#68 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks (Jason Newland) (14th December 2019)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. I hope you're well and before we start just to let you know that there are no adverts at all on any of my podcasts from now.

I stopped them about a week ago or something. I had them on there to try and cover the costs of providing this free service but the adverts were causing problems for people. They were a much louder volume and they came on.

They were only the beginning, that's what I thought at the recording, only the beginning of the recording. But for people listening to Spotify or for another place, podcasts, they might listen to the next recording and then they'd get jolted out of however they were feeling by adverts at the next recording. So I've got rid of all the adverts.

So hopefully that will make the listening experience more enjoyable for everyone. So I've got a very simple message today. A very simple message that things are going to be okay.

Things will be okay. That's the message. So that's the end of the recording.

And you may think, well, what do you mean things are going to be okay? You don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what, you know, I know it's true, I don't. But I know what I've been through and I know the amount of times that I really catastrophised about my life.

And I still do sometimes. Yet everything always works out okay. It doesn't mean everything's perfect, you know, doesn't mean that I'm never ill, doesn't mean that people don't die, you know, doesn't mean that there's not bereavement, doesn't mean that I haven't lost jobs.

There's lots of things have happened. But everything always works out okay. So I suppose it's figuring out what is okay to you.

And maybe dropping expectations a little bit about what is okay, moving it from perfection, which is a very hard, a very hard thing to live up to for anyone. To maybe having enough food in the fridge, in the cupboards, in the kitchen, having somewhere to live. And feeling physically okay, having enough money to do the things you want to do.

Or just spend, I'll just have enough money to get by being warm enough in the winter, having a comfortable bed to sleep in. Maybe having friends that you enjoy spending time with, or perhaps family members that you can tolerate. So it's about remembering that things will be okay.

And I didn't know this when I was younger. And I had this discussion with a friend of mine recently, thinking back to times in our lives, when we really thought that there was no hope. Times of homelessness and hopelessness.

You know, being evicted and thinking, I've got three weeks to get out of this property. Where am I going to live? I got no money. Or losing a job.

Why am I going to work? How am I going to pay the rent? Or being at university and struggling to, you know, do that essay. Or maybe getting a mark that wasn't good, you know, having to redo a bit of coursework. Or a relationship ending.

How am I going to get by without this person? But we do. And that's the thing that we don't give ourselves enough credit for as humans. That actually we are able to adjust and to eventually be okay.

Doesn't mean that we're okay with what happened. Doesn't mean that it's fine, that it doesn't bother us, necessarily. But it means that we've come out the other end.

Just like going in to have an operation, very few people want to go in and have an operation. Some people will welcome it if it's to reduce their pain, or if it's a hip replacement, you know, if it's going to mean they'll be able to have mobility, or to have something removed that's causing problems. But the process isn't something that anyone I don't think would really look forward to.

But at the end, you're going to be okay. And you kind of know it. We all kind of know that.

Generally, you get put under an aesthetic and then you literally, what, a second later, you'll be conscious again, even though it might have been 12 hours. Completely unaware of what's happened. And you're now on the mend.

And whatever physical pain you had will go, it will reduce. And I think a broken bone is a really good example of that. It's awful, awfully painful.

I don't know if I've ever said that before. Awfully painful. It's very posh, isn't it? It's awfully painful.

But it is absolutely horrible that it subsides. Day after day, it subsides. And you can actually feel it subsiding.

You can feel it. And it can be like that with emotional pain as well. It subsides.

Eventually, it has to. Because no emotion, no physical feeling or emotional feeling can stay. We're always changing, always.

We may not be aware that we're always changing how we feel. We may not purposely be changing how we feel. But we are.

And even people that are deeply depressed have times when they're laughing. I'm not saying everybody does, but I've seen it in action. And I've had it happen to me as well.

When I was counselling, I've had people in stitches laughing, just because of the conversation we were having. Yet, they were clinically depressed. And in their mind, and the dialogue that they were having, and some would use the term storyline, was that I always feel this way, which is untrue.

Because none of us always feel any way. Always changing. Even the feeling of a broken wrist.

