Bad news on the High Street

The news of HMV going into administration, the closure of Jessops and the announcement of  800 job losses at the Honda plant in Swindon would make grim reading at any time of the year, but so early into 2013 employees and ex-employees face uncertainty and anxiety for their future, and that of their families. Confidence is knocked in the individuals abilities are questioned, increasing stress and leading to an increase of conditions such as IBS or irritable Bowel Syndrome which affects upto one in five of the population.

Some commentators believe other retailers will follow in the not too distant future, but it isn’t just the big names, smaller companies, the life blood of the country account for 47% of all private sector employment are also facing challenging time.

Employment uncertainty, increasing expectations and workload lead to higher stress, increased anxiety and other conditions such as IBS and depression and more besides.

It is up to the government to set the right agenda for businesses to grown and get the country out of economic mess we find ourselves in. Also the banks need to play their role in supporting business.  

I believe also service industries such as mine, have a role to play in helping where we can.  For 15 years the products of Healthy Audio Limited have been helping individuals around the world to feel better and more capable.  We have invested years in researching and developing problem specific products to help and support individuals, which indirectly helps other businesses in reducing absenteeism, reducing recruitment costs, and socially our products help families and the wider society.

Today we are offering 30% off our IBS Audio Programs, in part to celebrate 15 years helping people in 47 countries, but additional discount simply to help.

Also we are offering 50% discount off our MP3 download ofLaid off Move On, our self help audio program for those who have been made redundant.

And also a 20% discount off our Confidence and Self Esteem MP3 downloads.

Of course we wish it could be more, but we are doing what we can to help. How many others are doing the same?

Go for your own Gold Medal

As I write this on a dark wet and windy summers morning in July my mind wonders to the Olympics and the gradual build up to the greatest sporting even in the world.  A competition of the very best athletes coming together to take part in 300 events, all of them dreaming of winning a gold medal.   It is expected 147 national will take part in the Paralympics too.  

This event is where medals can be won or lost in a fraction of a second. The difference of being a gold medallist and a bronze medallist can be thousandths of a second, a fraction of a moment which can affect an individual for the rest of their lives. To become a household name overnight, or forgotten in moments. A place where comparisons are made, who is the best, the fastest, the most agile, who has the best stamina, and so it goes on.

Anxiety Audio Program 120

However it isn’t just at the Olympics that this constant comparing goes on, it goes on in everyday life. Many individuals compare themselves to others wishing they had the talents, skills, looks, position at work, or money of someone else, and yet I believe this thinking is flawed.  Many people look out at what others have or can do, rather than looking at themselves more closely.

We are all individuals, and if we are individual, that means we are a one off, we are unique. And if we are unique, then there is no one like us, and if there is no one like us, we cannot compare ourselves to others. So why do we so often go through life trying to do so?

IBS Audio Program 100
for Adults.

Instead we should consider comparing ourselves, to ourselves! It isn’t as strange as it might initially seem.  I often ask my clients to put themselves on a scale from zero to ten. Zero being the worst (when we first met) to ten being the very best they can imagine.  By doing so each time we meet, we can gauge the improvements that our working together brings.  As they go higher up the scale, the more improvements they are noticing in themselves. Their focus becomes more about making positive changes to themselves, releasing and letting go of things no longer needed, and building new skills and belief systems.



Confidence & Self-Esteem

Each moment is an end and a new beginning, a significant change or new belief or understanding can happen in a heartbeat or even quicker, in a mere moment of time. Putting energy into changing and adapting helps us to move on in life more easily. Of course many times is has to be worked at, discipline, commitment and focus are all needed, but it is worth it.

So unless you are preparing for the Olympics, consider focusing on your own uniqueness, look at pushing barriers and limitations, learning new skills and understandings and developing your own uniqueness. That way, you too will eventually feel how it feels to be your very best. You may not be an Olympic athlete and you may never win a gold Olympic medal, but you may well find that you can be perfectly you!

www.healthyaudio.com

Back to work hypnosis program

My hypnosis program called Laid Off, Move On which is designed to help people back to work after being laid off or made redundant is now 50% discounted for downloads.

Creating the right framework for getting people back to work must be one of the main goals for government to get the economy moving again.  However it is private business not the state which creates wealth, but with red tape and employment taxes this is not easy.

Laid Off Move On audio ProgramTo compound the problem for private businesses they also need to find people for the jobs they create who can get up to speed quickly, interact effectively with new co-workers and understand new policy and procedure’s with confidence.   

Unfortunately many people who have been laid off or made redundant often have emotional baggage caused by the way their redundancy was handled. Confidence and self-esteem can be affected deeply, memory and concentration can also be impacted and many other areas of the individual’s sense of well-being can often be  reduced.

And yet confidence and focus and individual surety are some of the things that are looked for and needed by potential new employers.

