We talked about new year resolutions, all the things she must give up (smoking, peter-pan men) and all the things I must (chocolate, overdrafts) and then the conversation took an unexpected turn. I like where we ended up because it challenges beliefs and values and what ‘you should’ do as opposed to what ‘you can’ do. After all, the aim for all of us is a happier, more joyous life.

Me: I’m going to go heavily into mindfulness this year. Find the inner calm.

Cat: Really?

Me: yeah. I’ll feel at one. I won’t shout at my kids ever again. Or leave the oven on.  I’ll never again fight with the ex. I’m going to find a silent retreat for when he next has them for holidays. Two weeks’ silence for self-discovery and I’ll go somewhere that does detox. Like a liquid diet or something so I feel really good too. Actually, maybe fasting. I’ve never tried that.

(she re-fills my glass)

Cat: So no food and total silence.

Me: It’s like going over a pain threshold to come out feeling great. Like that army-bootcamp hell thing we did.  Will you do it with me?

Cat: No.

Me: Why not?

Cat: Coz it sounds crap.

Me: Challenging i think you mean.

Cat: I want friendship, laughter and lightness. All this close your eyes go deep within and hum; I want a group of strong, intelligent, independent women around me and to laugh until my ribs hurt.

Me: (after a long pause) Me too!

By the time we had left that spa, we had left behind my ‘zen’ ambitions along with several empty bottles. This year, we are not giving up anything, finding anything at all. Instead, we are going to live with the intention of two words:

Lightness and kindness.

I wonder what words you want to live this year by?

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By Brixton Hypnotherapy – Specialist Hypnotherapy for Stress and Anxiety in South London

Today I had a long-overdue meeting with a lawyer who specialises in wills. As someone who is unmarried with children, I’ve known for years that I need to make legal arrangements for the future. And yet, for over a decade, I did what many people do when confronted with uncomfortable truths — I avoided it.

You might think that, as a hypnotherapist helping clients with stress, anxiety, and overwhelm in South London, I’d know better. But like so many of us, I found myself deep in procrastination. And today, I finally faced it.

When Practical Conversations Trigger Emotional Reactions

The meeting itself was straightforward. The lawyer outlined his services and explained what would happen in different scenarios. But as he spoke — using terms like “just suppose,” “imagine if,” and “what would happen if…” — my mind listened, but my body had a very different response.

Fear. Panic. Anxiety.

Each sentence hit like a wave:

• “Without a will, your children might go into care before guardians are appointed.”
  → My jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.

• “Life insurance could be taxed, leaving you with less than expected.”
  → A lump formed in my throat, my chest tightened.

• “Bank accounts are frozen after a death — you may not access funds for months.”
  → My palms grew clammy, face flushed, and breathing quickened.

I was fully in a fight-or-flight response, even though I was just sitting in a room listening to a professional.

Overcoming fear using Hypnotherapy

Why Does This Matter? Because It Happens to All of Us.

We all have situations in life that spark stress, anxiety or fear. For many of my clients at Brixton Hypnotherapy, these responses show up in everyday moments — during work presentations, in social situations, in difficult conversations with family, or when facing big life decisions.

What matters isn’t avoiding these feelings, but knowing how to respond to them in a healthy and manageable way.

How Hypnotherapy Can Help You Manage Stress and Anxiety

In that moment, I drew on the tools I teach my own clients every day. I grounded myself:

• I uncrossed my legs

• Planted my feet firmly on the floor

• Rested my hands in my lap

• Breathed slowly and deeply

And most importantly: I named the feeling.

“I am scared.”
“I feel anxiety in my stomach.”
“This is fear.”

As I acknowledged it, my body began to calm. This technique — naming and noticing your emotional state — is a powerful tool I use often in my work at Brixton Hypnotherapy.

When you can observe your emotional state without judgment, you reduce its power over you.

Anxiety Isn’t the Enemy — But You Can Take Back Control

Our brains are wired to respond to threat — it’s a survival mechanism. But in modern life, those threats often come in the form of what-ifs, uncertainty, or future thinking.

This is where hypnotherapy becomes such an effective tool.

At Brixton Hypnotherapy, I help clients explore:

• What triggers your anxiety or fear?

• What physical sensations arise in your body?

• How can we calm the nervous system quickly and naturally?

• What mindset shifts will help you feel more confident and in control?

