He kindly mentioned about myapp earlier is that it is.
I was assuming that I was inthat comfort zone, that I was
simply in a comfort zone and allI needed to do was motivate
myself out of that comfort zoneto do the difficult thing, the
difficult work that I hadn'treally got the experience to do

(12:21):
and it's been I hadn't donebefore.
I didn't have the knowledge howto do, and it's quite exposing
to put yourself.
You know, if you're sitting ina one-to-one session with a
client, you can talk very, veryopenly, very, um, calmly, about
your own experience.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
But when you start to record yourself and put it
online for people to to commenton, it's very exposing very
vulnerable, especially when it'ssomething that involves emotion
for you or it's something thatyou've been through your own
experience.
You kind of go oh, please saysomething nice about this,
because I'm sharing this from myheart and it can feel very

(12:57):
exciting, particularly vocal um,so, um.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
So when I was thinking about this, I thinking
am I actually in a comfort zoneto start with?
Because that's kind of wherewe're told that if we want
something to achieve a long termgoal we're in a comfort zone.
We must get out of it.
I was like I don't feelparticularly comfortable with
the prospect of having to dothis.
So then I started to thinkabout the human brain and how

(13:24):
it's evolved over time and whatthe human brain is actually
doing, what it's actuallyachieving for us.
Every single second of the dayit's processing two million
pieces of information.
A second is is the informationor the the number that I've read
?
It's running 650 differenttypes of chemical reactions
within your body.
It's working yourcardiovascular system, digestion

(13:44):
, immune system, endocrinesystem, lymphatic systems all of
these different systems everysingle second, from the before
you're born to the very secondyou die, and that's where its
primary focus is.
We could think of that as thebrain's first gear of motivation
.
It wants you to be healthy andalive and your brain has got

(14:06):
lots of kind of volume thatdeals with all of those
different systems and processesevery single moment of your life
once that is dealt with.
You know that's the first gearof motivation.
Your brain wants you to bealive.
If you're very hungry, it willtell you.
If you're very cold, it willtell you.
If you're very hot, it willtell you.
If you're dehydrated, it willtell you.
And if you're very hungry, itwill tell you.

(14:26):
If you're very cold, it willtell you.
If you're very hot, it willtell you.
If you're dehydrated, it willtell you.
And if you're in pain, it willtell you.
And those things would becomeoverwhelmingly important.
You'll be fantasticallymotivated to resolve those
things before you.
You think about your long-termgoals.
So once you get out of thatfirst gear and you resolve your
physical and physiologicalhealth as best as you possibly
can, you then move into thesecond gear, which is all about

(14:48):
comfort and discomfort andpotentially principally, the
avoidance of discomfort.
Now, when you in theintroduction, you were talking
about doing things that arequite challenging tax returns
versus washing up, yeah, it maybe for me when I was thinking
about doing my app, I've got todo something I don't know how to

(15:10):
do, um, and could be quiteexposing.
It's quite an investment oftime and energy and effort and
it's a difficult thing to do.
Yeah, and it's been known sincethe 60s that our brain has this
in in carl rogers work, anorganismistic valuing system.
It's constantly like a set ofold school weighing scales,
weighing up the thing that youwant to do versus the thing that

(15:33):
you're going to do, and ifsomething is difficult, then
your brain is going to go don'tdo that thing.
It's really difficult, do thisthing instead.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Sit on the sofa, find something on Netflix, put your
pajamas on, open your phone,order something off, deliveroo
yeah, yeah, you can see that,working in our physical movement
as well, we end up with badbacks and bad necks and and
aching shoulders and sore knees.
Because our body automaticallygoes to move and to pick things

(16:01):
up and to stand up and to sitdown, we automatically pick the
easiest route, don't we pick theeasiest option and that can
things up and to stand up and tosit down, we automatically pick
the easiest route, don't wePick the easiest option, and
that can end up, you know, beingquite imbalancing for us when
it's repetitive.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, so your brain is kind of allocating the amount
of resources that you've gotavailable to you at the time.
So a tax return is a very kindof cerebrally intense thing to
do.
You're going to need a lot ofinformation.
It's something you only do oncea year.
It's very kind of overwhelming.
It's quite frightening to haveto deal with majesty's revenue

(16:35):
and customers and, um, you know,if you get it wrong, there's a
kind of idea that scary peopleare going to come and knock on
the door.
So you know, around that timeyour brain's going to go.
Well, instead of doing that,why don't you do washing up
instead?
Um, so there's that that kindof valuing mechanism that's
going on, and part of that, Ithink, is you.

(16:56):
You need to have quite a lot ofenergy and um esteem in reserve
in order to do that thing Iagree yeah and what happens is,
if you leave your tax returnuntil the the 30th of January,
then then it becomes really,really important and the valuing
system changes, because if youdon't do it at that point, then

(17:17):
the pain of not doing it becomesgreater than the pain of
leaving it any longer yeah, yeahso that that kind of that type
of procrastination, theavoidance procrastination that
so many of us experience, um isthe the pain of not doing it is
is less painful for a time, andum of the the the pain of

(17:40):
actually doing it.
And it's not until that valuingsystem changes on the inside
where if I don't do this thingright now, then it's really
going to cause me a much biggerproblem.
And then there's a huge surgeof energy that we have.
We go and do the tax return andthen we sit back afterwards and
go well, it wasn't really thatbad anyway, was it?
You know, it's quite simple andstraightforward once you get
into it, and but we and we go on.

(18:01):
Next year it's going to be even, but I'm going to do it as soon
as the tax year rolls around,I'm going to have all my
accounts and all my bookkeepingright ready to go.
And then we're faced with thesame problem again that the
complexity and the energy thatit takes to do the thing is
greater than what we have inreserve at any given point.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
Does that make sense?
Makes sense, yeah, it does makesense.
Um, it's interesting.
I, I mean I often say to peopleI don't really believe that
procrastination exists.
I tend to believe that it's.
It's a limitation or it's anexperience that you've had
that's led you to believe yeah,but it's really difficult, it's
traumatic, it's dangerous, it'sgonna, it isn't.

(18:47):
I'm not sure that I'm really abeliever in it.
You have to get out of yourcomfort zone and I think that's
what, what really kind of went.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Oh, somebody else you know is thinking along those
lines I think procrastination isis a label that it gets chucked
around for for many, manydifferent, many different things
.
What I say to my clients isnothing happens for no reason.
There is always a reason whyyour brain has decided to do
something in the way that it has.

(19:15):
You may not want to know whatthat reason is, you may not like
what that reason is.
That reason may be obscuredfrom you, but there will be a
legitimate, protective reasonthat your brain has said don't
do that because it's going to bedifficult.
Now.
That reason may be as a resultof your, your esteem, your
relationships.
What the meaning is you drawfrom that situation?
That, how it might negativelyimpact you if it went wrong or

(19:38):
this, that and the other.
Maybe that you don't feelworthy or deserving, deep down
on the inside to have the, theoutcome or the product of
whatever it is that you'reputting off.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
So I'm going to share with you a little bit of a of a
story from from my ownexperience, um, related to the
tax return, um, and it's, it's,it's, it's something that it's a
story, that it is going toreflect numerous other
experiences that I've heard andand things that I've experienced
as a therapist as well.