When I broke my wrist a couple of years ago, I spent a lot of time focusing on it. I know how to reduce pain and how to control, manage chronic pain. Although that's acute pain, broken bone, but I know how to manage it just from years of experience, and from using hypnosis, and mindfulness, and things like that.

And by observing it, I could feel it changing. I could experience the feeling changing. You know, second by second.

So I suppose it's almost like if you've got a puppy, and you don't notice it growing. But if you've got a friend that's got a puppy, and you don't see your friend for maybe three weeks, and you're like, wow, Bobby's really grown. And you're like, really? And then you see your puppy and think, oh, oh, yeah.

Like, I've had that with pain in the past, with chronic pain. I didn't realize that the pain had gone. Or maybe it was acute pain, I can't remember.

But there's been times when I've had an injury. I won't even go, I've been so clumsy in the past, the amount of physical injuries I've had. And I've literally forgotten about it.

And I'm walking around thinking, oh, wait a minute. My knee doesn't hurt anymore. Completely forgot about it.

Everything's changing. Just like when you go to the dentist. I've been to the dentist with a toothache, got there.

Which tooth is it? I couldn't tell the dentist which tooth it was, because there was no pain at all. And it wasn't because I didn't want the pain. I wanted the pain to be there.

Because I want the dentist to sort it out. I wanted him to take out the right tooth. But if I hadn't gone to the dentist, good chances I would not have noticed that the pain was not there at that moment.

I would have just said to myself, oh, it's always there. When actually it's not. Just like stress is not always there.

Anxiety is not always there. So things will be okay. And I do realize how easy it is for me just to say that sentence.

When this is your life, and what right have I got to tell you that everything's going to be okay when I don't know what you're going through? And who am I to say that to you? Well, it's something I believe. It's something that I've experienced. You know, there was once when I was at Butlin's working there.

I left, couldn't take it. I was so anxious. This was back in 1995.

And I was literally sleeping on the street. Just for one night. But I genuinely believed that that was the end of my life.

Like, as I knew it. I genuinely believed that I was going to be living on the streets for the rest of my life. That's what I believed at that time.

It was untrue. Because I only spent one night on the streets and I found somewhere to live. I came back to London, and my cousin put me up.

So I was fortunate. But if my cousin hadn't put me up, I would have found somewhere else. Something would have come together eventually.

And then 25 years later, it's a distant memory. Times in the past when I had no job, nowhere to live. I remember standing on a pier, looking out and thinking, what am I going to do? What am I going to wear? You know, what am I going to do? And I remember thinking to myself, it was the very first time I ever thought it, is picture myself in a year's time.

And this is when I was 18. And I'd never read any books about this stuff, didn't know anything about any kind of, didn't know anything about anxiety, stress, self-help, hypnosis, counselling. I didn't know anything about that stuff.

I'd read a book on Freud, I think at that point, that's it. But I pictured in the future, I thought, where am I going to be in a year's time? And the one thing that came into my mind is, or the question, will I still be able to breathe? And then another question came, can you breathe now? And I was like, why am I thinking that? And then my brain kind of, it's almost like a conversation was going on.

And it came, I started to realise that actually, yeah, I'd lost my job.

I'd, well, actually, I can't remember what happened. I probably left the job and just didn't turn up. But anyway, I was jobless.

And I was homeless at that moment. And then I breathed, I breathed in. And I thought, yeah, I can breathe.

My heart's beating, I'm breathing. I had enough money to buy food. You know, I could go and get a burger or something like that.

It's not like I was, I didn't have enough to put a deposit on a room or flat. But I had, you know, a little bit of cash in my pocket. I had family that I could go to and get, go to my nan's and get a dinner.

And so I wasn't going to go hungry. But I just realised I can breathe. That's the most important thing.

Yeah, I don't have any belongings. Apart from one, I think two black bags filled with clothing and stuff. That's about it.

But I was breathing. And at that time, I was healthy. I mean, I don't mean I'm not unhealthy now, but I was physically very fit.

