Success = Who you are minus your neuroses.

From Nick Williams (http://twitter.com/nickwilliams1)

What first impression do you make?

Attribution: dotbenjamin

Another motivator for patients to look after their gums:  US researchers have found that treating gum Patients who had treatments such as scaling and improved oral hygiene also saw their arthritis symptoms lessened.

Full story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8063512.stm

I find the best way to avoid proscrastinating (most of the time!) is to consider the long-term consequences of not doing something.  Keep putting off exercising?  What would happen if you didn’t exercise for six months?

Elsje Botes from Salisbury kindly gave us this translation of a poem by Goethe.  (Thanks Elsje — it’s on my wall as a reminder!)

Lose This Day Loitering

Lose this day loitering — ’twill be the same story
tomorrow — and the next more dilatory
Each indecision brings its own delays
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute –
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated
Begin it, and then the work will be completed!

(From Faust by Goethe, trans. John Anster)

This picture might be a nice addition to the practice if you see children. If you like it you can download a royalty free version here.  You’d probably want to go for the ‘large’ option if you want to print it out a decent size.

If you’ve not used iStockphoto or similar sites before, you buy credits in advance (iStockphoto is a smidge over £1 per credit) and then use them to buy the rights to use a photo.  The large size of this one is 12 credits, so about £14.

I have lived on the lip of insanity
Wanting to know reasons
Knocking on a door, it opens
I have been knocking from the inside!
Rumi

How often have you accidentally locked yourself inside your own problem. And how often has the solution lain within you too?

There are now a couple of new medications available, Strivor to combat Motivational Deficiency Disorder (MDD) and Despondex.

Who do you know who could benefit?

Strivor…

And Despondex…

Well not all the time, obviously!

But sometimes patients can tell you exactly how to succeed with them. A recent hypnotherapy client of mine in otherwise perfect health had seen a nutrionist ten years ago with a minor skin problem. The nutrionist warned her that the tiny patch of dry skin pointed to a something else and predicted she would soon begin to experience headaches, tension, and dizziness, which my very suggestible client then obediently did. Ten years later my client was feeling fine but felt unable to stop taking dozens of pills, supplements and drinks she knew to be unnecessary.

“All I need,” she said while explaining this to me “is for someone to tell me that my body can function perfectly well without all this fuss and that if I ever have a problems I can do something about it then.” Knowing how suggestible she was from her story about seeing the nutrionist, I abruptly switched the conversation to another topic for a couple of minutes then did as she asked. I put on my best authoritative voice, looked her in the eye and said “Your body can function perfectly well without all this fuss. And if you ever have a problem you can do something about it then.” She went still for a moment, went into a reorientation response, laughed and said. “Yes, it can, can’t it?” Of the ninety minutes we spent together, that intervention seemed to help the most. So next time a patient says asks you to confirm something that is true, just do what they ask and observe the result.

1. Note the request “I just need to know you’ll be really careful.”

2. Switch the topic of conversation (The effect will be much more powerful if your statement appears to be spontaneous.)

3. Put on your best reassuring and authoritative voice and repeat it back “I’ll be really careful.”

4. See what happens!

Just got back from a chilly and misty Durham and squeezing in a bit of sight-seeing in between workshops. The cathedral was wonderful with the evening service underway. Surely the best time to visit rather than during ‘tourist hours’. Also this slightly spooky statue on a precinct. St. Cuthbert’s body being carried back from Lindisfarne to Durham to save it from the invading Vikings.

Everyone we encountered seemed unusually positive and helpful.Maybe towns have cultural norms of attitudes and behaviours. And if whole towns can have them, so can your practice and team.