(20:09):
Um, where you, you, you, thediscomfort, um, kind of
imbalance, comfort, discomfort,pain, pleasure, imbalance gets
you know, you get to the pointwhere, okay, you need to hand
this tax return in now, it needsto be done by tomorrow, or else
, or it's getting to a pointwhere I haven't been able to

(20:31):
clean up my house for ages andit's got worse and worse, and
worse and worse, and now we knowit's becoming a health hazard
to me, my life, or I really needto get this work done, meet
this goal, whatever it is, andat the last minute, you become
so overwhelmed and so paralyzedI like to use the word paralyzed
because it kind of reflectswhat I hear when people talk

(20:54):
about procrastination sooverwhelmed and so
procrastinized, so paralyzedprocrastinized that's a new word
paralyzed that you just hit thefuck it button and just think
fuck it, I'm not doing it, justnot gonna do it.
I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna goshopping, I'm gonna go drinking,
I'm gonna do anything else, butI am, I'm just, I just don't

(21:17):
care.
I do not care about the outcome.
You do really care, quitedeeply, I think, but it just
becomes like such a massivechallenge, such a huge task, so
incredibly all-encompassing oroverwhelming, that you almost go
into self-destruct mode to getout of it.

(21:37):
You create excuses, you startto move into a different way.
I think it's interesting todive into the intricate workings
of the human brain a little bitmore, um, when we're
understanding this kind of I II'll explain how yeah how I
approach the and I'm pleased touse the f-bomb before I did,

(21:58):
because the chances of megetting through and I was
talking about none.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
So I'll talk about my , my uh approach the, the fuck
it button, in a moment, becauseit's something that I have
personal, a great deal ofpersonal experience in um.
So just just to tidy up thatlast point.
So our brain deals with ourphysical health first, then it
is dealing with comfort versusdiscomfort.
It is always going to leantowards comfort.

(22:22):
Once we get to a state ofcomfort, we are then in the
comfort zone and we can thenprogress towards our long-term
goals.
And for my, my personalexperience is I spent a long
time of my life, until veryrecently, below the level of the
comfort zone, and I'll talkthrough that in a moment.
So so my kind of take on why wehave the discomfort zone.

(22:47):
Yeah, the discomfort zone.
That's kind of our second gear.
If we can get out of thatsecond gear we can find
ourselves in the third gear,which is our comfort zone, and
then we can push out of that.
So we have an idea of who weshould be in our mind at any
time.
This pinches a bit from CarlRogers again in our mind at any
time.
This, this little, pinches abit from carl rogers again.

(23:08):
It pinches a bit from internalfamily systems, which I think is
is a brilliant um tool to usealongside hypnotherapy is very
hypnotic anyway.
Uh, for the your, the peoplelistening that are
hypnotherapists.
Um, I'd strongly recommend nobad parts by richard schwartz.
Um, it's a book that mightchange my, my life personally
and and professionally, um, andit it forms the basis of many

(23:29):
conversations that I have withclients all the time that when
we think about rogerian um, the,the humanistic approach to, to
counseling, it's something thatclients find very easy to drop
into and associate with quite alot, and and so the way I
approach it with somebody is tosay you know, if I asked you to
describe yourself who you are ona good day not the best day of

(23:51):
your life, but on a good day,what your friends, your
colleagues, would say about you.
Just give me two or three wordsand I know we're British and
that you're going to be modestand you're not going to want to
say something bragging orboastful, but is a therapy
session.
You can say whatever you likeand nobody's going to know, and,
and generally I'll get wordsalong the lines of kind, caring,
loving and generous.
They're quite common um, I havethings like I'm a good person,

(24:13):
I'm a hard-working person, um,or I'm quite academic, or um,
you know, that would besomething an attribute that they
hold on to, all perfectlyunderstandable, laudable things
to have in your life.
And and you, you get instantlythe idea of somebody who they
should be on their best day.
They are kind and caring,loving and generous.

(24:34):
So they're hard working,they're a good person, they're
an academic, they're whatever.
Yeah, now if that person isn'tthose things for any reason
whatsoever, we then get aninsight into who they are, kind
of what Carl Jung might call thealter ego.
We get the shadow side.
You know where they are whenthey're not that.
So if somebody's hardworking,if they're not hardworking, then

(24:58):
they may take the message fromthat that they're lazy or
they're not productive orthey're not good enough because
they're not being as efficientor as effective as they might be
.
Now, if you've got an idea ofwho you should be positively
when you're at your best, in myexperience personally and
professionally, that most of ushave got a set of negative core

(25:20):
beliefs limiting beliefs, asthey might be called in NLP and
they'll generally be hung arounda few different types of things
for those that are, I mean,male at birth and identifies
male.
The big one this comes fromBrené Brown's kind of work on
shame is about being weak.
That is absolute kryptonite tomen.
They don't want to be seen asthat.

(25:41):
They don't want to go anywherenear that.
Coming to therapy means they'reweak.
Any kind, any emotion thatisn't anger is weakness.
And you're allowed to love yournan, your dog and your football
team, but other than thatyou're not allowed to show love
for anything else your dog andyour football team, but other
than that you're not allowed toshow love for anything else.
Um, and you know that that'skind of what's drilled into to
men, those at the sign mount forfemale.

(26:01):
This is brené brown's work.
It's more subtle, it's morenuanced, it's about being
perfect, not being a burden, notbeing able to be seen, to be
struggling, you know, to haveall of your shit wired tight all
of the time and that anythingthat that and touches on those
nerves becomes like kryptonite,for for those of a female.

(26:23):
And when we have a that, we'vegot these two different versions
of ourselves that are alive andwell and breathing on the
inside.
On a good day, we findourselves as good and
hard-working, or kind, caring,loving and generous, and those
are really positive traits thatwe we find in ourselves.
And and hardworking or kind,caring, loving and generous, and
those are really positivetraits that we we find in
ourselves and the world conferson us, and it's good to be those
things.
Now, if they get disturbed orshaken or we make a mistake and

(26:45):
we're not those things, thenwe're right over here, on the
other side of whatever our setof negative core beliefs are
that are obscured from us.
We don't want to go anywherenear.
And if you imagine those twoversions of ourselves when they
get far apart, when they're inconflict, then we have a third
version of ourselves, which isthe, our emotional state, which

(27:06):
is either anxiety, it'sdepression, it's burnout, it's
fatigue, it's procrast, and thenif you sit in that third state
for long enough.
Eventually, that will morph intoonline shopping.
It will morph into doomscrolling through socials.
It will morph into comforteating into sexual behaviours,

