Trigger Happy

As we go through life storing experiences in the vast library of our mind, each of these memories is allocated a 'key word', a trigger which will recall each specific experience when the key word is replicated at a later date. There will be several of these triggers attached to each event, and the more significant the event, the more triggers it is likely to have.


Of course, we are human beings, not computers, so our triggers will relate to all our senses - a certain smell, a sound, a song, the physical feel of something, the way someone behaves towards you, a view, a picture. The more subtle senses have stronger recall. At The Drawingroom, people daily remark on how the smell of the burning chiminea sends them back to a pleasant memory.


One of the strongest smells which triggers memory recall for me is creosote - my Dad painting the fence when I was a child - and the hypnotic smell of jasmin reminds me of a happy time spent in Italy. However, I also feel a lurch in my stomach when I hear certain songs from my teenage years, memories of a broken heart, or a seriously embarrassing event!


Recall isn't always positive, and can severely affect our development and even choices we make. Certain situations can send us reeling into a negative emotional state and we find ourselves becoming that child again, or back to a time as an adult when we weren't feeling as strong as we do today. Our bodies respond immediately, creating all the chemicals which make up the poisonous potion often causing a feeling of nausea, rejection, confusion.


Someone in authority saying you can't do something might induce a feeling of frustration, anger, resistance, and at the time you don't know why, you just react accordingly. People who were bullied at school can have very strong reactions to being spoken to in certain ways, and cannot handle what is meant to be friendly mickey-taking. For recovering addicts, certain situations will induce a craving for their particular addiction. How does a recovering drug addict cope with the need for an injection - holiday vaccinations for example?


If our mind is a series of connections, these connections can be rewired. This doesn't require surgery! Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is one technique, NLP another, and hypnotherapy can help shift the pattern of deeper phobias and impulses.

So if you find yourself reacting negatively and self-destructively when certain situations arise, do something about it. You can change the pattern. You wouldn't avoid fixing or replacing the computer, but you can't go out and buy a new mind.

Relaxation for creativity and healing

It sounds like a paradox, doesn't it? That relaxation can induce creativity, which sounds like an activity, and healing, which gives a sense of resting and recuperating. But it certainly does do both. In our busy lives, filling each moment with the activity of a human doing rather than a human being, we often don't reward ourselves with time for stopping, relaxing, that it is a luxury for holidays, or for people who can afford it. Not so, relaxation is essential.

When we have moments of creativity, Eureka Moments, as discovered by Archemides, they are invariably when our minds are relaxed, maybe walking in the countryside, lying in the bath, or just about to drift off to sleep. I used to keep a pad and a voice recorder beside my bed for these moments, when my mind had dismissed the day's To Do List and was enjoying a flurry of creative thoughts.

I had a creative flurry whilst out walking my dog in the rain yesterday, coming up with a title for a Coaching Programme I'm currently developing, and an article I want to write, enjoying the play on words as I kicked through the autumn leaves, watching Taya bounding about between the trees.

There are two people in my life who inspire these moments of relaxation. Emma Lane, a very powerful healer whose strapline is "Relaxation is a vital ingredient to health and well being," and Patrick Lucocq, a clinical hypnotherapist, who runs a Eureka Moment workshop.

Emma now resides in Devon, lucky girl. She is by far the most powerful healer I've ever met and is also a lovley person to know. If you're interested in her work, visit her website at www.emma-lane.co.uk.

I went to one of Patrick's workshops at The Drawingroom this week and had a really wonderful night's sleep. He will be running 2 more workshops there this year on 3rd and 10th December. Patrick's website is www.calmhorizon.co.uk.

Enjoy your weekend, find time to relax, let your mind go, your body will be grateful and you might come up with the next big idea for Dragon's Den!

Mourning Has Broken

Today is my Dad's birthday. He died in February last year and I can't believe so much time has passed since the last time I saw him. If you've visited my website, http://www.springtolife.co.uk/, and have read some of my story, this may be confusing. This is my second Dad I refer to, my Godfather, whose family my brother and I went to live with after our parents died in a car accident when I was 10 years old.

When I realised it was his birthday today, I was surprised at how quickly I felt the emotion of losing and missing him. He was my Rock, a larger than life character who always made an impressive impact on the people he met. He always knew what was going on in the lives of his 5 children and their families and I miss the security of his protective presence, his great bear hugs, and even his grumpiness! (He was known as Growler to his grandchildren!) Tomorrow we will contribute the loudest rocket we can find to the firework display at his local pub, as he always did.

In the same year, we also lost both of my elderly grandmothers, so it was a tough year. Losing elderly grandparents, who have perhaps become tired of living and who have lived long lives, is a different grief to suddenly and unexpectedly losing someone younger. However, I am enormously grateful for all the Love I will always have in my heart from my Dad, and also that he didn't suffer a long illness, that he left as the larger than life character that everyone knew and loved him for.

Grief has been one of the biggest challenges in my life, as I explain in the two parts of my story on my website. Sometimes it can seem like a snake bite which just adds a little more poison to a wound. Knowing how deeply I have buried my grief in the past, and the physical impact this can have, I was hugely grateful to find a fabulous book earlier this year, called Mourning Has Broken, by Carmella B'Hahn.

Carmella's book is a series of stories of bereavement and adversity, and how each individual overcame the impact of their experiences. I was particularly struck by Carmella's own story, which helped me to face the devastation of my Dad's death with some positivity. Each story gave me something new to reflect upon and helped me to feel part of the World community, accepting that loss and grief are parts of the human experience.

If you'd like to order a copy of her book, and hear more about her work, visit Carmella's website at http://www.solacealchemy.com/