Stress Awareness Month - Your Inner Resources

We have talked about stress as a term we use when we feel overwhelmed. In my last blog post, I talked about worry and gave a simple exercise to use to start reducing this.

One of the things that people may not think about too much in relation to stress is their inner resources. We tend to live compartmentalised lives. We are efficient in our work lives but disorganised at home. We don’t think about smoking when we are at home but can’t help ourselves when out with a friend who smokes.

In these situations, we may feel helpless to change. The same is often true with situations that contribute to our stress levels. We let others endlessly ‘dump’ on us, we are afraid of being viewed badly if we leave work at the time we are supposed to, we allow the boss to ‘bully’ us, and so on.

The truth is that since you were born, you have had to deal with an enormous amount of situations that were challenging. Sometimes those challenges were a part of life, were unavoidable and sometimes you set those challenges for yourself. You also have resources, skills and talents that either came easily to you or that you developed.

When I work with a client, one of the things I am doing is looking for resources they have demonstrated in one area of their life so I can link them to the area they are seeking help with now. In hypnosis we really look at how you have drawn out and used that resource in the past, link it where it is now needed and you then see yourself doing what you need to do in possession of that resource. I have to tell you that often people are surprised to see themselves operating in a previously challenging situation with that resource they in fact always had.

Sometimes, we borrow a resource from someone else. If you think about it, you have probably admired someone for the way they handle a certain situation. I once had a client who found it difficult to stand up for herself with customers. She did however have a colleague who dealt with customers in the way she would like to do so. In hypnosis, I took her through a sequence so that she could ‘try on’ his way of doing it and view herself with the particular qualities that would be useful to her. This can be surprisingly powerful.

Sometimes we experience stress in the present because of some unresolved ‘trauma’ in the past. This is often the case when bullying occurs at work. Often, my client will have had some kind of bullying experience in the past which has left its mark on them making them vulnerable to bullying in the present. In this kind of situation, we use a simple technique to take the affect out of the past incident as part of the treatment. As a result, they no longer give out the signals or behave in a way that permits bullying.

Everyone has resources or can develop them. Hypnotherapy is a great way to really find and appreciate them, amplify them and bring them where they are needed. This contributes to you finding yourself able to deal with previously challenging situations and thereby reducing stress and overwhelm.