Category: Hypnotherapy

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Goal setting Hypnotherapy Life coaching

The importance of perspective

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Written by Nat Young – Clinical Hypno-Psychotherapist and Yoga/Pilates Teacher

This morning while I was emptying the dishwasher, I wondered where my cats’ second bowl was. Both bowls normally get washed at the end of the day. I’d taken one bowl out but couldn’t, for the life of me, find the other one. I wondered if perhaps I’d forgotten to put it into the dishwasher last night, which led to me looking around the house for it. No luck. Thinking the bowl would turn up at some point, I walked back to the dishwasher to continue emptying it and looked into the dishwasher from the other side. There was the bowl – lying sideways and in a position that was hiding it from the other side of the dishwasher where I had originally been emptying it. 

So what’s the point of this post? Perspective! 

Perspective is so important. Sometimes things may be hiding well enough that you can’t see them from where you are standing. Stand somewhere else, or have someone else look at the situation differently with you, and you may just have a lightbulb moment 💡 

Would you like to explore a new perspective on an issue? Perhaps: 

  • You’re at a crossroads and wanting to explore different options to find direction in your life or career. 
  • You’d like to boost your self-confidence generally, or in specific situations; for example, driving or giving presentations.
  • You’d like to manage stress and anxiety, and discover coping mechanisms that work for you.
  • You’d like to manage your weight; understand your eating habits and ways to practice eating more mindfully.

Or something else…? 

Online coaching and online hypnotherapy can help. Whether it’s through coaching or hypnotherapy, we can help you understand yourself better, set manageable goals, and keep you accountable to yourself. Get in touch to see how online coaching or online hypnotherapy could help you.

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Health and wellbeing Hypnotherapy Mental Health and Wellbeing

I’m proud of you!

Written by Nat Young – Clinical Hypno-Psychotherapist and Yoga/Pilates Teacher.

Wherever you are in your life journey right now, I’m proud of you! 

I think many of us need to hear this right now. Whether you’ve managed to shine in 2020 despite everything that’s happened, feel you’ve survived OK but not much more, or you’ve struggled and only just come out the other side, it doesn’t matter. I’m proud of you for just being here.

Reflecting back on the last year, working from home was a godsend for me. Not just bringing classes online and continuing to run the virtual hypnotherapy clinic from home, but also being based at home for my day job. Not having to battle my way into an office meant I was able to embrace the simpler things in life such as getting out for a walk in the fresh air more often, eating lunch with Nick and being home for the boys, even if I was working (full time working parents, I hear ya – home schooling is certainly an interesting time, isn’t it?!)

2020 was also a great year for learning to embrace uncertainty, and what an uncertain year it was! For learning that the world won’t end if I don’t have an exact plan. For distancing myself from the things that don’t serve my mental health positively, to say no if something doesn’t feel right or I simply don’t have the energy for it. For once, I actually started getting enough sleep…! All of these positives were great but I also wasn’t immune to the stress. I feared for Aurora and whether we’d be able to keep going with everything moving online. There were no government grants for us and many setup costs involved with getting online. We’d also already paid for things that we now didn’t need for online sessions. Financially it has been hard. I’m so grateful for the support of all our lovely clients though.

So we’ve now reached 2021. I know that overall we’ve been very fortunate and that not everyone will have had the same experience in 2020. Especially those of you who have been key workers, working on the frontline, have faced unemployment or have lost someone to covid. My heart goes out to all of you.

So how about you? Wherever you are and however you’re feeling, it’s important to give yourself time and space to reflect. To acknowledge. Time to feel. Even if those feelings are painful, they’re important to process. And whenever you’re ready, know that life is about balance and many opportunities are there for the taking, even in adversity. You’re amazing and you deserve health, wellbeing, opportunity and happiness.

Even if you’re glad to see the back of 2020, take time to process what was. Recognise any successes you’ve had (I guarantee there will be something to celebrate, even if it’s just surviving). Leave any 2020 baggage behind and feel proud that you’ve got to 2021. Savour this moment…

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Anxiety Hypnotherapy

Are you an over thinker?