My Laid Off, Move On audio program was designed specifically for these individuals, to give the individual an edge over their rivals. To relearn their own self-worth, drive and determination, and to help them to move on.

Having being made redundant in the recession of the 1980’s I understand the emotional impact of being out of work, so the Laid Off, Move On, audio program is based on not only my personal experience, but 25 years’ professional experience as a clinical hypnotherapist, alongside my outplacement experience some years ago.

The program is 50% discounted for immediate downloads. With 2 CDs, 7 tracks and listening schedule, it is an important part of returning to work process.

Click here for more information

New Year New Start

2010 and an observation

After a well deserved break I returned back to the office seeing patients and working on Healthy Audio Limited projects in mid January. This is the first opportunity I have had to say Happy New Year, although belated no lesser meant than if said on the 1st of the month.

I am amazed at how quickly time passes, February in just couple of days. There is so much to do, patients to help, planning and development and lots more besides.

I do hope that we don’t talk ourselves into more economic decline, though the US economic figures released yesterday show growth, the UK certainly has some way to go at a mere 0.01% growth.

I am puzzled how, in the UK at least, we have to have two consecutive quarters of economic decline to say we are in recession, and yet only one quarter to say we have come out of it! I am sure there are greater brains than mine which will have an official reason (whether it will hold logic though that is another thing) for this but I am yet to learn it.

As a therapist however, I and many therapists like me are at the ‘coal face’ working with the human cost of recession and economic decline. It is not only the economy a recession breaks, but also people, families and societies.

Economists speak of possibly 3 million unemployed in the UK in 2010, it is a frightening number, but all the more frightening when we remember that figure represents individuals. Lost jobs, lost homes, dreams, relationships.

That is what I see in my working day, and the ill health which these bring, the higher stress and anxiety, the drops in confidence and self esteem, the fear and worry in peoples eyes, looking, searching for solutions to problems not of their own making.

The anger aimed at greedy bankers and uncaring and allegedly dishonest politicians many of whom in the UK at least are simply waiting for their pay off when they leave office, leaving the whole sorry mess behind for others to clear up.

There is an injustice somehow to a recession, the innocent and hard working individuals and families paying the price for the recklessness of those who should know better, those in trusted positions having betrayed that trust of the people.

While the bankers are out of voters reach, politicians are not, and with a general election due in the coming months, it is any ones guess what the outcome will be. But I suspect the long memories of the millions of economic victims will play a key role in their decision making at polling booth. I know from the patients I work with, they are itching to exercise their right to be heard.

Whatever 2009 brought to your life, I do hope 2010 brings you the best of your dreams and aspirations, and that things get better for us all.

Learning from 2009

As the few remaining days of 2009 tick by, I wonder how this year, and the last decade will be viewed by history. I wonder how history will view world events; view our country, our politicians, and our society? I wonder if we will be brave enough to look at ourselves and what we have and haven’t done.

Time will tell, I hope our leaders will learn from it. I hope we as individuals will learn from our past too, because it is only by remembering our past actions and our inaction that we can feel sure footed enough going into our future. As long as we learn from the mistakes, and avoid them in the future, as long as we build on the positive times, we can move into the next year and decade better than we leave this one.

Those of us who take an interest in the news headlines and look a little deeper, will not be surprised that our society is going to have some testing times over the coming few years. Economically we can expect hardships, those who are hoping to avoid those hardships will, in the main be disappointed, for only a small percentage of individuals will be untouched by the pending economic storm.

For the rest of us, it will be a case of heads down and hard work. We will need to develop innovative products and services for our businesses to survive. We will have to learn self development methods to meet the challenges which will inevitable be faced, and we will have to take responsibility for our selves.

None of the above however is beyond us; we are more than capable of meeting the economic storm which is gathering. We have done so in the past, and we will do so again. On a personal level, I developed my IBS Audio Program 100 because there was a real need for it, and the many other programs I have developed over the years were developed because there is a real need for them. Some of them I hope will be used to help us to rise to the challenges to come. Dealing with the disappointments and negative emotions of being made redundant is an obvious example. Developing greater confidence and self esteem will be necessary for many people. Dealing with anxiety should be high on the to do list too. For those who struggle with irritable bowel syndrome IBS and its physical and emotional symptoms may well find the symptoms become worse during stressful times and events and considering new options of choice may be needed.

Every day of my working life I meet and work with people who are prepared to learn, to let go of old negative thought patterns, who invest in their own self development, learning to meet challenges in their every day lives and relationships.

Meeting the challenges of highly stressful events at work, and out of work, I work with people who have chosen to take responsibility for them selves, and to help themselves to live a happier, more comfortable and more balanced life.

Some of them come from difficult backgrounds and up bringing, others just setting out on life, in their teens and early twenties but all of them exhibit one thing, a common thread through them all, and that is one of an inner strength, an inner resource which has helped them to over come, sometimes even the word survive is not to strong for some of their journeys, but that strength is there, and they have chosen to use it to help them to move on, to something better, and invariably they are successful, because they know and realise that they can do, and be better, than they are when we first meet.

