#952 My counsellors Let me bore you to sleep (Jason Newland) (12th January 2023)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland. com My name's Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep with a little Jack Russell in the background Flapping his ears like a Dumbo the elephant but without the spectacular results Almost unbelievable results, almost So yeah, hey, how are you doing? Are you okay? Did I say only listen when you can safely close your eyes? If I didn't, well I have now. Just looking at my iPad, seeing if there's any What things are there? New subscriber, new subscriber.

Just looking at YouTube, YouTube Here's a lovely message from Kevin Haney on YouTube commenting on the Letting Go Stress video that I posted Working on college letters of recommendation with this in the background And your voice is melting away this stress.

Thank you. Well, thank you very much Let's let go stress, relax and sleep hypnosis daily one. Okay, good.

That's nice. Let's have a look at the stats. No, not the stats.

Come on, it's very slow. Oh, 833 subscribers. It's growing very slowly, but it's growing every day in every way.

It's getting better and better. Let me have a look. You know, it's a little, it's weird because I don't sound like that, but it's almost like I'm slurping with a big mouth of water, but I'm not.

It's just the, the microphone is a little bit. Not sure. Not sure.

Oh, so I've had one subscriber since yesterday. Hmm. Let me tell you about a naughty little doggy.

Shall we? Shall we have a little conversation about a naughty, naughty little doggy? Well, once upon a time there was a little Jack Russell and he had a daddy. He'd only had the daddy for about four and a half weeks and was two days, two days time, maybe five weeks. And he took him out for a walk in the field because he thought it'd be a lovely thing to do.

Even though it was very muddy and slippery and it'd been raining and you know, it was not really conducive to the most easy of walking for a human. And even though his daddy had, you know, three and a half weeks earlier, fractured his back, fallen down some stairs. So, you know, the idea of having another four was a little bit concerning, a little bit.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Didn't really want to have another one. Not really. You know, let it heal first.

Let it heal. Let it heal. Please let my back heal.

Let it heal. I don't like pain anyway. So they went out.

Everything was fine. Everything was really good. It was just a nice day.

They were out for about an hour, maybe 45 minutes, 55 minutes, something like that. It was very windy, very windy. Not that cold, coldish, but more because of the wind than if anything else.

Not needing gloves. Even his daddy didn't need gloves. And then on the way back, you know, it started to rain.

So I think they both decided, at least his daddy thought that they both decided that perhaps we should walk back home because it's raining now and we don't really want to get soaking wet, do we? No, we don't. We don't, do we? No, we don't. No, we don't.

So his daddy started to walk back towards the house, you know, through the field still, still a little, the length of the field left to go. And the little doggy, for some unknown reason, decided to start being naughty. He started biting his lead.

He started sitting down, refusing to move. At one point, he even started to bite his daddy's, the bottom of his daddy's trousers. And his teeth went through the trousers, through his daddy's socks and also nipped his ankle.

Now, I'm sure the little doggy didn't mean to hurt his daddy, but nevertheless, it was a little bit of a sharp nip and it wasn't something that he was enjoying. So he said, come on, little doggy, we've got to go. It's going to rain and we need to go home.

Come on, come on. Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? And the little doggy said, no, no, no. And he started shouting out no.

It sounded like a bark, but it was no, no, no. Defiant, defiant. Well, eventually he managed to get him home and he had to actually pick up the doggy.

The doggy refused to move. He was literally being dragged along the ground. He wouldn't walk.

So his daddy picked him up. He let his daddy pick him up, so he had no problem with that. And he got carried all the way home.

And then when he got home, for some reason, he decided to run around like some kind of crazed caged tiger or something like up and down, up and down, up and running around like he was practicing some kind of sprinting contest, like an Olympic trial between the bedroom, the living room, the bedroom, the living room, running around, around, around, around, around. And then biting his daddy's trousers and then running away again. And then started to scratch at the carpet, almost like he was digging for gold.

So his daddy thought, I don't know what to do. What should I do? He's got all this energy. We've been out for an hour and he's got all this energy.

I hope he's okay. So his daddy thought, I know what I'll do. I'll take him downstairs to see his friend, the other doggie, and they can both go out in the garden and run around together and have lots of fun.

Oh, what fun. Well, anyway, that's what he did. He took them downstairs and the other doggie was really excited to see him and they're excited to see each other.

And the little doggie didn't even want to go out. His friend was outside running around. He didn't even want to go outside.

