#50 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks

Hello and welcome to Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks. My name is Jason Newland and this also involves Andre Dooley Newland, the ferret, who has decided to jump on the bed and accompany me by trying to be naughty. So don't worry, he's not going to be part of the recording but he seems to want my attention for some reason.

And this does happen occasionally. It hasn't happened many times with these recordings but it does happen on my Let Me Bore You To Sleep ones, quite a lot for some reason. But maybe it's because those ones last for about an hour.

And he likes to get cuddled and stuff, cuddles, don't you? So only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes. Now, I know I've talked in previous recordings, or at least one of them, about the benefits of getting yourself a pet. Getting yourself, it can be anything, it can be a dog, a cat.

For me, the benefit is the physical contact, you know, being able to just stroke him and cuddle him. And dogs definitely offer that. I'm sure a lot of cats can as well.

It's all kind of dependent, isn't it? Cats kind of have their own agenda. But my nan used to have cats and they'd always be sitting on her lap, always very loving. But this recording isn't about pets.

This is about fear. I was just reading Roosevelt, President Roosevelt saying, the only thing to fear is fear itself. And I kind of disagree with that, in a way.

And what I mean by that is, it's okay to sometimes be fearful. It's okay to sometimes be scared. It's okay to sometimes feel stressed.

It's okay to sometimes feel anxious. Just as it's sometimes, you know, it's okay to feel blissfully happy. It's okay to be in love.

It's okay to be angry. It's okay to have all those emotional responses. It's part of being human.

And I think if we try and start blocking out one emotion, or one part that we don't like, we may end up blocking out the good stuff as well. Which seems like a shame. Get down.

See when I'm holding Andre and I talk, sometimes he just looks at me and he falls asleep. And then he wakes up and he looks at me like, how did I get here? Who are you? What do you want? Because he's half asleep. I kind of think of it like a drawbridge.

You know, castles. You know, the old days when there'd be a castle. We've all seen it in movies.

And more recently, probably like Game of Thrones. But also in like the Hobbit thing, you know, those kind of films, where there'd be a drawbridge, and there'd be a moat, like a big moat, which is basically just a ditch with water in it around the castle. And the drawbridge would be pulled up so that nothing could enter.

Also nothing could leave. So they'd have that drawbridge pulled up so no one could enter with weapons to hurt them. But at the same time, no one could enter with food to feed them.

So they could end up being physically safe, but then starving. Which would be kind of the equivalent of pulling our own drawbridge up. Putting that wall up, you know, so that we can't feel anxiety or stress, or any of that emotional pain.

So that can't get through the drawbridge to affect us in the way that maybe it did before. And it makes sense to want to do something like that. Really, you know, logically, of course, it makes sense to want to pull that drawbridge up to stop the arrows of pain, and the soldiers and the army, whatever, however you want to think about it.

Which is actually quite a violent way to think about it, because ultimately, their emotions are neither good nor bad. They're not evil. They're not wonderful.

They're just, they're just feelings. Ultimately, they're just responses. Because we're human.

And that's natural to have emotional responses. We all do. Yet, if you put that drawbridge up to stop the feelings that are uncomfortable, put it that way, the feelings that are painful, whether it be panic, anxiety, stress, or emotional discomfort of any kind.

At the same time, you're also blocking out the nice stuff, the lovely feelings, the feelings of well-being, feelings of relaxation, feelings of peace of mind, calmness. And in a way, if you keep that drawbridge up, no matter what you do, it's going to kind of have limited effect, in a sense of personal development, or trying to help change those situations, and help to change how you think and feel about things, if you're not letting anything in.

Kind of would be the equivalent of me going to the gym and sitting on an exercise bike whilst eating a Big Mac.

It just, it would just be very silly. Although now I've said it, I feel quite hungry. But it's kind of pushing against yourself, which is a choice.

