The Head Trash Show with Alexia Leachman

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In this episode of the Head Trash & Healing Show, I delve into the topic of trauma therapy and why common approaches often fall short. Join me as I share insights and a powerful metaphor to help you better understand the true approach to healing trauma.

Key Discussion Points:

The limitations of traditional methods for healing trauma and the prevalence of unresolved trauma in many individuals.
A powerful metaphor of being struck by an arrow to illustrate the ineffective approach to trauma healing, highlighting the focus on superficial details rather than addressing the root cause.
The impact of unhealed trauma on one's behaviour, relationships, and self-perception, and the tendency to form alliances with others who share similar experiences.
The importance of addressing emotional baggage, blame, shame, and pain as part of the trauma healing process, emphasising the role of forgiveness and self-awareness.
Overlooking areas such as ancestral trauma and subconscious influences in the healing process, and the need to widen the scope of trauma exploration beyond the conscious mind.

Who Is This Episode For:

This episode is for people who have experienced trauma and are seeking a deeper understanding of why traditional trauma healing methods may not have been effective for them. Listeners struggling with unhealed trauma, behavioural adaptations due to trauma, and emotional challenges stemming from past wounds will find valuable insights in this episode. Those looking for a fresh perspective on trauma healing and the importance of addressing underlying emotional barriers will benefit from the discussion.

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In this enlightening episode of 'Head Trash & Healing Show', host Alexia Leachman sits down with the profound Amanda Blau. Together, they delve into the enigmatic world of higher consciousness, human and soul perspectives, the power of acceptance and allowing oneself to feel, tracking change, and spiritual energy transchanneling. They also candidly touch on personal stories and explore the concept of past lives, bringing in a fresh and potent perspective to healing, acceptance, and power.

Key Discussions:

Definition of consciousness and the exploration of Dr. David R Hawkins' "map of consciousness".
Distinction between the human and soul perspective.
The idea of learning lessons and soul contracts in life.
Embracing "darker" emotions and understanding the fear around opening up Pandora's box.
Amanda's perspective on releasing inner power and visualising to bring things into existence.
Tracking shifts in consciousness and Amanda's personal approach on the matter.
Alexia sharing her healing journey around fear of loss.
Amanda explaining acceptance and resistance in the context of personal healing.
The importance of acceptance, curiosity, and self-awareness in personal growth.
Discussion on "witch wound", particularly pertaining to women.
The concept of past lives and trauma in different lifetimes.

This episode is particularly eye-opening for those struggling with recurring emotional patterns, difficulty in awareness, acceptance, and change. If you've ever felt stuck in your growth and healing journey, are battling fear of your inner power, or feel the urge to understand consciousness and its role in your life better, then this episode is a must-listen. It invites you to challenge your belief systems, feel your emotions, visualise your existence, and lean into acceptance, hence guiding you towards a more profound, empathetic, and empowered self.

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Join me, Alexia Leachman, in an energising conversation with Melissa as we comb through the uncomfortable snarls of people-pleasing, all in this episode of the Head Trash & Healing Show.

In this episode, we go deep into understanding the roots and repercussions of being a people-pleaser. If you're finding yourself always saying yes when you mean no, feel burdened with an unnecessary sense of obligation, or struggle with setting personal boundaries, this conversation is especially for you.

We share informative and impactful insights about:

The relationship between boundaries, self-care, and people-pleasing
Strategies on dealing with workplace pressures and work-life balance
Mindful strategies to handle reactions from superiors and colleagues when setting boundaries
The systematic transformation process from being a people-pleaser to a self-assured personality
The role of much-needed 'selfishness' and comparison of treatment towards self and others
The paramount importance of self-awareness and authenticity
Facing resistance to change and fear of the unknown
The negative impact of people-pleasing habits on personal relationships

Bright-eyed listeners, willingly caught in the people-pleasing trap, will benefit significantly from this episode.

If you're looking to replace transactional interactions with real connections and revamp your work-life dynamics, then you've landed on the right episode.

This episode will elicit a change, urging you to break free from the chains of over-accommodation and help you embark on a journey of self-discovery.

Let's reinforce your identity, gear up your self-confidence and more importantly, learn to say 'no.'

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Today, we delve into the impact of clutter, both physical and emotional, on our lives and feelings of inner peace. I'm thrilled to have with us professional declutter coach Susie, who shares insights from her work helping clients tackle their emotional, mental, and even physical clutter. We discuss the pitfalls of retail therapy, the potential emotional impact of clutter in different areas at home, and the connection between clutter and unmet needs, often labelled lazily. We chat about reframing laziness as self-compassion and self-care and touch on spiritual decluttering, the importance of recalibrating values, and making conscious choices. This episode also explores the emotions tied to clothing and why letting go can be so difficult. Whether you're hanging onto physical items, or battling emotional baggage, today's chat with Susie is sure to shed light on the path to decluttering and alignment. Do stick around for this enlightening episode - there's a lot to unpack, quite literally!

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In this week's episode of the Head Trash Healing Show, I had the absolute pleasure of diving into a rich and candid conversation with the remarkable Allen. Our focus? The fascinating and transformative journey of self-regulation.

Allen, with his openness and vulnerability, shared his deeply personal experience of seeking self-regulation as a means to cope with life's adversities. We delved into his powerful four-year self-regulation journey, which began amid business closures and a challenging divorce, propelling him into a profound process of self-rebuilding.

Together, we explored the concept of emotional regulation as the capacity to feel secure within oneself, enabling us to actively engage with life's complexities and choose our responses to triggers and challenges. Allen's relentless pursuit of self-regulation has unveiled a beautiful, ongoing evolution, marked by a sincere commitment to his own personal growth.

The interview wove through the tapestry of Allen's daily self-care rituals and the impact of having a supportive community, especially during times of isolation. His resilience and drive determined to rewrite the narratives of his early life traumas were truly inspiring.

We ventured into the intertwined threads of trauma, belief systems, and archetypes, uncovering how these elements shape our behaviors and perceptions. Allen's courageous resilience in confronting and reshaping various traumas, including ancestral and in utero trauma, illuminated the profound impact of our formative experiences.

What struck a chord with me was his poignant account of isolation during a tumultuous period in his life, and how he channeled it into a profound inward journey. His insistence on "trauma hunting" and the unrelenting pursuit of inner clarity ignited a powerful sense of growth and self-understanding.

I was particularly moved by Allen's approach to relationships, especially amidst personal turmoil. His commitment to understanding others' coping mechanisms, maintaining a regulated nervous system, and extending compassion reflected an incredible depth of emotional intelligence and personal integrity.

The episode was topped off with Allen sharing his self-regulating practices, including meditation, engaging in substance-based ceremonies, and the use of devices like Apollo Neuro, exemplifying the significance of integrating various tools in our personal growth journeys.

The conversation left me feeling deeply enriched and inspired. Allen’s honest and poignant account of personal resilience and spiritual growth is a testament to the transformative power of self-awareness, community support, and the pursuit of inner balance.

I invite you to tune into the full episode and embrace Allen's wisdom as we continue on our shared journey of healing and growth. And remember, you're not alone in your pursuit of self-regulation and personal transformation.

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Today we have an incredibly fascinating topic to explore - the map of consciousness - and how it can be used to measure the progress of inner work.

In this episode, we'll explore how our consciousness can impact our emotions, perceptions, and problem-solving abilities. I'll also be taking a closer look at the concept of healing work, its effectiveness, and why I think it's important to measure the progress of inner work as we navigate our emotional healing journey.

Join me as we explore a powerful tool that can help us track our growth, overcome fears and anxieties, and ultimately live a more content and fulfilling life. So grab a cup of tea, sit back, and get ready to delve into the intriguing world of mapping consciousness on the Head Trash Show.

Have you ever questioned the effectiveness of the healing work you've been investing your time, energy, and resources into?

Are you looking for a tool to help you measure your progress and gain insights into your emotional well-being?

If so, this episode is a must-listen. To avoid unnecessary pain, I explain why I encourage you to take a careful assessment of whether attending personal development events or engaging in healing activities has truly benefited you. Unfortunately, 'feeling better' is not enough to evaluate the effectiveness of healing work. Instead, I think we should be measuring the impact of your healing journey on your consciousness, emotional state, perception of the world, and problem-solving abilities.

This is where I think a tool like the Map of Consciousness can help us to measure the progress of inner work. This tool includes a scale ranging from 0 to 1000, which can be used to help you quantify and track your progress.

To illustrate the power of this tool, I share a personal story from a particularly challenging chapter of my life, emotionally speaking.

At the time, I was wrestling with anxiety, depression and overwhelming grief, and it was against this backdrop that a positive pregnancy test result sent me even deeper into despair. I didn't realise I suffered from tokophobia (extreme fear of pregnancy and birth), and that was why I was feeling the way I was. This experience forced me to step up to the healing table because I couldn't stay feeling that way.

Over the next eighteen months I did a lot of inner work, that eventually paid off. So I decided to revisit this period of my life through the lens of this tool to see what I could learn. I knew that my thinking had changed - quite dramatically - but how would this be portrayed using the map of consciousness?

Could I see the impact of my healing activities?
Was it possible for me to measure the progress of inner work that I had done?
Could the tool offer me additional insights for my healing journey?

What I learned blew my mind!

In understanding my level of consciousness and how it has changed, it has helped me navigate challenging situations and make shifts in my own growth.

This episode is filled with practical insights and actionable steps to help you measure your progress on your healing journey.

And, if you want to know where you are on the Head Trash Ladder of Healing, you can do my quiz, which will tell you whether you're a Conker, Washing Ball, Bouncy Ball, Snooker Ball or Glitter Ball. This is a valuable quiz that can help you identify where you currently are on your journey of self-discovery. To do the quiz head over here.

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Today we are diving deep into a fear that many people may not even realise is one of the most common fears out there. It's called emetophobia, the fear of vomit. Now, before you think this is just a trivial fear, let me assure you, it's a very serious phobia that can have a profound impact on people's lives.In this episode, we will explore what emetophobia is, how it can affect various aspects of life, and most importantly, how to heal from it. We'll discuss the origins of this fear and how personal experiences can contribute to its development. Whether it's a childhood memory of being sick or witnessing someone else's illness, these experiences can lead to a deep-seated fear that elicits anxiety and panic.But fear not, my dear listeners, because I am here to help you navigate through this fear and find freedom on the other side. We will uncover practical strategies and tools to overcome emetophobia, allowing you to regain control and lead a life free from the constant worry and anxiety.Whether you're someone who wants to travel without the fear of getting sick, or a woman contemplating starting a family but dreads the thought of morning sickness, this episode is for you. By facing this fear head-on, we open up new possibilities and opportunities for growth and fulfillment.So grab a bucket (metaphorically speaking, of course) and join me as we dig deep into emetophobia and discover the path to healing. Don't let this fear hold you back any longer. It's time to clear out that head trash and reclaim your life. Let's dive in!

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On this episode of Head Trash Show, I explore the relationship between emotional healing and mental fitness, and how they can impact productivity in our daily lives. Through the discussion, I share that our mental fitness level can reveal patterns affecting emotional health, emphasising the need to tackle both. Regular "head trash clear out" is essential in addressing emotional and mental clutter, just like exercising is better when done consistently. Alexia shares her personal experiences and encourages you to prioritise your mental fitness and emotional well-being. We learn that healing fears can lead to a shift in mental fitness, resulting in clear thinking, decisiveness, and increased productivity. Mindfulness is also discussed as a tool for identifying and managing emotions and fears, leading to personal growth. Finally, Alexia shares that mental fitness and emotional well-being are closely connected, needing each other for an overall sense of wellness.

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In this podcast episode, I'm chatting with Alex Heath about healing from trauma. I know Alex from my time working in the pregnancy and birth world, as Alex specialises in birth trauma and perinatal mental and emotional health. For me, birth trauma is unique as far as trauma goes. A huge aspect of trauma is the meaning we associate with a root event, and the meanings we hold around birth are off the scale. The emotional aspect of birth is huge, When you consider how parents-to-be feel about the arrival of a new member of their family, there can be a lot of emotions invested in the birth event. This is the case no matter what kind of journey the family have had in the lead up to the birth. But if there has been a very difficult journey, with loss or fertility, then the emotions surrounding the birth will be very intense. Add to that the fact that birth is a very physical event, this means that when birth doesn't go to plan, the pain can be twofold - physical and emotional. Another huge aspect of trauma - or at least something that can exacerbate it - is when the person experiencing the traumatic event, feels trapped. Like there's no way out. Birth is definitely one of those situations. Once the first few contractions start, there is no getting off that train until the baby has made an appearance. And if the birth is difficult and painful, this can add to the stress and trauma of the event. It's for all these reasons that I thought that a conversation with Alex around trauma would be worth having and I was not disappointed.

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Can you relate to this?

You decide that you're going to make some kind of change in your life and then you never quite get started. Or at least, you make all the right noises, and you prepare in ALL THE WAYS, but when it comes to actually starting Doing The Thing... you don't.

Do you start out with the very best intentions? In this podcast I dive into what might be going on for you, if this is a pattern you are struggling with.

You can read the blog that accompanies this video here: https://clearyourheadtrash.com/podcas... Are you getting stuck with making a start clearing your head trash? Joining one of my Head Trash Clear-Out groups might just be what gets you going.

The Head Trash Clear-Out is a 5-week group programme that takes place a few times a year. Find out more here: https://clearyourheadtrash.com/head-t...

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Healing your emotional wounds is essential if you're to reach your happy place, and stay there. Your emotional wounds can often be the source of your day-to-day triggers, so by healing your emotional wounds you're able to reduce the stress and anxiety you experience each day.

The problem is that we're not always aware of what those wounds are. Many of the experiences that are at the root of these wounds probably happened before our conscious memory kicked in and so it can often feel like we're looking for a lost pin in the dark. Also, some of these wounds are built up over time with the repeating of similar experiences.

So while one event might not stand out, it could be that we had many many experiences that followed a particular theme and over time, a wound was created. Just like if you get one scratch from your cat, it'll pass, but if your cat keeps scratching you in the same place, eventually it will get infected and be super painful. Then when it eventually stops, you'll probably get a scar #ouch

If we are to think about our emotional wounds in terms of themes, it can get a bit easier for us to start to address them. Because even though we might not have strong memories of the individual events that created our emotional wounds, once we start thinking about how we've been affected by a particular theme in our life, memories start to come to the surface for us.

What also helps us to heal our emotional wounds is starting with common emotional wounds that are common or universal. By starting here, we can begin to reduce the emotional load we're carrying and so make any onward journey easier.

What is a universal emotional wound? There is a shortlist of emotional wounds that can be considered universal, in that they affect all of us to some degree. This is because they are experienced by us at a very young age before our we are able to fully understand what is going on. This means that simple experiences end up carrying a lot more emotional weight and impact than they should.

For example, let's say a mother has to hand her new baby over to health care professionals just after the birth because she needs medical attention. In that moment, the baby is going to feel abandoned or rejected, and may also experience separation anxiety. And so the first of many wounds is in place.

Of course, many of us have had situations whereby our parents or caregivers had moments when they were struggling and took it out on us as children. Being a parent I can testify to the triggering nature of kids, and it's all too easy to react in ways you'd rather not. All of our childhoods have had many of these kinds of experiences.

Over time, these slowly build up to create painful emotional wounds that show up in our adult lives through our fears, emotional triggers, limiting beliefs and self-sabotaging behaviours. With this as a backdrop, it's not surprising that as adults we are the emotional walking wounded.

If we don't address these wounds, then just like physical wounds, they can start to fester. So for our emotional health and well-being, we're better off trying to understand what they are. Once we know what they are we can start taking steps to heal them.

Below I'm going to share with you, some of the common or universal wounds that we all have to some degree. In sharing these with you, I'm also going to share

how they show up - so that you can more easily spot if you have it
recommended Head Trash Clearances that you can do to start healing the wound

To read what these 5 emotional wounds are head over to the blog post that accompanies this podcast at https://clearyourheadtrash.com/blog/5-emotional-wounds/

To sign up for the live trauma clearances head over to
https://clearyourheadtrash.com/live-clearances/

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Micro-dosing for mental health is something that has been explored for some time. The pioneer of this is the Czech-born psychologist Stanislav Grof.

Micro-dosing is the practice of taking or administering very small amounts of a drug in order to test or benefit from its physiological action while minimising undesirable side effects.

So when it comes to micro-dosing psychedelics, this means consuming very low, sub-hallucinogenic doses of a psychedelic substance, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The idea being that you get the benefit of the substance, without the trippy side-effects.

This is a trend that's been building for a while now and articles in the media are now pretty common. Like this one in the New York Times: More People Are Microdosing for Mental Health. But Does It Work?

There's even a show on Netflix about it: How to change your mind. In this show, author Michael Pollan leads the way in this docuseries exploring the history and uses of psychedelics, including LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline.

Using micro-dosing therapeutically In his latest book, How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan writes of his own consciousness-expanding experiments with psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin, and he makes the case for why shaking up the brain's old habits could be therapeutic for people facing addiction, depression, or death.

As someone who's taken psychedelics - albeit recreationally and not therapeutically - I have no doubt that they have the potential to provide therapeutic support when taken in small doses, but I was curious to hear someone's experience of this.

So when a friend of mine shared a link to an article on Facebook where she was interviewed on how she had used micro-dosing to improve her mental health, I knew I wanted to talk to her about it.

Here's the article: Can microdosing psychedelics improve your mental health? Here's what the science says

I came to know Simone when I interviewed her for my Fear Free Childbirth podcast about the time she gave birth in a stream. Her YouTube video of the birth at the time had hit over 55 million views and my podcast interview with her has been one of my top episodes on that podcast. Giving birth in nature takes a special kind of fearlessness and confidence in oneself, which Simone had in bucketloads.

Simone's experience of micro-dosing for mental health As an experienced therapist Simone also has extensive knowledge and experience in managing emotional and mental wellbeing, so I was particularly interested in hearing how she came to turn to micro-dosing to help with her mental health.

My conversation with Simone

During my conversation with Simone we discuss;

what lead to her deciding to try micro-dosing
what substance she took micro-doses of
how she felt once she started micro-dosing
how long she used micro-dosing for
how she came to know that her time for micro-dosing was coming to an end

Micro-dosing Resources During our conversation Simone shared some books and resources. These are listed below;

Books:

A Really Good Day by Ayelet Waldman
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

Website:

www.thethirdwave.co. Recommend this for a solid, practical introduction to microdosing.

Articles:

Simone recommends this article because a lot has come out recently about the fact that Drs/Psychiatrists/Scientists don’t really know how anti-depressants work. Likewise, despite decades of research into psychedelics, we still don’t know exactly how psychedelics work either. She thinks it’s wise to be cautious and proceed carefully, but not to have fear about using psychedelics.

https://psychedelicspotlight.com/the-truth-about-depression-serotonin-ssris-and-psychedelics/

Shows:

Fantastic Fungi on Netflix
How to Change Your Mind on Netflix

Here's some research I came across:
Psychedelic microdosing benefits and challenges: an empirical codebook
https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954-019-0308-4

About Simone Simone Surgeoner is a therapist and mentor who has helped thousands of people find their own authentic path in life. She enjoys nothing more than exploring the depths of what it means to be human. Using herself as her own guinea pig, Simone demonstrates beingness as arising from integrity with one’s essence.

Helping people find their inner truth, through their own direct experience, is the core of Simone’s work. As a mother of four daughters, currently unschooling her younger two, Simone is passionate about the liberation of all humans. Psychedelic integration and support is one of the areas where Simone supports clients, as she continues to help people at all stages of healing and evolution: sexuality, relationships, trauma, pregnancy & birth, children, hormones, health, business & career to grief and dying.

Website: www.saksana.com.au

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Your inner masculine and feminine Do you think your inner masculine and feminine energies are in balance? Does this question even make sense to you?

I ask that because I’ve had some conversations with people when they’ve looked a bit puzzled when asked. They simply didn’t understand the question. The idea of having inner masculine and feminine energies was a total mystery to them.

While I’ve been aware of these differing energies for a while, it’s only really in the last three years or so that I’ve been taking a closer look at them personally.

A few weeks ago I shared some learnings I had around balancing my inner masculine and feminine which you can read here: Are you denying your feminine energy?

I had realised how much I had been denying my inner feminine during my life, and how I’d dialled up my inner masculine to compensate. This came with costs that are really now only clear to me now that I’ve brought about more balance.

Balancing your inner masculine and feminine I don’t feel for a minute that both my masculine and feminine energies are totally within balance. But now I’m a lot more savvy as to why it’s important for them to be in balance, and how to go about bringing our feminine and masculine energies into balance. But, I don’t feel savvy enough about this to be able to speak with authority on it.

All that I know is that it’s important to restore balance, as with all aspects of life. What I really needed was someone else who IS totally savvy to break all this down for me, and you!

This is where my conversation with Zoe-Anna comes in.

When I was seeking out more information on balancing our inner masculine and inner feminine, I came across one of Zoe-Anna’s articles and I thought “THIS is the person I need to speak to!”. I was thrilled when she replied right back with a YES!

Zoe-Anna does not disappoint. During our chat we explore;

What are our masculine and feminine energies
What does being in balance look like
How do we know when we’re out of balance; tell tale signs
What do each of these energies do for us
What is toxic masculinity or toxic femininity is and how it shows up

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Healing from Trauma Trauma is something we all have to wrestle with. But not all of us choose to do so. Sometimes we're forced into facing our traumas - as I was recently.

This is why I wanted to have a chat with someone who works with trauma, so that they can share their perspective.

Brooke is a trauma-informed coach who has experienced trauma throughout her life, and through conquering her trauma, she now focusses her time on helping others to do the same.

About Brooke Brooke Bownes an international trauma informed coach and therapist, author and speaker who specialises in working with midlife women to heal from mother wound by a bespoke system

Brooke has personally experienced trauma, right from birth, being born with the cord wrapped around her neck which caused medical issues, trauma from narcissist abuse and complex PTSD, loss of her home, being homeless.

She has now rebuilt her life and has changed her pain into her passion and helps women from all over the world to heal from the trauma of the mother wound and narcissist abuse, she is on a mission to raise the awareness of and heal the trauma of The Mother Wound and narcissist abuse with her programme

Find Your Power by releasing the trauma and mother wound so they can discover who they are and live the life they truly want.

Brooke has a loyal community in excess of 7000 over FB, Instagram, & emails and has written a book called You Can Have It! How to break through the self-sabotage cycle.

Connect with Brooke here;

Facebook group

Connect on LinkedIn

Add Brooke on Facebook

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I recently stumbled on a past trauma that proved to be the key to a lot of the things I've wrestled with as an adult.