(27:27):
drinking, drugs, gambling youknow any of those kind of high
impact, high dopamine activitieswhich provide that fuck it
moment, to use your phrase.
Yeah, and don't give a shitthat you're not the person that
you thought you want to be inthe world, and you don't have to
go anywhere near the personthat you've become.
You can just sit outside in alittle protective bubble of a

(27:53):
fuck it.
I'll just do what I want for aperiod of time Now in that
bubble.
If those behaviours are leftunchecked, it starts with
procrastination, it starts withavoidance, because we're not the
person we wanted to be andwe're this version of ourselves
that we can't tolerate.
For a period of time, we cansit and procrastinate.
We can sit and doom, scroll upon our phone.
We can sit and internet shop orany of those other other types

(28:17):
of behaviors and and in thosemoments it feels good that
that's why we do it.
There's another reason whynobody's becoming addicted or
using kale smoothie orcrocheting or mindfulness
coloring in books in order to toachieve that state of something
like what carl rogers wouldcall congruence.
It's always the big stuff thatwe're using, that stuff that

(28:40):
changes our physiological stateimmediately.
Chocolate is the most you know,of all the things that have
approached, of all the peoplethat have approached me for
therapy over the years, forhypnotherapy, chocolate is
number one.
You know, I can't stop eatingchocolate.
Yeah, yeah, um.
So that's because it has thisincredibly potent effect on our

(29:01):
physiology very, very quickly.
Um it.
It makes us feel good, we getthe, the dopamine kick from it,
we get some oxytocin, maybe someserotonin, we get an increase
in blood sugar, um, that thatwill change our balance of
insulin and cortisol, which willrelieve some stress.
And it tastes nice.
It reminds us of childhood andit reminds us for if we are good

(29:22):
, we get a chocolate um, and allvery, very potent, um,
psychological and physiologicalkind of triggers for us not a
big fan of the word trigger, butthat's that's where we're at.
So that kind of that idea ofthere being three different
versions of ourselves on theinside.
And there is, there is a, thereis a kind of.

(29:45):
There is a conscious mind,there is an executive function,
as it would be called in inneurobiology.
There is a bit of my brain thatcan hear these other voices
playing out.
There's a bit of my brain goingright, come on, other voices
playing out.
There's a bit of my brain goingright, come on, craig.
You've got all these brightideas, mate, are you ever going
to do this app?
And there's another version ofme going I'm really tired, I
can't be bothered.
You know what?
If it's shit, nobody, nobodysigns up to it.

(30:05):
And then there's the middleversion that goes ah, do you
know what, craig?
Just laugh it off, just go andwatch some telly.
Um, find something on some.
Find something to eat on.
Deliver room, just chill outfor a bit.
Do it tomorrow.
You know you've done enoughwork for today.
You know, there there is thosethree different versions of
Craig on the inside that I canhave almost like a two-way
conversation with, or that theycertainly can have a one-way

(30:27):
conversation with me and,depending on who's prevailing at
any given time determines whatI do now from therapist, once
somebody gets that conceptuallyin going through a hypnotherapy
session, we can take somebody tokind of a place of relaxation
and ask them to visualize whothey are on their best day, to

(30:51):
see them as a third party, as anexternal person, and often
that's a really pleasurable,pleasant experience to be,
because then somebody that maybe struggling with self-esteem
can see themselves as otherpeople might see them, and they
can see them in a positive light.
And oftentimes people would say,oh, that person's really happy,

(31:12):
they're glowing, they'rethey're, they're wearing really
smart clothes, they've got thethings that they want in life
and that is the person that youcan become.
That person's waiting for you inthe future.
Now, if you ask that person tocome back a little bit towards
you, to here and now, thatperson will support you.
It may be that that version ofyou is giving you a lot of

(31:32):
pressure because you're notquite where you could be, and it
can often be a very relievingeffect for my clients to know
that there is the future forthem.
There is the version of themthat they can grow into and
become with a bit of elbowgrease.
And then from that we'd go tomeet the kind of the other
versions, the shadow version orthe alter ego, the kind of the

(31:54):
other versions from the shadowversion or the alter ego, but
the one that's reallydowntrodden or um, is struggling
with those, those core beliefsof not being good enough or not
being worthy, not being a victimof life or being weak or
whatever else, and that was kindof the truth of that, that
there is this version of on theinside that is really struggling
.
Yeah, um, and it's for them, tothem as they actually are, the

(32:17):
consciousness, if you want tocall it that, the soul, the self
, the spirit, the executivefunction, to actually really
embrace that version ofthemselves or the trauma they've
experienced, the fact that thisversion of them does feel like
that.
And then the third part is togo and meet the, the, the fuck
it version, the protective part,the bit that says just sit on

(32:38):
the sofa and drink beer and eatdeliverable and doom scroll on
your phone.
And that version is there toprotect.
It's to protect that, that kindof alter ego, downtrodden
version of ourselves, and it'sto block it out.
It's to block out the pain ofit.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
And it's to block it out, it's to block out the pain
of it.
Yeah, absolutely so.
I love, I love that three, thethree parts of it, and it really
resonates with my ownexperience of therapeutic
intervention that worked for me.
I very much was in the fuck itbutton space for a number of
years and nearly died as aresult of that number of years

(33:19):
and nearly died as a result ofthat.
And I went through recovery andI went to rehab and I did all
of the the program but I didn'treally know how to live as a
happy, healthy, drug-free sober,if you like to use that word.
I didn't know how to live as afree, happy person, um, and, and
I was.
I was constantly haunted by theguilt and the negative and I

(33:41):
was very aware of my shadow andaspects because I had seen the
destruction and the darkness andthe horrible things that I had
done and felt dreadful about it.
And my therapist used partstherapy with me.
Um, which is how we refer to iton on our training at the
Northern College, we do partstherapy as a part of our diploma

(34:01):
course.
Um, and and and parts therapy,um, she took me to reconnect
with, or to get to know againthe part of me that knew how to
live happy, healthy, joyous,free, be a light, be.

(34:23):
You know the things that Iwanted to be, that blueprint of
the person that I wanted tobecome.
And I had I felt sodisconnected from that part of
me.
I felt really stuck, reallytrapped in that negative space.
And she introduced her toAmanda from the future and
looked at Amanda's world in avisualisation.