Because anything that I say, it's just ideas, it's just thoughts. With this podcast, sometimes I'll do a relaxation session. Sometimes I'll talk about panic attacks.

Sometimes I'll talk about anxiety. I'll talk about my own experiences as well. And I went through a period when I had that drawbridge up.

One of the things I did to do that was alcohol. Trying to block out the feelings. And the feelings I had was, at that time, was feelings of not so much depression, at times depression.

I didn't realise I had bipolar at the time. But you know, mood swings. If I felt crappy, if I felt in a bad mood, I'd drink to try and change my mood.

If I felt in a good mood, I'd drink, kind of to celebrate. And drinking alcohol, maybe not for everyone, but for, you know, it's kind of standard knowledge in the medical world that drinking alcohol only increases depression. But again, it's not going to be the same for everybody.

It's so easy just to generalise even the stuff that's useful. But we can generalise it, but not necessarily going to be for everybody. Which is why I don't make just one recording and then leave it there.

That's why I do more and more recordings because everyone's different. Everyone's got a different perspective. Everyone's had a different life.

And if you get one thing, one sentence resonates with you during this 30 minutes or so that I'm talking, then it's been worth it. Because if you're like me, when I hear something, and I listen to a lot of positivity, inspirational stuff, sometimes I hear something and it just keeps churning around in my head. And that same process happens or has happened in the past with negative thinking as well.

Maybe someone said something to me, which was painful. I had a painful emotional response. And I'd keep repeating it in my head, which was of no use.

And it just hurt me more, caused more pain for me. But that same process used with a positive statement, you know, a healthy statement, the same exact process of rethinking and keep thinking about it, is transformational in a wonderful way. And we all process things differently.

Our brains work differently. Our minds are all different. Which means some way of thinking that you may have that may seem like, you know, detrimental to your well-being, might seem like it gets in the way of your happiness.

It might actually be a really good way of thinking, if you just fill that gap with something different. So for example, I'll give you an example. If I used to get told that, well, one, yeah, one thing that's bugged me for years that people saying to me, why is it free? One thing that people said to me in the past is, no one appreciates free stuff.

They don't appreciate if it's free. And I've been doing this, this free recordings, videos and audios since 2006. And I've reached quite a big number of people over that time, with various projects I've done online.

And that disturbed me, that sentence. I'll give you an example of a sentence that upset me, that I reacted. And I was told this the first time I was actually told this, that sentence was, I remember very clearly, because the day before, I went into the hospital to visit my friend's husband, who had stomach cancer.

And he had to have medical procedure. And he refused to have it unless I came and helped him to calm down and to prepare for it using hypnosis. So I did, I went there after work.

I saw him. I did what he wanted me to do. I calmed him down.

And he had the process, the procedure, and it went okay. You know, it went a lot better because the last time he had the procedure, it kind of traumatized him a bit. Well, a lot.

So I was able to help him. Then I left. And, you know, I went home, went to bed, got up the next day, went to work.

I worked in insurance at the time. This is in 2006. And I met up with a friend, a Buddhist friend of mine, and we had lunch in, it was in a graveyard, but it was like a public place where people used to go and eat lunch and stuff.

Sounds a bit weird, but it's like an old church. And he said to me, I was talking about my free hypnosis, because I had a free chronic pain relief service that I was offering locally, the free stuff I was doing online that I just started doing. And he said that nobody appreciates stuff that's free.

And all I thought about was the man that I saw the day before, my friend's husband, and how that was free. I didn't charge him. And he really appreciated what I did, or what we did together.

He appreciated that. So I knew that that was wrong. You know what he was saying to me, it might be right with some people, some people don't appreciate anything.

Some people, you know, it's different people are different. But to say that everybody, nobody appreciates it. So that bugged me.

And he was wrong. And then recently, I was listening to a recording, a man called Dan Piena. And he said, one statement is, show me your friends, and I'll show you your future.

Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future. I've got it written on my door. I actually wrote it down.