Eventually he was coaxed out and he did go outside and he ran around for about 30 seconds and that was it. Wanted to come back in again. Wanted to come back in again.

What? Oh, I couldn't. His daddy couldn't believe it. I mean, he said, I couldn't believe it.

It's a story, isn't it? So they went into the other doggie's flat and they went into his home and his daddy sat down and spoke to the other doggie's daddy for a while. And they talked about it. The other daddy said, he's limping a little bit.

I think he might have, maybe he got something in his foot. So I said, well, have a look. So the little doggie's daddy picked him up and had a look at his foot and just like just touched it and he bit him.

On the end of his finger. Didn't draw blood. It wasn't, you know, but it was a definite snap.

Like that, like that kind of, not a great impression. So he said to the other daddy, maybe you can have a look because he's just bitten me. And if he ever does that and he draws blood, that's it.

He's out of here forever. I will not put up with that. The other doggie's daddy was laughing.

So I took him over and I said, I'll hold him while you have a look at him. And I put my hand, he puts his hand to try and hold his mouth. And he was struggling.

He tried to bite both his daddy and the other man, the other daddy's daddy, doggie's daddy. Well, the other daddy grabbed him by his neck and just held him the way he's supposed to hold them. I didn't realize, held him by the neck.

And the little doggie just stayed still and let him look at his paws and let him do whatever he wanted to do. And he said, there might be some fluff or there's something in there, but he couldn't really see. And I, and the doggie's daddy, the little doggie's daddy was like astounded.

And the other doggie's daddy said, well, yeah, that's because that's how they, the parents, that's how the mother picks up the puppy. Same with kittens as well. Same with ferrets.

And he said, well, you had a ferret, you used to pick him up by his neck because you knew that was the way that he'd behave. He'd stopped being naughty and didn't hurt him, but it let him know who was in charge. And they automatically go passive because there's a comfort in that.

And that's how they've been raised to behave naturally. And the little doggie's daddy was like, wow. So all I've got to do is just hold him by the neck, by the back of the neck, that is, you know, doesn't hurt him because it's all loose skin anyway.

But he actually, he actually responds to that in a positive way and behaves himself. He said, yes. And the little doggie's daddy said, wow.

And then they got talking about other things. And the other doggie's daddy said to the little doggie's daddy, because the other doggie's a lot bigger, big, big, big dog. So the big doggie's daddy spoke to the little doggie's daddy and said, you're a bit accident prone, aren't you? And the little doggie's daddy said, well, why would you say that? And the big doggie's daddy just laughed and said, basic evidence.

The evidence is there. And then listed off about 15 different accidents that he's had just in the last year. So what do you mean? He said, well, first of all, when you went on holiday, you fell down some steps at the airport before you'd even left the country.

When you got to your destination, you fell down, you tripped over some steps. Then you had a massage and you had your rib fractured. And then you damaged yourself again after that.

Then you come back and you broke your toe. And then a few months later, you broke two more toes. And then you fell over a couple more times.

And then just before Christmas, you fell over on the Monday in the field down a hill. But didn't hurt yourself, did you? Because it was all snowy and it was just, you were fine. But you fell down there.

And next day you fell down the stairs and fractured your spine. And the little doggie's dad said, yeah, but where's the evidence that I'm accident prone from that? And then everyone went off and enjoyed the rest of their lives. Sorry about that.

That was a bit of a waste of time, wasn't it? But hey, it used up 16 minutes. So that's the main thing, eh? 16 minutes less of amazing content I have to come up with. You know, it's really weird.

Before I started telling that pointless, pointless, pointless story. I won't say his name in case he kind of comes over. But the little one was sitting beside me.

I mean, literally, he was asleep on the bed before I got out of my chair and turned all this equipment on to start making a podcast. And straight away, he was going to start hassling me like he normally does. By the time I'd finished with that boring, pointless story, he's on the floor, flat out asleep.

My boring voice can send a dog to sleep. Not just a dog, a hyperactive dog, a hyperactive puppy. Wow.

Yeah, I did it the other day. I wasn't doing a podcast actually, I was just working on my web, I don't know what I was doing, doing some kind of video processing or something on my laptop. And he was barking and like, he wanted my attention.

So I started talking to him in my hypnosis-y voice, you know, a little bit slower than normal, like, come on, just relax and calm yourself. There's nothing to worry about. Just relax, you know, and I was doing that and I was just basically on automatic just saying this stuff while I was editing the video.