As someone who hunts down head trash - especially my own - this is a HUGE win for me. When something isn't shifting, I dig and dig until I can figure it out and get rid of it. I had some personal stuff that just wasn't shifting and I needed to figure out why.

Trauma feeds fear and anxiety I figured there must be a traumatic experience feeding it. Trauma does that, it's feeder of fear and anxiety. In my experience, if fear or anxiety isn't shifting easily then there's a trauma keeping it in place or making it worse.

Sometimes, we don't even have a conscious recollection of the experience. This was the case for me. I had no conscious memory of the trauma I was about to clear.

Clearing traumas of things we can't even remember To get around this, before clearing the trauma, I placed my intention on clearing whatever it was that was feeding the anxiety I wanted to address.

What followed was a brutal hour of clearance work. Tears, snot and more tears. It just kept coming. By the end of it I was spent. Spent, but alive and vibrant! And light... god how I felt light!

It proved to be one of the most significant clearances I have ever done.

The traumatic event I worked on proved to be The Key to a huge number of the patterns that were running me. Emotional patterns that were sabotaging me and holding me back. It was also the the root event of my eczema, which had recently come back with a vengeance like I have never known.

Once I was done, I wanted to know what the event was. I was curious.

So, what WAS this event?? What the hell was it that had embedded so much crap for me?

So I asked how old I was to try and figure it out. Childhood trauma is usually the culprit, so I started there.

Was I under 5? Yes.
Was I under 4? Yes.

I got a hunch.

Was I in utero? Yes.

I was in utero! And then I knew EXACTLY what it was.

When my mother was pregnant with me she was worried about losing her job if they found out. So she tried to keep me a secret from her employers in case they found out and fired her. Talk about stressful!

Apparently her bump was really small and you could hardly tell she was pregnant.
I arrived early.

I can only imagine the thoughts she would have been having;

I've got to hide this.
I must keep this a secret.
I want my bump to be small.
My baby can't be visible.
If I get found out, I'll lose my job.

She was the breadwinner, so this would have been a big deal. Being found out meant loss of security.

Oh hello Lex's head trash!

The root of my problem patterns! This is all the shit I've been wrestling with FOR AGES that wasn't budging. Some of it is only obvious to me now that I understand and can see where it came from. I had lightbulbs going off all over the place!

I'm totally fine being visible, thinking big and doing things that make me stand out. That bit is ME: Lex.

And yet, I've not been able to sustain it or go ALL IN with it. I was getting pulled back into hiding and playing small. That bit was HER.

I was running my mother's pregnancy fears and making them my own.

No wonder I was struggling with this stuff.

Your time in the womb matters As part of my work in birth and pregnancy, I know that the in-utero experience is a precious one, and one to be protected and nurtured. When I interviewed the father of prenatal psychology, Thomas Verny, on my podcast he talked about all this. It's a fascinating chat and worth listening to if this stuff interests you.

There's a lot of evidence that supports this so I'm not being all woo here. The in-utero experience and the birth create emotional imprints in the baby that they will carry though into adulthood. Anna Verwal also talks a lot about this.

This is why I'm so vocal about wanting expectant mothers to clear their fear, stress and anxiety while they're pregnant.

It matters.

Not only does it help them to have a better birth experience - which is a bloody good reason on its own - but it's also good for the baby and its future adult self. I expand on all this in my book, Fearless Birthing.

If they're not positive emotional patterns, then these imprints can be the root cause of anxiety and phobias as adults. I see this time and time again in my work helping women overcome tokophobia (extreme fear of birth).

Some people have accused me of fear-mongering or making women feel guilty for their thoughts and feelings during pregnancy. Pregnancy is already such a challenging time for some, physically, mentally and emotionally. The last thing they want is the guilt that comes from thinking that their negative thoughts are damaging in some way.

I'm afraid I can't do anything about that. That we know already. It's already happening. Surely, it's best for women to know this so that they can do something about it. I'm simply the messenger.

Being well-informed is crucial People can choose whether they do anything about it or not. But being informed is crucial in making that decision.

We know that eating meat, fatty foods, drinking alcohol and smoking is bad. And yet people still do it. That's their choice. Perhaps they feel guilty with every cigarette or burger. Perhaps they don't. It doesn't mean we're going to keep quiet about it just in case some people feel guilty.

The same goes for this. Women NEED to know about this.

Whether we like it or not, our bodies and minds are potent creators of future generations. Perhaps the mental health crisis we're seeing today has its roots in crappy pregnancies and births of the past. It would make sense.

Intellectually I knew the importance of the in-utero experience from my work in pregnancy and birth. But now I truly KNOW.

I would urge all pregnant women to keep diaries of how they're feeling throughout their pregnancy. It could be the best gift to your child on their 18th birthday as they wrestle with figuring out who they are. It would probably save a ton of time in therapy too. A lot of our focus as parents is in providing for our children - schooling, opportunity etc - but perhaps we ned to shift the focus to mental health.

As expectant parents, what can we do, to support the future mental health of our children. Because isn't that what will help them to survive best?

Emotionally resilient and happy people usually do pretty well, no matter what.

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Not all public speaking or presenting is equal, at least when it comes to how we feel about it.

Presenting and public speaking sit nicely at the top of any list about fears and anxiety. Thank you primal brain for that!

But not all presenting or public speaking is equal in terms of its potential to make us nervous, fearful or anxious. And, this is different for everyone.

Speaking in front of a large audience of people you don’t know probably sits at the top of the scary pile for most people.

This goes back to our primal brain and how we used to live, and survive. Back in the caveman days, if we could look out and see lots of eyes on us, then it was probably because we were being eyed up for dinner. Bad situation. Life or death situation!

In this situation, our fear and anxiety was pretty useful and helped us to survive.

Today, when we have eyes on us it’s usually because the eyes belong to people who are interested in what we have to say or what we’re doing (at least we hope they are!). In situations like this, the fear and anxiety that is wired in is less helpful, so it can be useful to get rid of it.

How to lose the fear and anxiety around public speaking To lose the fear or anxiety you might have around public speaking and presenting, it’s useful to dig deeper. This is because it can give us clues as to what is at the root of your fear or anxiety.

This is especially so, if you want to use Head Trash Clearance to get rid of your fears and anxiety. To use Head Trash Clearance effectively, we need a list. A nice list of things to clear. And we’re only going to be able to get that if we dig and unravel what’s going on.

So let’s get to it!

The different aspects of public speaking fear The first thing we need to explore is the idea that not all public speaking and presenting scenarios are the same. Once we recognise this we can start to get to the bottom of it.

Consider these different situations;

Speaking to a small group of your peers at work. (e.g. your team)
Presenting to people more senior than you (e.g. the management team, the board or the company investors)
Speaking in front of a small group of people you don’t know at work (e.g. clients, suppliers or other departments)
Presenting to a large group of people who know you (e.g. the whole company or your division)
Doing a presentation in front of a large group of people who DON’T know you (e.g. a visiting subsidiary or at a conference)

Do you feel the same approaching all of these scenarios?

Probably not.

It’s quite possible that some of these won’t present a problem for you, whereas others will.

Maybe you’re fine speaking in front of people you don’t know, it’s speaking in front of people you DO know that’s the problem. Perhaps you worry about what those people will think of you.

Or maybe you struggle with authority and are easily intimidated when having to communicate to those who you perceive to hold more power or authority than you. This could make you nervous and anxious and stop you thinking straight or doing a good job.

Or perhaps you are fine speaking to small groups, it’s the large groups that make you nervous.

Different presenting situations trigger different fears You see, behind all of these different scenarios, there are different fears and anxieties. it’s less about the speaking per se, and more about what these situations bring up for the person doing the speaking.

These different situations could bring up any of the following;

fear of looking or sounding silly or foolish
saying the wrong thing
messing up
people thinking less of them
not being taken seriously
appearing stupid or like an idiot
fear of being fired or demoted for doing a bad job (messing up, saying the wrong thing)
fear of missing out on a promotion for not doing a good enough job
fear of appearing a fraud
not being expert or knowledgable enough

But this is not all that you need to consider if you want to get rid of your fears around public speaking and presenting.

We need to take this one step further to get a fuller picture.

The nature of the presenting job It’s important to consider the difference in the nature of the presenting job itself. There are two main options you face when it comes to presenting or public speaking;

You’ve prepared something specific to share In this situation you have something that you’ve prepared in advance that you’re going to talk through. Perhaps something like:
specific internal presentation – monthly team update
keynote presentation at a conference
pitch to potential investors
sales presentation to potential customers

In these situations, you have time to prepare and run through what you want to say.

The main challenge you have is ensuring that you remember to cover all the points you want to cover and that you stick to the timings. Of course there’s a bit more to it than that, but you get my point. It’s quite a different situation to the next one;

You’re speaking, but it’s unscripted or ‘on the fly’ This is when you’re attending an event or meeting, but where you’re not there to present something that’s been prepared in advance.

You could be hosting a conference or panel. Or perhaps you’re attending a monthly team meeting and will need to present or speak in response to what else is shared or discussed during the meeting. Or maybe you’re an audience member at an event and want to contribute to the Q&As or you have questions for the panel or speaker.

In these situations, it’s much harder to prepare and there’s so much more that could go wrong (in your mind at least).

All of this means that there are ten potential different presenting and public speaking scenarios that you could be facing. Each of these scenarios will bring up slightly different fears and emotional responses in you.

These emotional responses could be so great that you’re not able to practically prepare for what you’re facing. This is very common.

When your fear or anxiety gets in the way of you preparing Let’s say you have a presentation coming up. Every time you think about it you feel the anxiety rising. It’s enough to keep you up at night.

This makes it very hard for you to sit down and prepare for the presentation. Your preparation might involve things like

writing the presentation
working with colleagues to get their support and help
practical planning of the event
rehearsing the presentation

Sometimes our fear and anxiety holds us back from even taking the first step. This can lead to last minute preparations which will exacerbate the fear and anxiety. It could also means that your’e more likely to mess up and say the wrong thing, thereby fulfilling your fears.

How clearing your fears in advance can help By taking time in advance to unravel what’s going on, you’re much better placed to do the emotional clearance work, that will help you to prepare for the presenting or public speaking task you’re facing.

Then you can look forward to your event or meeting with confidence, knowing that you’re putting your best foot forward and you’ve done the best you can. In these situations, it’s much harder to put a foot wrong. And your confident energy will transform your performance and carry you through any little mistakes that come up.

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If you've been following my adventures in trauma clearance, you'll know that I'm feeling very called to clear my traumas at the moment.

If you missed it, I dive into that in my blog: Traumas & Yetis: 2 things they have in common.

One theme of emotional pain that has come up a lot for me in my life is around abandonment and rejection so this has been on y Healing-To-Do-List for a while. That's not to say I haven't tried to heal this pain in me because i have. But I know that I'm not fully healed of it. There's clearly more to do. So now that I've diving into traumas, this is an obvious one for me to address.

As I've been prepping myself mentally to clear the traumas I'm carrying around abandonment, I've been giving it a lot of thought.

I think it's important to be super clear what abandonment really means.

What do we mean by abandonment, and feeling abandoned? When we carry hurt around abandonment, we often feel like we've rejected, dumped or left behind, and that this has been done to us deliberately or consciously. Perhaps there are some situations where that is the case. But, I bet many of those times that's not the case. More often than not, the abandonment is an emotional feeling rather than an actual state of being. Of course, it can be both, but I'm interested in the feeling aspect here.

If you got lost in the supermarket or park as a child, you might have felt abandoned in that moment. But, I bet your parents didn't actually abandon you. They were probably desperately looking for you. But in that moment, the child in you FELT abandoned. Very different from the time your mates thought it would be funny to leave you in nothing but your underwear in the middle of town after a drinking session.

My parents divorced when I was four, so I don't have to look much further to figure out where some of my abandonment issues come from. I remember thinking as a child that I thought it was my fault my dad left us, even though my mum assured me that wasn't the case. But that's how I felt and as far as my emotional self was concerned, that's all that mattered.

As with most divorces, the parents don't separate because of one of the kids. It's their relationship that's broken down. And, when they eventually part ways, it's unlikely that the parent who leaves the family home is abandoning the children in a deliberate fashion. They might be desperate to stay. But things just aren't workable and it breaks their heart to leave. No matter how the leaving parent feels, the kids will most likely FEEL abandoned by them. Their sheer absence will do that.

I think it's important to get clear on this stuff because we sometimes start throwing some blame into the mix which just adds emotional weight to our abandonment. This doesn't help things at all and can make it all much more painful, and therefore more difficult to face and resolve.

Abandonment is not always inflicted deliberately Let's take my mum for example. Years ago, when I did the Hoffman Process, I prepared myself for the slew of Daddy Issues that would come up from the divorce situation.

What I was not prepared for were the Mummy Issues I had, and a lot of those came from her abandoning me by dying suddenly to cancer when I was 30. Now, I'm pretty sure she didn't die deliberately to abandon me.

But the fact is I had abandonment pain that I felt as a result of her dying so early in my life. Being 30 without a mum is a tough gig. Being a mum without a mother is even more so... as I would later discover.

The family pattern of abandonment The more I thought about abandonment, the more I realised how strong this theme has been experienced by my family and predecessors.

My grandmother was abandoned by her community when she fell pregnant out of wedlock.
My mum was abandoned by her mum when she was put into an orphanage during WW2 for her safety, to be retrieved once the war was over.
My mum was later abandoned by my dad which led to their divorce.
My dad's parents divorced when he was young, so he was abandoned by a parent too.
Then me. I was abandoned by my dad as part of my parents' divorce, and later by my mum when she died when I was 30.

This was a pattern I was carrying inside me.
It's in my DNA. The memories of abandonment are in my cells.

Time to expand the scope of the trauma clearance As I fully took all this on board, I realised that my approach to clearing my trauma this time around needed to be different to how I'd done it before.

I needed to cast the net wider than my own life and my life in utero.
I also needed to deal with these cellular memories of trauma.
So that meant including ancestral trauma that I've acquired from previous generations.
And while I was at it, I might as well throw past life trauma in there too!

Phew!

How many traumatic experiences was I carrying? Now as I'm a numbers person, I was curious as how many of these traumas I was carrying around.

You want to know? I bet you do!

Current life: 121
In utero: 5
Past life traumas: 11,800 ish!
Ancestral traumas: 15,200 ish!

Whoa! That's a lotta shit to be carrying around.

I'm carrying over 27,000 traumatic experiences around the theme of abandonment, and being left out or left behind.

Correction. I WAS carrying!

Yup. So I did the clearance. And, as predicted, by the time I finished I was surrounded by a mountain of snotty tissues.

Clearing the traumas was a snotty experience I thought I would sob emotional tears for this one as it touched on themes and experiences that I had clear memories of. But it didn't, just tears of release. And snot. A LOT OF SNOT!

If felt good to snot all that shit out. And by the end I was spent and headed to bed for an early night. My subconscious had a lot of processing to do.

Then the MAGIC showed up... And the next day the magic showed up.

The further I go along path of deeper healing, the more magical moments I experience. Magic is pretty much a daily experience for me now.

But I get proper tingly excited when something happens that is DIRECTLY related to the theme of the clearance I've recently done. For me it's a sign that the energy has truly shifted and I've healed.

Well, sure enough, the next day it happened.

I was INVITED to be part of something new that's very exciting. Something BIG!

I was SOUGHT OUT.
I was CHOSEN because of who I am.
I was PICKED OUT for it.

However, I express that idea, one thing is clear: it's the OPPOSITE of BEING ABANDONED and LEFT BEHIND.

It's what my toxic emotional energy was blocking from me.

Now that the energy is clear, these things are more freely available to me now. They can flow to me, where before I was resisting, repelling even.

Our unresolved trauma keeps us stuck Our unresolved traumas are keeping us stuck in the very places we desperately want to leave.

It's time to let these fuckers go. For good.
Then the things you truly desire can come into your life.

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In this episode I get to chat to one of my heroes for the second time - lucky me!

Dr Thomas Verny is the godfather of prenatal psychology and the author of the classic book The Secret Life of the Unborn Child. It was this book that was a huge inspiration to me when I wrote my first book Fearless Birthing.

In his words..

"As a psychiatrist, I have had a lifelong interest in memory and the mind. At the beginning of my career, this took me into establishing the science of Pre and Perinatal Psychology. About seven years ago I developed an interest in cellular memory and cellular intelligence. I started to read scientific journals and books on this subject. All in all, I must have read more than 5,000 papers which eventually led me to write the book that you see before you, The Embodied Mind."

I first interviewed Dr Thomas Verny for my Fear Free Childbirth podcast and you can listen to that here.

During that conversation, Dr Verny said that he was working on his next book and I asked him to let me know when it came out so that we can have another chat. Well he did and here we are.

His latest book is The Embodied Mind and it came out late last year. We spoke just before my personal life unravelled somewhat and so I never got round to editing and publishing the podcast. But now I'm back, here it is!

In this podcast, Dr Verny explains the thinking behind his book and during our chat we talk about;

how we must abandon the top-down system... this thinking that the brain and head is at the heart of everything and 'in charge'. Instead, it's more like a horizontal system.
the trauma we carry in our bodies and in our cells
the collective trauma that's built up - that nations have, that peoples have
how little attention is being paid to the collective trauma
hidden trauma
the importance of the health of parents pre-conception

and much more.

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I’m feeling very called to get back to work on clearing trauma at the moment.

A few months ago I went all in with it when I was really ill. My mind had pretty much shut down and healing was my sole focus as I kicked off a physical healing protocol, but it would need time; I needed to detox The Thing that was making me ill, and then my body needed to heal from The Thing. I wasn’t good for much while this was happening so I thought I’d double-down and support my physical healing with emotional healing.

Why not clear some more of my shit? There was a lot of crap going on for me on all levels so this seemed like a good idea. I’d been dabbling with trauma clearance just before I was ill, so I decided go all-in and hunt down more of my unresolved traumas.

Why traumas are like yetis I found that hunting down my unresolved traumas is like hunting down the Yeti. You only know they’re there by the shit and footprints they leave behind.

Well I had the brown stuff in bucket loads, and I could see the footprints in my triggers, self-sabotaging habits and inner conflicts, so I knew it was lurking. But when I delved into the various life aspects I was struggling with, the truth was I didn’t actually know if I had indeed experienced a trauma around this particular theme in my life. And, if I had, what that experience might have been.

When I’m working with women on their pregnancy and birth phobias, most of the them have experienced trauma from their own birth experience (as I did). Even though most can’t remember their birth experience, having your own birth as a thing in the mind to focus on is helpful. But when you have no idea WHETHER there is a traumatic experience in there, and WHAT the experience is … well, that’s just tricksy!

I figured it must be there because of the footprints and the crap but I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was. It felt nebulous and shifty – like it was trying to escape or avoid detection (fears are very good at doing this). This meant I needed to cast a super huge net to catch the bastards.

Getting creative with clearing my traumas Pretty much straightaway, I found I needed to leave the safe shores of the trauma clearance methods I knew and I needed to make shit up. Or, as I prefer to call it; follow my intuitive guidance.

So I decided to crack on making a few assumptions;

Yes. Trauma was the culprit of my various head trashy nightmares
There’s probably more than one of these ‘traumatic’ events that I might have experienced in my life around each theme
I probably have no recollection of most of these events or experiences
Some of these might have happened while I was in utero

Now, because I’m a curious, businessy numbers person I was interested in HOW MANY traumas I was dealing with here.

How many unresolved traumas did I have, EXACTLY? I found that I had anything up to 100+ experiences that my emotional system had deemed ‘traumatic’ that I was carrying around with me related to any particular theme.

Here are some numbers;

Lack of self belief 10
Feelings of insecurity 8
Taking action 18
Inaction & procrastination 94

So taking action was traumatic.. as was NOT taking action! No wonder I was struggling and going around in circles.

Tug of war aside, these numbers blew my mind…
… until I stopped to think about it and then realised they make perfect sense.

Our lives are packed with experiences, some of which are traumatic We’ve had LOADS of life experiences. And a fair few of them will have left an emotional trace and made us stop and think about how we might behave differently next time… especially to avoid The Shitty Thing happening again. And so a destructive or self-sabotaging pattern gets embedded.

These numbers were also crushing.

Up until this point I had been clearing my traumas one-by-one. I was NEVER going to get this shit cleared if I had to clear each of these bloody traumas one-by-one!

Until I spoke to a very Wise and Wonderful friend who highlighted the bleedin’ obvious – why don’t you clear ALL of them at once?

Can I do that???

Apparently no permission is required. You can do what you bloody want.

So I tried. And it turns out I can!

You can clear more than one trauma at once Oh lordy!

It reminded me of the time when we were renovating our Victorian house in the UK and we finally got a wallpaper stripper. Suddenly I needed to strip ALL the walls, RIGHT NOW! Most sensible people do a room at a time. Not me! ALL. THE. ROOMS!

Well, if you take this same approach to your trauma clearance, then your emotional system is going to look a bit like my walls did. Like a bomb’s hit it.

Yep! Taking this approach kicked off the Mother of all healing crises. Not only was my body trying to heal from The Toxic Thing, but now my emotional system was healing from The Great Trauma Purge (my very own Great Reset). For about a week afterwards I slept 16 hours a day and ate like a gannet.

But oh my goodness. When I eventually emerged I felt different.

I felt lighter and more at peace.
I feel like I have more trust in myself.
The urgent gotta-do-it-all-right-now energy had evaporated. Replaced by more patience, slow-ness and present-ness.
The part of me that always made me want to BE MORE because I wasn’t ENOUGH… feels almost gone.
I give less of a shit about stuff than before. I thought I was pretty good on that front, but now I’m much more like some of my zero-fucks-to-give friends.

I’ve had a break now and I’m already feeling the call to jump back in.

Next on my list are the traumas at the root of my dog allergies and eczema (the kids want a dog!). As well as my abandonment traumas – of which I have 121!!!

So if I disappear again, you know why.

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Did you ever play hide and seek as a kid?

I bet it's a YES. Please don't say no... because that would be a little bit sad.

If you did - and you did, right? - then your hide and seek shenanigans could be responsible for some head trashy challenges you might be experiencing as an adult.

My kids LOVE playing hide and seek and I'm pretty sure it's something we've all played as kids. I sometimes join in and my favourite time was when my daughter and I hid under the blankets that cover the sofa in our lounge and my other half totally missed us. Like, how did he not notice the huge lumps under the blanket??

TOP HIDE AND SEEK TIP: Hide in plain site.

But I'm afraid I bring bad news; all is not fine and dandy in the world of hide and seek.

Playing hide and seek could be bad for your health Hide and seek could actually be bad for your mental and emotional health. Shocker, right?