Because it makes so much sense. Because who you spend time with affects your life affects how you think how you behave. It does me anyway.

It's not that I'm really easily led, but I think sometimes I might be maybe a bit of a pushover, a bit of a kind of go out of my way to help people that maybe don't deserve as much as I give, or maybe, you know, maybe taking advantage, sometimes. So you put that in the middle, you change, you swap it over. So new thinking at the time, all I was thinking about in 2006, for probably, it kept in my mind for years, if I'm honest.

But it wasn't something I didn't get too excited about it. But I used to think about it. And I talk about it sometimes, that people don't appreciate free stuff.

And that continuously led me to continue what I was doing, it gave more effort, more energy, put more energy, more wind behind my sail, to continue helping people for free. And to expand it outside of just my town where I was living, but to the rest of the country and the rest of the world. And using that same technique, which is naturally there, I can put that same thing, show me your friends, and I'll show you your future.

That's a powerful message. And when I first heard it, probably a few weeks ago, kept thinking about it. It kept just popping into my head.

And I was getting an emotional response. And if I'd have had my drawbridge up, I would have stopped the initial negative response that I had. And the pain, the emotional pain I experienced when I was told that what I was doing was pointless.

Which I've been told. I've been told that it's not worth anything if I'm not earning any money out of it. I've been told that.

And it's painful, it hurts. But if the drawbridge is up so none of that stuff can hurt, then it's also up so none of the nice stuff can come through. When someone phones, someone sent me a message years ago out of the blue saying, what you did, my mum spent the last three months of her life listening to your relaxation sessions, and it really helped her.

Thank you. And that was it. That was the message.

I was like, wow. A message recently, a young lady said, I just want to thank you. I asked you to make a recording to help me with self-harm seven years ago, and you made a recording.

And I just want to thank you because I stopped. And I still stopped. And she was a teenager at the time, I think.

If I had the drawbridge up, that wouldn't be able to affect me. And I want it to affect me. But also, I want to be affected.

I don't want to make this just about me, but I want to be affected by things. Not in a way that causes extreme anxiety or stress. Of course not, because that would be ridiculous to want that.

No one. Who would want that? Nobody. But sometimes it feels a little bit like, and I've talked about this in the past on other recordings, you know, if you maybe, you know, you stand on a hosepipe, and the pressure builds, or if you put your thumb under a tap, even though the tap's just on drip, and you know, it's practically invisible.

Maybe you can hear it every 30 seconds. Put your thumb under there. Eventually, the pressure will build so much, and you'll feel like your thumb is moving, trying to be pushed off.

And then it'll move a little bit and the water will just spurt everywhere. Pressure. That's kind of like what anxiety can be like.

It's built up because it's not being allowed to flow naturally. It's natural to have stress. It's natural to feel upset about stuff sometimes.

It's natural to feel wonderful about things sometimes. If someone said something rude to you, what's wrong with feeling it? Why is that a bad thing? It's not nice. It's not comfortable.

It's not pleasant. But isn't feeling it better than repressing it? Like holding your thumb against the tap? Repressing that, then repressing something else. Isn't it acceptable to just allow, or preferable to allow, the feelings to flow? And kind of just see what happens.

Because you can always put your thumb back on the tap. You can always pull the drawbridge back up. You know, that is an option.

Just like if you go on a diet and decide you're not going to eat sugar anymore and you're not going to drink fizzy drinks or eat chocolate. That's a choice. And you have a choice to go and buy a bar of chocolate from the shop if you choose.

It's a choice. Only you can decide that. But you know that's a choice.

And when you realise it's a choice, it kind of takes the... for me, that would reduce the discomfort compared to not having the choice. Being told that you can't have chocolate. Like you can't ever.

Even someone's got a medical condition, and you know, they've been told, you know, you've got diabetes, for example, and you have to be careful what you eat, and you know, it's a regulated diet and all that stuff. It's still a choice. Some people will say, they might think, well, it's not a choice because I have to do this, otherwise I get ill.