(34:45):
What did it look like?
What sort of activities didAmanda do in the future?
And we went to Amanda's worldand Amanda was happier and
healthier and and funnier andwas doing singing and was using
her voice to help people and wasdoing all sorts of different
things.
And up until I'd had thatsession, I could not see a
future.
I was really stuck in that, inthat, oh, I'm a horrible person,

(35:11):
fuck it.
Oh, I can't do this, it's notfor me, I don't know.
And and person fuck it.
Oh, I can't do this, it's notfor me, I don't know.
And the fuck it for mesometimes meant I wanted to
check out as well.
You know, of life it was areally, really dark place to
exist in between, that kind ofno man's land, almost of those
spaces, and just seeing thatdimension in my mind gave me

(35:34):
something to feel like this ispotentially achievable for me.
I can do that, and they werereally simple things like
listening to music that I likeand singing along, having a
dance around my living room,having a bit of a disco in the
kitchen and you know, and doingjust reconnecting with things
that gave me a sense of of joy,happiness, movement, um and

(35:57):
peace as well within me, um, and, and that part of me was called
joy, um, and it, you know, myname is amanda joy, but I was
kind of, you know, for a longtime I was just meh, meh, what's
your name?
Meh?
Because that's how I felt.
And then I became Amanda, andthen I became Amanda Joy, and it

(36:18):
was because I'd had that anintervention in my life where I
was really able to to, to seeall of the dimensions of me,
love all of the dimensions of me.
Reflect on that.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
The dark stuff has actually really brought some
real beautiful dimensions oflight into my world and there's
there's that kind of lovelinessI think that the, the messages
that we have on that kind ofdark side, if we want to use it,
that the shadow side, that thealter ego they actually create,
who we become on the outsideworld, that if you feel and

(36:55):
those messages go in from, mostlikely before you can even
remember they, they come in inchildhood and they can go in
very subtly, very nuanced way,it doesn't have to be malicious
although for lots of people,sadly, that this is a result of
neglect and abuse but it doesn'thave to be just.
You can latch on to one, onenegative message from from your
childhood and and it will form anegative idea of yourself.

(37:18):
And then from that negativeidea then we we try and bury
that, we try and hide that fromourselves, hide that from the
world, and we'll be the oppositeof that on the outside.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Um, so if we feel and I think we can end up with
multiple dimensions of thoseparts of us that are protective
um that are helping us to feelgood with the chocolate.
That are giving us the extragin and tonic on a friday tea
time that I have it causing usto have fish and chips on a
weekend, instead of creatinghealthy foods or healthy ways of
living and being that it wasthat feeling of security and

(37:51):
safety yeah, there's that,there's the tone of each, though
we've got the ideal, we've goteach.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
So we've got the ideal, we've got the logical,
we've got the rational, we'vegot the, the, the actual sense
of who we are deep down on theinside, the bit we obscure from
us.
And then we've got theprotective.
You know what what ends up.
You know if you amplify it endsup being self-destructive and
self-abusive, but really isintending to be the fuck it
moment and to get you out of the, the torment of being pulled in

(38:16):
an opposite direction.
So then I took that a littlebit one stage further.
So you've talked about it thereand in in my life it that
you've got how you can be atyour very very best.
So at my very very best is, youknow I've run the marathon,
I've climbed kilimanjaro, I'verun a run.
A business of this is my secondprofessional career.
You know I've run the marathon,I've climbed kilimanjaro, I've
run it, I've run a business ofthis is my second professional

(38:37):
career.
You know they're big moments of, of happiness and joy, and you
know achievement in my liferight there's.
You know, and hopefully mostpeople listening will have half
a dozen of those, 10 of those,in their entire lifetime, if
they're really lucky, first off,and if they work hard for for
them, right?
So there is a version of craigthat's done all those things and
some people go.
That's quite impressive.

(38:57):
If you, if you think I'm tryingto impress you or be boastful
or bragging, hang on a secondbecause, you know, hang on to
your hats, it gets a bit.
So there's a craig that hasdone those types of things and
if we think of that him as kindof at the penthouse of the top
of a of a tower block, we'llthat's level 10, 10 out of 10,
living your best life.
Craig, right, that version ofCraig has existed.

(39:17):
There's also a version of Craigthat existed in the basement of
that tower block Acute mentalhealth problems, suicidal,
abusing alcohol, abusing drugs,abusing his body, I don't know.
I've had a pretty good go atmost things.
And now that both of thosepeople they are entirely
different people there is atransformation that the guy that

(39:38):
was living in the basement,tormented and drunk and out of
his face, um, is not the sameguy that that can run a marathon
.
But they are both me, but justnot at the same time, um.
So if we think of who I can be.
My potential as being 10 out of10, and then who I am as a
result of mental health problemsis what we might commonly call

(39:59):
addiction.
I don't, I don't believe in theword addiction.
I find it hard and shameful umdefinitely moving away from pain
yeah, well, when the when thefuck it moment has just got gone
a bit too awry, um, and then wecan imagine then in our
imaginary tab like I've got ithere on my whiteboard but for
those that are watching, butthose that might be listening,
um, that I think our comfortzone was.

(40:22):
To come back to that idea ofthe three gears, I think our
comfort zone exists about levelsix of our tower block.
Now, if I ask someone how theyare out of 10, ask them to give
me a number out of 10.
Most people, in my anecdotalexperience of this, if I said,
how are you now?
Give me a number out of 10.
, how well are you doing?
And people would go, oh,they're not about six.

(40:43):
So you know, six is our comfortzone, that's our target, and I
think that what we really needis a much more effective way to
think about how we are actuallyfeeling and doing in our life at
any given moment.
So then what I do is this I sayto somebody right, ok, so
you're about a six, seven out of10 right now.

(41:04):
So next I'm going to ask you totell me yes or no.
Do you feel energized?
Do you feel like you've gotenough energy to get through the
rest of the day without feelingkind of overwhelmingly tired.
They say no, I no.
I say right, knock a point off.
So we go from six down to fiveand I say right, just think
about how easy it is for you toconcentrate and focus.

(41:25):
Now, if I gave you a relativelycomplex task to do that's within
your skill set, would you findit easy to concentrate?
Would you be picking up yourphone every couple of minutes,
looking out out the window,picking your nose, whatever it
might be?
And if they say no, then I'llsay right, knock another point
off, because clearly you're notas cognitively, there isn't as
much cognitive availabilitycapacity to you at that time.

(41:46):
It's where we move on to talkabout motivation, because I
don't like the word motivation.
I'll talk about that in aminute.
I said if I the word motivation,I'll talk about that in a
minute.
I said if I gave you thatcomplex task that's within your
skill set to do, but it's goingto be quite complex and and
demanding for you, how muchenthusiasm would you have to get
that done?
If it's an, would you haveenthusiasm to get that done?
And if they haven't got energyand concentration generally, the

(42:08):
answer would be no, because youhaven't got the energy and kind
of the mental capacity to dothat.
So if it's a no, knock anotherpoint off.
So we've gone from six down tofour already yeah and then, and
then if then I'll say you know,how healthy do you feel right
now?
Do you feel well, nourished orrested, you know, do you got any
aches and pains that arenoticeable, like digestive stuff

(42:29):
?
You know how, how well do youfeel overall?
Do you feel full of vitality,um, or do you feel a bit groggy
and a bit kind of sluggish and abit, you know, aches and pains,
whatever else.
Well, you know, if I'm honest,I do, shoulders are aching, I
feel a bit tense a bit.
You know, digestion isn't great, whatever it might be, okay,
we'll knock another point offthen.
And then I say, realistically,you know you may have got.