And he went back to bed and he just fell asleep. Wow. So yeah, maybe some of this stuff does actually work.

I thought I was just making up as I went along and wasting everybody's time, but maybe for the last 17 years, maybe there is something in it. Oh no, I thought I was a charlatan. Damn it.

Damn. So I didn't make, I didn't make a recording yesterday. I'll tell you why.

I'll tell you why. I was in a good mood yesterday. No, I wasn't.

The day before. I was in an okay mood yesterday, actually, generally. I don't, I don't keep a mood diary.

Maybe I should, I don't know, but, you know, I don't want to get all personal here, but I do share stuff with you all. You know, it's not all just silliness the whole time. I do share some of the personal stuff.

I mean, I think in some ways I probably share more of myself in this podcast than I do with any human being that I know. Like overall, if you know what I mean, it's, I mean, part of the reason that is that it's hard to find a human being that will sit in a room with me and let me just reel off, uh, you know, thought after thought after thought. It just wouldn't be fair to expect anyone to do that to unless they wanted to, you know what I mean? It, I mean, I did, did I ever tell you about my first counseling session? It wasn't actually my first counseling session, but it was my first counselor.

And this was back in 1997. And she was a student. She was in the East London psychology section or whatever she, but she was on a counseling course in the East London university in Stratford.

Yeah. In Stratford or was it West Ham? Or was it Forest Gate? Anyway, I was sitting like East London anyway. And cause I think the universities kind of went through, uh, it was more than just one building.

If you know what I mean, it was, I think, anyway, I saw this, this, uh, she was quite, she was quite a bit younger than me. I think she was only not a lot to be fair. I was quite young myself, wasn't I? At the time I was 27, maybe turned 28 at that time.

Only just. So I was, I was fairly young, I guess. She was younger than me.

I'd say she couldn't have been more than 23, 24, 22 even. Not that that really makes any difference to the story. So I had, I think I had six sessions booked with her and my doctor had referred me to her and it was a free service.

So the GP surgery or the NHS didn't pay anything. It was just a free, a free service available because it was a student counsellor. The same as when I was a counsellor at the college, uh, they offered a free counselling service to the public.

And that's where I got my hundred and, was it 129 hours done? I had to do a hundred hours, but I got about 129. So all of my clients came from the college. They didn't come from the, they came from the college, but it wasn't limited to people connected to the college.

So anybody pretty much could just ask and apply for free counselling. But it was also available to students, to teachers, because I did see, I saw at least one teacher there. So it was mainly the pub, general public.

So that's what, that's the kind of service that I went to my first counselling. And the reason I won't go into the exact reason why I went, well, I can, I can actually, um, I've been prescribed antidepressants. So it gives you an idea why I was going to counselling.

And there'd been something happen, like a really major family incident. So I was, yeah, so I needed some kind of emotional support. I'd never had counselling before, never had it offered to me before.

Even though I started on antidepressants for the first time in 1995. After, yeah, after about 10 months of being ill and having loads of tests in the hospital and everything. And they told me there was stress, that I didn't have anything physically wrong with me at all.

And they said, it must be stress. Take these medication. And that was it.

But they didn't offer me any emotional support. I didn't even, I didn't even know what that was. I'll be honest, I didn't know.

I didn't know anything about counselling. Really, I didn't, you know, I didn't, I knew what it was. I'm pretty sure I would have known what it was just from having watched films and, you know, movies, TV shows.

What's that one with Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro? Because he was a counsellor, wasn't he? And Robert De Niro was a mob boss or something. So yeah, I did kind of know roughly what that was. And there was also What About Bob? Which was, to be fair, probably psychiatrists or psychotherapists or whatever.

So I did kind of know, but I didn't, I didn't expect to be referred for it. And back then, you know, East London Hospital and the NHS service there was probably the busiest NHS in the country. Because of the amount of people that lived in East London, huge amounts of people.

So at the moment, people, you know, the waiting lists in hospital to, you know, in emergency ward was always a huge waiting list in East London, even back in the early 90s. I remember I broke my hand and I think I had to wait about eight hours to be seen. That was just normal.

I mean, it's probably about 10 days now. But you know, back then, that was normal. Eight hours was a heck of a long time.

But then when I did my back recently, it was 13 hours. But that's just how things are at the moment. So but um, you know, when I moved away from London, suddenly I was getting seen people moaning because they've been waiting for three hours.