But it's still a choice. You choose what you do next. Always.

We all choose what we do next. Just because the result of a bad choice could be devastating, doesn't take away the fact that we have the choice to make those bad decisions. Those terrible decisions that could cause catastrophic harm to ourselves.

And we choose not to do it. It's still a choice. We choose what we do next.

Always. And when you know that, when you actually get more in touch with that fact, it's not an opinion, I believe it's a fact. We really do choose what we do next.

We just, maybe we're not aware of it. You know, if, see Andre, Andre's just climbed on me again, and I'm cuddling him. I choose to stroke him underneath, you know, under his chin.

I'm doing that. My left thumb, I'm stroking him under his chin. I don't have to do that.

I prefer to do that because it keeps him quiet. So that he's not jumping all over me and trying to rip the carpet up or trying to bite my toes or something like that. But I could let him do that stuff.

I could let him run around making noise, which is not really what I want as a background for these recordings. So I'm stroking his head now, and he's happy. He's relaxed, he's calm.

He's got my nice boring voice in his ear. It's a nice relaxing home that we've got. And he's happy.

He'd probably be happier if I gave him more food, especially if it was chocolate. But he's not really allowed to eat chocolate, so I don't give it to him. It's a choice.

If I gave him all the things that he liked to eat, he would be ill. He absolutely loves milk. Whipped cream, especially the ones out of the spray cans, that's like crack cocaine to him.

He literally would do anything to get his hands on some whipped cream. He loves it. It's absolutely, I know it sounds silly, but he absolutely loves it.

It makes him ill. Because he's lactose intolerant. He's not built to be able to eat, drink milk or anything like that.

But he loves it though. And he'd be so happy if I did it for him. His stomach wouldn't be.

And if I did it regularly, he might not be around for long. Because he'd get very ill. But that's a choice.

He doesn't have the knowledge to make that choice for himself. Because he's a little ferret and he doesn't know about lactose intolerance and stuff like that. But we're lucky as humans to have a different kind of brain and to have that drawbridge up, which is what I used to do.

It meant that I was, I didn't, you know, I had less stress. I had less panic. I had less of everything.

It's almost like living like a daydream, but not in a nice way. Like a non-event. Just being a bit numb.

And once I decided to let that drawbridge down as a test, I did have the pain and the pleasure. But it was a steady flow. And anything that was difficult passed.

It always passed. It always went through me, you know. It kind of... If you think in a way of... Andre's making weird noises now.

If you think of problem issues, stuff that you're worried about, that may be happening soon or maybe it's happening now, difficult moments. Think of it like sweet corn. It might sound a weird thing to say, but when you eat sweet corn, it passes through you.

And anyone that's had sweet corn knows that it just goes straight through. And it's still sweet corn. So problems are very much like eating sweet corn.

It just goes through you. And then it's gone. Just like pleasure.

Pleasure doesn't last either. But that's kind of one of the good things about it. Because you can look forward to the next time that you have pleasure.

So if you have a particular pleasure which involves a loved one, it might be something like going and watching your child play football, as an example. Or gymnastics or seeing them in a play. And that football match is not going to last forever.

But you can look forward to the next one. That play is not going to last forever, but you can look forward to the next one. You go for a beautiful meal.

It could be the tastiest meal in the world. It's like wonderful. It's not going to last forever.

You can look forward to the next time. If you just remember that you haven't had the best meal of your life yet. You haven't had the most interesting conversation of your life yet.

You haven't experienced the best day of your life yet. The best is always to come. You haven't felt the most relaxed that you'll ever feel.

The best is still to come. So instead of thinking back to the past, thinking, oh, things will never be as good as that again. They will, they'll be better.

The best moment of your life hasn't happened yet. The funniest thing in your life hasn't happened yet. The thing that made you laugh the most hasn't happened yet.