Written by Nat Young – Clinical Hypno-Psychotherapist and Yoga/Pilates Teacher.

Have you ever got stuck in a cycle of ‘overthinking’ which has paralysed you into a corner? Overthinking occurs when we get stuck in a cycle of worrying and negative thinking within our own heads. This cycle can be really difficult to break. Worrying is very normal but did you know it’s also an evolutionary response to danger? 

Once upon a time humans were hunter gatherers. We’d have to hunt and gather our own food and we’d always be on the lookout for threats such as predators. We therefore became ‘programmed’ through evolution to worry and be constantly on guard to protect ourselves from threats. These days it would be extremely unlikely to be eaten by a sabretooth tiger but our ‘worry’ response can (unhelpfully) still go into overdrive and sound like a broken record.

If you notice you’re overthinking and worrying, one thing you can do is practice stopping it in its tracks. Try this 3 step process to help with overthinking: 

  1. Recognise you’re overthinking (this is probably the most difficult and it takes practice!) Mentally say ‘STOP!’
  2. Focus on facts rather than ‘what ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘maybes‘. This can help you to make sense of your thoughts and understand if your worry is an actual problem that you might be able to do something about or a fear that’s outside your control. 
  3. Distract your attention outside your head by doing something else. You could talk to friends/family, meditate and focus on your breathing, crack on with a hobby you love, do some yoga or exercise or, look out the window and notice the sounds of nature.

If you’re a worrier and would like a little assistance, Hypnotherapy can be incredibly helpful. Through our online hypnotherapy sessions together, I’ll help you draw on your own ‘toolbox’ of resources so you can begin to free yourself from the constraints of anxiety and overthinking.


Even better, I’m offering online hypnotherapy sessions at just £40 in January (normally £60) so why not get in touch today to get your new year off to a great start?

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Hypnotherapy

Online hypnotherapy special offer

Written by Nat Young – Clinical Hypno-Psychotherapist and Yoga/Pilates Teacher.

Anxious? Stressed? Lacking in confidence? Want to manage your weight but don’t know how? Feeling stuck in life? Hypnotherapy could be the answer you’ve been looking for.

Your mind might still be on the events of 2020 but it’s never too early to start thinking about what’s next. I’m now taking bookings for online Hypnotherapy sessions in 2021 and I’m offering these at a very special rate of £40 per session (normally £60). Hypnotherapy is quite a short term therapy and results can often be seen quickly (within 3-4 sessions), depending on what you want to work on.

In our sessions together, we’ll work on a ‘toolbox’ of resources so you can learn to be your own therapist and, ultimately, feel happier and more in control. If you’re ready to make a change, I’d be delighted to help.

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Hypnotherapy Personal Training Weight loss

Need help with weight loss in 2020?

nutrition evaluation

At this time of year, people often start stressing about indulging in too much food and drink and worry about falling out of their usual exercise routine. We totally get it!

However, no matter how much you’ve overindulged, please don’t turn to crash diets, diet pills, potions, detoxes, juices, or any other crap that tells you to stop consuming food in the name of losing weight! These ‘solutions’ aren’t the answer and you’ll only be wasting your money.

The healthiest way to lose weight and keep it off is to eat a little less, move a little more and address any non-nourishment reasons for eating. Anything else is short term and won’t last.

If you would like some help with losing weight, we can help. We’ve got yoga and pilates classes to get you moving more, personal training for those who need more motivation, expert advice and some personal targets to hit, and weight loss hypnotherapy to work through those non-nourishment reasons for eating. Are you ready to start your journey towards losing that weight for good? We’ve got your back and you’ve got this! 

Get in touch

Contact us to ask about hypnotherapy for weight loss, personal training for weight loss or yoga and pilates classes.