And I was thinking, three hours, that's nothing. Go and live in East London. You know, you're lucky if you've been seen in the same day.

And three hours, I will happily wait three hours. And it's, you know, it's amazing. But anyway, it's not really the point of what I was trying to say.

Is there a point? I don't know. That's all I'm hearing through these headphones. I'm not doing that.

See, I'm all I'm doing. This is me just I'm just sitting here with my mouth slightly open. Okay, and this is what you hear.

Sorry, I don't know why. That's not true. So, okay, so I see this, this female counsellor.

And I didn't I wanted to talk about my, yeah, how I was feeling about what was going on. I wasn't, I wasn't. Okay, it probably sounds ungrateful, but I wasn't impressed with being sent to a student.

And I suppose my reasoning, which is ironic, because I ended up being a student, and people being sent to me for pretty much way more serious stuff than I was going to counselling for. So but I didn't realise the benefit of counselling. I didn't realise the, the work that goes into being a counsellor.

To, you know, it's not just the study, but the the mindset of the counsellor. You know, counsellors are good people. I'm not saying I'm a good person.

I'm just saying generally, in my experience, counsellors, something that they can do is something I realised I could do two things. Two things that I realised that, no three things. You're probably wondering if I'm actually going to finish this story about the counsellor and what happened.

I can't guarantee that I will finish the story. For some reason, I keep getting distracted by another thought. Now, I think this is the first time it's ever happened.

Normally, I'm very focused, as you probably know. Yeah. Dum ba dum bum bum bum bum.

Oh, yeah. So one of the things that I noticed once I started counselling was my memory. Now, it's a different kind of memory skill.

But it isn't a skill, even so much. It didn't feel like a skill. It felt like it was just a natural process that was happening.

Something that I tapped into that I didn't know I was able to do. And that is, let's say I was seeing, I don't know, 16 people a week, which I was at one point. I couldn't remember everybody.

Just off the top my head. Well, as per usual, I got someone knocking on the door. I edited it out because it also involved a little someone barking very loud and a very high pitched voice.

I'm pretty sure people in other countries heard him. Squirrels in South Africa looking around, what the hell was that? Well, what the hell was that? That was my, that's not a good accent, is it? Ah, dear. So by that, I don't know, that sounds not my mouth.

That's him lip drinking. You hear that? How can something so small make such noise when he drinks? Wow. You know, he didn't drink, he didn't eat, he didn't, he didn't touch nothing when he first moved here.

He was almost on strike. He'd eat treats, he'd eat bones, but he wouldn't eat his food. Now he does everything.

It's strange. He gets through quite a lot of water in a day. Mind you, imagine just drinking water, nothing else.

It can't be weird, isn't it? Can you imagine just, I mean, I have lived like that where all I did was drink water, maybe a cup of tea in the morning and that was about it. And the rest of the time was water. Not so much these days.

Oh, he's starting to squeak, starting to squeak. Oh no. I'll tell you what, if I give him a treat, that might shut him up.

I don't know. If I just ignore him, maybe he'll stop. I've got my back to him.

I'll change the, the desk area. So I've moved the desk over to the other side of the room and all my, not all of it, but a lot of the recording equipment is all, is here. So I've got this microphone.

I've also got the ears microphone, which isn't connected at the moment. And I've got the recording equipment and recording stuff. And also, but the other, some other stuff over there that I've not moved yet.

I've ignored him and he's just keeping quiet. He's now licking the bottom of the desk for some reason. Strange, strange.

So yeah, my, my neighbor wanted to talk to me. So that's done. Let me just turn this down.

Okay. I, one of the, one of the channels was up high for some reason. I'm not sure why.

Oh yeah, that's weird. I can remember my memory. I remembered about my memory.

So I might have like eight new people, 10 new people in a week, you know, just the way it worked out. It'd normally be, I think, depending. So I worked for three different agencies at one point at one time and also private practice.

So I also offered the free hypnosis service for chronic pain as well. And I was also doing the online stuff, you know, at the same time. So I was fairly busy, but I wasn't earning much money, to be fair.

So I'd have, you know, so I'd have, I'd go in and maybe I'd have three hours, one after another, three, three clients who I'd seen maybe twice before, once before, whatever, maybe three times. And I wouldn't think of the person, I wouldn't give any thought. That's not true.