Recently I've started to realise that it might not be the innocent and fun game we imagine it to be. I know this because games of hide and seek are coming up quite a bit during my client sessions. And, no, I don't PLAY hide and seek with my clients! 😂

When you're clearing head trash around something, you are often reminded of memories and experiences that relate to whatever it is that you're clearing. Some of these memories could come from way back, and you might not have even thought about them until now in the midst of a clearance. This often suggests that they could be responsible for planting the roots of the head trash in the first place (not always, but if it's a memory of you as a kid, then it's pretty likely).

This means that games of hide and seek could well be the unlikely culprit that's responsible for some pretty specific head trash that many people are wrestling with today.

It's pretty obvious when you think about it. But let's see if you can figure it out...

Not all games of hide and seek though! Let me just be clear about this.... the dangers I'm referring to don't come from ALL hide and seek games.

I'm talking about the times when you hid - let say in a box or a laundry basket - and then no-one came to find you.

So you were left trapped in a box or cupboard wondering if anyone was going to find you.

At first you'll be sitting there smiling smugly at your wonderful hiding place thinking things like;

I must stay hidden and not be seen ... because those are the rules of the game, and I've got to stick to the rules.
I don't want to be discovered ... because I want to win the game.
The quieter I am the better ... because then I won't be found out.
I must make myself as small as possible ... because then it's easier to hide.

What does playing hide and seek teach us? Let's pause a moment to explore some of the powerful lessons that hide and seek teaches us:

Winning = being really well hidden

Winning = not being discovered

Winning = being quiet

Hmmm....

Are these really lessons that we want to be teaching our kids?

And, you starting to get a sense of the head trash that I'm referring to?

Now, let's say quite a bit of time has passed and no-one has come to find you. Perhaps your older brother or sister has decided to play a joke on you and leave you in the laundry basket.... ha ha hilarious!

But it's not really, not for you.

The longer you're left there waiting, the more you're going to be thinking things like ...

"If I come out, I'll be breaking the rules. And I might lose.
"How come no-one has come to find me?
"Have I been forgotten?
"Perhaps they've abandoned me.
"They don't care about me."
"I don't matter."
"I"m not worth bothering with."
"I'm not worth it"

Now you're going be conflicted.

Hide and seek creates inner conflicts You really want to win, but, if you break the rules then you're definitely not going to win, so you wait.

You might be tempted to break the rules and come out of your hiding place to see what's going on, but, you've been told that breaking the rules is bad.

You want to peek your head out even just a bit, but, you might be seen and then you'll definitely lose so you decide not to.

Oh the conflicts!

But you REALLY want to win.... which, let's face it, ALL kids want to win at EVERYTHING! Whether they're getting the biscuit tin out of the kitchen cupboard, racing back to the car in the supermarket car park, or playing hide and seek.

Now remember, this is the child version of you interpreting all this. The memories could be of you aged anywhere between 2 and 10 years old so your capacity for navigating conflicts and rules is still being figured out. You experience situations very differently than if you were faced with the same situation as an adult.

But one thing is sure: this is all a VERY BIG DEAL for you. And you're taking your game of hide and seek very seriously indeed.

Childhood experiences can be defining ... When we have events that are accompanied by strong or high level of emotions, these events are often imprinted within us.

They might turn out to be significant or defining moments for us. But not in a "oh that day I won the Nobel prize" kind of defining. More like "I'll never forget the day my brother left me in the laundry basket for hours and I feel asleep" kind of defining.

The intense emotion experienced will leave a trace, either because of a strong impact or simply if the emotion was trapped. These are events are like mini traumas which means they can feed things like anxiety or fear as long as they are still in place.

Getting awareness of them - and then clearing them - is a great way to let these events go, and reduce their hold on you.

... but also the source of head trash If you have clear childhood memories about certain events that have a slightly negative tinge, the chances are that those events could be the source of some adult head trash that you're wrestling with today.

There's a kicker though: there are probably tons of events you experienced as a child that you no longer remember, that are also doing the same thing. You are probably wrestling with stuff today, that was imprinted as a child, and you have NO IDEA!

Anyway, back to the dangers of hide and seek...

What head trash does hide and seek create? As I said earlier, games of hide and seek have been coming up a lot during client sessions recently. But what makes this very interesting is that they're coming up when I've been helping my clients address something very specific.

Have you figured it out yet?

Visibility.

The clients were all women who wanted to be more visible and 'seen'. They wanted to speak up and be heard.

Now, let's just let that sink in for a moment.

Hide and Seek teaches us to HIDE and STAY HIDDEN All of these women were struggling with being seen and speaking up.

All of them recalled times when they played hide and seek as a child during the clearance work. But these weren't pleasant hide and seek memories. They were times when they had been left in their hiding place, either because they'd been forgotten, or a sibling had played a joke on them.

A strong desire to be hidden and quiet had embedded itself and created a life-long pattern of struggle.

The conflicts created by playing hide and seek The conflicts I mentioned earlier will be running patterns of behaviour silently in the background sabotaging them whenever any instance of being heard or seen confronts them.

Being quiet or hidden = winning
... which means that being heard or seen = losing

Sticking to the rules and being compliant = being a good girl
... which means that breaking the rules = being a naughty girl

This means that whenever any instance of being heard or seen confronts them, they will subconsciously choose to do The Thing that will enable them to achieve the thing they value the most;

Winning [achievement, success]
Being a good girl [peace, harmony, approval, avoidance of conflict]
Playing by the rules [being helpful, being accommodating, being compliant, avoiding conflict]

These conflicts are familiar territory for many women who suffer with the toxic side effects of kindness and 'being nice'. And who knows, perhaps playing hide and seek as kid is to blame.

Healing the conflicts can stop the patterns of struggle Wherever these conflicts have come from - because hide and seek is not the only culprit in town - the important thing is to heal these conflicts so that we can stop running these unhelpful patterns of self-sabotage.

Thankfully this is easy to do using Head Trash Clearance.

To find out more about Head Trash Clearance and how you can get hold of the clearance method, CLICK HERE.

Your Head Trash Clearance To-Do List Once you have got hold of the Head Trash Clearance method, here are some suggested items to add to your clearance list;

Being seen or visible
Being hidden
Being loud
Being quiet
Being small
Winning
Losing

Wondering what a Head Trash Clearance To-do list is? Read this to find out more.

There could be additional conflicts getting in the way of your visibility and ability to speak up but these would be a good start.

Especially if you played a lot of hide and seek as a kid!

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In this, my first podcast for a while, I chat to business founder Ela Senghera. Ela is the founder of Virtually Thrive, a mental health business that supports parents.

During our conversation, Ela and I talk about

founder anxiety an the stresses of creating and building a business
the importance of self care for parents
what you can do to care more for yourself
how you can prevent problems with your mental health
imposter syndrome, and how Ela wins it more than she doesn't
how Ela practices self care and manages to remain calm during her daily stresses
the loss of a woman's 'career' once she has kids, and how this needs to be talked about more
the importance of self awareness in making life choices - whether to have kids, pursuing the life dream
why knowing and living your values is important in being happy and pursuing your life dreams
how authenticity and your values are connected
why as a founder and business owner you need to focus on the WHY (and as a person too!)

This conversation touches on something for everyone.

To find out more about Ela, you can visit her website at www.virtuallythrive.com or listen to her podcast Virtually Unbreakable.

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Today I want to share with you what clearing self-sabotage looks like. Like EXACTLY. I'm going to share with you an example of someone I worked with so that you can better understand how we self-sabotage. And perhaps this will help you with your own self-sabotaging ways.

Self-sabotage is something we can all relate to. Personally, I'm an expert. An expert self-sabotager, but also an expert and getting rid of it (thank God!). The thing is, it's much easier to clear in others than in yourself. This sucks for me, but it's great for the people who come to me for help.

This one of the reasons is why I'm looking for people to train in my methods. At least then someone can work with ME on my self-sabotage! (if you're a coach and would like to find out more, get in touch)

Self-sabotage Clearance I've developed a clearance process for getting rid of self-sabotage which means that it's possible to get rid of all the sources of sub-conscious self-sabotage really easily (and quickly).

No positive thinking.
No affirmations.
No meditation.
No manifesting.
No journalling.
No need to chat with supportive friends.
No banging your head against a brick wall.

Just clearance.

I've talked about this self-sabotage clearance process before.

Self-sabotage; everything you need to know

How to eliminate self-sabotage

Somewhere along the way I shared how many typical sources of self-sabotage I come across; it's usually around 25-35.

How much do you ACTUALLY self-sabotage?

Yes you read that right. For any goal that you are pursuing, there are probably around 25-35 separate blocks that are standing between you and your goal.

You have conscious and sub-conscious blocks Some of these are conscious. In other words, you are aware of them and would be able to think of them if I asked you. But many of these aren't; they're sub-conscious. This means that not only can you not think of them (and therefore identify them), but it also means that you won't be able to eliminate them. How can you get rid of something that you don't know exists?

When I work with people to clear their self-sabotage, we clear ALL of these blocks: the conscious ones and the subconscious ones. And we could be clearing up to 35 separate blocks.

Of course it could be more, or it could be less. But this is the typical number that I come across. The exact number will depend on all sorts of factors;

how much head trash you have
how much inner work you've done
how self-aware you are
whether the goal is stretching your comfort zone or not
whether this goal intersects with some big personal head trash themes for you

For example, let's say you have money mindset issues and challenges around self-worth. Now perhaps your goal is around putting your prices up for a program or service you want to sell. If this is you then a lot of your blocks will be related to the money mindset and self-worth head trash you already have. Whereas if you don't have money mindset issues then launching something with increased prices will probably have less sabotage around it.

This is why if you've done inner work (and have relatively high levels of self-awareness), the number of individual sabotaging blocks will be less. But they will still be present.

Anyway, since i've been sharing the humber of likely block you might be facing around your goals, people have been messaging me because they're curious.

The questions I get are mostly these;

"What kind of blocks?"

"How can we have 35 blocks on ONE goal? 35, really?????"

To help peeps get their head around this I figured it might be useful if I shared some examples.

One example of clearing self-sabotage So, I thought I'd share an example of someone I worked with on a particular goal. That way you can find out for yourself what these blocks can look like and maybe this will help you to identify them for yourself.

Self-awareness is an important first step. Clearance is the next one for sure (especially if you want to get rid of these blocks quickly) but conscious awareness enables you to start dealing with things. And that's what I hope I can help you with by sharing this example with you.

A business owner's goal to launch a new training program The example I'm going to share with you on this podcast is someone who is launching a new training program in her business and it's part of an important pivot for her business as she moves away from face-to face interactions and in-person events to providing training (online and in-person) and building a network of practitioners worldwide.

During this podcast I share

each of the blocks that came up and that we cleared
the bigger head trash themes that came up for her that she wasn't aware were sabotaging this goal
how long we took to clear them all
things that you can look out for in terms of your own self-sabotage

I hope you find this useful, and if you're struggling with self-sabotage and it's seriously getting in your way, then let me invite you to get in touch.

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I thought I loved planning. But it was all a lie!

I’ve done a lot of planning and I think I’m pretty good at all sorts of planning shenanigans. From road trips across foreign lands and island-hopping holidays to secret birthday parties and complex international product launches.

In corporate I used to do high level business planing all the time. As a business coach and consultant people have hired me just to do their business planning. This usually meant doing the business or marketing plan for their management team, or the banks and investors.

Earlier this year I did loads of business planning for my own business as part of my discussions and negotiations with potential investors.

So yes me and planning are old buds. Well, I thought we were, but apparently not.

If I loved planning, why was I doing this? I’d recently become aware that the plans I’d been making for my own business.. well I noticed that I wasn’t sticking to them.

I’d spend time creating and refining them. And then ignore them.

What on earth was that about?

Plans are great. I KNOW how important they can be. What was I playing at?

But this was Miss Sensible speaking. Little Miss Rebel had other ideas and it seems she’d been winning.

What was my problem with planning?
Why was I not sticking to my own plans?

I wanted to, because other wise why would I go to the trouble of creating them.

There was a conflict somewhere and I needed to get to the bottom of it.

I was conflicted about planning Now that I had this awareness I knew that I needed to clear my head trash around planning stuff.

So I cracked on with my clearance. And as always happens when I do Head Trash Clearance, I started getting clarity and things started making sense to me.

Then I got the ahaa moment …. and it made me laugh out loud!

There was part of me that hates plans because they’re telling me what to do.
And I have a real big issue with being told what to do!

Especially by me it seems!

What kind of crazy self sabotage is that?

Conflicts sabotage your efforts Conflicts like this are very common and they are a huge cause of self-sabotage.

You can like something, or want more of it in your life and, at the same time there’s a part of you that doesn’t want it.

The thing is, we’re not always aware of this conflict. But, until we can resolve it, we’re not going to be able to fully do the thing we want, or get the thing we want more of. This is because there’s always going to be a part of us that is blocking us.

For me, this meant that I could crack on with creating the plans, but I couldn’t follow through on them because on some level I was resisting the plans.

The Clearance process enabled me to get the insight as to WHY there was a part of me that didn’t like planning. Once I could untie these two aspects, I would be free to fully embrace planning in all its glory… should I so wish!

So my next obvious clearance would be to clear ‘being told what to do’. Once that clearance is done the conflict that is in play around planning would be resolved.

How else does ‘planning’ head trash show up? When I shared my planning clearance on Facebook, one of my friends, Mel, shared how she felt about planning:

“I love making plans, as I am a saddo who actually can’t function unless I am telling myself what to do. I looooong to be a spontaneous rebel to my own routine and structure, like you. However I fear imploding if I do not do as I have planned. I am so organised to the umpteenth degree that I panic if I am not following my plan, in case I forget to do something crucial and it comes back to bite me.”

Mel too has planning head trash, but it’s showing up very differently to mine.

She loves routine and structure, but also hates it and wants to rebel it, so there’s a conflict. I suspect there’s a need to be in control, which routine and structure provide. For Mel, it’s the possibility of things being out of control or chaotic (a fear) that is driving her need to plan.

For Mel to be free of her planning head trash, as well as ‘planning’, she would need to clear things like

control, and being out of control
being organised, and being disorganised
routine
structure

The thing about our head trash is that it’s all tangled up. Things are connected to each other to create head trash knots. For us to get rid of the knot, we have to identify all the strands and clear them one by one. And before you know, it the knot is gone.

How do you feel about planning? We’ve all got different stuff going on, so your if you’ve planning head trash, then it’s probably going to be a bit different. But hopefully by seeing how I’ve dissected mine and Mel’s you can try and figure out what’s going on for you.

If I were to draw a list of usual suspects for useful and related clearances, it would include things like this:

being prepared
knowing what to do
having no idea what to do / being clueless

Once you’ve identified your own list, then just clear it using the Head Trash Clearance method which you can find in my book Clear Your Head Trash.

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Whenever I see a face, I can usually tell whether they have a load of head trash. this is because whenever we have lots of stresses and anxieties, the tension that this creates shows up in our bodies, and our faces.

We're familiar with the aching shoulders, tension head-aches and other bodily aches that come from being stressed and anxious, and in my experience these tensions show up in the face. They are so prominent that I tend to notice a difference in the faces of my clients over the course of the time of us working together. The difference can be quite remarkable.

This is a reflection of the connection that we're all-too aware of: the mind-body connection.

When we experience emotions, they do not pass through our brain or our conscious mind, they pass through the body. It would take too long for us to get the message if we waited for our emotions to be processed by the mind. Our body enables us to get the message that our emotions are sending to us instantly. This is pretty helpful when faced with a life-threatening situation. The problem comes when our emotions get trapped in our body because this is when tension is created and movements are limited.

If we want to release this emotional tension, one way of doing that is by clearing out the emotional energy - which we can do using Head Trash Clearance - and the other way we can do that is through movement of the body. To help us to better understand this connection between mind and body, I invited Victoria Salomon onto the podcast to talk it through.

Victoria is a movement specialist and her work touches on the the emotional component, so I thought she'd make a great guest to help us explore this fascinating topic.

The Ladder of Head Trash Our conversation follows the structure of the Ladder of Head Trash, more of which you can read about in my book Clear Your Head Trash, but which goes a bit like this;

At the bottom of the ladder we are full of head trash. It weighs us down and makes it hard for us to climb the ladder. The more head trash we clear, the more easy we find it to climb the ladder to subsequent rungs. At the top of the ladder, we are in a place whereby we have high levels of emotional resilience and mental fitness, we are confident and have strong levels of personal power. We're in flow.

The five rungs of the Head Trash Ladder are as follows;

Conkers
Washing balls
Bouncy balls
Snooker Balls
Glitter Balls

During this conversation, Victoria and I explore each of these rungs from a mind and body perspective. This can help you to figure out where you are on the ladder, and how best to overcome the challenges you're facing as a result of where you are on the ladder, whether those are emotional or physical.

About Victoria Victoria specialises in helping you, whether emotional pain means you struggle to jump out of bed in the morning, or your physical pain and stiffness stops you bending down to do up your shoes, or running around participating in sport or playing with your kids!

The Ixchel System is her inside out approach, teaching you to assess and realign your own muscular-skeletal and nervous system. This will realign and rebalance your emotional and physical connection, to create total freedom in your body and mind.

Victoria’s goal is that you do not need her for long, because within a short time of working The Ixchel System you will have reclaimed the power you want, so you have agency over your health and will be relieved of, or more in control of your pain!

She has a series of courses as well working one to one!

Find more in on Victoria Salomon and The Ixchel System at her website here.

And here are some further resources that Victoria offers:

Positive Power of Pain Podcast
The 10 Minute Fix
Get Into Your Body Level 1

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Getting stuff done and generally being productive requires the mind to stay focussed on singular tasks until they are complete.

Sounds fairly straightforward, right? And yet this is where most people fall down, including you.

Why?

Simple.

You get distracted You look away from what you're doing. Perhaps you open up another browser window to check Facebook. Or maybe you look outside through an actual window and just stare.

It doesn't really matter what is causing the distraction. What matters is that the mind is up for being distracted. It doesn't have the staying power for the task as hand. It wavers.

One minute you're doing the task, the next minute your attention wanders and you're checking email or your phone. Then your attention goes back to the task again.

Sound familiar?

In this podcast episode I dive into some of the reasons why you might be getting distracted so easily.

When your mind is easily distracted your productivity will suffer. The constant wavering as you flit between tasks and wonder whether this is indeed the right task for you to be focusing on creates a huge drain on your effectiveness.

Your productivity suffers This constant shift in focus means that it struggles to move forward with The Thing it's actually trying to do and so your productivity suffers.

When a mind has strength and resilience it's much easier to stay with the task at hand until it's complete. And it rarely gets distracted. We have all seen people like this. Things are kicking off all around them and despite it all, they remain absorbed in the thing they're doing.

You see, it's not about The Distraction per se. It's about the mind and these two things specifically;

Is your mind OPEN to being distracted?
Can your mind withstand distractions?

As you become more resilient, you're better able to remain focussed and bat away distractions. It's all part of being unfuckwithable which you can read all about here.

But building mental strength and resilience doesn't sound like something that you can do overnight.

So in the meantime what can you do?

What can you do to avoid being distracted? Specifically so that you can can get stuff done and generally be more productive.

The good news is that the answer is quicker to achieve than you might think.

This was something a business client came to me with this week. She told me that she was struggling to get stuff done and that she was getting distracted too easily.

My client is in lockdown and like many working parents she is working from home and homeschooling two kids under five. She's a CEO with 15 people working for her so already has plenty on her plate.

Lockdown was massively adding to her usual distractions and she told me that she was struggling to get stuff done. I think we can all relate to that!

So we used the Head Trash Clearance Method and cleared

Getting stuff done
Distractions and being distracted

You might think it strange for us to clear 'getting stuff done'. There are two reasons why we did that;

It's an important part of the clearance process.
Head Trash Clearance involves working with opposites, and for my client the opposite of 'being distracted' was 'getting stuff done'.
It was the outcome that my client wanted.
We often have resistance or blocks around our desires and goals, so it's always worth doing a clearance around the things you want to achieve. In this situation her desired outcome just happened to be the opposite of the thing she was struggling with so that made things nice and neat! if it wasn't the opposite then I would have asked two questions:

What's the opposite of 'being distracted'? A good way to ask yourself that is "If you're not being distracted, you're what...?". The answer to this might have been 'being focussed' for example.

What's the outcome you desire? This will be the thing you're struggling with, the thing you're trying to achieve but can't for some reason. This is because there are blocks in your way. In my client's situation, the blocks were her being distracted.

This clearance took just under an hour and the effects were remarkable.

She realised straight after doing the clearance was what was important and what wasn't.

Immediately she was able to identify five things that were on her to-do list that were unnecessary and mere distractions. So she struck them straight off without hesitation.

She also had unwavering clarity as to what she needed to do and what to prioritise. This gave her a renewed energy and motivation for the things she needed to do.

Result!

Head Trash Clearance Tips If you're struggling with getting stuff done, use the Head Trash Clearance Method to clear

getting stuff done
distractions and being distracted

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With so much uncertainty around right now, the only certainty seems to be this: COVID anxiety is a thing and it's becoming more of a problem as time goes by.

COVID anxiety is affecting mental health for a lot of people and we need to do something about it.

What is COVID anxiety? It's the various aspects of COVID that are creating additional anxieties in people. For me this is not the same as simply having a higher level of anxiety due to the pressures of living with COVID.Some people are reporting that since COVID came into our lives, they are now experiencing anxiety where they didn't before.

In this episode I explore the various aspects of COVID anxiety and how you can begin address it, if that's what you want.

Head Trash Clearance Tips for COVID Anxiety If you want to tackle your COVID anxiety, then it's worth exploring each of these aspects and identifying what it is about those things that brings up fear or anxiety for you.There's a lot here to unravel and it will be different for everyone, but here are some things that I would expect to see on someone's Head Trash Clearance To-Do list if they wanted to reduce their COVID anxiety.

COVID
Getting ill
Wearing a mask
Uncertainty
Changes
Being told what to do

COVID Anxiety Pack To help you I have created a COVID Anxiety Pack that includes the most common COVID anxieties. The COVID Anxiety Pack includes Clearance Tracks and Clearance Mantras to help you to tackle the most common COVID anxieties.

There is also a COVID Anxiety section in the the Clearance Club. The Clearance Club is a vault of 100s of Head Trash Clearance Mantras and Tracks to help you to clear the head trash from a wide range of themes in your life; weight loss & eating, decision-making, health anxieties, medical fears, etc.

Find out more about the Clearance Club here.

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Anxiety is something we have all experienced a one time or other. Or at least I'm assuming you have by the very fact you're on this site.