(42:52):
You know relationships are goingwell, work might be all right,
might be a few quid in the bank,but have you got any problems
in your life?
Whatever they might be, itmight be the boiler's on the way
out, or you've got to ring thegarage to get the car serviced
or whatever else.
But have you got any problemsin your life that are bothering
you to the point where they keepcropping up in your mind?
You go, well, yeah, who hasn'tgot problems?

(43:21):
Okay, right, well, if you'vegot something that's popping up
in your mind constantly, thenknock another point off so we go
from a place of yeah, I'm sixout of ten happy.
But realistically I don't thinkwe spend a lot of our time in
that comfort zone.
Because if we don't feelenergized, we don't feel like
we've got a lot of concentration, we don't feel like we've got a
lot of concentration, we don'tfeel like we've got a lot of
enthusiasm, we don't feel maybeparticularly well or we've got
problems that are bothering us.
We're actually kind of not in acomfort zone at all.
We're much lower down.

(43:42):
Yeah and I think the target forfor us, if we've got a long-term
goal with something that wewant to do with our life from
that logical, rational futureversion of ourself, then that
version that's communicating tous on the inside thinks that we
are in a comfort zone, thinksthat we are up there at that

(44:02):
level continuously.
But for many of us, inparticularly if we've had mental
health challenges or we've hadtrauma in our life or challenges
of addiction, or we strugglewith our self-esteem or we
experience chronic fatigue, youknow, to get to a comfort zone
is a job of work on its ownabsolutely yeah, and that we

(44:23):
have in our society nowadays andI saw a lot of it in lockdown.
Before we started recordingtoday, we talked about lockdown
um that if we are not constantlybusy and productive and
learning mandarin, or doingsalsa classes, or baking banana
bread, or doing joe wicks pelessons or whatever, if we're
not in a constant and perpetualstate of busyness and

(44:45):
productiveness and taking aselfie of ourselves to put on
social media at the same time,then somehow there is something
wrong with us, that we we areprocrastinating when in fact
we're not.
The first thing that we may bedoing when we are so-called
procrastinating is resting,because human beings have a
legitimate and fundamental needto rest in addition to sleep.

(45:08):
We're not designed to berunning at 100 miles an hour, 24
hours a day.
We're meant to work for eight,rest for eight, sleep for eight.
That's the kind of the premiseof how we're designed, but now
we think boredom is quite a goodthing as well.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Boredom can be painful for people.
But I think I worked with a muma number of years ago and she
was like on a Monday they've gotthe kids, they've got rugby,
and on a Tuesday they've gotscouts, and on a Wednesday
they've got computer classes, ona Thursday they've got arts and
this, that the other.
And she said my sons, and everyday of the week there was some

(45:45):
event, there was somethinghappening and school and
homework and loads of stuff, andevery weekend they were off
having a lovely life.
What an incredible blessing tobe able to have all of those
dimensions in your life.
But our kids were sufferingfrom anxiety.
And she was like why are mykids suffering from anxiety?
And I'm like when do they everget bored?
Like they need a day, at leasta day, to just be bored, have

(46:07):
absolutely nothing to do.
But I want to hear Mum, I'mbored.
I'm bored Because boredom, Ithink, is actually really
important for us to have a timeof nothing.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, I think for children, absolutely to
encourage creativity.
When I work with weightmanagement clients, lots of
people will say to me in veryhushed tones do you know what,
craig?
Now you've kind of said aboutthe three different versions of
myself?
I think one of the reasons whyI might eat chocolate is I might
be bored.
Okay, so what's it mean to bebored?
As an adult, you've got a muchmore complicated emotional

(46:43):
experience, I think, because,first off, you've got the
pressure of, well, I shouldn'tbe bored because I've got all of
this stuff available to me 24 7that I should be enjoying.
Yeah, um, if you are, um, boredand you're on your own, then
that might mean that you'relonely and that once you get
under the lid of that, that's avery different emotion as well.

(47:03):
If you are bored and you areliving with a significant other,
in children or parents orwhatever else, that's an.
That's an even more complicated, uh, emotional state, because
it probably means you're feelinga bit disconnected from the
people around you.
And then, if you've got thatfeeling of disconnection and
you've got the kind of lethargythat comes up with boredom, then

(47:25):
you've got depersonalization,lack of motivation, lethargy.
Then I would be thinking morealong the lines if you're not
bored, you're burnt out yeah um,and that that's.
That's a an entirely differentphenomenon on its own.
If you're procrastinatingbecause you're burnt out, you're
not procrastinating at all,you're burnt out, you're

(47:45):
knackered yeah, and that doesn'tthat kind of feeling of
clinging on to the bottom rungor that was just being on the
hamster wheel just long enoughin order to fall out at the
weekend and collapse into a heapon the sofa.
Yeah, that isn'tprocrastinating.
A lot of what I hear in termsof procrastinating.
People feel low motivation,disconnected from, from others

(48:10):
around them.
Their esteem starts to um to tobe affected and their
motivation.
They become less and lessproductive and there's tiredness
that isn't resolved by sleep.
Well, all of that stuff isindicators of burnout and
fatigue.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
That isn't procrastinating no, and I think
that's what it's what's reallyinteresting, isn't it?
It's like we were saying at thebeginning, procrastination is a
label that we give to lots ofdifferent things and and it's
usually used to beat yourself upwith oh I'm procrastinating.
Well, actually, are you or doyou have some kind of like what
we're talking about, somelimiting beliefs?
Are you, or have you had someexperiences that have caused you

(48:48):
to feel kind of quiterestricted in what you're doing,
or limited in some way?
Are you absolutely justexhausted?
Do you just need to have a rest?
Um, you know, is there fatigue?
Is there burnout?
Because I think a lot of peopleare on that hamster wheel all
day, every day go, go, go, go,go, and they're continuing to
push through with burnoutconstantly, so they're not in

(49:12):
their comfort zone ever, arethey?

Speaker 2 (49:14):
they're definitely in the in my power, yeah then
they're.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
They're heading for the basement time to get off the
elevator.
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
I think there's an elevator down and there's a set
of stairs going back up.
It's very difficult to climbback up each level from the
basement.
The other thing I see and itreally does, you know, grind my
gears, to use the modern phraseis that lots of coaching and
personal development tools arebeing offered and presented as
if they are mental healthrecovery tools.

(49:48):
Now, I'm a big fan ofmindfulness and kind of
visualization and all that typeof stuff.
It's great and it's wonderfuland it has a place.
Positive affirmations, visionboards, gratitude, practice all
of that fantastic, right, butthat those are not mental health
tools, they're notphysiological tools.
If somebody finds himself in myanalogy, in the basement, go

(50:12):
and say have you triedmanifestation?
Have you tried practicinggratitude for, for the food in
your fridge?
No, fuck off, right, becausethose things do not work for
people that are in the throes ofdepression or in the throat of
a panic attack.
Um, they, they are there.
If in, in my kind of towerblock analogy, if you find

(50:32):
yourself having dropped out ofyour comfort zone to level five
out of ten and you need a littlelift, a little boost to remind
yourself of the wonders of lifeand and how great it is to have
oxygen in your lungs and allthat sort of stuff that may be
the thing that lifts you back up.
That one level yeah, somebody's,you know, in the throes of
depression.
They haven't left the house infive days.

