Techniques

Learn to take your mind to calm, clear places of greater potential

A Summary of Techniques Used

There are so many ways to work with our minds thoughts and emotions. There are great similarities between them and ways they individuate which form connections with different types of people.

I have connected with all of these methods of working with mind and find they all have something different to offer. I've always enjoyed learning. Once I have been trained in anything new I have practiced it in one form or another. In some cases I have traded sessions with other therapists to learn more about how a practice or technique works

If good results are produced I bring the technique to my clients. This has led me to learn some amazing practices which can be combined in a variety of ways depending on the group or individual.

I use techniques from:

HeartMath(C)
Short Meditations
Mindfulness
Progressive Relaxation
Visualization with and without support of pictures
Hypnotherapy
Habit Formation
Coaching, Understanding, Support
Practicing compassion for oneself
Energy Psychology

Not all of these techniques will be used in each group or training.

Each group will be individually tailored. Each individual will have unique needs which will be addressed.

What follows is a thumbnail sketch to give some further idea of what each of these is about and what they can do to help revolutionize mind sets.

Research giving proven results of many of these techniques in included.

HeartMath

I am listing HeartMath first because of the ease of their techniques, their readily available biofeedback equipment, and the wealth of research they have done on their techniques. It’s a great program!

The beginning breathing techniques I teach stem from HeartMath. is an organization, which that has come up with easy to learn meditation like breathing and focusing exercises that bring about calm synchronized states.

Most of the time our physical systems are somewhat out of synch with each other, and in times of stress they are extremely unsynchronized. This has been shown in HeartMath research studies using biofeedback equipment.

It has also been shown that those trained in their techniques have much more synchronicity in their bodies which means they find it easier to be productive at work, to be in a good mood, communicate well with others, have much better health and sense of well-being.

HeartMath techniques are readily available and easily learned but need practice before they can be used when stressful situations arise. I had primed my husband to remind me to use HeartMath meditation when stressed after I first learned it. He did so when day and I angrily told him I was much too stressed to do anything like that. Now, after much practice, I go into it on my own most of the time. Specific techniques will be described in subsequent blogs.

Short Meditations

Innumerable books have been written about meditation and everyone has at least heard of it. In a thumbnail sketch, we will work with noticing and recognizing our thoughts as thoughts, and noticing our breathing, letting the thoughts go and maybe beginning to have a little space between the thoughts.

This may sound like a “why bother” or as a friend said to me, “I usually have at least three different levels of thinking at the same time and these thoughts are important to me, I couldn’t let them go”. The thing is, anything important will come back.

Meditation is invaluable if you can incorporate it into your life. After years and years as an off and on meditator my mind is trained enough that I can go into it in a bad, sad yucky mood and in half an hour to an hour I feel good. I mean GOOD. I don’t think I have any personal tools that I am in the habit of using that are quite as useful.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is much more than focused attention on the body in an inward way. It also includes awareness of surroundings and tuning in to what is going on in each moment.

The moment-to-moment presence in this vast NOW automatically reduces stress.

If the mind is trained and well-practiced in being present in the moment, it is much easier to let go of worries and stressors that are not part of this moment. This requires practice, which is much more easily done with guidance in a group setting. How many of us are likely to say to ourselves, “Oh I will just flip into being in the moment” when massively stressed? It’s much easier with practice.

There are many, many books written about mindfulness with varieties of techniques to help get you there. I have a pretty good library of these and will use what is best for the group, whatever the needs of the group are.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

This is a tried-and-true method of relaxation that is easy to learn.

Participants are sitting or lying down in a comfortable, safe feeling space. This is best done with eyes closed and either someone directing the process or a recording as guidance. When learning this practice, for the first many, many times, allow 15-20 minutes. Begin with breathing deeply.

Participants are then requested to tighten and release all major muscle group areas in a systematic way.

When the guide is experienced, imagery is also used as well as directing attention very specifically to different areas.

Once the participant is well practiced in this technique variations of it can be done fairly quickly with benefit.

There is a free MP3 audio file offered by McMaster University, with directions on practicing progressive muscle relaxation readily available. The use of an audio recording allows you to relax and concentrate on the technique fully. You can also find guided voice recordings on YouTube, podcasts, and mobile apps.

Visualization

This is a picture I took sitting by a river in the Rocky Mountains. It's one of my real life happy places. The main one I use for visualization and strengthening my core is something I would not have consciously thought of. It popped in from an unconscious place when I was doing a visualization exercise, and is ver powerful to me. These are the best sources for our imagery, what is served up by our own unconsious. When we don't get these, it's fine to consciously form a place, an image of any type or state of being with sensory reminders to use for core strengthening.