Here are some fun facts about anxiety that I found here;

An estimated 284 million people worldwide experienced an anxiety disorder in 2017, making it the most prevalent mental health disorder on the planet (Ritchie, Hannah and Roser, Max. “Anxiety Disorders.” Our World In Data. Accessed May 14, 2019)
Anxiety disorders are the most common of mental disorders and will affect nearly 30% of adults at some point in their lives.[4]
Even though anxiety disorders are highly treatable, only about 1/3 of those suffering receive adequate treatment

What is anxiety? According to authors Kaplan and Sadock, anxiety is “a diffuse, unpleasant, vague sense of apprehension ” and is often a response to an imagined, imprecise, or unknown threat.

For example, let’s say you’re walking down a dark street. You might feel a bit apprehensive and have butterflies in your stomach, or be overcome with a sense of dread. These feelings are caused by the anxiety that is related to the possibility that a nasty stranger may jump out from behind a van and ask for your wallet, or worse. This anxiety is not the result of a known or specific threat because you don’t know for sure that there’s a nasty man lurking about.

Instead, it’s all in your head; you’re imagining that there might be a nasty man. You may argue with that, saying, “Well, I’m in a dodgy part of town that’s littered with questionable characters on every street corner, so I’m pretty confident that this is a real threat,” but it only becomes real when a man actually appears.

Then fear kicks in.

Fear is an emotional response to a known or definite threat. Staying in our darkened street, let’s say someone does appear from behind that rusty old van and holds a knife up in your face, asking for your mobile phone and wallet; this would trigger your fear response. In this case, the danger is real, definite, and immediate.

Anxiety vs fear - what's the difference? So the main difference between fear and anxiety, is that anxiety is this vague sense of unease and apprehension, about things we IMAGINE about the future, whereas fear is triggered in the moment when we are faced with a threatening situation.

This all gets very fuzzy though because our fear radar is completely out of whack because of modern society and the fact that we rarely face situations that threaten our life. And given that fear and anxiety produce very similar physiological responses, it's obvious why we might confuse the two or think of them as being interchangeable.

Thankfully when it comes to getting rid of fears or anxiety, it doesn't matter which it is because Head Trash Clearance doesn't care. But it can be very useful to make the distinction for our own self-awareness and being able to manage or cope with it.

If you want to read more about the difference between anxiety and fear, this blog post dives into this in more detail;

https://clearyourheadtrash.com/articles/fear-and-anxiety/

What does anxiety look like? At least, what does it look like in terms of head trash?

Here is an example of how anxiety might show up for someone, maybe you?

Let's say you hate not being in control because you can't stand chaos. Things need to be ordered and well planned for you. Everything you do, you prepare to the nth degree. And you do that to help you to FEEL in control. Your need for control also means that you hold on to stuff (emotions, dramas, things). This means that you can’t fully let go AND let yourself go because you’re worried about looking silly or appearing weak. If you look silly or weak you won’t be taken seriously and then people might not like you. If people don’t like you then you might feel like you don’t belong or rejected and if you’re rejected you think you’re not good enough. And if you’re not good enough then you’ll mess up and be a total failure and no one will want anything to do with you and you’ll be all alone. And if there’s one thing you fear more than anything it’s being, feeling, living and dying alone.

This is what anxiety looks like. Does this seem familiar to you?

This kind of tangled up head trash is hiding in all sorts of pockets in your life and mind;

Health
Food
Relationship
Parenting
Work
Business

And unfortunately it creates lots of rubbish side effects.

The unfortunate side effects of anxiety Anxiety is the obvious symptom but there's more. The conflicts that are in place will create self-sabotaging patterns and keep you stuck in unhelpful patterns of behaviour.

You'll procrastinate on things you actually WANT to do.

And because your mind is juggling all of these conflicts and fears, it takes AGES to get anything done: your productivity and effectiveness will suck.

And all of this will probably keep you up at night and stop you from getting a decent nights sleep. Which means that during the day you'll reach for the caffeine and sugary snacks to give you the energy to make it through.

To avoid facing up to the barrage of these thoughts, you'll want to find ways to escape.. a few drinks, recreational drugs or sleeping tablets.

It can be a slippery slope, but that doesn't mean we can't put a stop to it. And it also doesn't have to take that long.

So how do we get rid of anxiety?

How do we get rid of anxiety? It's simple. We unravel it and clear it one piece at a time.

In the unravelling, themes begin to emerge. From what I've shared above, one of the key themes would include control. This is a biggie for a lot of people and shows up in all aspects of our lives.

Other themes might includes

decisiveness and hesitation
change and uncertainty
procrastination and action-taking
adulting (growing up and acting like the adult you are)
trapped and stuck
how we relate to others
honesty and integrity

These themes are extensive and show up for everyone in varying degrees. It's the nature of being human. If you want to reduce your anxiety, then I would recommend exploring these key themes and asking yourself what you fear or worry about.

Do you worry about things like;

making the wrong decision or messing up?
things changing or your life/body changing?
taking on responsibility?
having no choices or feeling trapped?
feeling unsupported or asking for help?
being lied to?

These are just some of the questions that will help you to unravel your head trash.

Once you've unravelled, you're probably going to find yourself facing a long list. Thats OK. Don't feel overwhelmed by it. If you do, then put "overwhelm" at the top of the list. Typically, someone with anxiety will have around 40-60 things on their list. If you commit to clearing 6 things a week, then you could be noticing a HUGE impact in how you feel in just 10 weeks. That's not even 3 months!

To make this easy for you, I've compiled the most common clearances that people have needed to do in all of these key themes and they are all in the Clearance Club. The Clearance Club is a vault of head trash clearance resources that have been created to help you clear your head trash quickly and easily. You just need to be able to read and follow simple instructions and you're good to go.

Of course, you might prefer guidance and support on this journey.

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The Head Trash Show is back. After a long break

In this episode I talk about the head trash I've had to wrestle with as I've been pursuing my dream life.

Two years ago, we made the decision to leave the UK and move the family to France. We had always wanted to live somewhere sunny near the coast, so we decided to go for it. This was the beginning of a journey that was fraught with head trash for me. It triggered so many fears for me and it's been hard work.

A few months into that journey, the COVID pandemic struck and added a whole new layer of fun to the experience.

Deciding to follow your dream sounds romantic and, dare I say it, easy. Well, in my experience it has not been easy. That's no reason not to go for it, mind. I wouldn't go back and change my decision because I'm hugely grateful for where I am, but it's been a testing journey for sure. Probably due to all my head trash.

So today, I wanted to get back into my podcasting groove by sharing more about this journey and the head trash I've wrestled with.

During this episode I talk about

Feelings of being isolated and alone
Not having human connection or people to talk to
Uncertainty
How the COVID pandemic affected our dream life pursuit

I also share more about what my dreams are for Head Trash and how I want to take this into the world.

I'd love you to join me on this journey as you pursue your happy place, and perhaps your dream life too.

If you want to join others on the head trash clearance journey, them please do come and join the Clear Your Head Trash Facebook group.

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Pain is interesting. At least I find it interesting. And I guess that comes from my work in helping women prepare for birth. Pain comes up a lot! In fact it comes up too much in my opinion. More than it should do. And this is because a fear of pain is probably one of the most common fears I come across. Well, it's only to be expected, after all childbirth is the gold standard when it comes to pain. Everything is compared to childbirth.

And yet in some countries, childbirth is not considered or thought of as being painful. Now THAT is interesting!

This raises all sorts of questions for us around whether something is universally painful.

How subjective is pain?
Can we do anything to avoid it or reduce it in some way?
Do we all experience it differently?
Is it psychological or is it physical. Or both?

These are just some of the questions I'm going to be getting to the bottom of in this episode of the podcast.

Today I'm joined by my guest Dr Gary Keil. Dr. Keil was originally a pharmacist but has continued his hunger for knowledge in better understanding the human condition, why we behave the way we do and how we can improve.

"I am passionate about how the mind and body work together, and how both can be fully developed to create happier, healthier and more creative individuals. Neuroscience and neuroplasticity, philosophy/theosophy/positive psychology, and mind-body practices like yoga and meditation are my main passions but I'm a FIRM believer that what you put into your body is just as important as how the innards work."

During our chat Dr Keil talks about

the difference between pain and suffering
how pain has both emotional and physical components
what we can do to reduce our experience of pain, and what is likely to increase it
how our beliefs impact our experience of pain
the opposite of PTSD, PTGO
what we can to prevent our experience of trauma
the length of time it can take to train and change our minds

It's a fascinating conversation and one that I hope you enjoy.

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This week on the podcast I'm exploring the idea of being an introvert or extrovert, and I'm asking the question "Is it fixed? Or can we change?"

I don't often hear extroverts wanting to change, but I do often come across introverts not enjoying being an introvert. Or at least, they make excuses for it and make changes to their life to allow for being an introvert. So they might not be openly be complaining about being an introvert, but it sounds like if they could change it they would.

What does being an introvert or extrovert mean? This article in Fast magazine describes introverts and extroverts as follows;

Introverts (or those of us with introverted tendencies) tend to recharge by spending time alone. They lose energy from being around people for long periods of time, particularly large crowds.

Extroverts, on the other hand, gain energy from other people. Extroverts actually find their energy is sapped when they spend too much time alone. They recharge by being social.

I would like to take a different perspective here, and it starts with this question;

Why do introverts lose energy by being around people? I would like to suggest that it's because people and social situations are emotionally triggering for them. When we are emotionally triggered for long periods of time we're exhausted by that and we need recovery time. The reason they might be getting emotionally triggered is that they might have unresolved emotional conflicts or fears and anxieties around being in a social situation.

These fears and anxieties could be things like

What are people going to think of me?
What if they don't take me seriously?
People are going to judge me.
I never know what to say... what if I say something silly?

Being home alone simply means they avoid being emotionally triggered, and therefore they can better manage their energy levels.

During this episode I explore this idea and share some examples that I believe support the idea that being an introvert is something that we can change.

I think that our natural state is being an ambivert, and that being an introvert or extrovert is simply due to the presence of head trash. And this means something can be done about it.

I also talk about introvert speakers - of which there are many - and why they might be experiencing the double whammy of performing and being an introvert that means that they need a day to recover after a speaking gig.

Read the podcast transcript Head over here to read the podcast transcript.

Would you like to change? If you find that being an introvert is costing you things in your life and would like to become more ambivert, then get in touch about how we can map out your head trash clearance journey so that you can allow more possibilities into your life.

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The mother wound is a new term for me, but the minute I heard it, it made so much sense. I knew immediately that whatever it was, I had it! Well, let's face it, we all have it.

I was intrigued as to how the mother wound would show up in our day-to-day lives. I've done a lot of mother wound work on myself, so I had inklings on how my mother wound has been affecting me, but I'm sure I still have blind spots. And I sure as hell will not have anything of value to add when it comes to other people's mother wounds. So when I came across this guest I knew I needed to get her on the show.

Today's guest is Rev Chelle. Rev is a Metaphysical Minister, Family Constellation Facilitator & Clinical Hypnotist. In her work she guides daughters as they connect the dots from their mother wound to issues in their relationships, career, finances, fertility, health and parenting.

The Mother Wound, with Rev Chelle During our chat we talk about;

What the mother wound is and how to recognise it
the role that inter-generational trauma plays on your mother wound
how the mother wound shows up in on your pregnancy and birth journey
the impact of not healing unfinished pregnancies on the family soul
how the mother wound might be the reason for imposter syndrome, your lack of abundance or your tricky relationships
how you can go about healing your mother wound

Rev Chelle works with people to help them to heal their mother wound. She does this through paradigm-shifting, evidence-based, trauma-informed healing experience that breaks generational and subconscious cycles of pain between daughters and their mothers.

ABOUT REV CHELLE In her work her focus is breaking generational and subconscious cycles of pain between daughters and their mothers.

Getting to the emotional, energetic and generational root of your Mother Wound
Connecting the dots from the unhealthy patterns in your family system to your most pressing issues in relationships, fertility, parenting and career
Identifying the connection between your Mother Wound and your failed relationships
Why an unhealed Mother Wound may be affecting your fertility
The connection between your Mother Wound and Imposter Syndrome

You can find out more about her work at www.revchelle.com where you can also book a consultation.

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Have you got sleep stress? We often hear about how stress affects our sleep, but not always about how sleep affects our stress. As in, how sleep CREATES stress! You know, SLEEP STRESS!

Yes, you read that right; sleep is stressful. Which when you're already stressed and can't sleep, isn't exactly good news. The thing is as you lie in bed awake waiting for sleep to take over, your mind racing with stressful thoughts about your stressful life, it's not long before your thoughts turn to sleep;

why am I still awake?
why can't I fall asleep?
what if I don't fall asleep soon, then I won't get my 7 hours and then I'll never be able to function!
what time is it again?

This is what we call sleep stress. Like we needed another kind of stress in our lives!

What is sleep stress? When I think of sleep stress I think of the emotional tangle we get ourselves into all over not being able to fall asleep. The thing is, once we get sucked into these thoughts it's a slippery slope.

If you've listened to the other podcasts I did recently on sleep, when I spoke to sleep experts Chel Hamilton and Keri Nola, there was one thing that they both mentioned and it was this

Do not judge what is happening to you, just accept and go with it.

Ha! Easier said than done right?

So on today's podcast, I want to dig a bit deeper into sleep stress so that we can better understand the emotional aspects, which in turn should help us to tackle it. Are you up for that?

Now, I've given this a lot of thought... nights of lying awake has given me plenty of time! And I've identified 4 key themes that I believe are the main culprits of sleep stress.

Not being able to fall asleep... ... and then getting more and more annoyed by not sleeping. This is a classic that affects us all from time to time (if not for some of us ALL THE TIME!). Now there might be a number of reasons it's happening to us - chemical imbalance, too hot/cold, too much iPad action, too much fear-based late night TV. Alot of these are discussed in my other podcasts so if you want to find out more about what you need to address in your life, listen to my chat with Chel while Keri's podcast is great to listen to if you want to create a more effective sleep ritual.

But, one thing is certain - you need to make peace with whatever is happening to you and just let go.

Now, for some there may be a very clear reason why they can't sleep and it's this: they don't feel safe enough to. Our body will only let us fall asleep if it thinks we're not in danger. So, if you've had a traumatic experience in your life, maybe this is impacting on your ability to fall asleep. If you can make peace with your trauma and restore your feelings of being safe, then this could unlock your ability to fall asleep with ease.

Getting stressed by noises that keep you awake This is a bit like #1 except here there are actual noises that you're hooking onto when you hear them. As with thoughts, you need to just let them pass and not reach out, jump on them and travel around the room with them. If you can hear them and just not care, that would make things much easier to fall asleep - don't you think? The important difference here is how you feel about the noise.
Waking up in the middle of the night, or waking up too early... ...and then stressing how you're running out of time to get back to sleep. If this is happening to you, then it could be down to a blood sugar drop. Chel talks about this in the chat I had with her so look to address that bit first before tackling the emotional aspects.

Get your head in a tangle once you're awake though is not going to help. Especially if you're clock watching. Get rid of any easy ways of seeing the time from your bed. It really doesn't matter what time it is. As long as you have an alarm to wake you up, knowing the time can only mean trouble for you. Especially if you're stressing about the next one...

Worrying about not getting your sleep allowance This is the amount of sleep you believe you need to sleep well or get enough sleep. I'm sure we all have an idea as to how much sleep we think we need to feel rested and refreshed. And if we're not sure, then the media will always be too happy to help us figure it out. Only recently there was another piece of research out telling us how much sleep we need. The thing is this is an average figure and often it's not necessary that we need that amount EVERY night. But if we're stressing about how much we believe we need, and what happens if we DON'T get it, then sleep stress is going to win!

How to clear sleep stress Well, it's simple... first, you have to identify which of the key themes is affecting you and then do a bit of digging. You dig until you can list out your sleep stress head trash.

Then clear each piece of sleep stress head trash using the Head Trash Clearance Method. You can discover how to do this in my book, Clear Your Head Trash which you can buy on Amazon here.

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Parent and baby mental health are not discussed enough in my opinion. And yet they are incredibly important not just for the families involved, but for society.

One of the reasons why I’m so passionate about helping women to build their emotional resilience during pregnancy is that it’s powerful place to start if you want to support the mental health of the whole family. The ripple effects of a positive birth experience for the mother go far beyond the mother; they affect the baby, the partner and the whole family.

That’s not to say that a positive birth experience will guarantee that all will be well. Absolutely not. It simply stacks the odds in your favour.

So what else can we do to support parent and baby mental health?

This is something I wanted to find out. So this is why I’m speaking to today’s podcast guest, Selma Bacevac. Selma is a psychotherapist who specialises in working with infants and toddlers who have been hurt through trauma in their early childhood. Her work involves working with all members of the family to help to improve the mental health of the child. So she seems a great person to help us all better understand parent and baby mental health.

What is baby mental health? Baby mental health, or infant mental health, as it's called in the professional world, is essentially ensuring that every single baby out there has the capacity to learn social and emotional skills in a safe, secure and well connected environment with a caregiver who is consistently present.

During our chat, Selma talks about

Some of the signs that something might be amiss with a baby’s mental health
The direct link between a mother’s mental health and that of her baby
The importance of pregnancy and the in-utero experience
Why women who are planning pregnancy or pregnant should seek mental health support
The important role of the partner in maternal and infant mental health
Improving baby mental health starts with the parents and them working on their own emotional health
How our parenting style will come from the way that we were parented
How being aware of our own head trash, and dealing with it, can be crucial part of the process
Why parenting books aren’t the answer to being a better parent…. And what is!

This is an important conversation that I urge you to listen to, especially if you’re not yet a parent. Preparing for parenthood starts much earlier than you think!

About Selma Selma Bacevac, MA is an entrepreneur, mum, international consultant and promoter of baby mental health. She is an expert on how attachment related problems and developmental trauma affect infants and toddlers. She provides webinars, workshops and online training to parents and professionals who are wanting more information on this specific topic. Selma is also the host of Raising Baby, a podcast devoted to helping parents and professionals understand the world from the babies perspective. Selma is a mom, a wife and in her free time enjoys the beach, biking, and more recently kayaking.

IG: @selma_parentchildrelationships,

Selma's website: www.parentchildrelationshipinstitute.com
Selma's podcast: Raising Baby with Selma Bacevac
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/parentchildrelationshipinstitute/

Podcast Transcript For a full transcript of the podcast head over here.

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To feel and perform at your best, I believe that head trash clearance and mindset should be a practice. But I realise that not everyone sees things in that way.

Once you get your head around the idea of head trash and that it’s something that you can clear quite easily, it’s easy to get excited about it. Well, it was for me. Noticing such huge differences in how I feel in such a small period of time is something that taps into my need for efficiency and my hate of wasting time.

Since I’ve been clearing head trash professionally I’ve worked with lots and lots of people, some of whom I’m still in touch with.

One of these people - let’s call him Alfie - was recently sharing about the emotional struggles he was having. Immediately my Head Trash Radar went into full alert. So I tentatively suggested that this might be a head trash situation and that doing some clearance might help.

To which Alfie replied “Well, I’ve done some head trash clearance already. You remember? We did some a couple of years back”.

And immediately I realised that I had not explained things clearly enough to him back then. So here goes….

Head trash clearance is a lot like exercise If you want to be get fit, then we all know that exercise and diet is a big part of that.

Now let’s imagine that a couple of years ago, you decided that you wanted to get fit. And, for about a month you went to the gym three times a week and did some serious juicing. At the time, you noticed a difference and you were really pleased with yourself. But the juicing and the exercise did not remain a part of your lifestyle.

So today, you find yourself thinking “hmmm I could really do with losing a bit of weigh and becoming healthier. I should probably get back to exercise and eating better”. You probably wouldn’t think “well, I exercised for a bit two years back, I’m not quite sure what to do now.”.

You wouldn’t would you?

It’s fairly obvious that the reason you’re out of shape now is BECAUSE you didn’t maintain the healthy activities.

The same goes for the mind and our emotional wellbeing. You can’t expect to be in good emotional health if you don’t undertake a regular practice.

Head trash clearance is like cutting sugar and fat Head trash clearance is like cutting the sugar and fat from your diet. It’s getting rid of the stuff you don’t need and that no longer serves you. This is the toxic emotional stuff that drags you down and makes you feel crap.

Now, as with exercise, this might need to start with a short period of intense activity. I call these Head Trash Clear-Outs and I LOVE doing them with people.

It’s a bit like hiring a personal trainer and a nutritionist for a month. You go all-in to make some epic in-roads. Then, like exercise, once you get to your ideal weight (or whatever the short term goal was), you take your foot off the pedal. But you don’t stop. You simply carry on at a more manageable pace that’s sustainable. When it fits around your life and feels effortless, it’s more likely to be maintained. The same goes for head trash clearance.

Why mindset should be a practice Our mind and bodies are connected, so it makes sense that if we are striving to be healthy that we have a regular routine for our minds and our bodies. We wouldn't expect our body to be healthy without a consistent focus, and this is why a focus on mindset should be a practice too.

If you feel like you’re in a bit of a mess emotionally then you might want to start with a Head Trash Clear-Out. This will help you to get rid of those long-standing patterns that are triggering the the stress and anxiety in your life. With those out the way, you’ll feel calmer and you’ll probably notice that your confidence soars too.

Having a head trash clearance burst like that also means that clearing head trash will come second nature to you, so when you notice new stuff popping up, you can get it sorted. Not only will you be able to spot it before it causes you too much angst, but you’ll be able to get rid of it quickly. This means it’s less likely to have too much of an impact on your life.

What does a Head Trash Clearance practice look like? This will depend on where you're at emotionally and what’s going on in your life. And of course, how serious you take this aspect of your life. Just like exercise, there are some who get up everyday at 5am to spend an hour in the gym, and there are others who go for a short run 3 times a week.

Where this differs to exercise is when there is stuff happening in your life that you’re struggling with. Things like a new job, a relationship breakdown or moving house can easily ramp up anxiety and stress or highlight aspects of yourself that you’d previously been unaware of.

When I moved countries with the family, I hit so many new levels of fear and uncertainty that I needed crank up my head trash clearance quite a bit for a while. But as soon as felt calmer with things I pulled back.

During a typical month I’d say I do 3-6 clearances a month. Clients who have been through my Head Trash Clear-Outs say the same. When I say mindset should be a practice, that is the kind of practice that I'm referring to. Of course, you can also include other mindset activities in your mindset practice, and for me, you would do these in addition to your head trash clearance practice.

Would you like us to work together? In my book, Clear Your Head Trash, I outline some ways that you can start tackling your head trash. But I know that some people prefer to have someone show them the way. If that's you and you'd like us to work together, then I'd love that. Perhaps, you'd like to kick things off with a Head Trash Clear-Out. Well, you can find out more about that here.