(50:53):
They haven't got out of bed forthree and they're laying in bed
.
They haven't showered for twodays.
You don't plonk them in frontof the mirror and go.
Why don't you tell yourselfthat you love yourself?
Because that person right thendoesn't?
They are kind of in despair andand they are so far into it
that that just wouldn't helpyeah.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
And and I have all these people who say fake it
till you make it.
Yeah, that sounds like a lovelyidea.
But if I feel ugly and I tellmyself in the mirror that I am
beautiful, I am beautiful, I ambeautiful, in in my inner voice,
I'm going no, I'm not, I'm not,no, I'm not, no, I'm not, no,
I'm not, and I'm actually justmaking myself feel even worse.
Yeah, it's bullshit, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (51:37):
I think it is bullshit, but I also think it's
now becoming toxic.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
It's almost narcissistic.
I yeah narcissistic.
Well, wellness practices, ifyou are.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
If you are struggling with your mental health in
terms of anxiety, in terms ofdepression, in terms of
developmental trauma,post-traumatic stress disorder
or substance abuse disorder,adhd or you know any kind of
mental health presentation thatis so common nowadays.
Yeah, and people go on tiktokand they say, right, improve
your mental health.
By just writing down threethings that you're grateful for

(52:11):
today, that that doesn't doanything to help somebody's
mental health.
It may help somebody'semotional well-being if they're
enjoying good mental health, butour emotional well-being for
somebody in good mental health,yeah, on a bad day isn't the
same as somebody's having amental health crisis absolutely

(52:32):
and and it is becoming toxic tothe point of dangerous.
Yeah, that person that's havinga mental health crisis, that's
functioning in life, going right, okay, well, I found this, this
uh course online how to improveyour mental health from
manifestation.
Right, I'll just write down allthese things that I want in my
life and I'm sitting, manifestreally, really hard until they

(52:52):
happen.
That isn't going to do anythingto that person, they'll just.
It may make them worse.
It may make them realize howfar away that they are, how deep
into their basement that theyare at that time yeah, I worked
with somebody, um, who wastalking about how they'd felt
quite low, really low mood.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
They'd had moments of of thinking about having
suicidal ideation.
They weren't quite planning it,but they were definitely having
moods and and thoughts of it,fleeting thoughts of it and
they'd gone to see the doctor.
The doctor that said theydidn't want to have
antidepressants and the doctorhad put them on a waiting list
for counselling.
And while we're on a waitinglist for counselling, they were

(53:30):
offered a mind, an introductionto mindfulness course and I was
like, oh, that's great, I lovethat NHS are off in mindfulness.
That's brilliant.
The introduction to mindfulnesstold them to become really
aware of their emotions, reallyaware of their feelings, to
really, really listen to thatinner dialogue.
That inner dialogue was was areally dark inner dialogue that

(53:52):
those inner emotions were reallyheavy and really unhelpful and
it put them off mindfulnessforever.
Not doing mindfulness neveragain made me feel awful and I
was like, well, yeah, of courseit's gonna.
You're focusing your attentionand your own awareness on the
negative stuff yeah, and it'snot.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
And for somebody that's having suicidal ideation
to focus and become aware of thedepth and the breadth of that.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
To do that unsupervised is incredibly risky
dodgy as and to just do a bitof I'm grateful for sausages and
sunshines and unicorns is notreally gonna it's not gonna over
overcome.
That is it.
So how do you, how do you workwith people who are, who are
down there?
How do you work with people whoare realistically not in that

(54:36):
comfort zone that they'reheading down towards the
basement?
What do you do with notmotivation?

Speaker 2 (54:46):
it's a time I get to the way I describe.
It is, you know to be, to becompletely objective and to
observe the situation as itactually is, not what we want it
to be, not how it should be,not how it would be if only this
has happened or that persontreated me different.
It's to get to a state ofcomplete objectivity with your

(55:06):
own reality.
Yeah, that we.
We have those three differentvoices, we have the three
different narratives.
We have how we want it to bethe idealized, actual, the
future version of events.
We've got this meaning side.
You know that these events inmy life have meant that people
treat me badly, or I'm unlucky,or I'm weak, or I'm fat, or I'm
ugly, or I'm pathetic, I'museless, I'm not capable, I

(55:28):
can't look after myself.
You know, all of that kind ofnegative core belief sits in on
on that side of the coin.
And then we've got the fuck itbutton, how we protect ourselves
against not being where weshould be and, um, the reality
of our situation.
So the the first thing I do iskind of that tower block
technique.
You know how do you feel rightnow.
And they go oh, six out ofseven.

(55:49):
But there's these other thingsgoing on, but realistically that
puts you at about a two or athree, and that can be quite
jarring for people to go.
Well, yeah, I suppose, if I'mhonest, I'm sitting here in your
therapy chair, craig, so thingscan't be going too great for me
.
It's that accepting of the startpoint and if you think about
lots of 12-step programs, lotsof recovery um programs, it

(56:13):
always starts in the same samekind of thing.
Whilst I wouldn't necessarilyagree with the wording of the
first of the 12 steps, it is youknow you are where you are, um,
and that you've got to kind oftake that on board fully.
There's the idea of the darknight of the soul, there is the

(56:35):
intervention, or there's hittingrock bottom.
In order to start the journey,you have to start it from the
start point.
You can't start it from sixpaces down the line.
So I would say to people rightfor weight management clients,
for example they are aware thatthey are overweight and the
outcome that they want is tolose weight, to feel more happy
and comfortable and to behealthier and to be able to have

(56:56):
a greater choice of clothes.
You don't just become well, I'maware that I'm uh, there's
something going on with myweight and I need to lose weight
.
There is a there is a journeythat you go on, so you're aware
of the problem.
Then the next thing you must dois understand it.
It hasn't fallen out of the sky.
There is a reason that youryour body is responding to food
and stress and your physiologyin this way, and it is for you

(57:20):
as an individual to go on thatjourney to understand it.
Now I can support you on thatjourney and help and provide you
with information, and we can dosome hypnotherapy.
We can do this, that and theother, but that journey is one
that you must do inwardly, onyour own.
I can, I can guide you on it,but you must understand it for
yourself.
That I don't know why I I eatthe things that I do or I drink

(57:41):
the way that I do, that will nothelp you.
Um, you go well, I just don'tknow why.
Can't you just hypnotize me?
No, is what I say to clients.
There are lots ofhypnotherapists there may be
some watching that say I canhypnotize you to xyz, and for
those people, then they can't.
They are, they're offeringsomething, they're making false