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Hypno-Yoga Hypnotherapy Mental Health and Wellbeing

What is integrative hypno-psychotherapy?

online hypnotherapy

Written by Nat Young, Clinical Hypno-Psychotherapist and Yoga/Pilates Teacher.

Integrative hypno-psychotherapy is a collective term used to describe a blend of techniques to help clients achieve their personal growth and self-awareness goals. For example, an integrative hypno-psychotherapist may use a combination of behavioural, cognitive, humanistic, solution-focused and psychodynamic techniques in sessions. This means the client can benefit from a number of different schools of thought rather than just one, as would be the case with a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist or a solution-focused hypnotherapist for example.

Therapists like me who practice integrative hypno-psychotherapy utilise approaches from multiple different methods to maximise the potential benefits for a particular person. Clients are unique and each requires a different therapeutic approach, which is what makes integrative hypno-psychotherapy so great. When therapy treatment is tailored to a client’s needs, the effectiveness of that treatment is increased.

The ultimate goal of integrative hypno-psychotherapy is to maximise a client’s potential and remove barriers that could be limiting mental growth. A skilled integrative hypno-psychotherapist will put together an effective treatment plan to meet the individual needs of their clients rather than being limited by a single therapeutic approach.

Contact us

If you would like to see how integrative hypno-psychotherapy could help you to #getmindandbodyfit, get in touch to book your free telephone consultation.

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Hypno-Yoga Hypnotherapy Mental Health and Wellbeing

Letting go of rubbish

Written by Nat Young – Yoga Teacher and Clinical Hypno-Psychotherapist.

Over the bank holiday weekend, we spent time clearing out our garage and throwing junk into a skip. Most of this junk consisted of broken things; an old TV cabinet with a broken back, chests of drawers with droopy drawer bottoms which had been long since replaced, a broken up double bed frame, two broken kettles claimed by our hard water, a broken shredder which shredded its last letter after the death of my dad-in-law,  and a lot of boxes for things either out of warranty or that we no longer have.

Throwing these things away felt really good. Not just from a purging of rubbish and freeing up space perspective, but also from a mental health perspective. I found myself kicking apart the drawers into smaller pieces, allowing the broken pieces to fly across the garage floor. At first I was surprised by the strength of my legs as my foot made contact with the drawers – the drawers came apart so easily as I kicked them! Then stamping on polystyrene packing from the cardboard boxes, watching the white pieces break under my heel. Even some bubble wrap, twisting it in my hands until I heard many satisfying pops. After the last piece of cardboard had been placed into the skip, I wondered why the whole experience had felt so good mentally. Then it occurred to me. It was therapeutic because it was metaphorical.

We were purging old, broken rubbish from our lives. Things we had been holding onto just in case they might be useful someday. Instead they were just hanging around, cluttering up our garage and preventing us from making use of it. Mentally, many of us hold onto old ‘junk’ (maybe emotions or thoughts) because we’re too frightened to let them go. Maybe it’s because these emotions and thoughts are what we know and they’ve become old friends. Familiarity can be easier than the alternative of the unknown. However, sometimes you have to let go of the old before you can move on with the new. What old rubbish could you purge from your life?

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Hypnotherapy Stress

An agent for change

Written by Nat Young – Yoga Teacher and Clinical Hypno-Psychotherapist.

I have what you would call a ‘portfolio career’. I obviously run Aurora, teaching yoga and providing therapy but clients often don’t realise that I also have an employed job as a Project Manager. (If you work for a corporate and you’ve stumbled upon the Aurora site in search of help for work-based stress, I very much understand what you may be going through!)

Anyway, a couple of months ago I had some personal therapy as I was struggling to make sense of why I was handling stress the way I was. A lot of people don’t realise that therapists themselves can benefit from personal therapy. Indeed, while we are building up client hours in our first five years of practice, personal therapy hours are mandatory for therapists who want to register with UKCP. The purpose of personal therapy isn’t so that we’re ‘mentally sorted’ so we can see clients (that’s not possible as life changes and people can always benefit from therapy from time to time) but sometimes people (including therapists!) just need a qualified person with an outside perspective to help them work through life’s struggles. As well as working through our own personal process, personal therapy hours also benefit therapists by allowing them to experience the therapeutic process through the eyes of a client. I think this is invaluable insight and something that can only improve a therapist’s client work.