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On today’s show I’m chatting with Louise Hallam who is a mindfulness and meditation teacher. The reason I wanted to get Louise on the show is because Louise recently did some head trash clearance with me and I thought it would be useful to share her perspective on using meditation and head trash clearance, and how they can be best used side by side. Meditation and Head Trash Clearance We often hear how mindfulness and meditation is the answer to our problems if we want to reduce the stress and anxiety in our lives. And yes, they can help. But I think there are quicker ways of going about this. Personally, I wouldn't use mindfulness and meditation in that way. I think meditation is a powerful technique that is brilliant for giving you the space to connect to your intuition, to create space for mental and emotional processing, and for being guided in our lives. But, I believe that there are quicker ways to reduce stress and anxiety. And using the head trash clearance method is one such way. I talk about combining meditation and head trash clearance in my book, but I think it’s always worth getting a second opinion on these matters because I don't for one minute believe that I have the final word on this. This is why I wanted to dive into this with Louise. As a mindfulness and meditation teacher, who has now experienced an intense period of head trash clearance, I thought she would be the perfect person to challenge me and put me right (if indeed I needed to be put right!). Those of you who do mindfulness and meditation will be interested in Louise’s experience of doing both meditation and head trash clearance and how she uses them to help her to become a better version of herself. Building Confidence But this conversation isn’t only about that. We also talk about the how head trash clearance helped Louise to build up her confidence. By exploring those aspects of herself that were sapping her confidence we were able to clear them away which created the space for her confidence to step forward. Connecting to her authentic self Getting rid of the fears and doubts also created the space for Louise's authentic self to emerge. No longer trying to fit in with people's expectations of her, or from feeling hemmed in from her fears, Louise is now much more accepting of who she is and is happy to own that. A healed introvert? Louise, a self-confessed introvert used to find it hard to go out networking. It was exhausting for her. She would worry about not being taken seriously and saying something silly. This was holding her back in her business. During our chat, Louise shares how within weeks, she was organising her own networking event with over 100 people interested in attending and how now she has no problems going out meeting new people and putting herself out there. Her networking event is now a regular feature in her local business community. Podcast Transcript To access the transcript for this podcast episode, head over here.

About Louise Louise has a background in leadership learning and development and is able to provide a bridge between the corporate world and a holistic approach to employee wellbeing. Her employee wellbeing work has included Volvo and recently CTG, an aerospace company in Banbury and an automotive electronics company in Warwick. She also works with individuals, groups and charities and is passionate about making mindfulness and meditation accessible to everyone.

Louise has been practising mindfulness and meditation for over 10 years and started Still Calm after seeing that the benefits were not only relevant for her own circumstances, but a whole range of factors that people are facing in the modern world. We live in a time when we can be stimulated by information 24 hours a day and more is expected of us in the workplace. Mindfulness is becoming an essential, rather than an optional tool for running anyone who looks after their wellbeing and forward thinking company. With benefits including increased productivity, performance, innovation, building resilience, communication and managing stress, Louise is able to see the synergy between making mindfulness adaptable for employers as well as the wellbeing of employees.

Louise is committed to developing her own practice and continues to practise mindfulness and meditation on a daily basis and attend regular training and CPD events to update her teaching and knowledge.

Louise is also pleased to be a Meditation Teacher accredited with the British School of Meditation.

You can find Louise at her website StillCalm, on Twitter and on Facebook.

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      I’m so excited to bring the Head Trash Show back. It’s been a long break, but one that has been worth it.

So in this opening episode this is what I want to share with you;

     Where I’ve been You might be wondering why I took a break and what I’ve been up to. If I said to you that I had a baby, you’d probably think “oh sure, you’ve been at home with the kids” But that’s not strictly true. The experience of having my second daughter took me on a different trajectory work-wise and head trash-wise.

As a result of my own experience in overcoming my fears of birth and pregnancy, I wrote a book Fearless Birthing and launched the Fear Free Childbirth podcast. Just this month I hit 525,000 downloads, which I find a little bit crazy. But such is the importance of fear when it comes to birth and pregnancy.

As a result of this detour into pregnancy and birth I’ve learned a lot about the nature of fear and anxiety and I’d like to bring that back now into how fear and anxiety affects us in day-to-day life.

             The ‘Clear Your Head Trash’ book Last year I brought out the book Clear Your Head Trash. In this book I share the Head Trash Clearance Method™ which is the technique that I’ve refined and use to clear head trash.

The book is available from all online book sellers.

As you can see, the podcast has a new website too, so this is now your destination for all things head trash.

     What would you like to hear on the show? I’m really interested to know what you would like to hear on the Head Trash Show. What are you struggling with? What head trash are you wrestling with in your life?

I’ve created a tiny little 3-question survey for you use to let me know.

FILL IN THE SURVEY HERE.

This will help me to come up with content that will be helpful to you.

     Podcast Transcription If you would like to access the transcription for this podcast episode, then head over here.

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I'm not the first person to say this so it shouldn't be news to you, but if you want to change the world start with yourself. The "world" doesn't have to be some grandiose idea about changing humanity, it can be as simple as changing YOUR world. And this couldn't be truer when it comes to your stresses.

If you find yourself being stressed out by LIFE and the people in it, maybe it's time for you to take a look in the mirror, because maybe it's YOU that's creating the stress in the first place.

Hear me out!

When you're stressed, people will pick up on your stress... maybe not consciously, but it will be affecting them on some level. And this is even more so when it comes to your kids. If your kids are running riot and stressing you out, maybe they're simply responding to your stressy state; your stress is stresssing them out which is making them go a wee bit crazy.

Something happened to me on holiday this year which really brought this home to me. And it involved VOMIT! I want to share it with you because it really brings this idea to smelly light.

Our holiday this year involved quite a bit of driving… airports and planes with a 10 month old is NOT a holiday! But, my two girls are prone to being sick in the car and this is something that completely stresses me out. I think I was traumatised when my eldest was one and she was being sick in the back while I was doing a long drive on my own. We were in road works and I couldn’t stop the car... All I could hear was liquidy vomit gurgling in her throat and splatting everywhere, and I was panicking that she was choking on it. It was horrible! Not to mention the state of the car! And the smell! Ever since, long journeys get me stressed before we start because of my fear of vomit and either one of them being sick. Looking back, that was clearly the moment that my fear of vomit was instilled.

So I was just starting one such journey; a 4-hour drive to Wales. I was picking up my French Aunt at the airport on the way. Timing was everything and stresses were high. Once we picked her up I knew we’d have to stop the car soon… preventative measures and a possible nappy change… We were just over an hour into the journey.

We got back into the car and things seemed to go ok for a while. Then the the little one started whimpering. That was it! I was sure this was a cue to an imminent vomit fest, so you can imagine what state I was in. We stopped for some fresh air and a bit of a wander around some greenery. And then we stopped again. And again. There was no vomit, but as far as I was concerned this was because I was managing this situation beautifully… ha! #delusional

My aunt dared to suggest that the only reason she was crying was because she was picking up on my stress-vibes, and that I needed to do the work i.e. clear my head trash! Ha! Perceptive lady!

By the time we reached our destination, our 4-hour drive had turned into a day trip. Not good. So when the time came for the return journey I knew I had to do some head trash clearance before we started. I needed to shake my fear of vomit stress. The practical stuff was done as I had already covered the back seats in loads of blankets, so really I just needed to sort my head out.

So I worked on clearing my fear of kids vomiting in the car , and then just vomit and people vomitting (loving and hating vomit etc). It didn’t take me long and I only did the super quick emergency version. Once that was done, I was super chilled about the thought of vomit. In fact I didn’t care. They could be sick all over the place for all I could care. The car would be fine, they would be fine. IT’S OK!

So we set off on our 4-hour journey. It wasn’t long before they fell asleep. An hour into the journey and just before the motorway (we were in Wales remember!) I stopped for diesel and a pee. And then I could finally put my foot down. And I did! They were asleep so I wanted to get as many miles done before they woke up and felt sick.

And then that’s when it started getting weird. Weird as in NORMAL. The 10 month old woke up and started singing and playing with her toys. Then after a bit, she fell back asleep. The 4-year old who never sleeps for more than an hour in the car just kept sleeping.

My aunt and I were getting hungry and wanted to stop for a drink and a snack but as long as they were both asleep we thought we’d best carry on. Surely it would be better to just get back as soon as possible. Thank goodness I went for a pee back in Wales!

The miles were zipping by and my two kids were still sleeping. I was super chilled because I didn’t really care if they would be sick, I just wanted to get home. And the crazy thing is that they just kept sleeping. They finally woke up when I got off the motorway 20 minutes from home. THEY SLEPT for 3 1/2 hours! They NEVER sleep for that long! EVER! Not on any car journey, nor at home!

We ended up doing the journey in one go.

I couldn't believe it. I know I shouldn't be surprised, because I know that doing this clearance work works. I've had so many tangible results over the years that I really shouldn't be surprised, but I was. I never for one minute thought that them being sick was linked to the stress I was feeling at fearing the possibility that they might be sick.

Now, I'm not saying that kids being sick in the car is because their parents are stressed, but for some it might be. And it was certainly the case for me.

So, if you find yourself being triggered by situations and people around you, perhaps it's time to take a moment to reflect and figure out if you might be contributing to it somehow.

If you want to clear any fears or stresses using the technique that I used, just grab the free download 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method and go for it!

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Do you find that you're holding on to patterns of thought, behaviours and bodily dis-ease that you'd just rather shake? Well, you're going to love today's podcast. Today I chat to Matt Sison, who is an author, speaker and a coach who shares his approach for letting go of what he calls the conditions and programs that hold you back from your authentic voice and action.

“Matt Sison is the guy who other therapists go to when they have problems. I have seen him work with the most difficult cases imaginable, cases that other therapists have given up on, and he works magic. More importantly, he has done his own work, he’s faced his demons, and has come out on the other side as an embodiment of love, caring, sincerity, but most of all peace. I absolutely love his Reflective Transformations system, which is a synthesis of hypnosis, hypnotherapy regression, Emotional Freedom Techniques, affirmations, yoga, meditation, martial arts, and a whole lot more. Matt’s system is worth its weight in gold.”

Eric B. Robins, MD
Urologist and Mind-Body Healing Expert
Co-author, Your Hands Can Heal You, and The Power of Prana

Letting go Three months ago, just before the scheduled launch of his book, Matt had a stroke. At 46 years old, it was unexpected to say the least. He lost all control of one half of his body and the doctors told him that it would take him months if not years to recover. But, being someone who firmly walks his talk, he went inward to try to understand the message that his body was screaming at him.

During our fasinating chat, he shares

how he creates the space for himself to be able to "hear" what his body is telling him ... clue: it's usually about letting go of something emotional
how we can detect when the body is trying to communicate with us
the steps he uses when working on letting go of whatever emotional baggage needs to be let go of
the power of opposites in doing this kind of work (< I love that bit!!)

Matt even does some clearance work on me using his simple framework, which will help you to try his approach for yourself. It's so simple, that you'd be silly not to give it a go!

Matt then finishes off our chat by talking about his book and what you can expect to gain from reading it. His book is available right now from Amazon on Kindle and in print.

You can find out more about Matt at his site www.MattSison.com and his book here www.LifeIsThePerfectSystem.com

Life Is The Perfect System: Uncover Your Life's Path. Discover Your Spirit's Purpose

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Feeling rejected sucks! I'm saying that because that's how it felt to me when I felt rejected a few weeks back. It all started with an email landing in my inbox. Without going into masses of detail, the email basically said "We don't want you anymore! We changed our minds." It was a business thing... I had jumped through hoops and done a shed-load of work to be part of this THING, and I passed! I made it... all my hard work had paid off. When I got the email back in April letting me know that I was in, I was over the moon. So to get this new email a couple of weeks ago saying "aah well, we've changed our minds" really sucked!

The email arrived in the first hour of the day and totally ruined my morning. I really struggled to get any work done because feeling rejected like that felt so rubbish. By lunchtime, I decided that I really should clear this silly head trash. So after some thought, I realised that I was feeling rejected so that's what I decided to clear in myself.

As I sat down to use the 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Methodto clear my feeling rejected head trash, I thought I'd video myself clearing it. I figured that feeling rejected was something that a lot of people must experience too, and that it might be useful for people to see me clearing my head trash to see the 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Methodin action.

So, that's what I did. If you want to see the video, you need to make sure that you've signed up to receive the 5 step method as I'll only be sharing that video with the people who are interested in using the 5 step method... so if that's you - sign up! (that big flaming arrow on the right is where, or on any of the 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Methodlinks in this blog post)

Now, the interesting thing for me is what's happened since. Sure, once I'd finished clearing it, I was feeling soooo much better about that crappy email. In fact, I was laughing about it and how silly it was of me to even get emotional about such a thing.

But, later as the work started to settle, I realised that being part of the thing that I was rejected from, was actually keeping me commited to doing a whole bunch of stuff in my business that I no longer wanted to be doing. And so now I could release myself from that stuff and focus on what really mattered to me. I felt liberated! Since then, the clarity, the energy and the motivation that I've experienced has been phenomenal. And to think that was all from spending 20 minutes doing some head trash clearance work.

So, now I sit here grateful for that email and how it made me feel. Because without it I wouldn't have felt the need to clear my feelings of rejection, which wouldn't have led to this increased clarity and focus that I'm experiencing.

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If you're feeling like life is a bit rubbish and you need to turn things around, then I hope that today's guest will inspire to do just that.

Today I'm chatting to Tanya Mann Rennick about how to turn your life around, or more specifually how she managed to turn her life around. Tanya will be sharing her guiding STARR principles that she used to transform her life from a stay-at-home mum who was bored with the lack of sparkle in her life, to a successful entrepreneur and a sought-after inspirational speaker who has spoken at the Houses of Parliament and at the EU in Brussels.

How to turn your life around During our chat Tanya shares what her STARR principles are and how you can tap into them to experience some transformational sparkliness in your life.

The STARR principles are;

Story

Tenacity

Audacity

Right-ness

Right now-ness

Tanya also dishes out some wonderful stories, snippetts of wisdom and a ton of fabulous energy. All very inspiring!

You can connect with Tanya on Twitter or on Facebook or at her site where you can sign up to receive 109 ways to shine for FREE into your inbox.

What do you think of Tanya's story? Do her principles resonate with you? What's worked for you in your life? Tell me in the comments!

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If you've been wondering how to stop smoking then you are are going to LOVE this week's podcast. This week I chat to fellow Head Trash Clearance specialist, Shaun Hopkins, about how to stop smoking using our 5 step process (Reflective Repatterning).

I've been asked many times

What makes this podcast brilliant is Shaun's story. Shaun has been smoking since he was 14 years old and due to certain life events was also sufferer of PTSD, so smoking was a huge coping mechanism for him. But, Shaun was not only smoking cigarettes, but he as also smoking weed... LOTS OF WEED! In fact in his words, he was smoking GARGANTUAN amounts of weed. And he means it! You have to listen to find out exactly how much.

Over the years Shaun had tried lots of things to quit smoking, but none of them had worked. So once he trained in Reflective Repatterning, he thought he'd tackle some of the fears that he had around stopping, without trying to actually stop.

He never thought for one minute he's end up stopping WITHOUT EVEN TRYING!

So in today's podcast, Shaun shares with us exactly what he did to stop smoking.

How to stop smoking using Reflective Repatterning In a nutshell this is what he did;

Asked himself this "what is stopping me from stopping smoking?"
Smoked a joint.
Brainstormed a list
Smoked a joint.
Cleared each item on his list in turn using the 5 step process. In between joints.
Cleared the opposite for each item on his list. In between joints.

That's it!

So if you've been desperate to find out how to stop smoking, then look no further.

It's now been 4 months since he smoked and he simply not interested in smoking. He's achieved total neutrality around smoking, both cigarettes and weed / cannabis.

When we finished recording the podcast, Shaun I were chatting and decided to come up with specialist sessions to help you to quit smoking. So if you feel you need additional support in stopping smoking, then we are there to help you.

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The theme for me over the last two weeks has very much been about letting go. Well, for the last 6 weeks actually!

My little ones have had a succession of illnesses which meant that they’ve taken turns at being off nursery and at home. Having them at home has meant zero work for me!

Then last week, just as I had shipped the latest ill one back into nursery, two of my websites went down. So not only was I dealing with a mountain of a backlog, but now I had an extra tonne of unplanned urgent work to add to the pile. You might know that I have another podcast as well as this one, and I was facing the real prospect of not being able to get either podcasts out the door. Thankfully, I just about managed to get my other podcast done, but this one didn’t make it. And so I had to add another thing to the Let Go pile.. my head trash show podcast!

I’ve found the last 6 weeks pretty hard to be honest… being in a forced extended period of mothering is not really my scene. Maternity leave was lovely but it wasn’t long before I was itching to get back to my work. So to find myself just a few months later, not able to do work, but instead having to play lego, or hold a poorly crying baby for hours on end, knowing that i had work that needed to be done, was pretty tough. When you have your own business that needs attention, drive and energy, just sitting about and letting it wilt can feel very stressful.

But when your kids are ill, they come first and i had to let go. I had to let go of all my expectations, let go of my need to work hard, let go of my need to be “doing work”, of being productive. Maybe I’m obsessed with being busy or doing something.

I often think that we are sent challenges because of the things we need to learn in our lives, and if we don’t get the message first time around, then the challenge comes back even bigger until we click. I can’t help but wonder that my lesson over recent months has been to SLOW DOWN and LET GO.. and perhaps trust a bit more that things are going to be OK.

So anyway, all this got me thinking…. That’s how letting go was showing up for me in my life this time around, but it can show up in many other ways.

Do you recognise any of these patterns in your life that you need to let go of?

Do you find yourself replaying conversations in your head? We find ourselves doing this when the conversation didn’t go as we would have liked, so we play re-runs this time inserting our clever comments or come-backs that we didn’t think of at the time. Does this sound familiar? This is a classic.

Let it go! Do you have exercise plans for the week that you struggle to maintain? … and then beat yourself up for not doing!
My other half aims to go running 3 times a week. But life just gets in the way which means he can’t always do it. The thing is, when he can’t do his 3 runs, he beats himself up about it. Even when he’s ill, he beats himself up. Guess what?

Let it go! Do you get easily wound up by other drivers and then try to “get them back”? Maybe if someone’s cut you up, or raced you off from the lights, do you find yourself, trying to race them, or cut them up back? And, are you still trying to do this 15 minutes later?

Let it go! Do you find yourself berating yourself over little accidents? If you break something at home, whether it’s a precious item or just a regular glass or cup, do you spend the next hour beating yourself up?

With all of these situations, the mental tennis that goes on after the event is simply not helpful. Whatever has happened, has happened and can’t be changed. To quicker you’re able to accept the situation without judgement, the better.

So, how can we "let it go”? Now, for those of you that regularly follow my podcast, you know what’s coming!

I’m going to share with you the things that you need to clear using our 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method. If you haven’t got your copy, then grab it here > 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method

Once you’ve got that, this is what you need to add to the Head Trash Clearance Mantras, or to put it another way, this is what you need to add to your Head Trash Clearance To Do List. (Not sure what I mean by that? Listen to this podcast episode).

This is what you need to clear:

Letting go
Acceptance, being accepting
Judging, being judgemental

Now, you mustn’t forget to also clear the opposite for each of these. Not sure what I mean by that? Listen to this FAQ podcast: What do you mean by "do the opposite"?

Did any of these life situations resonate with you? What areas of your life does letting go show up for you? I'd love to know how you get on with this. Let me know in the comments!

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There’s a psychologist called Eric Robinson who has a surprising tool for weight loss.

Clue: we all have one, but we don’t use it as much as we could and we are always losing it.

Our memory!
I first came across Robinson’s work in this BBC article How to curb hunger pangs with your mind and immediately I was intrigued. I’ve long believed that we underestimate the role the mind plays in our eating habits, but had not read much about this... until now!

Here’s a bit of backstory to save you from reading the BBC article.

Robinson stumbled across this idea when he noticed that people with terrible memories - those suffering from anterograde amnesia - would have no recollection of any of the food they had eaten 20 minutes prior. In a study, two men were given a plate of sandwiches and cake which they ate until they were full. 15 minutes later they were given another plate, and the the two amnesiacs tucked in a second time. They had forgotten that they had already eaten!

Isn’t that interesting? You would think that our bodies would know if we had eaten or not and whether we were ACTUALLY hungry. But apparently not. In fact, our body and brain can be easily fooled.

Here’s a brilliant study that proves it. Jeff Brunstrom at the University of Bristol asked his study participants to eat a bowl of soup. Simple right? Ha! well, unbeknownst to them he hooked a pipe to the bowl through the table which meant that he could top up their soup without them noticing.

What he found was soup-er interesting. How much they snacked later, depended only on how much soup appeared in the bowl at the beginning - big bowl or small bowl - and NOT how much they actually ate. So, if you thought that hunger was completely controlled by your body, think again! The mind has a much bigger role than we thought.

Brunstrom did another study. This time he asked people to eat with one hand while they played solitaire with the other and what he found was that because they were distracted, they struggled to recall the meal later and pigged out on more biscuits later in the day.

This now starts drifting into the idea of mindful eating; being present and focused on the food you’re eating… noticing the colours, the taste, the sensation of the food in your mouth, the smell and how it feels going down your throat. In fact Brusnstom asked some obese women in another study to eat a plate of sandwiches mindfully. When it came to snacking 3 hours later, the mindful eaters ate 30% fewer calories.

That’s pretty staggering!

But wait! there’s more… There's a group of researchers that have found that by simply visualising you cravings - in full glorious technicolour 3D - seems to trick the mind that it’s actually eaten.

Now this visualising trick is nothing new. We know that the mind can’t tell the difference between something imagined and real, which is what makes visualisation such a powerful technique for athletes. So we shouldn’t be surprised that we can use it when it comes to food.. but who would have imagined it would work, when we thought that our hunger pangs were controlled by our body?

Now, if I had to choose between mindful eating and visualisation, I know which I’d rather choose… the eating one!

So how do we become more mindful when it comes to eating?
Well, you might be interested to know that there are some core principles of mindful eating.
Michelle May’s book, Eat What You Love Love What You Eat: How to Break Your Eat-Repent-Repeat Cycle she shares the mindful eating cycle which is basically a series of questions designed to create a gap between your I-want-food-trigger and your response; eating.

Since most people eat for reasons other than physical hunger, “Why do I eat?” is a great place to start if you want to change your behaviour.

