Let’s start at the beginning

A very good place to start! My journey from frazzled, emotionally-detached working Mum of four to calm, happy Student Practitioner of Clinical Hypnotherapy, all within the time-frame of a year.

Christmas 2019 was a stark contrast to Christmas 2018 in the Murray house, but mainly in me, in how I was able to enjoy what once was my favourite time of year. Christmas 2018 found me stressed, zoned out almost, now that I come to think about it. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, I was suffering the effects of chronic anxiety. At the time, I thought I was just busy. The chaos in my head had become my new normal, gradually, intrusively. To people on the outside, it looked like I had a perfect life, juggling with ease a loving husband and four kids with a busy full-time job, company car, yearly holidays and stable family home. But in the end it didn’t matter how it looked to people on the outside. In the end I hit a brick wall and came to the sudden realisation that it was my reality that counted. I had spent the previous 2 years running constantly to the GP for severe migraines, vertigo, facial numbness, stomach pains, breast lumps, mole changes, vision disturbances…the list goes on – I was having physical symptoms related to stress and anxiety, real physical symptoms but I was also hyper-vigilant about my health. Following blood tests, several MRIs and evaluation from a Neurologist, I was able to bypass the worry that something serious might be wrong – everything had been investigated and assessed and there was no known cause. This forced me to consider the possibility that there could be a connection between what was going on in my head and what was presenting as physical warning signs in my body. But something very minor ended up being my breaking point..no, actually my turning point is a better way to describe it.

One morning I had an important meeting lined up for work. I had to travel around 90 minutes for the meeting and it was a meeting I was dreading, I had imagined all sorts of outcomes for this meeting and I woke up that morning already feeling sick, with a sluggish body and a racing mind. My Husband went to the gym and I’d asked him to get bread on the way home so that I could make the kids school lunches before I left for work. 10 minutes before I had to leave, Hubby landed back and had forgotten to get bread. Now I’m not a person given to outbursts, so my reaction was mainly internal -but my reaction to this small slip was of avalanche proportion – I found it difficult to keep myself under control as I drove to the shop and back, made the lunches and set off for the meeting.

My Husband would later tell me he was so concerned about how this one small thing affected me but of course, it was just the straw that broke the camels back. It was this day that I decided I was handing in my notice at work. I didn’t do my usual planning ahead and assessment of the risks associated with this particular action, I just did it because I felt it was the next right thing to do. It was a leap of faith. I spent the weeks after I’d finished work enjoying my kids and enjoying the things we did as a family. I felt I could properly listen when my kids talked, I could take time to just cuddle with them on the sofa, read as many bedtime stories as my youngest wanted. I started to feel a weight being lifted – I was still busy but now I was busy doing the things that made me feel good. I spent thirty minutes or so each day looking up courses online that I might study from home to find a way of working that meant I could concentrate on my most important role as a Mum while making a difference in whatever employed role I could take up. I looked at holistic health services, counselling courses, that type of thing and literally trawled the internet.

One morning last August my Husband was sitting at the breakfast table tapping on his laptop and asked how the search was going. I explained that I had been through every site I could think of and just couldn’t find anything that hit all the right notes. He brought up google search and typed in alternative therapy courses. A few second later he said “What about Hypnotherapy” and immediately I replied “that’s it”, I don’t know why or how I knew that it was ‘it’, lol I still laugh because this is not how I make decisions but on the first course weekend in September I felt like I had been given a gift – the perfect present you could ever be given and that is a career with a purpose, a role that felt like it was a perfect fit for me. The course has literally changed my life and by association is changing the lives of those around me, as I’ve begun to understand more about human nature and take back control of those things I now realise I can have control over. The result is a calm, content, happy me – enjoying all the best things in this beautiful life and confident enough to tell others all about it. Step 2, start a Blog!