(58:02):
promises.
The client is doing the workand we enable it, we facilitate
I tend to find that those kindsof approaches have a temporary
fix.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
They kind of get people through like a two or a
three week period and then theyregress back.
It's not really a regression,but it's called a regression.
It's not or you've fallen offthe wagon or whatever it is you
want to talk about, or you'vefallen off the wagon or whatever
it is you want to talk about.
But I completely agree that ifyou don't know why you're doing
what you're doing, you're nevergoing to be able to break the

(58:36):
back of that unhealthy behaviour.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
So once somebody's understood it fully and
completely and observe it, thereality of the situation is I'm
bored, and boredom to me meansthat I feel lonely and that
means I feel disconnected andthat reminds me of when I was
growing up and this xyz happened.
That's right for somebody to beable to paint that story for
themselves and to hold it out infront of them as if they're

(59:00):
looking at a painting in an artgallery, watching it's a film
player in their mind, then thatgives them the chance and it is
the chance to manage andregulate that themselves, to
change their behavior.
Yeah, as we're talking aboutthe beginning, in order to
change the behavior you must gothrough the pain of changing it.
You've got to unwire your brainfrom the old pattern to put in

(59:22):
place the new pattern.
That's right, and you can do abit of that in the hypnotherapy
chair.
But there's always has to be abit out in the real world.
I always say to my clients inhere is the theory, out there is
the practice.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Yeah, I think what hypnotherapy does is it creates
a space where we cancompassionately inquire about
what is at the root of this,what's really going on, where
are we really at?
We've got some amazing toolsthat can really help us to do
that and I think once we'verecognised where we're at when
it comes to things like internalconflict, where we've got

(59:57):
different dimensions ofourselves pulling in the
opposite directions, we can workwith what's going on with that
part.
Where did that come intoexistence?
What experiences or traumas ordifficulties or what, what lie
have I have?
I heard that I've, becausethat's become part of my, my
belief system, that is, that ispulling me in a direction that

(01:00:17):
is not serving my life, that'snot fulfilling me.
And working with those innerconflicts and then for me, what
really helped was just havingthat vision of a future me that
I actually did like, that I didwant to become, that did feel
good for me.
That kind of gave me an energyand and a belief and some hope

(01:00:38):
and and a desire to live and adesire to do the work and and it
really kept me.
It kept me sane when I washaving to work out how to like,
do like adult life stuff theloss of that future self, or
losing connection with thatfuture self is.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
It is dangerous, I think, because if you become
trapped in that loop between the, the kind of the, the reality
of your negative core beliefsand the, what we in our
conversation call in the fuck itbutton, you you'll get trapped
in a feedback loop of it,because the bucket button will
work for a period of time.
It will take you out of that,that, that situation, um, and

(01:01:17):
then you'll be straight backinto the shame and the guilt and
the embarrassment and theself-incrimination that happens
as a result of the behavior ofthe fuck it button yeah so if
you lose contact with the futureversion of yourself, the person
that you have the potential togrow into that's too far into
the future then you're just inthis feedback loop and I've been
there and that's when you endup in the basement and it isn't.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
The lights go out in the basement, the rats start
coming in, it starts filling upwith and, uh, you are in trouble
yeah, I've partied down in thatbasement myself as well, and I
think I think one of the thing,the things that also can really
help you get out of thatbasement, is to recognize things
like am I safe?
Do I feel safe?

(01:01:58):
Do I know myself and am Imeeting my own needs?
Am I, am I being supported bypeople?
Do I feel love?
Can I feel love?
Do Am I able to be loved?
Will I let people love me?
Am I loving others?
Do I know who I am in thisworld?
Do I fit into my gang, my tribe, my community?

(01:02:23):
Have I got some kind of apurpose?
Do I have a sense of self-worth?

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
and also.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
I think that's where hypnotherapy can come in and
really very holistically draw onall of those dimensions and go
okay, well, we can help you tomove towards this, we can help
you to harness this emotionalstate and we can look at this
dimension of your life, becausenow we have an understanding of
where you're at, we can, we canstart moving you back up again.

(01:02:52):
Tell me a little bit about whatyou were saying about
motivation, because I would liketo just explore that point a
little bit further with you,because, yeah, I don't believe
in motivation I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
I don't like the word motivation because I I believe
that we are fantasticallymotivated at all times, that if
we weren't motivated at alltimes, then our brain would just
stop breathing, it wouldn't runour cardiovascular system, it
wouldn't run our immune system.
It's in this constant state offighting the environment to stay
alive.
Right, what we, what we in ourmodern language, talk about

(01:03:27):
motivation is motivation to dolong-term goals, long-term
difficult things whether for meit's running a marathon or
starting a business, whatever itmight be long-term cerebral,
human, difficult, logical,conscious, cognitive things to
do.
If you are struggling withanxiety or depression, your
brain is fantastically motivatedin trying to resolve whatever

(01:03:48):
that problem is.
If you are unwell, it will fireup your immune system and
motivate your immune system toresolve that issue.
And if you are starving, hungryor you're freezing cold, your
brain will put you in anincredible state of motivation
to resolve those issues.
Once we get out of that gear ofmotivation, motivation, we then
come into the comfort,discomfort gear.

(01:04:09):
Now, lots of people that willcome to see us as
hypnotherapists are in a stateof discomfort.
They just don't know what thatis.
Now it may be to do.
Commonly, the things I see avery low self-esteem as a result
of childhood trauma, chronicfatigue and burnout, as a result
of incredible pressure onpeople's lives and, um, lots and
lots of people with very poordiets, um, because they just

(01:04:32):
don't have the time and energyand effort and money to cook um
decent, whole, healthy food.
And people work in shifts, um,that disrupt their sleep.
You know that there's lots ofthese challenges that we
overlook in our society thathave a big impact on somebody's
physiological well-being, um,and that we completely disregard

(01:04:55):
them.
We go right, well, you'reworking shifts and you don't go
to the gym four times a week.
What's wrong with you?
You're just not.
You're clearly procrastinatingand it just does people a
massive disservice.
Yeah, so the word motivationand the other word that can get
in the bin is positivity.
That can get in the bin the ideawhen people are procrastinating

(01:05:26):
as a result of their mentalhealth or their fatigue or their
burnout, and they say I justneed to be more positive.
And and then they, they listoff the problems and challenges
that they've got in their healthand their relationships, in
their financial position, um, intheir you know, things going on
with their kids, things goingon with their parents.
I just need to be more positive.
I'll sit there and go aboutwhat?

(01:05:48):
Which bit of this do you needto be more positive about what?
What it would be really usefulto do is to be really realistic
about the limitations that areplaced on your time for your
external responsibilities andcommitments and be a bit kinder,
a bit more patient withyourself as to what can
realistically be achieved in thenext eight sessions that you've
booked with me.
That might be a bit more.