The best physical feeling that you've ever going to experience hasn't happened yet. Which brings me back to the very beginning of this recording. Why fear fear? When it's natural to sometimes be scared.

It's natural to sometimes get angry. They're just feelings. That's all they are.

Just feelings. Here's something that I, a little technique that I use. And I tell people this.

I'm around some sometimes quite aggressive people where I live with various different issues. And I say to them, they'll tell me about how someone said something to them and, you know, they want to respond aggressively. And I'll just say to them, look, and these are adults.

If I said, if an eight-year-old child rode past you on a bike and showered exactly the same thing, how would you respond? And the answer is generally, well, I just, it can go from, I'd find it funny, which is quite a good response. Because it changes the way they think. But then it could be, well, I'd do nothing.

It's just an eight-year-old kid just acting up. Well, that's just a, that's a 39-year-old person just acting up. You don't have to do anything.

Just think of them like you would an eight-year-old child that's being naughty. You don't have to do anything. It's like reframing it, looking at it in a different way, which changes how you feel quite quickly.

And the way we feel can be changed very, very quickly. You know, I saw this, I was on the bus, I think it was today or yesterday. It was yesterday, I think, I forget.

I've been on the bus a few times this week. And we stopped at a bus stop near the train station. And there was this man with a big, big dog.

And he was, let's just say I think the dog was stronger than he was. He looked like he was quite struggling to kind of keep control of the dog. And when the bus pulled up, the dog was really barking and looked like he was wanting to attack the bus driver.

I couldn't understand what was going on. And I thought, oh. And then a couple of people get off the bus and there's this old lady or elderly lady and she's got a, I think she's got like a walker or some kind of, you know.

She's got some disability or anything, but she was getting off the bus. And it looked like the dog was about to attack her. It really did look like that and I was watching.

And I thought, oh my goodness, because this bloke who was holding the dog, the dog was dragging him along. And I thought, oh my goodness, what's going to happen here? Completely wrong. The dog started licking her face.

It was her dog. Or I guess maybe it was her husband that was holding the dog. The dog was excited.

The dog knew that she was on the bus before the bus even pulled up to the bus stop. The dog was barking at the bus before it even pulled up. So I guess the dog could smell her or, you know, how dogs are.

My feelings changed instantly from being, I was quite anxious if I'm honest with you. I thought I was about to witness something that, you know, was I going to have to go out there trying to help. But, you know, it's hard when you've got a dog like that.

I'm not really a dog person, you know, sort of as in controlling dogs. But I got it completely wrong. And this happened quite quickly, so it wasn't like I had lots of time to think.

And straight away, instantly, I realised what the reality was. And I'd say my whole physiology changed in an instant from stress to, well, I found it funny. Funny that I assumed that, you know, a completely different scenario to what the reality was.

I wasn't to know what the reality was. I didn't, I'd never seen any of these people before. And I have seen dogs similar to that situation who were out of control.

So it wasn't a huge stretch from the imagination. But I was wrong. And the way I felt changed in an instant.

So I think we're lucky to have brains that can do that. That can change how you feel really quickly. And I think that option, that brain facility, that wonderful thing that the brain can do, is only available when that drawbridge is down and open.

When you're open to any kind of emotional experience. Bearing in mind that the emotions come from you, not from others. We create our own emotions as a response to what happens outside.

In fact, it's not only what happens outside, as I'm sure you agree, it's the amount of emotional responses I've had just to a thought that I've had. And the amount of times that I went into panic just by thinking that I might go into panic. And you know it still happens sometimes.

It still happens. And then I calm down really, really quickly. And there's a part of me that's a little bit embarrassed to say that.

In a sense of me making these recordings. There is a part of me that thinks I should be completely fine. Completely fine.

And never have any anxiety or stress ever. No panic ever. In order for me to help other people that are going through what is at times absolutely awful.

An awful experience. I mean it's the worst experience of my life. Was having a big anxiety attack.