While we will mainly use visualization in a visual way, bringing in images to hold and work with, other alternatives such as sound and sensation and smell, will be taught as well. It turns out that not everyone forms visual images, but those using other modalities are equally successful with what they use.

Visualization is a powerful technique that can both give your subconscious a blueprint for where you want to go and help you in the moment to transform your state of mind. It uses your imagination working with your deep intuitive knowing of what will be good for you. Some might scoff at the idea of deep intuitive knowing but when you are in a relaxed state, ideas can simply pop in much more easily than when stressed. Our sub-conscious can put together ideas from our stored memories and learnings faster than we can track with conscious reasoning. It is like the workings of a mental computer in which we can’t see how it’s accessing information, but it’s all happening at a deep level.

We will always have some form of relaxation before using visualization.

Years ago, I used visualization with a client to form a relaxed safe place in her mind. There was more instruction than this, but she used her place over and over throughout many years. She recently contacted me and told me that it has helped her through many difficult situations for the last 20 years, giving her a core feeling of stability and peace.

Visualization works to expand your ability to form a stable peaceful core feeling in yourself, and provides a way to significantly decrease stress, focusing your mind on more calming and serene images.

For those who are not readily able to form visual images, we willI will ask for you to work either with sounds or sensations that produce a calming reaction. With sounds, a sound such as rain or ocean waves might be calming for some, or it could be a syllable or a word. Sensations will be a memory of a sensation, such as sitting in a hot tub, walking slowly through a forest with smells of nature coming to you. Everyone will develop their own unique way of doing this practice, there is no right or wrong. It is all about finding the images, sounds or sensations unique to you, that work for you.

Hypnotherapy

I could probably write a book on this. There are many kinds of hypnosis, that have varying degrees of success. Very early in my career I learned of a psychiatrist named Milton Erickson who did the most amazing things with hypnotherapy and had the highest success rates of anyone. He had learned how the conscious mind and the subconscious minds work and tailored everything he did, everything he said, his tone of voice and body language to fit with the client he was working with to create the most therapeutic outcome for that person. It is safe to say he probably never used the same hypnotic induction twice.

He learned that using language in certain types of patterns tended to help a person go into a relaxed state, and others helped deepen the experience to bring whatever was said to the subconscious. He used metaphors with varying types of meanings so that people could find their own meaning and use the metaphors presented in whatever ways was best for their own development. He was a master and there are numerous books by and about him.

I spent years studying his work, practicing with friends.

Hypnotherapy practice groups were pretty amazing with this set of techniques. I organized groups and taught it to other therapists. For years I used a lot of hypnotherapy with clients, but am now only using it for group deep relaxation.

Habit Formation

We can learn all there is to know about any topic.

We can believe in the truth and importance of doing any number of things.

But if those things do not become habits, they will drop by the wayside and we will stay with our old destructive ways of being.

There will be blogs devoted to changing habits, and to deciding according to your values what you want your habits to be. There are numerous excellent books on changing habits we will get ideas from as well as well.

To begin considering habits first we need to recognize their importance. Whatever becomes habitual tends to be accomplished easily. What is not habitual happens if it is appealing enough or there is enough pressure to make it happen.

Self Compassion

When we are self critical, stress increases, escapist bad habits increase and positive use of mind is difficult. Self compassion increases successes, decreases stress.

We are often our own worst enemies. We mentally criticize ourselves in ways we would never criticize others. It's a deeply internalized habit, more for some than others. When it takes place, we don't need outer world stress, we are creating our own stress internally. It becomes impossible to function well, because we block our own progress. It takes time, awareness, motivation and effort to change this if you have a strong inner critic. However, it can be done, and the inner critic can gradually morph into inner support. It's amazing and fantastic and it is true. It is well worth designing a strategy for this and following it through.

Self compassion is the ground for increasing kindness to others and the base from which use of our potentials can grow.

group holding hands no faces_blues_edited.jpg

Coaching and Support

Feeling supported can make an enormous difference in our lives. Trying to make changes alone or in the midst of others that are critical can derail the entire process.

Working with someone who cares about your progress and has your best interests at heart is huge.

Sometimes you don't know how to move forward, or what might be best for you or your business. Questionning by a trsained professional can get you going in the right direction for you, or your business and help with keeping everything on track.

Energy Psychology

Energy psychology is the umbrella term for the Emotional Freedom Techniques, Thought Field Therapy, “tapping", and related approaches. This is because all of these techniques use the energy meridians and points found to be meaningful to both physical and emotional health. They have been shown to deliver significant improvements across a wide range of psychological and physiological conditions with striking speed and durability.

I am trained and certified in EFT, with training in TAT, Thought Field Therapy and tapping used specifically for anxiety release