Anyway, aside from all of this, one of the key realisations I made during my recent personal therapy is that I’m naturally attracted to change in my work life. I’ve been running Aurora for four years but I’ve worked as a Project Manager for more years than I care to remember. Project Managers manage change in a controlled way, whether those changes are to do with people, technology, business processes or other physical artefacts such as buildings or infrastructure. I’ve always thought that comparing my job as a yoga teacher and therapist with my Project Manager job was a bit like comparing chalk and cheese. However, these roles really aren’t that dissimilar. Let me explain…

A therapist’s primary role is to be a ‘change agent’; helping others to manage their own personal change process so that they feel better and achieve their potential. A yoga teacher’s role is to help others to change themselves physically or to show students how to be at peace with the ebbs and flows of life. Can you see the similarities between these goals and my role as a Project Manager? Therapy and yoga are still involved with change, albeit in a wellbeing-related context.

For me, this realisation was incredibly powerful and although it took a lot of work on my part to explore my stress triggers and experiences of work, this realisation has been truly life-changing as my work life now makes more sense and I understand how I’ve ended up with this particular combination of roles in my work life. Even better, it’s not so ‘chalk and cheese’ after all.

As humans, we’re seekers of meaning and without meaning we can all feel a bit lost. If you would like some help to find meaning in your life, I could help you do just that. Whether you’re struggling with a work-based problem or something else, I could be the ‘change agent’ you need to get started. Get in touch here.

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Hypno-Yoga Hypnotherapy Sports Performance Hypnotherapy Yoga

Facing fears: physical and mental challenges

Written by Nat Young – Yoga Teacher and Clinical Hypno-Psychotherapist.

I feel very apprehensive about posting this but I’m doing so because I know so many people struggle and I want to show you all that I struggle too – you are not alone! Struggles can be both physical and emotional. I think my struggle is mainly emotional and it’s based on fear.

As a yoga teacher I feel I should be able to do a headstand. Guess what? After over 10 years of yoga practice, I’m not there yet! This photo is my best attempt at a headstand so far and it was taken a couple of months ago. I know I have the physical strength to hold my bodyweight on my arms, so I’m convinced my challenge is a mental one.

While I’m quite scared of headstands, I know if I keep practicing I’ll get there eventually. I just need to face my fear! This mindset applies to so many challenges that we face in life. Whether it’s yoga poses we think we can’t do, races we think we can’t run or emotional struggles such as anxiety and stress that we think we’ll never beat. As scary as it sounds, the key is to face your fear!

What struggles would you like to overcome?

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Hypnotherapy Quit smoking

Hypnotherapy to stop smoking

Hypnotherapy to stop smoking

Written by Nat Young – Yoga Teacher and Clinical Hypno-Psychotherapist.

Maybe you’ve thought about quitting before but the time just didn’t feel right? Imagine how much money you could save if you didn’t have to buy cigarettes anymore, not to mention the obvious health benefits you’ll have as a result. The right time to give up smoking could be now – you could stop.

According to Cancer Research UK, tobacco smoking caused an estimated 101,000 deaths in 2010 – that’s almost a fifth (18%) of deaths from all causes. Scary stuff. However, they also state that smoking is the single most preventable cause of death in the world.

Would you like to prevent yourself from becoming a statistic? Why not stop smoking and improve your health with hypnotherapy…

We offer ‘stop smoking’ packages for £150. The price includes 2 sessions of hypnotherapy to help you break the habit and a personalised recording to use at home. The only prerequisite is that you have to want to give up smoking.

If you would like help to quit smoking, get in touch.