“Why do I eat?” may include triggers such as physical hunger, challenging situations, or visual cues, which often spring from stress, fatigue, or boredom.
“When do I want to eat?” The answer may depend on the clock, physical hunger cues, or emotions.
“What do I eat?” this helps you to take a closer look at the factors you consider when choosing food, such as convenience, taste, comfort, and nutrition.
“How do I eat?” Which are you when you eat - rushed, mindful, distracted, or secretive? In our technological, on-the-go society, exploring the this aspect alone can be eye-opening.
“How much do I eat?” Quantity may be decided by physical fullness cues, package size, habit, or whether someone else is serving your food.
“Where does the energy go?” Eating may be invigorating for you or could cause sluggishness. It might even lead to guilt or shame. How do you use the energy from your food during work or play?

Here's a great little diagram that shows the cycle in action that I've taken from this brilliant article that shows a ton of research that supports this approach for people who might be wondering how to lose weight with your mind and fancy seeing the science.

This approach (Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT)) has had quite a bit of research done into it and it works. particularly with binge-eating disorder (BED),

One of the studies that examined MB-EAT showed that the number of binge-eating episodes among participants decreased from slightly more than four per week to about 1.5, and that many patients no longer met the diagnostic criteria for the disorder.

That’s pretty amazing for something that is essentially so simple.

So, if you want to tap into the power of your mind to lose weight, here are some exercises that you can do.

How to lose weight with your mind Here are some exercises that you can try when you’re hungry

Rate Your Hunger Create a hunger scale ranging from 0 to 10 (0 being the most hungry and 10 being the least hungry). To help you do this, ask yourself :

What does a 0 feel like physically when you’re extremely hungry? (Common answers are headaches, irritation, shakiness, and fatigue.)
What does a 10 feel like, when you’re as full as you can imagine? (Common answers are nauseous, bloated, fatigued, swollen, accompanied by feelings of shame or guilt.)
Where are you right now on a scale of 0 to 10? What do you notice about your body that made you choose that number?

Why not keep a journal of your hunger rating before, during, and after each meal for three days, noting any triggers or physical cues that led to the choice of that rating.

Now that you have a hunger scale, you can rate your hunger every you feel the need to have food.

When you get a hunger pang... 1. Rate your hunger

2. Ask yourself, Why do I want some food?

If the hunger rating is high, then maybe you’re actually hungry, but maybe you’re doing it for other reasons. Note what they are.

If it’s a social trigger, then ask yourself whether eating is the only option.

If it’s an emotional feeling that you’r trying to mask or escape from , then try clearing that emotion using our 5 step process: 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method

If after going through the rest of the mindful eating questions, you decide that you really are hungry, then drink a half A pint of water and wait 20 minutes. Hunger is often dehydration.

If after your glass of water, you’re still hungry - you have 2 options;

Option 1 - EAT! But, when you do, eat mindfully. Like this...

How to Eat Food Mindfully

Take a raisin, grape, strawberry, piece of cheese, or chocolate. Observe the appearance and texture. Is there an aroma? What kind of changes do you notice in your body as you observe this food? (Answers may include salivation, impatience, anticipation, and nothing.)*

Place a small amount of the food in your mouth, and do not chew it. After 30 seconds (wait 1 minute for chocolate), start chewing.

After you've finished eating, ask yourself the following questions:

• What did you notice about the flavor or texture before you started chewing the food? After you started chewing?
• How does that compare with your typical experience?

Option 2 - Visualise eating your food Instead of eating when you’re hungry, visualise eating your favourite food. Maybe do a mini meditation for 5 minutes as you visualise everything about that eating experience.

Have you tried doing any of these? Have they worked for you? Tell me about your successes in the comments!

Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat: A Mindful Eating Program to Break Your Eat-Repent-Repeat Cycle

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Most of us understand what it means to love another person. The emotional investment coupled with feelings of intense desire and admiration is familiar territory for us. In fact, we consciously take time to nurture and develop our live with others… we say nice things, we offer gifts, we do nice things, and importantly we let them know how we feel. But loving ourselves? Some people just find that plain weird.

So what is self love? Well, maybe we should start with what ISN’T self-love...

Here are some tell tale signs of not loving ourselves

regular negative self talk
putting ourselves down with talk of discouragement and
you push yourself to do things you don’t like doing
you become angry at yourself when you make mistakes
you are critical about yourself; your body, your decisions, your behaviour, the way you look, your choices
you tend to put others first
you find it hard to speak up for yourself
you find it hard to exercise, eat well, or break bad habits.
you don’t look after yourself - No concern for your outward appearance: Putting on dirty clothes, skipping showers, or just plain looking like a mess.
you feel insecure when other people are doing well: perhaps getting offended or feeling bad somehow when other people have what you want

What is self love? Self-love is a combination of self-acceptance, self-awareness, and kindness and respect for ourselves. Self-love is both an idea, a concept in our minds that we are worthy of self respect and gentleness, and an action; treating ourselves with compassion and love.

This all sounds fine and dandy, but how on earth do we turn things around?

How to love yourself On a conscious level, you can begin by

Spend some time coming up with a list of all the things that make you awesome and brilliant... ask your friends and family!
Remember to take the time to celebrate your successes, no matter how small… just remember not to fall into the trap of ‘rewarding’ yourself with takeaways, junk food, excessive alcohol on a regular basis, because that is probably more about a LACK of self love.
Do things that make you feel amazing
Come up with some positive affirmations and cite them regularly to yourself
Catch yourself saying the negative things, and re-write your internal script

But, as you will know if you follow this blog and podcast, I’m more interested in how we can dive down deep into the subconscious and do a bit of rewiring... all this conscious action can take a while to take effect and I'm a bit impatient. So I prefer to take the shortcuts even if I pick up a few scratches along the way!

Of course, what I’m about to suggest will involve using our 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method, so if you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, do it now.

Create neutrality around the core aspects of Self Love This is important if you’re to make any progress. Here is a list of things that you could start by working on using the 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Method

love,
loving myself , self love
respect,
respecting myself, self respect
acceptance
self acceptance
kindness, being kind
putting myself/one’s self first

Take a look in the mirror and say I LOVE YOU Put some time aside to sit in front of a mirror. Look yourself in the eyes and simply say to yourself “I love you”. Keep repeating this and notice what you feel. You might find this quite hard and it might even make you cry. But stay with it. Even if you just do this, you’ll be making progress, but I want you to take this further.

Notice what you’re feeling when you say this to yourself. What is the resistance that is popping up into your head? Notice the phrases that appear in your mind. Also, notice where your feelings are showing up in your body. Then I want you ‘catch’ what you’re thinking and feeling and add that to the list of things you need to clear using the 5 step process. You might want to start by putting all of these thoughts and feelings in an imaginary bucket and then refer to the bucket contents as THIS and simply add THIS to your list - your subconscious will know what you mean, but be sure to bring all of THIS to your mind when you’re working on it.

Once you’ve cleared THIS, repeat the process again and notice the difference. Notice what’s changed in your mind and your body. The more you go through this, the more easy it will be to identify the dominant thoughts and feelings that need one-on-one attention and that need to be cleared individually.

So, how did you get on? What resistance came up for you? What shifts have you noticed? Let me know in the comments!

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In this podcast I thought I’d spend a bit of time talking about how head trash might show up in your life and to help you to trace it back to its roots cause and what you can do about it.

Today I’m going to talk about something that I think we all feel at some point... feeling trapped. What is that all about then? And is there anything that can be done about it?

Well, yes there is something you can do about it. If you’re feeling trapped for whatever reason… maybe in your job, in a relationship, or in the town that you live in… then NEWSFLASH!! ... it’s just a feeling. You’re not ACTUALLY trapped. Unless you're locked in a cell or a cage, or tied to a wall, then your feelings of being trapped, are just that... FEELINGS. And the great thing about feelings is that we can change them. But I’m not talking about positive thinking stuff.. I’m talking about some rewiring of thought.. some repatterning!

Why are you feeling trapped? If you’re feeling trapped, then it’s likely that one of your key values in life is freedom. You LOVE freedom, and so you HATE being trapped. The thing is, these are natural opposites and so the love for one will feed the hate of the other. And the more you love one, the more you’ll hate the other.

Why? Newtons 3rd Law of course!

Newton's 3rd Law states that: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This means that for every force there is a reaction force that is equal in size, but opposite in direction. That is to say that whenever an object pushes another object it gets pushed back in the opposite direction equally hard.

*objects are matter and matter is energy, and I'm talking about emotional energy so the same universal law applies

So how do you get out of this mess? Well the answer is to clear the excessive emotional energy that currently exists at both ends. Or to put it another way, to create neutrality.

Neutrality is the absence of emotionally charged negative thoughts, feelings and emotions… giving you freedom choice and flexibility.

What can you do if you're feeling trapped? Practically, that means using our 5 Step Head Trash Clearance Methodto clear FREEDOM and TRAPPED... it’ll probably take you around 45 minutes... but could be one of the most transformational 45 minutes you’ve ever spent.

But, doing this might not totally resolve your problem because you might have some value conflicts going on too. Specifically you might have a value conflict involving freedom….

Freedom Vs Family Family is often on a direct collision corse with freedom for some people… their need for freedom is so strong that some people check out of the family set up, just to FEEL free.

Freedom Vs Success Success requires knuckling down and doing the work, which might mean compromising on your freedom in the short term... but if freedom wins short term, then success might never succeed.

Freedom Vs Love Some people are afraid of commitment because they value freedom so much, and yet love is really important to them, but freedom wins short term and love is never given the space to grow… and yet true love ultimately means freedom but their fear or hate of being trapped prevents them from ever getting to that place.

If you think you have value conflicts then you need to neutralise your values (and their opposites using the 5 step process and that will enable you to find a way forward that enables your values to exist collaboratively rather than competitively.

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If your body is suffering from some physical conditions or dis-ease, then maybe a good place to start is by taking a closer look at what's going on in your head. The link between mind and body is finally being acknowledged by the scientific community and the field of psycho-neuro-immunology (PNI) is where some of the latest scientific thinking in this area is taking place.

Using your mind to heal the body In today's podcast I chat to Dr Eva Detko about this new exciting field to try and understand more about what it can teach us in terms of using our minds to heal the body.

During our fascinating chat, Dr Eva shares some great ways that we can begin to tap into the power of the mind to heal the body including;

using visualisations of the body healing itself of toxins
giving the body time to heal
making time to relax perhaps through a meditation practice
keeping a rain check on your beliefs,
minimising the presence of negative emotions

Dr Eva also talks about the importance of a clean diet - filtered water, organic, gluten free, no sugar - and how when we feel sluggish or low in energy, that this is most likely to be down to our mental wellbeing.

People can programme themselves for health or programme themselves for illness - Dr Eva Detko

When we talk about the power of our beliefs, Dr Bruce Lipton's work is mentioned, as well as the scientific field of epigenetics. I interviewed an epigenticist on this podcast a while back so you might want to listen to that episode too - you can listen to my chat with epigeneticist Charan Surdhar here.

Dr Eva also talks about the power of hypnosis in helping with things like Chronic pain and talked about a Yourtube video where a man undergoes a hernia operation without anaesthetic but simply by using hypnosis. You can watch this video below.

Hypnosurgery live

The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles by Bruce H. Lipton (2005-03-24)

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In today's podcast, I'm thrilled and honoured to bring you an interview with Kevin Laye. Kevin is one of the leading Jedi masters of the personal change industry who's been personally mentored by the co-creator of NLP, Richard Bandler, and the creator of Thought Field Therapy (TFT), Roger Callahan. It was his friend Paul Mckenna who encouraged him to start working in the therapy world fifteen years ago and since then he's studied pretty much every method for bring about personal change that exists. He describes his niche as SPEED and only ever wants to see his clients once and so he only uses stuff that delivers results fast. He has a busy practice on the infamous Harley Street in London and is often called upon by the rich and famous including Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin Spacey and Robert DeNiro. You can read his full bio below.

During our chat he talks about many of the techniques from what he calls his toy box including hypnosis, EMDR, NLP, TFT, Havening and his new technique PsyTap. PsyTap is Kevin's unique blend of all the bits of everything he's learned that works and that has science to back it up. Kevin shares much of the science that underpins the work he does including heart math, heart rate variability including how science can be used to demonstrate that changes are being being made.

During our chat, Kevin also shares

a great story about how he deals with people who want to see the evidence behind personal change techniques
why the heart is the real brain
why we DON'T see more evidence and research to support personal change techniques
why he thinks that the NHS doesn't really want us to get better
why Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is used as the go-to technique for personal change among health professionals and why this is failing many
a brilliant quick technique for clearing anxiety or panic attacks in the moment
a super simple technique for stimulating oxytocin in bucket loads
what his new PsyTap technique is all about and how you can learn it yourself

Here's more information about Kevin Laye

UK trainer and practitioner Kevin Laye's efficient, no-nonsense approach has helped thousands of students, hundreds of veterans suffering from PTSD, and a host of actors, musicians and athletes including Leonardo DeCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Kevin Spacey, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, singer Natalie Imbruglia, and golfer David Banks.

The late creator of TFT himself – American psychologist Dr. Roger Callahan – had high praise for Laye's work: "When Kevin teaches TFT, people are inspired and many become vitally enthused with the potential of TFT. One cannot ask more of a teacher. Thank you, Kevin, for all you do,” he said.

“You can use TFT to work on whatever emotional or stressful circumstances you're experiencing in your life right now,” Laye says. “My approach is not about managing the issue, but to get rid of it as soon as possible, then teach you how to keep it away.”

Kevin Laye has a varied and diverse background from being a former member of the military and European Karate Champion currently ranked as a 6th Dan Black Belt by the W.B.F.O.M.A. Kevin has also worked in the Middle East for the Ministry of Defence and Aviation and designed and managed Gymnasiums from 500 member clubs to a 1.2 Billion dollar sports complex in Saudi Arabia.

In corporate life Kevin rose very quickly from being a top salesman to being a Sales Director of a multi million pound company. Seeking change again Kevin has settled on his passion of helping people overcome a multitude of issues as a highly successful Harley St Therapist dealing with athletes, pop stars, actors and a host of celebrities along with anyone else who seeks what he can offer in his clinic.

He is a qualified trainer of Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Thought Field Therapy having been trained in the main by the originators of each discipline wherever possible. Using a cocktail of techniques including those mentioned and more besides Kevin has developed a highly effective no-nonsense style of therapy focusing on speedy resolutions and effective outcomes rather than going through problems over and over again as in many more traditional forms of therapy, that’s why it is called ‘Progress – Therapy'.

You can find Kevin online at his personal website Kevin Laye or at Psy Tap where you'll find information his new technique including course information. Kevin also has a Facebook group.

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This week on the podcast I chat to Kathryn and Julian from the Changeability Podcast.

The Changeability Podcast is based on Kathryn's book Changeability: Manage your Mind - Change your Life.

In a nutshell, Kathryn has made sense of many of the approaches and techniques that exist for managing your mindset. But what makes her book, and the podcast, so interesting is that she has created a framework for weaving all of these techniques together so that they get you results.

During our chat, Kathryn and Julian talk about some of these aproaches, such as mindfulness, affirmations, visualisation and rewards.

We probably spend a bit more time than we should talking about food! But all in a super relvant way! We discuss mindful eating and how doing so can help with weight loss, among other things. I'm sure cake was mentioned a few times!

Julian also shares with us what they're trying to do with the Changeability Podcast inclusing the use of storytelling to help some of these important concepts stick.

I had a really enjoyable chat with them, just as we did when I was invited on their podcast late last year.

You can find out more about Kathryn and Julian at their digital HQ over at BrilliantLivingHQ.

Changeability: Manage your Mind - Change your Life

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Would you like to know how to sleep better? That's what I want to help you with and I've got the perfect guest to help me. In today's podcast I'm chatting with Holistic Psychotherapist and Author, Keri Nola. Keri's book 44 holistic tips for peaceful sleep is a real gem if you are looking for ideas on how to sleep better. And, it's a nice quick read too - well worth just getting your hands on!

Today's podcast chat (and Keri's book) is ideal for people who:

Appreciate natural and holistic remedies for resolving sleep challenges
Have difficulty falling asleep
Have difficulty staying asleep
Experience restless sleep
Feel tired upon waking
Have low energy at points during the day
Fear bedtime because of a history of sleep difficulties
Have difficulty relaxing the mind at bedtime
Have difficulty relaxing the body at bedtime

During our chat, Keri shares many of her tips from her book including some really interesting ones that you might not expect.... listen out for the one with the rocks!

Keri also dives into some of the more emotional reasons that we might not be sleeping easily, things that I would refer to as our head trash.

Once aspect we talk about quite a bit, and which cropped up in my chat with Chel Hamilton a few weeks ago, was the idea of letting go of our thoughts and not judging what's happening in our heads.

Here's a little but more information about Keri

Keri Nola is an Intuitive Psychotherapist, Best-Selling Author, and Conscious Business Coach for Lightworkers. While building and maintaining a thriving clinical practice for nearly a decade, Keri has now expanded her passion for the healing arts by creating a virtual coaching academy to support spiritual entrepreneurs in awakening their gifts to share their products and services with the world. She is on a mission to ignite a global, heart centered revolution that allows healers to have the confidence, clarity, and skills they need to bring more light to the planet at this time. To join Keri's community, visit her website at www.kerinola.com

You can also find her here
www.facebook.com/pathtogrowth
www.twitter.com/pathtogrowth
And here is the US Amazon link for her book.

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Stress is here to stay.

So instead of fighting and resisting it, how about you make stress your friend instead?

I’ve talked about how we can stop those things that normally stress us to stop stressing us in my podcast episode how to elimniate your stress triggers.

But, that’s not all you can do when it comes to stress… you can make stress your friend!

Now as you know, I’m a big advocate of recognising the good and bad in everything. So while many think that stress is bad, there is also a lot of positive and good in stress. Stress helps us to hit deadlines and it motivates us to take action, but as with most things in life it’s about balance; too much of it and it becomes bad. So we don’t really want to eliminate stress, we simply want to have it under control so that we can tap into the positive aspects.

We want to embrace it!

This podcast is very much inspired by a TED talk I saw recently called Make Stress Your Friend by Kelly McGonigal . Kelly is also the author of an upcoming book called the Upside of Stress and here’s some of the book blurb from her website….

Stanford psychologist and bestselling author Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., - she believes Stress isn’t bad.... In The Upside of Stress, McGonigal highlights new research indicating that stress can, in fact, make us stronger, smarter, and happier—if we learn how to embrace it.

The Upside of Stress is the first book to bring together cutting-edge discoveries on the correlation between resilience—the human capacity for stress-related growth—and mindset, the power of beliefs to shape reality.

McGonigal’s TED talk on the subject has already received more than 6 million views. Her message resonates with people who know they can’t eliminate the stress in their lives and want to learn to take advantage of it. The Upside of Stress is not a guide to getting rid of stress, but a guide to getting better at stress, by understanding it, embracing it, and using it.

So, if stress is big feature in your life, a great place to start might be pre-ordering the book! But here's the talk...

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What are your deepest darkest fears? * to have a life-threatening accident? * fear of death or dying? * to risk losing use of your arms / legs / eyes etc?

What if it were possible to find out what it's like to experience all of those? And what if you actually found out that they're not as bad as you might imagine? Well, stop right there... you can! Just by listening to today's podcast.

On today's podcast, I'm hugely honoured to have Catherine Holland on the show. Catherine is the survivor of a horrific bike accident that left her bleeding to death in the middle of the road with her leg smashed in over 12 places. The medics can't believe she survived... apparently if you lose 15% of your blood you die... Catherine lost 50% of her blood and is here to tell the tale. But not only that, but she has regained her active life. Quite a remarkable story of recovery and healing.

Are you afraid of death? During our chat, Catherine shares her incredible story that includes

her near-death experience: the moment she decided to "come back" and choose life to see her children grow up
what dying feels like
what she did to help her not only survive but recover remarkably
how her experience as a breathworker helped her to stay alive until she made it to hospital
what she believes she can owe her healing ability to
how her near death experience helps to inform her work with people who want to die or are close to death
how her experience of rebirthing gives her a perspective on the reasons why some people feel attracted to dying
how our birth experience can form the blueprint for our pattern of head trash that we wrestle with throughout our lives

As you can see, this conversation doesn't hold back and take it from me, it is incredibly fascinating. Let me tell you that during our chat, my mind was being blown the whole time... you can probably tell from my voice! In fact, I was so absorbed by it, that I completely forgot to let Catherine share her online details. So here they are...

You can find her at Oxford Pain Clinic and at the moment she is running a special deal 50% off her Beta Programmes so if you're tempted to work one-to-one with Catherine now is the time!

Catherine Holland's Books

Breathwork This short film explores the journey of breathing consciously, through the eyes of those who have been practicing breathwork for varying lengths of time. Breathwork is a little known practice, which has been used for millennia to transform states of awareness. "Choosing Life" presents conscious breathing as a choice to grow and expand awareness, rather than to remain in the unconscious limited breathing pattern of survival.

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Pregnancy, while a beautiful and wonderful thing, can also be hugely stressful. It's a time of massive change, both pysically and emotionally. If it's your first pregnancy, then your life is about to change forever. Not only will you trying to prepare mentally for something which is impossible to prepare for, but you will also be mourning the passing of your current life.. the end of an era.. the end of the time when it was just the two of you. None of this is insignificant.

By the end, you’re more than ready to give birth. Even the easy pregnancies can make you feel like this. Looking back, I can safely say that first time around, I pretty much had a stress free pregnancy. I hardly noticed I was pregnant, other than the obvious bump that was growing … My life just carried on as normal. I hardly had any symptoms or challenges and yet, by the last month I was done with it. The night-time peeing, the inability to lie on your back in bed, not being able to reach your feet… I could go on!

Compared to my first pregnancy, my second pregnancy was a total nightmare and I was done in by month 5! As well as having a load more pregnancy symptoms, those that I had were cranked up to max… it all felt pretty hardcore. The idea of a stress free pregnancy seemed very far away at that point. My pregnant state was totally stressing me out!

Why have a stress free pregnancy? De-stressing in your pregnacy should really be up there on the list of important pregnancy to-do's along with eating well, avoiding alcohol and cigarettes and staying fit. After all, we do all this "for baby" and yet de-stressing is as important as all of these and here's why...

Do it for baby! When we’re pregnant, we’re bombarded with lists of all the things that we should stop doing, eating and drinking. But nobody tells us that we should stop with the stressing too. Admittedly , is not such as easy one to fix, but given that we know there are links between maternal stress and the health and wellbeing of the baby, de-stressing should definitely be on that list.

