#87 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks - FOCUSING - (Jason Newland) (2nd February 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is relaxation hypnosis for stress, anxiety and panic attacks. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

Now, there's likely to be some background sounds due to the time of the day that I'm recording this. So it's 7 26 on the 2nd of February 2020. So there's sometimes a bit of activity outside.

Andre may run around, who knows. But that's okay because this is not about being completely silent and it's not about falling asleep or anything like that. What this is about is, I suppose it's a mindfulness exercise.

But instead of being a body scan, it's a room scan. So you'll be doing this with your eyes open. And you're going to be aware of your body because generally, let's say you're sitting down on a chair as I am right now.

Make sure you're comfortable. Make sure that the chair can support your body if you want to fall asleep. So you don't end up falling out of the chair.

But as I said, this isn't about sleep. This is about relaxing. It's about calming your mind and your body.

The way we're going to do it is instead of doing a body scan where you'd be focusing on the different parts of your body and how they feel, and just accepting how those different body parts feel, the muscles, and not trying to change them, but just being aware of those physical feelings, those sensations. We're going to do something different where we're going to focus on what we can see outside of your body.

So I suppose on some level, it could be a dissociative kind of situation where you're distracting your mind on what's outside as opposed to how you're feeling physically.

But it's also a mindfulness exercise where you are focusing on what you can see. It's almost like bringing yourself back to reality, back to this moment. I want to say the word reality.

I don't mean that as a put down, but more as in when we're thinking about something that might happen that's quite awful, and it might happen. That's not reality. That's imagination.

And imagination is powerful, as we all know. So this is nothing to do with imagination. This is completely to do with reality, this moment.

Being aware of what is right now. Being aware of the seat, the chair that you're sitting in. You can be aware of how it feels to sit in a chair, but we're not even really focusing on the physical side of things with this.

But you're going to be aware of, or you might be aware of how you feel more relaxed, just generally by listening to me. Especially if you're a regular listener, because then you maybe associate my voice with feeling calmer, feeling more relaxed, feeling more grounded, feeling, you know, more in the moment. So that's what we're doing here now.

Now, I don't know what's in your room. So I can't ask you to focus on, for example, the bookcase, because you might not have a bookcase. So there's a limit to what I can actually guide you, how I can guide you with this.

So what I thought I would do is, I would mention something that I can see in my room, and then have a little break, you know, have a, give you some time to focus on something that you can see in your room that you're in. So at the moment, I'm sitting in my living room. I'm sitting in a chair.

It's a brown chair. This will be the chair that's in my, that will be in my recording studio once it's soundproofed. And I've got a little table next to me.

And I've got a drink on the side, and my phone's on the side of the, well, it's not on the side of the table, it's on top of the table, the flat surface part, because I have gravity in this room, so it doesn't kind of, doesn't lay on the side. And I can talk about what's in my room. You may be sitting in your living room, you may be sitting in your bedroom.

You may be listening to this, sitting in a deck chair on a beach. You may be sitting in your garden. So it's not about a room specifically.

It's about what you can see. And for those that are listening to this that maybe have visual issues, you can focus on what you can hear instead. Or you can imagine what you can see.

So those, some people that maybe have had sight loss recently, but they know what's there. They know what the garden looks like. So maybe you can just use your memory and remember if that feels comfortable to do so.

Or as I said, you can focus on your hearing, what you can hear. And so, you know, I try and cover all angles, but it's difficult to know who's actually listening. But I'd like as much as possible to include everybody, if I can.

I hope that comes across as well. So I already feel more relaxed. So even though I'm going to be focused on, when I am focusing on what's outside, you know, my vision, what's outside of my body, I can also feel my body because it's there.

You know, the feelings in my body don't disappear. But I'm noticing feelings of, well, actually pleasure in my forehead, my scalp, my face, my shoulders, across my chest and down my back, my arms. It's just sort of spreading through my body.

Yeah, I'm not actually focusing on those parts of my body. I'm just aware of it. So probably there's a percentage of awareness.

Perhaps I'll be 10% aware of my body, 90% aware of what's outside of my body visually. So I'm going to start. And when I've told you what I can see, I'll just name a specific thing.

Then I'll say, it's your turn. And I'll just wait a few seconds as you notice the thing that you're noticing. And then I'll move on and I'll notice something else.

I'll mention something else that I can see. And this exercise, I would say would be useful for calm in your mind, for calming your body, just to reduce the stress levels that you have or that you had before you started to listen to this. So maybe after getting home from work, or maybe you had a busy day, whatever you've been doing, or it just might have been an interaction with somebody that's left you with an unpleasant feeling.

So just to take some time, and you can spend as much time doing this as you like. So even though the recording may last for half an hour, you can spend five minutes doing this in your own time. So you could say, okay, I'm just going to notice 10 things around me, outside of my body.