Sometimes I would, but generally, I'd think about when I got there, I would. So I didn't want to think about the third client before I'd sort of seen the first client, you know, I wanted to give each client their, the time, the energy, the respect, the concentration that was required. You hear him? I'm trying to look away as if I can't hear him at all.

He just doesn't like it. He doesn't like it when I talk, but I don't look at him when I'm talking. There's almost, or if I look at him, he'll, I think he needs a toilet.

Is this going to break up the recording again? It annoys me. It doesn't, I know it's not a big deal, but I just want to be able to just, Okay, I'm going to take him out and do a wee. No barking, no barking.

I will be back. Wow, that was high pitched. Wow.

Blimey, this chair is noisy. It's very noisy. Weird.

I don't know where that came from. So I just took, I just took him out for a walk. So this is a podcast in three parts, I think.

Is that three parts? Yeah, one, and then the front door went, and then the second part, and then him wanting to go out, and now a third part. Hopefully, I'm hoping, please, I'm hoping that this will be the final part. So, without any interruptions, I hope.

Now, there's always a chance of a phone call. I haven't had any. That's good.

It's always nice to know. Yeah, okay, good. So 10 and a half downloads so far today.

10 and a half, 10 and a half thousand, sorry, 10 and a half. Okay, five downloads today. It's not bad.

It's growing. That's why, you know, when I sell the stats and I've got, let's have a look, what did I have? 833 subscribers. So the reason I say that is because, you know, if you're listening in 10 years time, you can see the progression on my YouTube channel.

And, you know, imagine I'll be saying to you, I've now got 942 subscribers. And you'd be able to think, wow, he's got 942. It was only 10 years ago that he had 833.

See, you can be impressed by the amount of success that I've had. So yeah, we can, we can enjoy this journey together. Oh, yeah.

Could he make any more noise? Eating a bone. Is it possible to have a vegan dog? I don't mean eat, eat, being a dog, you know, eating a dog, being a vegan and eating, no, I mean, a vegan that only eat, a dog that only eats vegan food. Is it possible? Can a dog can a dog be vegan? I got this iPad.

And there's a keyboard, I think it's a magic keyboard or whatever. The thing is, the letters are not very bright. And they're white.

So it's white letters on a white keyboard. Very silly idea. Very, very silly.

Okay, dogs are omnivorous. Wow, so is that they're bisexual? Blimey. Which means that they eat both meat and plant products.

While it is theoretically possible, this is the bva.co.uk. Don't know what that stands for. All I do is just the British Veterinary Association. Okay, and they do not recommend giving a dog a vegetarian or a vegan diet.

As it is much easier to get the balance of essential nutrients wrong than to get it right. Okay. Yeah, okay, fair enough.

I don't know enough about this thing to really, I was gonna say to have an opinion, but normally people don't need facts to have an opinion. Usually, you know, facts are not really relevant for opinions. Yeah.

Anyway, so back to the counselling. So I saw this counsellor, oh no, counselling, three things, three things I noticed. One thing I noticed is before the client, before I saw the client, there'd usually be about a 10 minute break between each client.

Sometimes it'd be an hour, you know, depends on the situation. And I've looked through the notes of the previous session, because we do like a basic, not very detailed. That's proper noisy in the background.

I'm sorry about that. That's Vinnie. He wants to make his presence known.

He would, if he could, he'd have his own microphone. Honestly. He would, I'm not saying he'd sit at the desk with me, but he'd just have the microphone.

He's making, he's making more noise because I'm mentioning it. Can you keep the noise down, please, mate? Oh, that's good. He stopped.

That's making more noise. No, he stopped. No, you see, he respects me.

Maybe not. Blimey, shut up. So, yeah, what I noticed is, I'd look at the notes, and I'd get a very vague, very vague kind of idea of the, you know, the previous session.

As soon as they'd sit down and start talking, it's almost like everything would come back. Details that I'd not even thought about, not written down, memories came back from previous, previous sessions. So, I don't know what kind of memory that is.

What was that, if there's certain skill that is something that I noticed that I became better at, you know, remembering in a way that I could ask a question. And it's something that the person told me maybe four sessions ago, you know, going back to something they told me and like, wow. I said, my memory, I can't believe my memory is as good as it is.

Now, maybe I shouldn't have said it to the client. But, you know. So, that was one thing.