And that same strength I believe is in each and every one of us. I believe that each and every one of us, regardless of background can achieve more, if we first identify the need and desire to move on, and then act upon it. Finding what we need to help us to move on, identify what we want to achieve and then find the help, in whatever form to help us be more balanced and productive human beings.

So when we see the headlines in the papers and on the news in the coming months, let us remind ourselves that headlines sell papers, and grab attention, but let us remember that we can choose to be victors or victims, we can choose to wait and see, or we can choose to go out and grab what we want, and as long are we are not scared of hard work, and don’t always expect a quick fix, if we have patience, but also a drive to move on, then we can look forward to something better.

I see the possibilities very day with patients, and receive emails from people using my programs who have trusted themselves to make a difference. And usually it all starts by acknowledging the past, and learning from it, and then moving on in a different way to create a better life for themselves and their families, and therefore a better future too. And this often ripples out and touches those around them too.

My hope for 2010 and beyond is that we use what we have learned from the past, to map a better, brighter future for ourselves and society in general.

2010 New Year, New Hope?

What do you expect 2010 to bring you and those you love?

Are you one of those people who simply ‘go with the flow’ and believes you just have to put up with whatever life throws at you? Or are you someone who decides what you want and goes out and gets it?

Which ever type of personality you are, both individual types have the ability to achieve what you want to achieve?

The secret, if it is a secret is to simply believe what you want is achievable, learn the skills needed to help you on your journey and go for your goal.
If you are out of work for example, do something to help yourself stand out from the crowd, to make yourself a more attractive selection to a new employer. Consider becoming self employed, can you adapt a hobby or pass time into a business venture? What do you need to help yourself in the job market?

My audio program ‘Laid Off, Move On’ for those made jobless through redundancy is perhaps something for you to consider.

What impact would it make on your CV and in your job interview if you could say:
“You realised, while unemployed you had to stand out from the crowd, to become a better proposition to a new employer, and so you invested in yourself (both in time and money) by learning about releasing negative thought patterns and destructive self limiting beliefs related to being unemployed, so you could concentrate better, become more confident in your abilities recognising that you are valuable and that you have retained those skills and talents and experience”.

How would that sound, especially if this investment in yourself reduced the time it took for you to be trained in your new role, integrating more quickly, learning new policy and procedures more readily, and generally having no baggage from the previous period of joblessness, helping you to be a more rounded and balanced individual.

Another plus for your new employer would be reducing the time spent managing or over-seeing you in your new job role, not only making you productive more quickly, but also reducing the dilution of existing resources within the new company, returning the individual training you to full productivity more quickly, this is a definite win-win situation for your, your employer and your future and loved ones.

And at least something to consider! If you have found this useful, visit my Hypnotes section of writings which may help to inspire you, or at least give you ‘food for thought’.

Visit my site Healthy Audio

2010 the begining of the Decade of Anxiety

One newspaper article today has called the next decade ‘the decade of anxiety’. With the continuing demands and pressures which most ordinary individuals have been facing through much of last year, all of this year, and with the same or worse to look forward to over the next few years it might be a fair comment.

But, I really do hope that we don’t talk ourselves into even more doom and gloom, we seem to have done a good job of doing that when the recession was looming, all the headlines of doom and gloom, the widely off the mark projected deaths due to swine flu which fortunately were drastically reduced when level headedness returned, all contributed to high levels of anxiety in the general population.

However it is fair to say the next few years will be difficult for most of us, anxiety will be running high, especially if interest rates start to rise in the spring as predicted. Unemployment rates are also not expected to get any better in the next 12-18 months, even if the UK comes out of recession soon.

So I can see the foundations of the statement of the decade of anxiety, but one thing the writer did not mention is what we can do for ourselves. We can help our selves, we don’t have to simply sit by and let circumstances over take us. For those who do feel anxious help is available though my Anxiety Audio Program 120, a major self help anxiety treatment program.

For those that are jobless, the first step to getting back into employment or self employment is to acknowledge the negative and harmful emotions that are so often associated to being laid off, if these are not acknowledged there is a risk of secondary or causal depression to creep in, sabotaging recovery and ability to move one. My Laid Off, Move On program was developed specifically to help in such situations.

For many, whether employed or not, confidence and self esteem are often affected by circumstances at home, in the work place or due to economic or social circumstances. Without confidence and self esteem life can be difficult, self limiting and self sabotaging. See my confidence and self esteem program to help you structure a new or re-learned approach to developing your confidence again.

2010 will be full of opportunity as well as some challenges and it is for each and every one of us to embrace the opportunities, and equip ourselves with the skills to enhance our already existing talents, gifts and knowledge to help us overcome or get around the challenges.

Whatever you do this Christmas, I wish you peace and happiness and good health and prosperity in the New Year.