Nothing matched it as far as an adult feeling completely out of control. Thinking that I was going literally crazy. Like my brain was malfunctioning.

And my body was malfunctioning as well because it wasn't just a brain thing. But sometimes, even now, occasionally, I'll be eating and I'll think, oh. And a thought comes to my head, what if I choke on this food? And then my swallowing stops.

And I have to cough the food out. I don't have to cough the food out but I do that. Then I have a drink of water and I carry on.

Because I know it's just a thought. But that thought had an effect. My own thought.

It had come from outside. It wasn't something that someone else said. It was just my own thought.

In that second. And it came for no reason that I can think of. And maybe I was just feeling a bit stressed at the time.

And perhaps I wasn't so aware of it as I could have been. You know, meditation is called a meditation practice for a reason. Mindfulness, mindfulness practice for a reason.

It's a practice. You just got to keep doing it. Keep practicing relaxation.

Keep practicing being aware of how you're feeling. Keep practicing being kind to yourself. Keep practicing positivity, positive thinking.

In the same way as you don't just have one bath and then that's it. You have to keep having another bath afterwards, you know, the next day. Or a shower.

Otherwise you end up getting smelly. And dirty. It's the same with our thinking.

It's the same with all that stuff. You don't just have one meal and then don't eat anything for a month. You have to, you know, you might feel so full up.

But five hours later, six hours later, you'll be ready to eat again. So it's just something that needs to be kept going. So not being afraid of fear.

Not being afraid of feeling. Whatever feelings arise. And I know that Roosevelt, he, you know, President, when he said those words, the only thing to fear is fear itself.

And he was talking about, obviously, fear is, in itself, is the thing. The only thing that, that's the thing that hurts, is the fear. Not the actual thing, perhaps, that you're scared of.

It's the fear itself that prevents people from doing some things in their life and enjoying their life and taking chances and taking risks. That's kind of where he was coming from, as far as I'm aware. It's more like motivational, you know, just go out and do it.

Don't let your mind get in the way of your happiness. Don't let thoughts, which are only temporary, stop you from being happy. So this has been a bit of a muddle of stuff.

A few little ideas floating around. But it only takes one sentence that resonates with you in order for changes, sometimes profound changes, to occur. And then when you keep thinking about that thing, a positive thing keeps floating around in your mind.

And you keep remembering it. For example, it could be, you choose what you do next. You always choose what you do next.

So in that case, you can't be a victim. In those situations, you choose. Of course there's consequences for everything we do.

So, you know, if someone doesn't like their job, if they decide just to not turn up for their job, then they might lose their job. So that's a consequence of doing that. But they choose.

If they go to work, they choose to go to work. And to me, that takes away the stress, it takes away the victim mentality of, I have to do this, I've got no choice. Because once you realise you do have a choice about everything you do next, the next thing you do is chosen.

You choose to do it. Even if it's an unpleasant thing, you choose to do it. And that can change something from being unpleasant to being neutral.

Or being, oh okay, I'm not loving this at the moment, so what can I do to change this situation? Maybe look for another job. Change whatever is giving you that feeling that you're not enjoying. You change.

So that could be one thing that maybe you float around in your mind. You choose what you do next. Or it could be about the drawbridge.

Let the drawbridge down. Or the thumb over the tap. Or let things just go through you.

And try and stop the feelings. Just let them flow. Like sweetcorn going through your body.

Just let it go through you. It's just feelings. Or maybe you could have in your mind floating around that you haven't had your best day yet.

Because it's still to come. The most pleasure you'll ever have is still to come. All the best moments of your life are still to come.

The best moments haven't happened yet. So I'm going to go. Thank you for listening.

And I'll probably speak to you again tomorrow, probably. I seem to be doing these fairly regularly. So thank you very much.

Remember to be kind to yourself. Remember to be gentle with yourself. Lots of love.

Bye.