I was 18. I was young and healthy, you know, just like most people at that age. And I could breathe and I was breathing in the air, the sea air as I was standing on the pier.

And I thought, well, in a year's time, whatever happens, I'll still be able to breathe, won't I? I'll still be breathing. And I kind of pictured myself in the future. It was very vague.

It wasn't a big, like descriptive, wonderful picture. It was just a vague image of me being alive and well and able to breathe. And that catastrophizing that I was doing started to crumble a bit.

And I thought, okay, I started to think back to previous times when I thought it was the end, you know, I thought, generally thought that, you know, it was kind of the end of my life when I was a kid. And I thought, but it wasn't. I was uninformed.

I was incorrect. I catastrophized. I had a lot of stress when I was a child.

I was an extremely stressful child. And for good reason, to be fair. But I was able to remember that and think, but I'm here now.

I'm standing on this pier. I'm breathing. I'm healthy.

I'm alive. And I'm going to be okay in a year's time. I'm still going to be standing, possibly standing on this, well, I won't stay the whole year standing on the pier, but I'll still be able to look out at the sea in a year's time and probably maybe laugh at this experience and think back.

And because I've had so many of those experiences, where I really thought, like, this is the end. How am I going to get out of this, this sticky jam? You know, amount of times I've been homeless, lost jobs. And I've always come out of it.

I've always come out the other end. It's not always been easy. But a year or two later, or 25 years later, I'm okay.

So if I'm okay now for what happened previously, it kind of makes sense that I'm going to be okay in the future. That things are going to be okay for you. No matter what happens.

And when I say that, I know there's extreme situations that can happen to everybody. And it does happen to everybody in some, you know, in certain ways. Everybody goes through difficult, really difficult times.

That's just part of being human. And thinking, I'm going to be okay, doesn't mean that that stuff's okay. Doesn't mean it's okay that this happened.

But it means that you will come out the other end. So in a sense of stressful situations, anxiety, panic, whatever might be going on, and things like job losses, bereavement, you know, being evicted from your home, relationships ending, things like that. It can sometimes feel that it's almost like the end of the world, you know.

But it isn't. And I say that without any essence of platitude at all. I've got no interest in platitude.

Which is why I don't just say it and then, you know, move on and do something different. I try and explain where I'm coming from. I'm not just regurgitating something that I've heard someone else say.

Although I have heard other people say, it's going to be okay. It's not my invention. I didn't create those words, or that sentence.

But this is my understanding of that idea. And I've seen it with other people. I had a friend, he lost his business.

He got arrested for whatever to do with the business. He ended up on with a bracelet thing, you know, on tag. And he really thought it was the end of his life.

But it wasn't. And I kept telling him, it's going to be okay. You're going to be okay in the end.

He wouldn't listen. And I don't blame him, in a way. Because at the time, it was so difficult for him.

And I was sending him money every now and then when I could, just to buy food, you know. And he'd helped me out a lot in the past when I was younger. But I kept saying to him, you know, it's going to be okay.

Eventually, you've got a tag on for six months, that will be gone. You've still got your home. You've got friends.

And those things that sometimes we can lose focus on the things we do have, when we focus on the things that we don't have, or the things that we wish we had, or the things that we used to have, that we want to have back. The things will be okay. And that's without changing the realities of life.

As I said, death, illness, disease, poverty, whatever, all those things. That stuff is happening. That's the reality.

So I'm not kind of trying to sugarcoat life, as in nothing bad's ever going to happen, because that's ridiculous. But you will, and I will, we all will get through it by remembering that it'll be okay. And by remembering that, it reduces stress levels, it reduces worry, it reduces panic, it reduces illness, possibly, physical as well as mental.

Everything will be okay, eventually. All things will be okay, not everything. That's probably a silly statement, everything.

A relationship ends, the relationship won't end. It won't be okay, it's gone. You might end up being friends with a person, you might end up getting back with them.

But you will be okay. Things will be okay. Things that you used to worry about will no longer seem particularly important.

Just like the things I used to be concerned about. I sometimes wonder why I was concerned about it. So that's the message I have today.