Whether you’re facing legal conversations, big life transitions, or everyday stress, hypnotherapy provides practical tools to manage and reduce anxiety — so you can respond calmly instead of reacting in panic.

Ready to Reduce Anxiety and Overwhelm?

If you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or stuck in negative thought loops, you’re not alone — and you don’t have to stay stuck.

At Brixton Hypnotherapy, based in South London, I specialise in helping people just like you manage:

• Chronic stress

• Generalised anxiety

• Overwhelm and burnout

• Confidence and self-esteem issues

Together, we’ll use evidence-based hypnotherapy techniques to get to the root of your fears, retrain your responses, and help you feel calmer, clearer, and more in control.

Book a Free Consultation

If you’re ready to stop letting fear and anxiety rule your life, I’m here to help.

Contact Brixton Hypnotherapy, let’s set up a free discovery call and take your first step toward emotional freedom.

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One of my favourite exercises, last year, was a ‘worry-buster’ which works for adults and children alike:

On paper, they write down all the things that worry them. We then cut and fold them, putting them in two boxes. One box is for the things we (or someone else) can do something about so the worry can go away, and the other box is for things we can’t do anything about. Most things go in the first box. The client then tells me what they can do to help or what they need others to do to help. I hold the worry and they tell me what will solve it. I write the solution on the back and put it back in the box.

Then we turn to the other box. Often, a few worries on reflection, will end up in the other box. But there are a few left; things like the weather always end up in that box. National and International policy around Covid is also out of our control, so in the second box that goes.

What follows, is a chat about outlook and attitude. The ‘thing’ might be out of our control but our attitude isn’t. I saw a lovely sketch yesterday; X saying to Y; 2022 can’t be as shite as 2021 and Y replying ‘I’m expecting flowers’ to which X grumpily says ‘how can you?’ and Y says ‘because i’m planting seeds’. It’s a modern take on ‘you reap what you sow.’

My point is this; however hopeless we feel in the face of current times, we can focus on what we sow; whether that’s a change in direction, a new commitment to give up a bad habit, a decision to flip our outlook, to get on top of anxiety, to take back control of issues like alcohol or sleep. This is exactly what people come to Brixton Hypnotherapy for me to help them with. Hypnotherapy is a talking therapy, just like others but using hypnosis to nudge your sub-conscious to achieve your goals and desires. Someone wrote to me this morning asking if I could ‘cure’ them – hypnotherapy doesn’t cure anyone, but I certainly see a lot of people change their life around!

You might be able to change it by yourself; simply by willpower but you might want a bit of help and that’s where Brixton Hypnotherapy comes in; a good therapist will hold you to account, to nudge and direct you and put boxes in front of your face to show you we have a lot more solutions in ourselves than we ever realised!

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Like everything else, ‘NORMAL’ is a perception. But the backdrop it falls onto are those experiences that have shaped our lives.

My ‘backdrop’ is an eccentric, chaotic, exciting childhood in which being ‘normal’ was (silently) not valued!

So what are five associative words that come up for you, if I say ‘of course a normal person would…’

I can bet that every single person will come up with completely different words.

In therapy, we listen for the ‘damning conclusions’ people come to about themselves and we point them out to clients; the big statements of ‘facts’ that are not facts at all but more likely fears. So we’d say ‘I notice that you are saying ALL people are like this – but can you really be certain it’s ALL?’

Invariably a client will pause to consider and realise that they can’t say ‘all’.

So why do we do allow limiting beliefs? We concoct them and embed them to feel in control and safer and pre-warned. That’s comforting apart from the fact we’ve forced ourselves into a boxing ring for a mental self punch-up.

Fretting about being different (not being normal) is one of these punch ups.

If you put a (useless/unhelpful) thought under cross-examination you will find how inaccurate it is, how full of suppositions and bias it is and how the ultimate ‘belief’ we’ve told ourselves is not only wrong, but useless and pointless.

“Yes, but I still feel this way…’ will be the come back to this.

And, absolutely, I don’t doubt how people feel. But I once you start to NOTICE your thought patterns, you can at least choose whether to keep shining inside them.

So, let’s take NORMAL to cross-examination:

Who is NORMAL? What is NORMAL? If you were NORMAL what would that look like smell like, taste like, act like, behave like? Sound like? Where is the evidence? How else you could view this? Who was the first person or event that made you think/feel this way?

