Orla Kirby Hypnotherapy

"I came to hypnotherapy because I was feeling really ‘stuck’ in life. I’d been working in a shop for thirteen and a half years, without ever having really meant to have chosen this as a job. I really very intensely disliked my job, and I’d wanted to get out of retail for a long time, but I never seemed to be quite able to do so. Also I was always making plans to use my free time to study or to start my own business, but never quite managing to do this either. I struggled with motivation and discipline and would frequently become distracted. I’d get really cast down when I’d apply for other jobs and not get them, and then this had happened so many times that I just started to give up. I wasn’t sure exactly what the problem was, or what was stopping me doing what I wanted to do. Maybe it was procrastination, maybe it was a fear of trying and then failing, or maybe it was low self-esteem. As soon as I started messaging Orla and finding out a bit more about hypnotherapy and how it might help, I felt better about things, and more positive and hopeful. Now, a year or so on from when I started sessions, I have experienced so much change and development that I am in an entirely different place. I have learnt how to shift myself out of an anxious state, or out of ‘procrastination mode’, and into a more positive, focused state. This had made applying for jobs a great deal easier and quicker. Before, it was a case of spending a long old time just sending out one application, and really sweating blood and tears over it, with a lot of stress, a lot of unpleasantness, and many hours spent. Whereas recently, I have ended up firing off many, many applications for things I am interested in, doing them well and efficiently, and feeling pretty good about this. I am so much more positive and confident now and I have a new job that I am starting next month. It’s not my ideal job or anything, but it is not a retail job, and it moves me in the directions I want to be going, and towards the kind of work I want to do. There are things that are difficult or awkward about it, which previously would have prompted me to reject the idea, but now I am just making it work...." (Georgia, 39, Education Professional) You can read the rest of this client's story here: https://lnkd.in/e5ZNsp3f I so love and delight in witnessing people making really major transitions in their lives as part of their therapy journey, and how the impact of that can ripple out from around that one person.... for example in terms of the person connecting more with their skills, talents and sense of purpose when it comes to their working life.

Follow these steps if you could do with a bit of peacefulness in your day today…. (And as with anything I suggest, of course feel free to stop if any of this feels very uncomfortable... - sometimes if you're not in the habit of deeply relaxing, or even if you are, relaxation work can bring up strong emotions....) Stand up and put your feet hip distance apart… Close your eyes, and deeply relax your whole face, imagining that the whole of your face and head is made from some kind of warm, heavy clay… clay that’s been left outside somewhere in the sun and become warm and heavy and pliable… Gradually imagine each part of your body joining in with this heavy, pleasant, comfortable feeling…. Your neck and throat, your shoulders, your whole upper body… becoming warm and loose and slack and pleasantly heavy… then your lower body, your legs, all the way down to your feet and your toes and the soles of your feet…. Now make your face even heavier, even more loose and slack, with a pleasant feeling. Allow your mouth to fall gently open, because it’s not being held shut any more. And now take a deep, slow breath in through your nose, and allow yourself to take in plenty of air - as much air as you can. If you can manage it, as you breathe in, allow your tummy to move up and out out and your chest to move up and out out too. Now allow yourself to slowly, slowly breathe out again, your chest and tummy sinking back into the frame of your body. Repeat this several times. ......................................................................................................... If you'd like some help learning and practicing hypnosis in a full, deep way, you can download my guide, which includes a series of videos - with much more information and detail than is present here - to take you through an incredibly relaxing hypnotic breathing process. It may take a while to learn and practice this to the extent where it can be fully, deeply relaxing - and you will need more information than is present above to do this effectively - but this learning process is so, so worth going through. I’ll put the link to the guide in the comments. 

"I wanted to have hypnotherapy to help me with confidence at work. I’ve struggled over the years with a sense of not being good enough and struggling to believe in my own ability. Even though I am a high achiever, at times I would easily slip into a pattern of negative thinking which undermined my ability. I experience quite a lot of stress at work and also wanted to figure out some good ways to deal with this, as previously this had brought on feelings of anxiety. I am really surprised and pleased at how quickly the hypnotherapy sessions with Orla have made such a difference. Orla created a warm and safe space to voice my insecurities and I was so pleased to constantly put into practice the helpful tools and tips that Orla recommended. I feel so much more confident now, particularly when contributing to meetings and discussions at work." (Michelle, 32, Higher Education Professional) This is a past client reflecting on the outcomes of the work we did together. You can read the rest of her story here: https://lnkd.in/enZnZS_i It's interesting to me that for many people stress is interpreted purely as a negative. I think we hear so much about the potential negative impacts of stress that it can definitely seem this way. And of course there are definitely situations, working conditions, and so on, that can be causing too much stress for anyone, or too much stress for a particular person. At the same time, too low a level of stress can actually have a negative impact too, as we are actually designed to be handling stress to a certain extent, and stress is not inherently bad. (Of course bearing in mind that different types of things cause different amount of stress for different people and that people have different 'optimum' levels of stress.) Coming at the idea of stress from the point of view of wanting to 'find your optimum level' of stress, and type/s of stress, and having ways of responding to all stress which use hypnosis as a means to access your own resources more quickly, easily and fully, can be transformational. This is what this particular client was able to do, and she found that it changed everything, including - but not limited to - massively reducing her experiences of anxiety.