And, for those of you who are hopeless at doing anything worthwhile for yourselves, but don’t hesitate doing something for others, then this your chance to shine. Not only will baby thank you for putting the effort into aiming for a stress free pregnancy, but you’ll love yourself for it too! “if I can’t do this for me, I must at least try for my baby’s sake”

The hormones! Your hormones are going to go crazy during your pregnancy and it’s possible that your mind will be unrecognisable. In my first pregnancy, my hormones were very well behaved, but in my second pregnancy they were vicious little beasts. The thing with hormones is that they amplify what you’re feeling, so if you’re feeling delicate and vulnerable then by the time your hormones have finished with you, you’ll be sobbing in a pile of tissues over even the tiniest thing. So to help you manage the hormonal craziness, it’s worth taking the time to de-stress and be calm, otherwise a stress-free pregnancy will be but a dream.

Stresses change throughout your pregnancy One thing I noticed, was that my stresses had a life all of their own during my pregnancies. They would come and go, evolve, disappear. New ones would show up, some would increase, others would disappear as quickly as they arrived. My hormones clearly didn’t help me with my aim of a stress free pregnancy, but given that it’s a period enormous change, on the inside and the outside, this is not entirely surprising.

So as you think about your stresses, bear in mind that you need to

• Consider where you are in your pregnancy
• Remain self aware and revisit them often so that you capture the new ones that have popped into your life

It’s a time of huge change in your life, but we’re adaptable beings. And for some of us, once we get used to something, the stress that it might have caused us initially, starts to subside. But that often means that new stresses jump right in to replace them - it did for me anyhow!

If you're interested in finding out more about how to have a stress free pregnancy then why not sign up for my FREE email series "How to have a stress free pregnancy" below

How to have a stress free pregnancy - email series

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The aim of this site, and my podcast, is to help you to clear your head trash. There are loads of methods and approaches that exist to help you to do that. Some work better than others, but also, some people respond better to some methods than to others. So, that's why, I want to bring you alternative approaches for you to try. It maybe that out of all the things that you've tried so far, that you've not had any luck... but maybe all of that could change once you try something else.

So in today's podcast, I want to explore Kinesiology and muscle-testing.

Kinesiology and muscle testing Kinesiology is a great way of clearing head trash and it is often what people are wrestling with when they decide to visit a Kinesiologist. To help shed light on what Kinesiology is and how it might help you, on today's podcast I've got the fabulous Kerry Rowett from Awaken Kinesiology. Kerry came to work as a Kinesiologist as a result of the transformation that she experienced as a result from her Kinesiology experience which she shares during our chat.

You can find out more about Kerry right here

Another reason why I really wanted to share more about Kinesiology and muscle testing is that, when you combine muscle testing with our Head Trash Clearance Method, you're able to crank up the results you can achieve for yourself, simply because you're able to communicate directly with your mind and body. Kerry shares more about how she does this during our chat.

Here is a video where Kerry explains more about Kinesiology and how it works

During our chat, we also talked about the book, The Emotion Code, by Dr. Bradley Nelson. It's not the first time this book has come up - testament that it's worth getting a copy of! The reason we mentioned it today is that it's a great place to start if you want to learn the basics of muscle testing for yourself.

The Emotion Code: How to Release Your Trapped Emotions for Abundant Health, Love, and Happiness (Updated and Expanded Edition)

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Insomnia and not being able to sleep is a nightmare. Not only can it be horrible when you're in that dark sleeplessplace, but it's the aftermath and the rubbish day that follows when you've not had enough sleep. Persisent insomnia can soon spill into other health issues as the body becomes stressed from lack of sleep, and it struggles to maintain a healthy balance and keep the healing function working 100%.

The thing is, it can be difficult to pin down WHY we're suffering from insomnia and not sleeping.

Why do we suffer from insomnia? * is it the racing thoughts in our head? * is it something that we ate? * is it because we're stressed? * is it something else entirely that is buried so deep that we have no clue?!

I've received quite a few emails from listeners asking for help on this... mainly because for them, it's the racing thoughts that they're struggling with. So, I thought I'd seek out someone who helps people to overcome sleep problems.

In today's podcast I chat to Chel Hamilton. Chel is a Hypnotherapist who specialises in helping people who struggle with insomnia.

During our chat Chel shares some brilliant insights and tips to help you get back to having a good nights sleep... things like

why you need a "caving down" habit
the importance of a dark room... and why it matters
why we need a sleep ritual... and what it might involve
a super simple quick technique for clearing negative thoughts

During our chat, Chel shares some brilliant resources;

Book on "caving down" Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival by T.S. Wiley
Chel's book ReWire It
iPads and Sleep study easy to ready post or the head researcher's page with a list of peer reviewed publications on light/electronics/sleep
Blue Filter Android App
Flux screen adapting software

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Are you stuck in your thinking? Do you continually repeat the same unhelpful and self-sabotaging behaviours? Well, how about trying to expand your thinking so that you can see things from new persepctives, find new solutions, experience new ways of thinking and surprising people with new behaviours.... DOESN'T THAT SOUND AWESOME?! In today's podcast I encourage you to tap into the law of opposites by having some F.U.N! But serious fun.. serious because by doing so you can create real change in your head and in your life. There are many emotions, valiues and beliefs in life that are labeled as BAD and yet we seem to forget this important point; THERE'S GOOD AND BAD IN EVERYTHING So, when we label something as bad, we're denying ourselves all that is good about it. Similarly, when we label something as good, we miss that there's also polenty of bad lurking.. and so we may not be prepared for it. To illustrate my point I thoight I'd have some find with selfishness. Being selfish is often thought of as a bad trait. And yet, there is much good in it. There's a reason that the airlines want you to put your oxygen mask on before others... you can't look after others, if you're not looking after yourself. Except the problem is, some people get the balance wrong.. and so those people that exhibit a ton of selfishness give it a bad name. But that's not all I'm rtying to encourage you to do here. By opening up your mind to the possible reasons as to why something you think is bad might in fact be good, you are opening up the possibility of new ways of thinking. So my challenge to you is this... if there is a trait in others that annoys you, or that you think is bad.. say... dishonesty, lack of integrity, then try to come up with at least 20 reasons why it's a GOOD thing. Equally , if there's something that you LOVE then come up with 20 reasons why it's BAD. The reason I say 20, is that it forces you to get creative and maybe even be silly just to hit the number... this creativity is magical because it's opening your mind.... So how about cranking open your mind and let some magic in..... Here are my starters for 10 on why being selfish is a GOOD thing, and why Generosity (its opposite, at least for me) is BAD. Being selfish is GOOD because.... * you don’t have to worry about other people * you get to do what you want * you look after your own needs * you don’t waste time doing things that you don’t like or need to do * your days are your own and you get lots of ME time * other people around you learn to toughen up and get on with things * it shows self love and respect * you don’t have to spend time with people you don’t want * your selfishness teaches others how to be selfish - you're a role model! * you get to keep more of your money * you have more time to yourself * you don’t have to put up with watching crappy films or TV shows * people stop asking you to do stuff, because they know you’ll probably say no

Generosity is BAD because... * your time is never your own - you’re too busy doing stuff for other people * you have less money for yourself because you spend money on others “being generous" * people start to expect your generosity and * you start attracting selfish types and takers * people start to advantage of you * you attract people who want your money/what you offer and are not there for you * you’re being generous for your own emotional needs, so it’s actually quite selfish * you find it hard to say no * you’re constantly buying gifts for other people.. although the gesture might be appreciated, they might be gifts they probably don’t even want… you’re contributing to waste * if you’re generous to expect back, then you’re definitely selfish! * If you’re being generous to show that you have money, then you’re insecure… especially if you can’t really afford that round of champagne

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Childbirth without fear: why FEAR equals PAIN in childbirth When I first found out I was pregnant for the first time, along with the delight at my news, I was also utterly terrified. It wasn’t the idea of having and raising a child; it was the idea of GIVING BIRTH! I’d tell anyone who would listen that I’d want to be given ALL THE DRUGS in the WORLD just to COPE with the PAIN!

And then one day I was having a conversation with someone while I was on a course (the advanced course of the method behind the head trash clearance technique), who told me that she had a pain-free birth with no drugs. PAIN FREE?! With NO DRUGS?!

What?!

I didn’t realise that such a thing was possible, but sure enough it was. Not only that, it gets better. Apparently, children who are born naturally (i.e. no medical intervention) are more likely to sleep better and sooner, cry less, breastfeed more easily and generally be a lot calmer.

WOW! This deserved further attention.

And so began my journey of discovery of natural, pain-free births. This culminated in me developing a range of products to help women clear their fears to increase their chances of a natural pain-free birth, using myself as the guinea pig. Let me tell you – this shizzle works! I went from being a terrified, panic-stricken emotional mess when it came to thoughts of childbirth, to “Amazonian woman of nature” (the midwife at my birth said this, not me! I’m sure it was a compliment!) who was so excited when my waters broke that I was finally going to meet my poppet that I gave birth naturally at home in 6 hours.

But I digress. Let’s get back to the PAIN! And I know what you’re thinking…

How is it possible to give birth and NOT experience PAIN?

In a word: FEAR!

Or, better still... a childbirth without fear is a childbirth without pain.

Everyone has seen enough births in their time on TV and in the movies and they always look like complete and utter nightmares. Midwives are screaming PUSH! PUSH! PUSH! Mothers are screaming in pain. Add to that all the birthing horror stories that women are more than happy sharing and you’ve got yourself a perfect recipe for complete and utter terror of childbirth.

But this is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A lot of women experience difficult and painful births because they have been conditioned to believe that it WILL be painful. You never see a birth in a movie that is calm and peaceful. And yet, not only is that possible, but it happens ALL the time.

Tragically, for most women, by the time they get round to getting pregnant have seen enough “painful” births and heard so many horrific stories, that they just expect the same will happen to them. Understandably this makes them scared. Who wouldn’t be? I know I was. But I didn’t know any better. I thought that that’s just the way it is. The whole idea of a childbirth without fear just seems silly and downright impossible.

Let me ask you this: do cats, dogs, horses, cows scream in labour? Or do they just get on with it and give birth with no fuss?

But, guess what? In the context of childbirth and labour, FEAR CREATES PAIN. So, the more fearful you are, the more pain you will experience. This is all down to what is widely known as the fear-tension-pain cycle.

The fear – tension – pain cycle
When a person is in fear, their state of mind triggers the body to go into the fight-or-flight response. When the body is in this state, it is flooded with adrenaline to help the person either to escape (run away) or fight. As such, the body tenses up and blood is sent to the extremities (legs and arms) to help with the fight or flight action. This state is meant to be used sparingly by the body as the body suffers when it’s subject to this level of stress for prolonged periods.
So, let’s imagine for a minute… You’re about to drop and you’ve decided to take a walk while on holiday in the Bush in Oz when labour kicks in. So, you find a nice spot under a tree. Things start happening… but your man spots a dingo and says you’ve got to run. That mahoosive muscle that’s been squeezing the little fella out decides that now is not a good time and tightens up, thereby allowing all the blood to go to your legs so that you can scoot off at high speed to ensure you and your baby’s survival…. stay with me…. So, your lady wotsit is now well and truly tightening and closing up. So, how do you think it would feel to go against nature at this point and continue to push the little fella out? IT WOULD HURT!

While you’re in a state of fear and stress, your body doesn’t feel safe enough to allow labour to unroll at full pelt, so it slows it down, if not stopping it altogether. 2-3 days of labour anyone? Guess what’s happened there: fear and stress has slowed labour right down, if not to a halt.

So why does stress stop labour?

Adrenaline is a bully
When you’re stressed, your adrenal glands release a load of adrenaline into your body. Adrenaline sends blood to your extremities so that you can defend yourself or run away. The thing is, adrenaline inhibits the flow of other hormones, namely endorphins and oxcytocin.
Endorphins are the body’s natural painkiller and are more effective than anything man-made. Not only do endorphins alleviate pain, but they also promote feelings of love and happiness.
Oxytocin is known as the pleasure hormone. It is present during lovemaking and is the hormone that triggers the labour process and keeps it moving resulting ultimately in the birth of the baby. Unfortunately, it’s also a very shy hormone and is easily scared off.
So when adrenaline floods your system, not only does it mean that there are less endorphins flowing (no pain relief) but oxytocin stops flowing too, which slows labour down, maybe even stopping it.

Once you’ve understood these simple things it’s pretty obvious to see how so many women have horrific births. Their terror not only inhibits the body’s natural process for evicting the littl’un, but it robs them of the best pain relief known to (wo)man.

Once I’d got my head around this lot, it was pretty obvious what I needed to do: I needed to clear my fears!

DISCLAIMER: Now of course, I want to point out that this applies to healthy women who are undergoing healthy complication-free pregnancies. There might be a whole load of other things going on with your body and baby that can create complications in birth and so eliminating your fears is by no means a guarantee, but you’re definitely giving yourself and baby the best chance by making the effort. So if you’ve diligently given up alcohol, and made extra effort to eat all the right things – for baby – then isn’t it worth considering taking the time to clear your fears too?

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In this week's podcast I bring you the Brain Stare, the EASIEST technique EVER to clear your stress, fears, negative emotions, traumas... in fact anything negative that's impacting your head space.

Chris Milbank, the founder of Reflective Repatterining, the technique that is behind our 5 steps to clearing your head trash, has come up with yet another incredibly powerful technique for clearing head trash - the Brain Stare. It's ridiculous how easy it is. Put simply, it just involves staring.

Now I realise that this just sounds ridiculously easy and you're probably wondering "How on earth can staring clear my stresses, fears and traumas?!". And I wouldn't blame you - this is exactly what I thought when I heard about it. So, I figured that the best thing I could do, was to get Chris on to the podcast to explain himself.

During my chat Chris shares

how he came up with the technique Brain Staring
why it works
how to do a Brain Stare
what you can use it for
what you can expect from using it

Some of the things that Chris expands on during our chat are;

Brain Stare for Sexual Issues Brain Stare can help things such as sexual tension, relationship problems, suppression issues that the LGBT may experience. You can read more on this in his blog post Sexual Brain Stare.

Brain Staring to Heal the Body He also talks about how you can use the Brain Stare on physical conditions in the body. Again, if you want to dig deeper on this, his blog post Brain Stare Get Well is the place to read more.

Chris also mentioned that he has a Facebook group that you can drop into to ask questions and read other people's experiences of using it.

I haven't tried it yet, but I will be soon, and when I do I'll be sharing my experience of doing the Brain Stare here on the podcast. If you give it a go, I'd love to hear how you get on with it. Let me know in the comments!

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As we start the new year, it can be tempting to reinvent ourselves on some level. The new year is always a time for new starts and fresh thinking. We might not need to turn our lives upside down, but we can’t help trying to inject a bit of life into what we do. Sounds like the perfect time for spot of reinvention!

But reinvention doesn’t always need to happen on the outside, it can happen on the inside. In today’s episode I want to encourage you to think about reinventing how you express yourself.

By talking about how we feel, what we do and what we think in a different way, can help to reinvigorate our relationships and perceptions, and ultimately our life experience. Re-engaging with others like this can bring about new conversations and insights. And new conversations and insights might lead to new opportunities and life experiences.

Some of the ways that you can change how you express yourself that I talk about on today’s show include;

Change the language you use I don’t mean learn a new language like French or Spanish. Instead I’m inviting you to add some new vocabulary to your repertoire so that you can express how you feel and think more specifically and eloquently. In doing so, you’re more likely to reveal a more authentic you, which will help you to connect better with others which in turn will help you to build stronger relationships.

When describing how we feel, there are so many words available to us, and yet we tend to use the same handful. The habits that we have in our life, extend to the words that we habitually use. How about injecting some new words into your emotional vocabulary? Hear some new suggestions for words to describe your emotional landscape in the podcast.

Ditch the negatives Ditch the negative language and negative perspective. Whether you’re using negative language because you’re always complaining, or because you tend to see the negative in everything, it might be time to pull back a tad. No-one wants to be surrounded by negativity. There is good and bad in everything, so how about re-framing your perspective occasionally to see the positive aspects.

Give yourself a new job title If there’s one question that most of us face time and time again it’s this one... "And, what do you do?” So how about reinventing the way you answer it? There was a great article on Inc.com encouraging business leaders to let employees pick their own job titles. I love this idea and encourage it wholeheartedly. But even if you’re not in charge of such decisions, it can be useful to consider your own job title and how you might change it. Doing so forces you to really consider what it is that you actually do and what value you really add. Looking at our roles in this way can be enough to reinvigorate our enthusiasm and motivation for what we do as we reconnect with why we’re doing it.

Change your bio In this digital age, when we express ourselves, it’s not just verbally, but it’s also online. And the one place we do that most often is on social media in our bios. It’s where you get to state your identity for others to read and decide whether they want you in their life. So while we’re reinventing how we want to express our inner selves, this seems a great, yet practical, place to start. If you’re re-writing your bio, it’s worth taking your time to craft a good one. If you have your own website, the likelihood is that your about page is the most visited page on your site. Your bio is important so don’t rush it. Other tips for writing a great bio include

If it’s on your personal site, write it in the first person. If it appears on a company site, then third person is better.
Use storytelling to engage on an emotional level and create interest.
Avoid showing off. No one likes a show-off.
Share your human side. It’s OK to talk about failures and your vulnerabilities.
Include aspects of your personal life; your passions, hobbies or reveal your inner geek. It’s these things that people will connect with.

When you're able to express who you are and what you're thinking more authentically, you'll notice shifts begin to take place as people feel better able to connect with you and trust you.

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The idea of being able to reduce pain with your mind was not something that came to me until last year when I was pregnant. Faced with my second childbirth experience, I was super keen to repeat my first childbirth experience which was pain-free. Worried that it might have been a fluke I didn't want to leave anything to chance, so I decided to do a bit of digging into pain, and what I found out was pretty interesting. But essentially it's this...

Pain is a construct of the mind

For me this was great news as I know that we can ALWAYS change our mind! And that means...

We can reduce pain with the mind No two people have the same experience of pain. Why do some people experience pain, while someone else going through the same thing don't? Well, the answer lies in how they FEEL about the pain. If you're fearful or anxious about the pain, you're more likely to experience it, or make it worse. So basically anxiety or fear of pain makes pain worse! This idea is backed up by some research into pain carried out at Stanford a few years back.

So, when I learned this, I knew what I needed to do to help me reduce pain in childbirth... clear my fear of pain!

But that's not all. From all the reading that I did about pain, particularly in childbirth (but I'll cover that in another podcast. or 2!), then I realised I had a bit more work to do.

I came up with 4 things that I believe I needed to do to reduce my experience of pain, and which having now come out the other end, I completely stand by.

So here are the 4 things you can do to reduce your experience of pain

Don't anticipate the pain Imagining that you will experience pain, makes it more likely to happen. You're basically conditioning your body into a response. If you want to reduce pain, then simply don't imagine that you will experience pain.
Visualise a pain-free experience Let your body know that this will be a pain free experience and your body is more likely to co-operate and reduce pain that you experience. This won't always be possible as we don't always know when we're going to be hurt, but use it when you can. Childbirth is a great one to use this for.
Clear your fear of pain Just use our 5 step process that's available for FREE right here and you can do this in about 20 minutes. Reduce pain by working on things like "fear of pain", "scared of pain" as well as simply working on "pain'. (the inverted commas refer to what you need to insert into the head trash clearance mantras - download the 5 step process if this is all too confusing for you!)
Seek out evidence of positive pain-free experiences By finding evidence that a pain-free experience can be possible you can support your belief that it's possible to reduce pain, as well as super-charge your visualisation work. Google, YouTube are great places to start, as are your friends and colleagues.

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Today's FAQ episode: Why rate my head trash out of 10?

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This episode answers the question: What if I still have a score of 4 o5 after doing head trash clearance? Then what?

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This episode answers the question: "is there a quick version for emergencies?"

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The first in our FAQ series to help you to use our "5 Steps to Clear Head Trash" process.

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The podcast is back! After 9 months of absence, I’m back! With a new shiny intro jingle too! Where have I been? Well, creating a new little human being! My pregnancy was pretty horrific in the early days. Horrid hormones combined with utter exhaustion meant that I had to put the podcast on hold, but now my little daughter Sofia is in her 3rd month on planet Earth, I’m back. I today’s show I share a bit more about what I’ve been up since I’ve been gone, and how I’m going to share all the head trash related stuff with you in the coming year. Pregnancy My second pregnancy and childbirth experience has enabled me to road test lots of ways of reducing our symptoms, fears, and stresses. I will be sharing what I’ve learned with you so that (if you’re pregnant) you can benefit from it to. Corporate life I spent some time back in the corporate world where all around me people were super stressed and overworked. Not only was I approached quite a bit by others who needed my help just to get though the day, but I also used it on myself as I had to deal with challenging interactions and situations. I’ll be sharing more of this too. FAQ series I’ve also launched a series of FAQ podcasts, helping you to use our 5 Steps to Clearing Head Trash process by answering some go the FAQs that come my way. The ones that you can already hear are * What do you mean by “do the opposite”? * Why am I rating myself out of 10? * What happens if I only lower my score to a 4/5/6? * Is there a quick emergency version?

And that’s it for this week - until next time!!

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Would you like to calm your mind in 10 days? If you do you're in the right place!

If you follow this podcast and the blog you'll know that the one thing I'm trying to do to is to help you to clear your head trash. And if there's anything I can do to help you to do that then I will.

After all, that's why I started the podcast.

But, I've realised that there's more I could be doing. I get quite a few emails from my podcast listeners asking for help. The things that I get asked usually includes things like

"...this is what I'm going through.. but what does that mean in terms of clearing my stuff?"
"if XXX is my head trash, then do I just put XXX in the mantras? Is that it?"
""In the 5 step process, when you say do the opposite, what do you mean?"
I'm just not sure I'm doing it right... can I just check?

So, I thought I'd come up with something to help. I've come up with a new audio programme that I hope addresses all this, and more!

Calm your mind in 10 days

So today's podcast is to tell you all about it so that you can decide whether or not it's for you. Of course you can read out all about it here too.

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Is your life full of dreams fulfilled or excuses? We've all got them; dreams, burning desires and passions. But do yours feature as part of your life? Or are they locked in a safe bubble in the recesses of your mind?

What's your excuse for not pursuing your heart's desires? Do any of these sound familiar?

I'm too old
I haven't got time / money etc
I might mess it up
I might fail
I might hate it
I'm scared

But these, are just figments of your mind and can be changed. If your dreams have never seen the light of day, then maybe now is the time they do.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

LIFE IS TOO SHORT!

Think about it... how long have you wanted this? Could you have done it by now? If you had, how would you life be different? How would YOU be different?

In today's podcast I want to help to DO THIS! And this is how...