Normal, like all perceptions, doesn’t truly exist. It’s almost a red-herring to the real, powerful changes we can make; who we want to be (not who others want us to be) what we want to change and what we are actually secretly quite okay with (even if our loved ones tell us otherwise!)

There is no wrong or right with perceptions; there’s simply understanding that helpful, affirmative ones propel us forward, and negative, damaging ones hold us back.

Every day, we get to choose the thoughts we obsess and feed, and the ones we give less attention to, so like unwatered plants, will eventually wither and die.

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Overwhelm; the feeling is horrible. A mounting feeling in which anywhere you turn your head you simply can’t do it. Weary, exhausted with zero mojo. In fact whatever Mojo is, it has more energy simply in those four letters than you have in your entire, depleted system.

Out goes the exercise, in comes the eating any of junk you can get hour hands on….the next thing you know, you feel more tired, your body feels more shit and you can’t cope with anything…bang; hit around the head with the frying-pan labelled ‘OVERWHELM’

So here goes:

1/ Get post-it notes and write down all the ‘can’t’ thoughts on separate post-it notes – what it is on one side, why you can’t do it on the other

2/ Get a board or piece of paper and put two columns A: Things I can control B: Things I can’t control.

3/ Stick your post-its in each column

4/ There should only be ‘weather’ in ‘things you can’t control. If you really believe there’s other stuff in that column, think creatively about ways to get it in the other one

5/ For each post-it in the ‘can control’ column write how you can and when you’ll do it on another post-it and stick it on top. You might need a further post-it for ‘resources I need and how/when I’ll get them’

6/ For any post-its that simply HAVE to be in the ‘can’t control’ column, get a box and put them in it. That’s your worry box. Go bury it some place and take it out if it you need to have a look at them again or realise they can go in the ‘can control’ column. When you bury it, you can have a little moment of anger or grief that you can’t control it – that’s okay, what you can’t control sucks….and that IS OKAY.

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By Brixton Hypnotherapy – South London Hypnotherapy & IFS-Informed Therapy

At Brixton Hypnotherapy, based in the heart of South London, I work with women who are tired of feeling stuck, anxious, overwhelmed, or disconnected from who they truly are. And while every client’s experience is different, many share a deeper story: one of slowly being shaped by the expectations, assumptions, and power dynamics around them — often rooted in early life or long-term relationships.

Through a blend of clinical hypnotherapy and Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed work, I help clients explore, understand, and gently transform the internal patterns that cause emotional pain, low self-worth, or self-sabotage. This work is powerful, effective — and often life-changing.

The Invisible Weight Many Women Carry

Whether it’s the controlling presence of a partner, a parent who constantly criticised, or the ongoing emotional labour of navigating male-dominated spaces, many women arrive at therapy feeling emotionally silenced, over-responsible, and deeply unsure of themselves.

This isn’t always the result of one traumatic event — but rather the accumulation of small, persistent experiences:

• Shrinking yourself to avoid conflict

• Being the “peacemaker” in the family

• Dismissing your own needs or emotions

• Feeling responsible for others’ reactions

• Being touched, spoken to, or treated in ways that erode your sense of safety or self-worth

This is what I call “death by a thousand cuts” — and it shows up as stress, anxiety, panic attacks, low confidence, people-pleasing, and emotional burnout.

How IFS-Informed Hypnotherapy Helps

IFS (Internal Family Systems) is a trauma-informed therapeutic model that recognises we are made up of many “parts” — some protective, some reactive, and some deeply wounded. These parts often come into conflict:

The part of you that wants to speak up — and the part that’s terrified of rejection.
The part that pushes through burnout — and the part that just wants to rest.
The part that blames you — and the part that still carries the pain.

In IFS-informed hypnotherapy, we use trance and guided inner work to bypass the critical mind and speak directly to your internal system — with compassion, curiosity and clarity.

You don’t need to relive trauma or tell your story in detail. Instead, we:

Build a safe internal space where all parts can be heard
Identify and unburden protective parts that are stuck in old roles
Reconnect with your “Self” — the calm, wise, grounded centre within you
Restore internal trust, boundaries, and emotional balance

This process is gentle but powerful, and often faster than traditional talking therapy.

Why I Work This Way at Brixton Hypnotherapy

As a hypnotherapist in South London, I’ve chosen to go beyond basic training. My approach is trauma-informed, supervision-supported, and continually evolving — shaped by the work of leaders like Richard Schwartz (IFS) and Gabor Maté.