So I'm going to start and then I'll say, your turn. Okay, so first thing that I notice is a television. Now I've actually got the television on, but it's on mute.

The reason why I haven't turned it off is because as it cools down, it lets off lots of clicking sounds, which is a bit annoying. So I've left it on. So I can, it's quite an obvious thing that's sort of there, but I'm not watching it.

I'm focusing on this, but I can see the telly. So your turn, what can you see? Now, next thing I can notice would be, and just I realised that you might not have had enough time, or you might have had too much time during the gap that I gave. There's no way for me to know.

But when you do it on your own, you can spend an hour, if you want, focusing on one thing, or you can spend three seconds. It really is your choice. So the next thing that I can notice would be my punch bag that I've got, which is attached to the wall.

And you know, it's a bracket holding it up. And yeah, I just noticed it's there, it's quite big, so it's noticeable. I'm just looking at it.

So your turn, what's the next thing that you notice? So now I'm going to think of, look at something else. So there's a lamp. And it's one of those lamps that has a base.

It's metal. It's kind of an old fashioned style lamp. It's quite nice, actually.

And also, it's like a desk lamp, but it's high up. So I can have it above the chair if I'm reading. So I'm noticing that.

Just looking at it. I'm just looking at the shape, the shape of it. Not something that I'd normally do.

I don't give that lamp much attention. That's your turn. Now, what I've noticed is when I say it's your turn, and you're doing, you know, your side, and looking at your object, or the thing that you're looking at, I'm still looking at the lamp during those, I don't know, 20 seconds or 30 seconds, whatever it was.

I'm still looking at that lamp and just looking at it, looking at the shape, looking at the way it's standing. So yeah, anyway, that was that lamp. So the next thing I'm going to notice is the radiator.

It's to the left of me. It's on the wall. It's very wide.

It's got a long radiator. A good, probably six foot long. Maybe, yeah.

Maybe five foot, six foot. I don't know. It's fairly long anyway.

So I'm just looking at it, realizing I need to give it a clean, actually. I'm just noticing the color, the shape of it, the certain bits. I really look at that radiator.

I'm just looking at it now, and as I continue to look at it, I just look in, just noticing. It's your turn. You can find something to look at where you are now.

So I'm just going to now look at something else. And I find it's quite a strange, kind of a strange thing to do. Not weird, but kind of unusual.

Yeah, very calming. And I suppose, in a way, it's quite nice not to have television or radio, internet, any kind of music or anything like that. It's quite nice to have a break from that.

A little rest, you know? Visually, to be looking at something that isn't on a screen, but it's actually here, now, in this moment. Something that's around you. So if you was in a garden, a tree, or the grass, or if you're indoors, if you're in your living room, or if you're in your bedroom, it could be your bed, wardrobe, set of drawers, curtains, windows, the roof or the ceiling, rather, the carpet.

If you're in your kitchen, it could be your cooker, your fridge, freezer, washing machine. In your living room or lounge, your chair, tables, chairs, the wall, colour of the wall, lampshade. It could be all kinds of things.

It could be an ornament that you have, or a book that you're laying on the side, or a plug. It could be any kind of thing that's just there. It could be the door, which is what I'm going to now focus on.

I'll just turn my head a bit and focus on the door. So yeah, just noticing the door. In this room, for some reason, there's sellotape on the door handle.

So that must have been something that I attached to the door handle for Andre to play with. The sellotape is still there. I didn't even notice it until just now.

Just noticing the door, something that I don't give much attention to normally. It's a very old door. It's been here for many, many years.

Many years, probably, I'd say a good 20 years or so. I might be exaggerating, but it's a guess. I'm just looking at it, noticing the shape, the length, the colour.

So now it's your turn to notice something that you can see in this moment. Now, and you can notice how you feel calmer. Having just noticed that thing, that item in the room, or in the space that you're currently sitting.

That you can see. So as with lots of other exercises, this is something that you can do on your own. And it can sometimes just be, it can be easier when you haven't got me waffling on.

You know, sometimes it's nice to take your time, which I suggest do take your time, because it's a relaxation session. Just continue noticing things. And I'm going to end, I'm going to end the recording, but I suggest you just keep going.

Keep noticing things, and at the same time, noticing how much calmer your mind is now, compared to what it was before. How much more relaxed your body feels, even though you've not aimed any relaxation at your body, and you've not been trying to calm your mind. These things have just happened naturally, as you've been focusing on different things, different parts of the room that you're in.

Now, I'm going to leave you there. Thank you for listening. I'll speak to you again tomorrow.

Remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy. And being relaxed is part of that happiness. Lots of love.

Bye.