Second thing that I noticed was the ability to leave whatever happened outside of the room, outside the room, almost like taking my shoes off and leaving them outside the front door. It was, it was incredibly strange to be able to do that. And not just do that with my own life, with my own, you know, life experiences and to leave everything outside the door.

But also, you know, there is sometimes only a few minutes between sessions I was able to leave the last client outside the front door as well, not literally, so that I could almost be a clean slate for the client now sitting in front of me. So that was another skill that I seem to develop. Maybe it is compartmentalizing.

It's definitely a skill, useful skill in that situation, I found. I also found that I became a much more competitive, not competitive, competent juggler. Before I started counselling, I can juggle two balls.

And by the end, I could juggle three. And not tennis balls, I just didn't like the texture. And more the ones that got beans in them.

And what other things? I'm trying to think, there was three things, I can't remember what the other thing was. I didn't go to juggling school, but I did get this book, which was, it was basically the idea of it was how to learn to drop the ball, purposely drop the ball whilst juggling, in order to get yourself out of the habit of everything always needing to be right, you know? It was about 2004. I think this is in the 2000s.

Anyway, that this book came out. It was quite popular, actually. Quite popular.

He's discovered, oh man, there's a ball on the floor. And it's full of treats. Now, he didn't know there was treats in it.

And he's not touched it because it's a big ball and he can't get his mouth around it. It's too big for him. Now, I now see that he's eaten the treats.

So he's realised that all he's got to do is just tip the ball over and the treats come out. Just roll the ball, the treats come out. I have to get this, the chair is comfortable, but it clicks.

It's really very clicky. I can't really move in it without it making a strange sound. The other chair is just uncomfortable for my back.

And the other chair just, there's three chairs. This is more like a, it's not uncomfortable to sit on. It's like a table chair, you know, eat your dinner and stuff.

Not on the chair, but sit on a chair whilst the table, you know, you have your plate on the table. But it seems to let out a bit of a moaning sound. Like, oh, lose some weight.

Why can't you eat a salad once in a while? And I hear that and I think, where's that coming from? It's a chair moaning about my weight. Like, it's just rude. So I could do without that, you know, especially just when you're eating, you don't need that kind of rubbish going on.

I'm trying to think what else, what did I get out of counselling? What skills did I get that I don't use anymore? So definitely the memory thing. I seem to have a, this is a kind of weird, I don't know if it's weird, but a memory thing that I have is, I don't necessarily remember everything that people say. But when someone contradicts themselves, even if it's five years later, I suddenly remember what they originally sent, sent, said.

It's strange. It's just a weird thing that happens. Like, oh, even if what they said originally wasn't particularly important to me, once they tell a fib, fib, I thought, my alarm's gone off.

Ding, ding. Liar, liar. It's like, wow.

I don't know why it happens. Yeah, very strange. It's very windy outside.

Very, very, very, very, very, very windy. Almost, almost, it's not wind, it is windy, but it's not like a hurricane or anything. But it's just, I've had a lot of wind the last few days.

Wind and rain. So I like the sound of wind. I do.

Nothing strange about that. Why, why, why? I do like the sound of wind. I think it's, it's quite calming.

I find it quite calming. Yeah, I do. I like it.

A lot. Oh, gosh. Yeah, I'm trying to think what the other thing was.

Anyway, so I went to this counsellor in 1997. And I didn't really, I don't know, oh, he's back to crunching the bone again. I didn't really, I didn't really connect with her.

I know we weren't supposed to be best buddies or anything, but maybe I didn't know that at the time. Maybe, you know, and I don't know how, I don't know how open I was to therapy or counselling back then. Probably not very open, to be honest.

I got, I became more open the next few years. And I've had lots of therapy over the years. I've been to counselling.

Wow. First time was 1997. Then I don't think I went to counselling all again until I think 2004, I think.

And then I went to counselling in 2006. I went to counse, I'm trying to think the different times. I'll lose track if I'm honest with you.

He's literally, he couldn't get closer to me if he tried with that bone. He can't stand the other side of the room. He's literally underneath the chair.

And now my stomach's making weird noises. I thought Andre was noisy. This one's even noisy.

Shouldn't moan, shouldn't moan. Yeah, I'm going to moan. Shut up.

So I, I'd counselling in 2000. Well, I had about two years of counselling during my counselling course. Blimey, shush.

And then I, I had another counsellor, I forget his name. I'm just trying to think all the different counsellors I've had. And then I had another, I had psychotherapy for about a year, maybe a year and a quarter.