I believe women don’t just need tools — they need recognition.

• Recognition of the ways society has asked them to stay small

• Recognition of the internalised patterns keeping them stuck

• Recognition that healing isn’t about being fixed — it’s about becoming whole again

At Brixton Hypnotherapy, you’re not just a list of symptoms. You’re someone with inner strength, clarity, and self-trust waiting to be uncovered.

I am a highly qualified, experienced analytical Hypnotherapist

Common Issues I Help With

IFS-informed hypnotherapy is particularly effective for:

• Chronic anxiety and emotional overwhelm

• Low self-esteem or persistent self-doubt

• People-pleasing, over-responsibility and emotional exhaustion

• Stress and burnout from work, caregiving or relationships

• Past relationship trauma or unresolved family dynamics

• Boundary issues and fear of conflict

• Inner critic work — understanding and transforming negative self-talk

You don’t have to know what’s “wrong” to begin. Many clients come to me simply knowing they don’t feel like themselves anymore — and they want that to change.

Why South London Women Choose Brixton Hypnotherapy

Located in Brixton and easily accessible from Clapham, Herne Hill, Dulwich, Stockwell and surrounding areas, Brixton Hypnotherapy offers a safe, compassionate space for women to reconnect with themselves.

Clients choose my practice because:

Sessions are confidential, flexible, and deeply personalised
I blend IFS, hypnotherapy, and mind-body techniques to work holistically
There’s no pressure to re-live trauma — just space to heal and grow
The approach is grounded, honest and (as many clients say) refreshingly real

A Quick Exercise to Try Today

Think about the key people in your life — family, friends, partners, colleagues.
Ask yourself: “How much do they lift me up — emotionally and practically?”

Rate each person from 1 to 10.

• 1 = not at all supportive

• 10 = consistently supportive

If someone is scoring a 2 or 3, it may be time for a boundary, a conversation, or a shift in how much of yourself you give to that relationship.
Your energy is sacred — and you deserve to protect it.

Ready to Work with Your Inner System?

If you’re feeling anxious, lost, or unsure how to move forward — IFS-informed hypnotherapy at Brixton Hypnotherapy could help you come back to yourself, rebuild confidence, and finally feel safe in your own mind and body.

You don’t have to do this alone.

Book Your Free Consultation

Brixton Hypnotherapy – IFS-Informed Hypnotherapy in South London
Trauma-aware, confidence-building, anxiety-soothing therapy that works from the inside out.

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If you have young children you may recognise the feeling; the ‘old’ you has gone and the ‘new’ you is a stranger.

Hypnotherapy helps in unique ways with this; hypnotic regression often shows up unhelpful beliefs, parts therapy works to reconcile ‘parts’ of you that are stuck in former identities, and future pacing (imagining the future) can help re-shape a new, more powerful and capable ‘you’. In led hypnosis you get to notice and then re-fashion models you’ve adopted by accident for e.g. your mother’s moods dominated your house and now you find you are (and don’t want to!) be doing the same.

Talking to clients while they are in a hypnotic state brings up all sorts of surprises from the Sub-Conscious. Clients will often recall an event that led to an unwanted behavior, but when in trance, the sub-conscious will bring up an earlier, forgotten memory that is actually the root cause. The benefit of this is once the subconscious has been persuaded, if there is a benefit to letting go, it will do so.

For mothers (parents) feeling stripped of all identity, hypnotherapy will investigate whether behavior is useful and thoughts are helpful and also what makes her feel nourished and fulfilled (so we can make sure she is getting at least a tiny bit of it). While building identity (bottom up), hypnotherapy can also teach coping strategies for e.g. a wonderful Tapping Technique that works by self-tapping meridians which bring down feelings of anxiety, anger and stress in seconds.

Parenting is emotionally complicated; it triggers childhood issues, it pushes us to our limits and we get ‘lost’ in a new version of the person we knew.