(01:06:09):
That's a positive thing to do,rather than to look for the, the
, the silver lining in everycloud, because not every cloud
has a silver lining.
Some things are just shit andif we approach them with that
and go, right, this, this thingis shit, what?
What are my options in order todeal with it, that's a really
positive thing to do.
But to go oh, I need to bepositive about this chin up,

(01:06:31):
keep calm and carry on, and thatcan get in the bin.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
That doesn't help anybody yeah, I think sometimes
the, the, the gift of life, isthe shit, um, you know, when
we're in, that we're in, we'rein the darkest place and we feel
like we're just surrounded byshit and we're covered in it.
It's that that is the bestplace to grow from, isn't it?

(01:06:55):
That's what we do with these.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Where mushrooms grow.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Yeah, we want to, and it is not an easy process to
move up and out of the shit.
But I think I think just beingpositive positive, yeah, it's.
It's quite narcissistic, isn'tit I?
I did some work in some callcenters and on the walls were
like these amazing slogans aboutbeing positive and thinking

(01:07:21):
positive and doing positive.
But they were paying people anabsolute pittance.
They were working incrediblylong hours, they were dealing
with really snotty customers andthey were being under massive
amount of pressure to achievecertain tasks, otherwise they
would be fired.
So all of their kind of likemaslow's hierarchy needs stuff

(01:07:42):
was all being shook about.
But they were told it, told tobe positive and you're not
positive enough, you've got anegative mindset.
And I was like get me out ofhere.
Oh, I wasn't there for a long,um, but to go in as a well-being
practitioner into thatenvironment, I was like take
them slogans off the wall,because it's just, that's just

(01:08:05):
mean, that's that you can't.
You can't say to someone bepositive when they're hungry,
when they're angry, when they'retired, when they're under
pressure, when they're living inperpetual fear of losing their,
their income and being throwninto into into a place of
poverty and possibly evenhomelessness next week.

(01:08:27):
No, um, so it's refreshing superrefreshing to to speak with you
about this, craig.
I absolutely loved theconversation.
I could probably talk to youfor another, another hour, um,
and, and possibly even longer,but tell us, before we finish,
just a little bit about yourmind works app, because you are

(01:08:47):
currently developing thisincredible app.
Tell us a little bit more aboutit.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
So my kind of journey through my mental health
started off looking at anxiety.
I then spent a huge amount oftime thinking about motivation,
procrastination and probablyusing that as a tool for
procrastination, like researchand motivation and
procrastination.
While I'm doing that, I don'thave to do any proper work, um,
and then then I realized that Iwasn't procrastinating until I

(01:09:14):
was burnt out as a result of,you know, having a big client
base and working as hard as weall need to work hard in order
to make a living and whateverelse.
That my problem wasn't reallyabout procrastinating and
motivated.
I was motivated to do the thingall the time.
I just there was this block andthis barrier that was stopping
me doing that, and that was todo with my physiological health.
Um, and then all this wonderfulstuff that I've researched and

(01:09:37):
all of it is relevant toeveryone because of this idea of
the tower block and the comfortzone and that we can be 10 out
of 10 happy, but we've all gotthe potential to find ourselves
in the basement that we all needto be looking after our
psychological, emotionalwell-being proactively all of
the time, in the same way as wetry and eat our five fruit veg a
day, and the same way as weneed to drink two liters of

(01:09:59):
water, and same as we need to dohalf an hour of exercise, we
all need to be looking after ourmental health as well.
It's not a given that we'llenjoy good mental health for the
rest of our lives, even ifyou've enjoyed that to your life
to date.
And for me personally, a bigpart of looking after your
mental health is actuallylearning how the mind works.

(01:10:19):
Hence the name the Mind Workswith Craig, because a lot of it,
what we're told, is utterbullshit.
What motivates us isn't theachievement of long term goal.
What really motivates us iswhat happens if we don't now.
If you have got to stop smoking, for example, this is just a
common one that people come tohypnotherapy about.

(01:10:39):
If you're a hypnotherapist thatis trying to get people to stop
smoking because, um, just thinkof all the money that they'll
save and that they'll be able tohave, that they'll be able to
take the kids to disney worldand they'll have a long, happy
retirement running around withtheir grandchildren that doesn't
do it.
What does it if you want tostop your clients from smoking,
is to take them forward in timeto where they're laying in their

(01:11:00):
hospital bed on machines,wheezing and in agony.
That will do it every singletime.
We are motivated by theavoidance of discomfort, not the
pursuit of long-term goals.
Um, so the bringing those typesof things to mind, letting
people know that they, it ispossible to access the state of
neuroplasticity throughmeditation, through breath work,

(01:11:23):
in order to help to reinforcepositive behaviors and get rid
of old, negative behaviors.
And it's studied in science nowthat the first thing about
improving your mental health isactually getting some proper
science and proper knowledgeabout what is going on with your
brain.
So you avoid that.
I don't know why I think likethis, because there is a reason

(01:11:43):
why, and it can be veryempowering, very therapeutic and
life-changing to just simply gooh, that's why that happens.
Um, your subconscious brain isplugged in directly to your eyes
and your ears.
You'll hear the things thatyour, your brain is programmed
to look for.
Um, so if you're, if you'recurrently low down in your tower
block and you think you're apiece of shit, you'll, you'll

(01:12:06):
find your biases will be tunedin to looking for evidence that
you, you're a piece of shit.
You'll, you'll find your biaseswill be tuned in to looking for
evidence that you you're apiece of shit and looking for
people that will treat you thatway.
But if you feel better aboutyourself, you'll go into
environments.
You'll actively seek out umenvironments, situations,
relationships with people thatwill support that idea of you.
So knowing things like that andsharing this knowledge, I think,

(01:12:27):
is as important as one-to-onetherapy.
The other reason is thatone-to-one therapy is a is a
significant investment nowadays,and the the reality is lots of
people are strugglingfinancially.
I think we all, as therapists,have a responsibility, if we
want to remain therapists, to,to go to our clients in a way
that we can help them ratherthan just going oh, it's x

(01:12:48):
number of pounds an hour.
Oh, you haven't got that money,all right, we'll see you later
then.
Just that's not really.
What I signed up to do is tosign up to to help people, and
I've now got to think of adifferent way to reach more
people in a way that still stillhelps I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
I love it, thank you.
Thank you so much for your timeand sharing all your goodies
with us.
Um, I'm definitely going to belooking out for your app.
When it comes out, it's gonnabe absolutely brilliant and I'll
pop all your links andeverything so people can stalk
you on social and jump on yourwebsite and find all you, what
you're doing, and get in touchwith you if they want to work

(01:13:25):
with you or if they want to findout more.
But it's been.
It's been so, so informative.
Um, really enlightening.
I have said what the fuck?
A few times in my life.
Sorry, you couldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
I couldn't resist it I've never heard that before I
bet you haven't.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
it's been an amazing episode.
Thank you so much for being onit.
I really appreciate it andthanks for listening.
Cheers.