In four years ago. It might be, it might be longer, longer ago than that. Blimey.

It might, it might well be, I don't know. It was, it was a good few years ago. And, yeah, yeah, so that went on for a while.

And that was the last time. That was the last time. So I've had a few, you know, a few years worth of psychotherapy or counselling over the years.

Oh, anyway, this counsellor in East London, she, I saw her for the first time, I used to see her on a Saturday morning. Saturday, I just remembered this, Saturday morning. And I think I saw her every two weeks, something like that.

And then I saw her a second time. And I started talking to her. And her eyes glazed over.

And her eyes started closing. Now, you don't have to believe this, but it's true. It really did happen.

I've talked about it before. But it genuinely did happen. It really did.

So I'm just talking to her about quite serious things, actually. But I guess it's the way I'm talking about it. And it's the, my tone of voice, maybe.

And I guess I'm being quite careful with my wording, because I don't want to, you know, when I sort of get my, express myself correctly, so that I'm understood by her. And her eyes, she starts to blink. And literally, she's almost like she's looking through me.

And her eyes, the blinks become longer and longer, to the point where her eyes just closed. I kid you not, her eyes were closed. Even he doesn't believe me.

He's nodding his head, with flappy ears. So she sat there with her eyes closed. And I'm talking, I continue talking.

And because of how I used to be back then, I saw this as an opportunity to be silly. So I start talking about aliens, and lawnmowers, and space travel, and time travel, and things like that. I just start talking about the most random, made up stuff ever.

Because, well, first of all, I wasn't going to talk about my serious, I wasn't going to talk about my emotions, while she was there with her eyes closed. And I just talk, and she's like that, probably at least two to three minutes, maybe longer. She's just there.

She's not snoring, nothing. She's just listening to me. I don't know if she's listening to me, but she's got her eyes closed, completely still, doesn't make a move, just sitting there.

And I literally am talking about, you know, aliens that look like lawnmowers, and baby whales giving birth to elephants, and just made up rubbish. And then eventually she opens her eyes. I think she said, oh, go on, carry on.

She didn't even know she'd had her eyes closed. And I never went back. You know, I sent my therapist to sleep.

I mean, maybe she had a hangover, she was tired from the night before, whatever. But I think if you're going to be a therapist, kind of any job really, at the very least, the very least you should be able to offer is to stay awake. Now, this is before I even knew anything about hypnosis.

Not long before, but before. So I bought my first hypnosis book in 1998. So it was a few months after that.

I think it might be connected to that as well. Because I told someone about what happened, and they said, oh, you bored her to sleep. Someone else said, oh, you hypnotized her with your boring voice.

So I think it is a few seeds were sown with the ideas, you know. And I got my first two hypnosis books in January 1998. Now, I didn't know I knew the basic stuff about hypnosis that anybody knows.

You know, stage hypnosis, mainly. Getting people to do strange things on stage. And that's all I knew.

I didn't know anything else. And my hypnosis education, no, it's not totally true. I did read a book about Sigmund Freud in about 1988, 89.

And it did talk about hypnosis because he, he was, he used to use hypnosis. That's where psychotherapy came from. You know, hypnosis first, and then it became talking therapy.

You know, it became psychoanalysis. So to start with, it was hypnosis. That's what he started off with.

And so I knew, I suppose I knew a little bit, but unless you're reading a hypnosis book about the history of hypnosis, generally, I don't think many of the Sigmund Freud stuff focuses much on his hypnosis past. So I didn't really know much about it. And then 1998, January, literally a few months after this event at the counseling, I started my little journey along the hypnosis highway.

And this is how I ended up being here, doing this. This particular recording comes from that experience, I guess. It's not the only experience.

But that's what kind of paved the way to where I am now. I mean, obviously, if you go back, something else led the way to me going there. So you could say that could be the thing that paved the way to me being a hypnotist, and then doing... Can you hear him? He wants my attention.

Okay, I better go. Blimey, I don't know what time it is. What's the time? Okay.

Everything's making noise today. You know, when you try and be quiet, everything I do is just causing banging. Okay, I'm gonna go.

Thanks for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself. Sorry, he's staring at me.

He's basically begging. I don't know what he wants. Remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy.

Lots of love. Bye. Do you wanna make one more noise before we go? Say goodbye to everyone.

Say goodbye to everyone. That's him saying goodbye. Lots of love.

Bye.