So here are some tips if you feel overwhelmed, or ‘lost’ in parenting:

• Eat nutritious food. Make sure you cook yourself things you like and don’t survive on leftovers you cooked the kids.
• Get out in nature every day; don’t be on the phone and don’t think about anything but the sights, smells and sounds around you.
• Don’t cut off from friends/family. However much you crave silence (or sleep) when they’re in bed, try to keep up with friends especially ones without kids who tell you about ‘the other side’.
• Check your partner (if there’s one) is doing house chores and if they’re not, give him/her a list they have to tick off each week.
• Keep a gratitude diary. It may be by your bed but every day try to write a few things you are grateful for. Get everyone to keep one too.
• Keep things around that pep you up; a favourite music track, some affirmations, a quote by the sink, a picture that makes you smile in front of the loo…
• Don’t over-fill your diary. Don’t be any busier than you have to be. It will just be another drain and exhaust you. Instead, diary in ‘quiet/meditative time’.
• When you make a new parent friend, ask yourself if you’d hang out with her if she did NOT have a baby. If the answer is no, don’t hang out any more because the chances are he/she is either worrying or boring you with baby talk.
• 7/11 breathing; seven in, nice, calm, easy, and 11 out, slowly, steadily. Lock yourself in the bathroom when it’s getting too much and do this for a bit.
• Walk away; instead of reacting, remove yourself and reflect. The kids will hate this but it is far better than blowing up in front of them. REFLECT don’t REACT.
• Prioritise; don’t get in the habit of doing bits of housework all day, it’s boring. Make sure you’re doing things you want to do and not getting sucked up with stuff ‘that needs doing’.
• Make sure you get quality time with the kids and don’t mistake being ‘around’ for being with them. Get down on the floor and let them lead the play.
• Lean on people. Ask favours and demand support. If you never get babysitting make sure it’s not because you’ve never called on a favour or asked nicely.
• Sleep hygiene; make sure you have a nightly routine. Switch off devices, maybe do some stretches, play a meditation track or do some yoga/meditation. The details don’t really matter, but it’s a nightly routine in which you get to wind down and secures you proper sleep. If you’re not getting 7 hours, go to be earlier.
• Do one thing a week that nourishes you; it might be a lie-in, breakfast in bed, a long bath, a hobby or activity, a massage, a gallery. Whatever it is, it is just for you.

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The first thing to say about this is what is ‘enough’ – have you worked out what enough for you is? For example my younger brother operates fine on about six hours a night. My partner can do the same and then every few weeks, he will sleep a good 12 hours. When my eczema is really bad, I need to sleep at least 10 hours a night. My point is we are all different and the first thing to establish is how much you – not anyone else – need.

After that, it is about analysing what you tell yourself about sleep? Do you have a guilty narrative about it? That too much sleep is self-indulgent or makes you lazy? What is the story you tell yourself and should you change the story? Then, what do you gain by NOT sleeping? Do you get a satisfaction out of it? My mother listens to the World Service and feels she gains hours the rest of us (mere mortals!) waste with sleep! So what do you gain? And is it worth it? What would you gain instead if you slept more?

So after all this reflection and re-organising your thoughts you need to turn to your sleep routine. The key here is that the routine – whether it’s just 10 minutes long each night or an hour, it must be identical every night. You have your hygiene routine, then the way you set up your bedroom, turning off all screens/devices (and I think this is crucial), perhaps some yoga/stretching to ease any tightness and then some audio that you find calm and meditative to help you calm down and switch off. Everyone is unique, so every routine should be unique but once you have one, stick to it religiously each and every night.

And if you do these things, I promise you a better night’s sleep!

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I have a lot of compassion for these women because I too know how your confidence ebbs out of you with each breastfeed or T-shirt worn all day, inside out. And if that’s not bad enough, one day it dawns on you, you’ve morphed into someone else.

And the reason it’s hard to admit the ‘tragedy’ of this, is that with it, comes guilt. We DO love our children but why do they suck us dry as a husk? And since one in five of us are not having children, we all know a best friend shooting up a career ladder that we had to step off or at least move to the side.

We become moaning partners, impatient mothers and we start to not recognise ourselves in the mirror. As our childless career friends update their Instagram, we’re sponging marmite stains off carpets.

So the way I’m approaching this as a therapist, is working on self-esteem, confidence and ego-strengthening. Using a little coaching/NLP stuff to set goals but also hypnosis to strengthen ego. There’s a great maxim in NLP ‘if someone can do something, anyone can do it’ which I think is a great reminder when you’re beating yourself up that you’re just not good enough. Alongside this, I use CBT tools to flag up irrational beliefs and negative thought patterns, and then change them.

And of course, we all know that little Lula or Oscar or whoever we have given ‘it all up’ for, will grow up and in no time at all, have their own life going; and god help if we haven’t got our shit together by then and got the same!

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