It's a very simple message. As I said, it's not my words, it's not my sentence. And it's not a platitude, because I can't be asked for platitudes.

So platitude is something that someone says when they kind of don't perhaps care so much, or they don't know what to say. Well, I do care. And I do know what, well, I do have something to say.

I can explain why I'm saying it. In fact, I'd probably overexplain. Overexplain.

There's another term called mansplain. So we're like explaining, like, like, I don't know. But anyway, I possibly overexplain.

But that's part of what these recordings are about. Because as I talk, other ideas come into my mind, and other thoughts sort of mingle together. And before I go, there's one thing.

It's just a little suggestion that might be useful to you. Is if you have any issues on in public, like with sound, background sound on a train or a bus or, you know, in town or wherever. It's really worth I suggest, if you can get some decent noise cancelling headphones.

Because I got some recently. And I couldn't believe how good they are. Even when there's no music playing, it cancels out the, what feels to me, an extreme bombardment of, I use the word noise, because it does, is an emotional aspect to it for me.

Sound is a better word, because there's no emotions connected to the word sound. Noise is like a small kind of an anger, isn't it? Or a dissatisfaction connected to the word. Like it's an unpleasant thing.

You wouldn't go to an orchestra and say, or, what a lovely noise. Or if you see your young daughters just sung a song on stage. Yeah.

How did you like it, Daddy? Yes. Wonderful noise that came out your mouth there was lovely. So, I found that the noise cancelling headphones have really helped me with the background conversations that go on on a bus.

The loudness that it can sometimes be. And also, if they're noise reducing, the music that you listen to, if you're listening to music, doesn't have to be that loud, because you've already cancelled out the outside sounds. Not all of them, but it's muffled.

So, yeah. I was thinking about doing a whole recording just on that, but I might do in the future. But I'll wait, because I've only had them a few days.

So, I'll wait and see how I get on with them. See if there's any useful tips that I might be able to give, that I found useful. So, I'm going to go, and I will be making another recording very soon.

So, please remember to be kind to yourself, because you do deserve to be happy. You really do. And again, that can sound like platitude.

So, I'll tell you why you deserve to be happy. I'll give you a couple of examples. You know, throughout your life, the amount of people that you've helped, you'll never know.

You'll never know how many people that you've actually helped. You'll be able to remember some people, that maybe you lent money to them, you gave them food, maybe you've given some homeless people spare change, or helped someone to move house. You know, you've helped people.

But there's so many more people that you've helped in a way that you'll never know about. It could just be a passing comment that you say to someone on a train. It could be the way that you've treated your child in front of somebody else, or the way that you've treated your partner, or spoken kindly to your partner in front of someone else.

And that person might have thought, realised that actually the way that they were treating their partner wasn't acceptable. So, they go to change, make changes. If they hadn't have done that, the relationship may have ended.

But now that they've made those changes, the relationship becomes strong. They have a child. That child goes on to create a cure for some disease, which may save millions of lives.

You could say, well, it's very fanciful, that's very imaginative. But it's true. We don't know how much positive effects we have on the world.

How many people that you've helped through your life with a smile, just by being kind, or maybe sometimes by not saying anything, by just giving someone a space. You know, it could be any kind of thing. We've helped people without realising it.

So, that's one of the reasons that you deserve to be happy. Which means that it's important that you're kind to yourself. And by being kind to yourself, that could mean so many different things for different people.

It could be as simple as just giving yourself some space to have a long bath, or maybe book a weekend away on holiday, or going to the cinema, or having your hair cut. You know, it could be anything. It could be something like starting to say nice things to yourself, reminding yourself that you deserve to be happy.

And getting in touch with that feeling, the feeling that you feel when you hear those words inside your mind, that physical feeling you experience, and the emotional energy that you get from remembering the reality, the fact, and it is a fact, that you have helped numerous people in your life without even knowing about it. You may well have transformed other people's lives in a positive way. There can be people out there that are alive and well because of you.

And you don't even know it. You don't even realize it. That's what I mean when I say be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy.

So take care and I'll speak to you very soon. Lots of love. Bye.