So… I am finally beginning the process of properly focusing this website (about time), and my housekeeping has begun by removing the comments sections from some of the pages (having decided to keep such conversations to the blog area). In beginning this process, I have came across this question about 'social anxiety'. Paul asked:

"What is your success with social anxiety – I’ve been studying Hypnosis, NLP, and every other modality I can find on the internet for the last 10 years. I am also personally trained in hypnosis under Igor Ledochowski as well as Jeff Stephens, but I am still burdened with social anxiety. What can you offer me? Also – would you recommend your Changework Applications product in order to personally learn the change work to do on myself? I hypnotize myself through recordings on a regular basis. Thanks"

So Paul asked a genuine question, which I felt warranted a genuine reply (and this is about a lot more than just 'social anxiety':

"Hi Paul

I have to say that, for personal reasons, 'social anxiety' is an area of particular interest for me.

What can I offer you? That question is a bit too open and broad to easily answer. The answer could be “nothing” or it could be “a path to being socially comfortable and erudite”, depending on where you are with your willingness to challenge your own assumptions and engage with a process of learning.

One thing I can tell you right off the bat is that you will probably not fix it with one or two quick hypnosis sessions – social anxiety is most often a problem of worldview rather than a simple stimulus-response pattern. To shift it takes many shifts in perspective AND attitude, as well as some skills based work around patterns of interaction.

If you are serious about changing this, PM me and I will arrange for you a discounted coaching/Changework session to give you some of the fundamentals. I am not saying that 1 session will fix the problem, but we can get for you some useful understanding of how your pattern works, along with some highly functional tools and a pathway for getting out of it.

You can PM me on James @ hypnosiswithouttrance.com or Skype me at captaintripp

All the very best

James

P.S. The Changework Applications set will not help you for this!"

As I have pointed out before, there are many changework practitioners of different varieties out there promising the magical quick fix. What they often promise is instant transformation right now, but mostly that isn't really how significant change happens (although there can be exceptions).

Yes we can have breakthrough moments, but it is how those breakthrough moments combine and feed forward into our futures to connect to yet more breakthrough moments that matters.

As human beings we are good at learning and change, and - unlike the majority of other known lifeforms - we have the ability to be self-authoring; to lead the process of our own personal evolution!

We have the faculties in place to do this - it is what we are good at!

Change comes from utilising and applying those faculties rather than trying to shortcut them with fancy techniques. And most significant change is the result of engaging in a developmental process - it is the people who get this and apply themselves to it are the ones who get rapid results.

So what of Hypnosis and NLP?

Well there is plenty of good stuff there in the toolkit - the trick is applying it strategically to encourage, develop, support and guide our natural learning and change 'mechanisms', rather than blindly applying 'techniques' and/or giving simplistic suggestions it the hope of bypassing our natural processes.

If you are interested in making some changes in your life and developing yourself - your thinking, your behaviour, your responses - get in touch and we can discuss what it is that you would like to change.

All the very best

James