I have a confession to make - I'm not really a coach or a hypnotist or an agent of change (or many other things). When I say that, I'm not saying that I can't or don't do those things, just that those things are not what I am... and they are certainly not how I would wish to identify.
Now, to some reading this this may seem odd, because they may think of me as a coach or hypnotist (or similar). And if they do I can understand why - there are literally hundreds of videos of me demonstrating and discussing hypnosis on YouTube, coaching programmes available from me and many testimonials from coaching clients floating around the internet... but that is still not what I am or what I'm really about at the heart of it all.
At 19 years of age I was struck by an epiphany that change the course of my life. Keeping the details short, I had been struggling with life for a few years (I didn't feel like I fitted in or had any power whatsoever) and got to the point where a concerned doctor signed me off work and put on anti-depressants.
In many ways, the relief at this was enormous - I'd finally got what I wanted - the world off my back... but for just two weeks!
Out driving and pondering, I realised I could keep travelling down the path of deteriorating mental health or...
"The world is not going to reorganise itself to suit my needs"
This was the epiphany that struck... like enlightening lightening!
If my life was to get better, I needed to get into the driving seat. I needed to transform my engagement with it so as I could start to shape it up more as I might want. But how?
And so began a journey of exploration, exploring an array of different psychological and philosophical 'reality tunnels' immersing myself in their mind-shifting conceptual cultures (this is what I was doing, albeit unconsciously... consciously I thought I was searching for 'truth') and transforming my own 'deep psychology' as I went.
These reality tunnels have included - western analytical philosophy, taoism, systems thinking, mind/body healing, NLP, magic and mentalism, NLP, various flavours of hypnosis, NLP, Choice Theory, General Semantics, Three Principles, Byron Katies Work, New Thought, Stoicism, Jungian Psychology, Adlerian Psychology, REBT, and much more besides.
Now, when I talk about 'exploring' these reality tunnels, I'm not talking about merely researching them, I'm talking about degrees of immersion in them - exploring living into them and living from them. Exploring their effects upon my ongoing experience and responses and - most interestingly, for me - my results in life.
And from this exploration emerges fresh creation - a nuancing of elements from one reality tunnel with aspects and discoveries from another.
And this is why, whilst I coach, I don't identify as a coach (or hypnotist, or whatever) but instead, above all that as an explorer and emergent creator.
The reason I share this with you now is because, going forward, I intend to be grounding more fully in this - continuing to explore with the functionality of different psychological reality tunnels and continuing to integrate the discoveries into my own personal psychology and teaching models.
This experience and this practice is also the basis of my Personal Psychology Coaching/Consulting work - I am not an NLP coach or Hypnotist (though I have spent much time in those reality tunnels), I am an explorer and life path creator who coaches.
So, this is what this blog will be about going forward - different ways of seeing, being and approaching life. Exploring with different 'organisations of reality' to see what difference they make. Exploring the nexus of mind and life and connecting with our power to move the former to shape the latter.
JT