Identify your THING
Then come up with your list of all your excuses as to why you've not done it

... then we're going to neutralise all of your excuses to take the power out of them (using our 5 step process, of course!).

Once your excuses have lost their power, you're free to walk all over them and DO YOUR THING!

By banishing your fears, worries and concerns, you can start to have a real chance at going for gold when it comes to your heart's desires.

Are you ready?

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Did you know about the hidden dimensions of head trash? Yes! I"m talking about those aspects to your issues or problems that, unless you are aware of and reconcile with, will contribute to you keeping hold of the problem.

The reason why so many techniques fail to fully clear the negativity from our lives is because they typically only address one dimension: us hating the thing that's affecting us negatively.

Well, did you know that there are 20 dimensions in all? Yes!

If you want to find out what the hidden dimensions are then listen to the podcast!

Enjoy!

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Have you got bad beliefs? The beliefs that we hold determine how we experience the world, and yet, many of them are BAD BELIEFS; beliefs that limit us and hold us back.

In today's podcast, I share with you a technique from Reflective Repatterning that you would normally have to attend a training course to learn.. but I'm feeling generous! It's called the Belief Buster and that's because it busts bad beliefs!

But, let me make this clear - this method will not CHANGE your belief, but merely takes the power out of it to give you more freedom, choice and flexibility around your belief so that you

can choose whether you want the belief
have the freedom to to keep it, change it, increase or decrease it
have the flexibility to change it, if that's what you wish

If you're wondering what limiting beliefs look like, here are a few that I come acros alot

I'm not good enough
you have to work hard to be wealthy
being fat is ugly
you have to be outgoing to be confident
I have to put my family first... being a good mum means putting family first

So, if you'd like to loosen the power that your beliefs have over you , then listen to the podcast to find out what you need to do.

And don't forget to let me know how you get on!

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Are your emotions out of control? We often hear people talk about terms like emotional mastery or emotional resilience and yet for some people these concepts can be pretty hard to fully comprehend. Mainly because until you've experienced something, you can't quite get your head around it.

So, I'd like to help shed light on this by taking the opposite approach and instead taking a closer look at what is going on when emotions go bad. Sometimes, when we understand a bit more about what bad looks and feels like, we can start to get a better grasp of what the good version is like.

In today's podcast I explore the darker side of emotions

the 3 ways that emotions GO BAD
how to recognise that you might be over run with BAD EMOTIONS
what the possible causes might be
how you can use The Emotion Code to help
how to return to a place of healthy emotional expression

Enjoy the show!

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On today's podcast I am joined by Chris Milbank, the founder of Reflective Repatterning who has a slew of event coming up this year in the UK, so I wanted to get him on the show so that he can share with us:

what you can learn on the event
who the event is for
why you should come
what you'll get out of it

and lots more!

You can find out more about the event at the Solar Events website. And you can find out more more about Chris' other events on his Facebook page.

Enjoy the show!

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Are you coping with a miscarriage? If you have then I imagine that it wasn't a pleasant experience, and if it was recent then you might still be finding things quite hard. And that's not just the ladies. Men find this very hard too - their hopes and dreams are shattered in that moment and yet they don't get the sympathy that the women often do.

If this is something that is close to your heart, then I hope that today's podcast will help you.

I received an email from Rachel, who was struggling to cope with news of her miscarriage and she wanted help figuring out how to move past it. So, over a few emails we unpicked what was going on for her and I was able to give her a plan of head trash clearance that she could do to herself to help her get past it. As I was doing this, I thought it would be really helpful to share the process I went through with her so that others going through something similar could benefit too. And that what today's show is... me unpicking Rachel's head trash around her miscarriage.

During the show I recommend she uses the Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT) to clear the trauma of the event first, before tackling the rest of the head trash. You can get the free download of this technique at the TAT website here.

I hope you enjoy the show.

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What are your stress triggers? If you're stressed, then I'm thinking that you have a ton of stress triggers in your life... you know those things that stress you out and set you off.

But, do you know what they are?

After all, if you don't know what they are it can make it very difficult to remove them.

But, let me get one thing straight here.... what I’m not saying is change your life, everyone in it and your living environment so that these triggers no longer exist. NO! What I AM saying is change YOU so that you stop reacting to those triggers. That way, those things can still happen but they just don’t stress you out anymore.

So, the first thing you need to do is this...

Ask yourself 2 questions;

What situations stress me out?... or finish this sentence "Situations or things happening to me that stress me out include…."
What behaviour in others stress me out... or finish this sentence "People cause me stress when they…."

Then once you have your list, go back to your list and ask you'll notice this...

With the situations, you'll notice that these situations are highlighting some of your underlying fears. But with your list of behaviours... ask yourself this: These people aren't being WHAT?

What you'll find is that those people aren't behaving in accordance to how you think people should behave.. ie respectfully, with integrity, etc... in other words their actions are clashing directly with your values.

So, other people stressing you out is usually a sign that your values are in conflict with their behaviour.

Now you have a great list of stress triggers and their underlying driving factors, which has now become your Head Trash Clearance To Do List.

So, to eliminate these stress triggers from your life, you can now use our 5 step process to clear the situations and behaviours, or work directly with the underlying factors… this will have more impact because of ways that they might affect you in other ways that you might not have identified.

Good luck with getting rid of your buttons and let me know how you get on!

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Is love flowing in your life? You know what they say...

"Love is all around you. It’s everywhere you go."

"Love lifts us up where we belong."

"All you need is love!"

So how does love feature in your life? Is love flowing abundantly? Or are there blocks? Maybe you find it hard to express love. Perhaps you make it hard for people to love you... maybe even preventing anyone from getting to close to even try.

True happiness has love at its heart and if love isn’t flowing for you, then happiness is only fleeting. But I’m not just talking about romance here. I’m talking about the most important relationship of all. The one you have with yourself. Until you love yourself, all other relationships will struggle to flourish.

When you love yourself, you nurture yourself and look after yourself. Destructive habits and behaviours are so much harder to maintain when you respect and love yourself. It’s the beginning of any journey where you seek to live a better version of yourself.

So, to help you to bring more love into your life, whether its to connect better and deeper with those around you, or with yourself, I'd like to give you a gift; a head trash clearance audio session to clear any blocks that you might have around love.

This 38 minute session has been known to be pretty powerful, with many who have listened to it.

Here's one person's experience of listening to it

"I did the love trash session last night! My sister and I listened to it. My other half was in the room also and he was yawning like mad ;) It was great to do, lots of interesting things came up for me like hating the responsibility love brings and the ties it brings but also lots of positives too. My sister dreamt last night after the session that she kissed a guy. I'm hoping it has opened her up to to meeting someone - I'll let you know"

The sister met someone shortly afterwards and got married a year later!

So, are you ready to free your love head trash?

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Are you breathing properly? A while ago, I remember being really taken back when someone who I'd pretty much just met, told me that I wasn't breathing properly. Aside from the strangeness of the comment, I was surprised for 2 reasons

How could they possibly tell - we'd only just met?!
I didn't realise that breathing could be done BADLY... as far as I was concerned I was a successful breather.. I was alive and taking in oxygen... was there something else I should be doing too?

Since then I have learned a lot more about breathing, but only really in passing, so when I was introduced to Michael Townsend Williams and our conversation veered into the importance of breathing, I knew that I had to find out more, and that here was a guy who could help me to do that.

Michael a yogi, coach and entrepreneur. From being obsessed with ‘Doing’ in his advertising career to his focus on just ‘Being’ as a yoga and meditation teacher, he now works with the magic of combining and integrating these two fundamental aspects of ourselves – Being & Doing. He also teaches yoga and mindfulness to individuals, groups and organisations as StillWorks where you will also find his popular blog 'DoBeDoBe' and his 'Mindfulness Made Easy' 6 week course. And, he's recently launched a breathing app. Breathe Sync™ is his new biofeedback breathing app for iPhone which reduces stress and improves focus by synchronising your breathing with your heart through pulse analysis.

So you see - he is brilliantly placed to help me to get to grips with breathing, and how to do it better.

During today's podcast, Michael shares

what good breathing practice is
why taking time to breathe correctly can help to reduce your stress levels
the difference between what happens in our body on our intake versus our out-take of breath
what our heart rate variability is and why it's useful and used in sports performance
what BreatheSync is and how it can help to improve your health

Since recording this interview, I've become a huge fan of the app and now use it regularly. Not only does it help me to stick to my meditation practice, but I also use it to measure the impact of my head trash clearance sessions.... I love nothing than to see a metric measurement to see if something I'm doing is working.... if you're intrigued as to what I mean, then all will become clear if you listen to the podcast.

Enjoy!

[powerpress]
If you want to find out more about Michael, you can find him here....

Follow Michael Townsend Williams on Twitter @mtownsendw

Breathe Sync™ (biofeedback breathing app for iPhone)
You can buy it on the App Store for $9.99 or £6.99

StillWorks (Yoga & Mindfulness)
Welldoing (Coaching)
Inside Out (self-development for young children) - theinsideout.org.uk

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I'm guessing that most of us started the year by setting ourselves some goals or intentions that are ultimately there to help us to get nearer to having a healthy body or a healthy mind.

Is that you?

As you crawl out of January, I'd be happy to bet that you probably find yourself in one of two camps

you've already failed miserably at your new year resolutions, probably by week 2 of 2014
you've just about completed January's goals, but you feel that you're going to struggle to maintain the momentum for much longer

Does that sound familiar?

Well, if this is you, then I hope that today's podcast will help.

In today's podcast I want to help you to kick start life changing habits that can help you to get nearer to having a healthy body and a healthy mind. Many people struggle with attempts at improving either the body or the mind, but the thing is, what's often over-looked is the undeniable link between the two. And so, when you're finding things hard, it may be that you'd have more success if you started with the other. As they are so closely linked, any effort at improving your body, will impact on your mind, and vice versa.

So today's podcast I share with you

the link between a healthy body and a healthy mind
the role the power of thought plays in this
experiments that show us how powerful the mind really is, and therefore WHY we need to get it on side
why bad habits of the body are typically down to bad habits of the mind, and how to address them
quick and easy top tips to affect change in the body to help change the mind
quick and easy tips to clear the mind, to help bring about changes in the body

Enjoy the show!

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If I told you that laughing was good for your health and wellbeing, would you believe me?

Over the years there has been countless research to back this up and a quick Google search leads me to this recent article in The Telegraph that states

"A study at Oxford University in 2011 found that laughter increases our pain threshold. Researchers found that subjects who had watched comedy videos could withstand 10 per cent more pain than normal. Another study, at the University of Arizona, found that laughter boosts cardiac health; while a report by scientists at the University of Maryland in 2005, showed that blood flow increased by 22 per cent when participants laughed."

So you see, it does! But what I was interested in was whether laughing could help us with matters of the mind.

Can laughing help you to build emotional resilience? To help me find the answer, in today's podcast I speak to Melanie Bloch, a mind-body therapist who also runs a Laughter Yoga group.

Melanie is familiar with struggles of the mind and body as she has been a mind-body therapist for over 20 years, so I was curious as to whether she felt laughter could help with things like emotional resilience, clearing the mind, and generally improving our wellbeing, or if it was all just a bit of fun.

During our chat, Melanie gives me a taste of how you kick off a laughing fit using one of the laughing yoga techniques, but she also shares

why laughing is so effective
the health benefits of laughing
how to breathe to bring out the best laugh
and much more

I'm sure that once you hear what Melanie has to say that you'll want to find a local laughter club, so if you do, then visit the United Mind website which is a great resource for UK laughter clubs, and more.

Enjoy the podcast!

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Goal setting rocks... yes it does! At least, it does when it's done right.

So I started 2014 with a podcast that some in the personal development industry might describe as controversial, but I think it's important for us to be aware of both side of the story when it comes to goals and goal setting. When done badly, your goals can backfire and it can really affect your confidence and self esteem. But, if you do them right, then you're life can take on stellar qualities.

So that's why I thought it would be great to get a goal setting expert on the show. Adrian Peck was on the show last week talking about motivating yourself back into exercise, but his work with Olympic athletes is essentially all about goal setting, so I thought it would be great to have him on to defend the art of goal setting and tell us how it needs to be done. Oh.. and we're doing an event together in February, so we have a bit of a chit chat about that.

During my chat with Adrian, he shares

what the essential qualities of a good goal are
why your subconscious mind needs your goals more than your conscious mind
how to set about identifying your goals
why it's important to ensure that your goals are aligned with your values
the kind of goals that SHOULDN'T be on your list
the importance of writing them down

And lots more!

Enjoy!

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Is it it hard for you to find motivation to exercise?

Don't we all? I certainly do. But it's at this time of year that it's at the front of our minds. We've just come out of the holiday season and more than likely we've eaten far more that we should have done, and probably drank a little bit more than we should have done too. The result? A little extra body weight!

So, as we start the year with fresh intentions, I thought I'd help you out and find someone who can help us to get motivated when it comes to exercise and getting back to the gym.

Because let's be honest, the main reason that we fail to start or maintain our exercise habit, is because we find it hard to stay motivated.

So how would you like to find the insider secrets on finding motivation to exercise? During today's podcast I chat to Adrian Peck. Adrian is the UK's number 1 sports hypnotist and he works with elite athletes, Olympic medalists and he worked with many of our very own Team GB at last year's Olympics, so he's brilliantly placed to talk about staying motivated when it comes to exercise.

You are GOING TO LOVE what Adrian has got to share when it comes to understanding what it takes to motivate yourself to exercise... it's so damn simple!

I'm not going to give it away, because half of the magic is understanding WHY these simple strategies work... just take my word for it!

Just have a listen!

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What are your goals for 2014? Yes! It's that time of year when you can't swipe your tablet without stumbling on yet another blog post encouraging you to set your new year's resolutions for 2014.

But what if I told you that goals suck? And... that they could seriously mess you up?

Well they can! Goals can make us strive for things that can cost us dearly. And bad goals... well don't even get me started on BAD GOALS!

To help me explain what I mean by this in today's podcast I chat to Chris Milbank, the founder of Reflective Repatterning. Chris always loves to take the opposing view because that's where much wisdom lies.. who ever said this was right "When others are zigging, it's the time to zag". So just because you're pressured into setting new year's resolutions, doesn't mean you should... at least not until you've fully considered whether it's the best thing for you in the long run.

During our chat, Chris explains

why goals are bad for us
what bad goals can cost us
the ONLY goal that really matters
how to avoid bad goals and work on the ONLY one!

Chris and I actually wrote a blog post on this quite a while back, which further explains our position on goals.

Enjoy!

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art of giving

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Are you someone who is affected by the stress of Christmas and the festive season?

As we hurtle towards the end of the year, some of us desperately needing a break, the festive season can often add to our stresses despite the celebrations and general jolliness. Now I don't want to put a downer on things, but instead I'd like to help you to navigate the seasonal stresses so that you can skip through the holiday season with good cheer and a smile on your face!

To help me I invited back Stress and Emotional Resilience expert, Julian Hall. Apparently, Julian's Anger workshops take a dive in December as people think that they can divert their anger with festive frivolities, but his Stress workshops get fully booked. So who better to help me to help you to avoid the stress of Christmas?

Some of the Christmas stresses we chat about include

spending time with family, and that might mean people you don't really like or know that well
drinking & eating too much and worrying about putting on weight
remembering those who are no longer with us and how to cope if yours is a "first Christmas without them" or if you have people grieving coming to stay with you
office parties

Julian offers some great advice too for how to approach the festive season mentally so that you are able to avoid the stress of Christmas and have a wonderful time.

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So, what do I mean by the psychology of illness?

Well, in the time that I've spent doing the work I'm doing, I frequently come across cases with my clients whereby they tell me that certain physical conditions or illnesses they have seem to disappear after we've done some work together. I myself have experienced a big drop in the dis-ease in my body as a result of clearing my head trash. So I've always been intrigued to understand this a lot more. So, when I spotted Jenny Lynn talking and blogging about the psychosomatic causes of dis-ease and illness I immediately asked if I could chat to her about it for my podcast.

Jenny has been working in the field of psychotherapy for many years and she uses a heap of techniques and approaches with her clients so she's brilliantly placed to comment on the psychology of illness, if indeed it exists at all.

During our chat Jenny shares

her personal story of clearing dis-ease in her body through tapping into her psychology
why the body takes the brunt for unresolved emotional upsets
the common emotional upsets that are linked to common ailments
why we should seek to understand the psychology of illness even if our prognosis isn't good

A fascinating chat that I'm sure will make you think next time you come down with something.

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The new science of epigenetics marks a paradigm shift in our thinking in quite a profound way; that our thoughts, beliefs and emotions can affect how our genes are expressed in our body. I first came across epigenetics when I read Bruce Lipton's book, The Biology of Belief, which totally blew my mind.

So, what does that mean exactly. Well, old thinking went a bit like this... your family had a history of diabetes, cancer, heart conditions... that kind of thing.. and it was accepted that if it ran in your family, then you were at increased risk of getting whatever thing it was too. This was called a genetic condition. But this has now been proven to be wrong.

The science of epigenetics now tells us that while our genes might have the "potential" for a particular disease or condition, it doesn't mean that they will express it. The deciding factor is the environment in which the genes find themselves; your body. And, this environment is determined by a huge number of factors, and most significantly, your thoughts, beliefs and emotions.

During today's podcast, I chat to geneticist turned epigenticist Charan Surdhar about

what the science of epigenetics is all about
how epigenetics differs to genetics
what is meant by your genes expressing themselves positively
the role that your thoughts, feelings and emotions in your genetics, and therefore your health and wellbeing
what that means for so called "genetic conditions" or "hereditary diseases"
why adopted children don't necessarily escape the diseases that run in families
the role of the heart in managing your health and wellbeing
what the heart wall is and how you can clear it, if you need to

And loads more!

Charan Surdhar originally trained as a human geneticist, and worked at the Birmingham Childrens Hospital for over 10 years where she was responsible for identifying unknown DNA mutations in children and their families. During that time she became interested in the mind-body-soul connection, as a result of personal struggles. When she left the science world, she took her science thinking with her and now blends her science with Energy Medicine. Charan teaches her clients how to unleash their own healing potential through the power of energy medicine and recent scientific discoveries. As well as being an author, Charan also creates her own animation videos which are well worth checking out on her YouTube channel.

During our chat, Charan talks about how she uses The Emotion Code by Bradley Nelson to help people to clear their heart wall of the negative emotions that are holding them back.

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Anger is a nightmare for many

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Having a fear of public speaking is incredibly common. In fact, it's the number one fear EVER! But it doesn't have to be.

In today's podcast, I am thrilled to have best-selling author of How to be brilliant at public speaking, Sarah Lloyd Hughes from Ginger Training & Coaching to help us to make sense of what is happening to us when we are crippled by a fear of public speaking. Here is a lovely video of Sarah encouraging us to overcome your fear of public speaking by BEING YOURSELF!

As you can see, Sarah is highly engaging and a delight to listen to so today's show is clearly going to be a treat!

During our chat, Sarah shares;

the 3 types of tell tale signs of someone with a fear of public speaking
the MAIN reason why we're hard wired for a fear of public speaking
some of the less obvious signs that we're ever so slightly scared
how to change our focus to dissolve our fears
why being ourselves is better than being like Tony Robbins
how we should approach speaking like we approach life

and loads more!

How to Be Brilliant at Public Speaking: Any Audience. Any Situation.

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Your values are an intrinsic part of who you are and what makes you YOU. But with all comes bad... unfortunately they can also be one of the main sources of your head trash.

If you listened to last week's podcast, you'll have heard me talk you through the Head Trash Cycle, which is my way of explaining where head trash comes from. Well, one of the main sources of head trash is your values.

Now your values can contribute to your head trash in one of three ways;

When they are in conflict
When they're out of balance
When other people's behaviour conflict with them.

During the show I share with you

What your values are along with some examples
What your core values are and how they might change
Why other people probably know what your values are before you
Tell tale signs of each of the 3 ways that head trash comes from your values
How to address the negative impact that your values are having on your sanity

I also talk about an exercise that I'm happy to share to help you sort all this out.

Enjoy!

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The head trash cycle will help you to understand where head trash comes from. And if you have a better understanding as to where it comes from then you will have a much better chance of regaining control over it and showing it the door.

The thing about head trash is that we're too often told as to WHY we have it.. it's our parents, our early life as kids, it's the way that teachers treated us at school.... blah blah blah. But understanding WHY it's there doesn't help anyone and doesn't actually help you to get rid of it. Unless you're one of those people who likes to go over old ground and wallow in your own swamp of negativity. But I'm not one of those. If I get caught within whiffing distance of a swamp of negativity I prefer to get rid of the swamp than to make it my home.

So I abandoned ideas of trying to figure out the WHY and instead I thought about it from a different perspective. A perspective that I hope will help you to get to grips with it in a helpful head-sorting way (as opposed to a swamp-wallowing way).

I decided to give this new perspective a name, the head trash cycle, and then one thing led to another and next thing you know it took on a life of its own. I started sharing the head trash cycle on my training courses and people would come up to me afterwards saying how much it helped them. So, I thought it was time to share it!

This episode is me sharing the head trash cycle so that you can really start to tackle your head trash in a meaningful way. By that I mean GET RID OF IT!

Enjoy!

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Doesn't that sound a bit scary? Well, not really. We all have a bad side, but the thing is many of us do what we can to keep it suppressed. But the problem with this approach is that you can't keep something like an inner monster hidden forever. Eventually it will come out. And when it does, we'll have very little control as to how its released. Whereas if we unleash it ourselves, we're more likely to be in control of it. It's like having a wild dog that you decide to tame. You can still use it to guard the house, but instead of biting everyone who visits, it only bites the burglars. Nice doggy!

Deciding to unleash your monster first requires you to recognise that you have one though, and this is an important first step; the one of self awareness.

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I really wanted to better understand the science bhind out emotions so I was thrilled to get the opportunity to speak with neuroscientist, Dr Lynda Shaw.

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Fears and phobias hold us back massively..

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Neutrality is not a term that is frequently used. In fact I had never really heard it before I learned Reflective Repatterning with Chris Milbank. But the more I do head trash clearance work, the more I realise its importance, but especially how for others to ACTUALLY understand it. I have to be honest, it’s taken me a while to get my head fully round it but I think I’ve cracked it. So, not one for keeping things to myself, I’d like to share where I’ve got to with it. spent a bit of time talking about it at a workshop I gave this week and loads of people came up to me at the end saying how that bit really helped them.. so you have them to thank!

I firmly believe that neutrality is WHY mindfulness works in its ability to give space in the moment to behave mindfully, as opposed to reverting to our knee-jerk reactions that may well be old or family patterns.