#56 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks (Jason Newland) (17th September 2019)

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks. There will be background sounds of birds tweeting outside in the garden, because it's 6.25 in the morning.

If you don't like the sounds of birds, then I suggest you just maybe turn it off. But they're not going to be loud, but they are potentially in the background a bit. I love the sounds of birds though.

And also I've got a little ferret running around as well, and he was asleep when I first started this recording. And he's just laying on the floor looking at me, all cute. So, but none of this is really relevant to the thing that I'm doing.

But just letting you know, there might be a little bit of background sounds. But that's okay, because I'm just going to talk to you. And just at the beginning, I mentioned my website, jasonnewland.com. Every single recording, pretty much that I've made since 2006, are on there for you to listen.

You can stream or download for free. And there's also, yeah, there's other stuff on there, you can go and check it out. If you wanted to send me a gift, or if you want to put a testimonial, you know, write down what you think of what I do.

Yeah, so everything's on there. So including all of these recordings. So I was just thinking, before I started doing this, before I press the record button, I do like to think beforehand.

And because this subject is so broad, yet so deep, there's a never ending supply of things that I could discuss. And yesterday, I talked about, a lot about acceptance. I'd like to add to that.

I'd like to add that, I don't know how to word it really, but they're not giving yourself a hard time for suffering with these conditions, whether it be general anxiety disorder, like GAD, whether it's, you know, major stress, stress, panic attacks, whatever. And even if you're not diagnosed, you don't need to be diagnosed with a panic attack to know it's a panic attack. Although it's very important to get to the doctor to check yourself out to make sure that it is a panic attack.

That makes sense. Make sure that you're physically okay. I did that myself.

Unfortunately, I also did it at the emergency ward twice in hospital, thinking I was having a heart attack, but I wasn't. It was a panic attack. So, and that guilt, the guilt that I had was awful.

Because if you go into hospital, especially if you're a little bit older, I'd say probably over 40, and the hospital will take it more seriously if you've got a pain in your chest. And they take it seriously, I think at any age, but most people more if you're middle aged. So I went into the emergency ward at, I don't know, 10, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock in the evening.

And I got seen within about five minutes. And the place, it wasn't full, but there was pretty good 25, 30, 25 people waiting. And I got seen really quickly.

It was pretty much me and the child that got saw, because children get seen quicker as well. And straight away, I felt guilty, which worsened how I was feeling. And I'll tell you what's really weird.

Part of me hoped that it was a heart condition, rather than a panic attack. Because then I could have medication, and I could get help with it. And I could get it fixed.

Instead of feeling like I was being controlled by this outside force, which is what it almost felt like, like I was a puppet. You know, like evil puppeteer, thinking, oh, what should we do now? Right, he's in a bookshop, looking at books, no reason to feel stressful, anxiety. You know, bookshops, my favorite place, love books.

Let's give him a panic attack now while he's looking at books, which happened to me. And it felt, I don't know about you, in your situation, almost feels, it felt like I was being manipulated by a puppeteer. And it was horrible.

Now, when I say I actually felt guilty, afterwards as well, thinking, I'll hope it's a heart condition, part of me thinking, rather than a panic attack, then I feel guilty for that. Because for those people that have heart conditions, what a horrible thing to be thinking. These people that are going through this, and here's me, almost minimizing it.

That's how I was thinking in my head. It's a weird, weird situation. I just didn't want to be in a hospital for no reason.

I didn't want to, because I'd already done it before. The first time I did it, it was horrible. But the second time I was thinking, oh, and again, did the ECG, blood test, heart monitor, whatever it is they do.

I was fine. Just a panic attack. And admittedly, the panic attack kind of ended when I knew that it was a panic attack.

Which is weird, because previously, other times when I knew it was a panic attack, that didn't seem to be the solution. But when I thought I was having a heart attack, it changed how I was feeling when I got told that I wasn't having a heart attack, and I was fine. So maybe there was something about having a professional doctor telling me that I was okay.

Because I don't know about you or where you live, but where I live, I've been raised to pretty much look up to doctors like they're this all-powerful, know-everything kind of person. Someone that you can trust your life with. Someone that you trust your child's life with.

And they're one of the most important people in society, doctors. They're the top of the list. So I've always had that trust.

So maybe hearing the doctor say to me, you're fine. You're okay. You're going to be okay.

Helped me to relax. And I believed what he said. And I started to feel okay.

Tinged with, you know, the guilt. Huge amount of guilt. It made it worse on the second time, because I was sitting in a, like a bed where they examine you.

Opposite me, so this was late at night, opposite me there was a man, well actually it might have been a woman, sitting in a bed, very elderly, with the husband holding her hand, which increased my guilt. Why was I taking up the doctor's time when that lady required it much more urgently? And of course, everybody else that was waiting in the emergency ward, in my mind, needed it more than I did.

And I remember walking out and walking through the emergency waiting room, seeing people that I'd kind of glimpsed before when I was waiting there for five minutes.

Still waiting there. Possibly been waiting for a couple of hours. And I was embarrassed.

I almost felt like I was walking through without my trousers on. I just put my head down and I just, I couldn't look at anyone. I felt like a fraud.

And part of the reason I'm telling you this is, first of all, you may relate to this. You may have had similar experiences. Secondly, if you have, or if you have a do in the future, the fact is you're not a fraud.

I wasn't a fraud. You have no reason to feel guilty. And I had no reason to feel guilty.

You deserve medical attention as much as anybody else. And so did I. Looking at it from a different angle as well, that experience could have kind of had the cause in my mind to avoid ever going back to the hospital. So what happens in the future if I do have pains in my chest and it isn't anxiety and I don't go to the hospital because I don't want to be wasting resources and wasting the doctor's time.

I don't want to feel guilty or feel embarrassed. Which means I could end up, well, in a bad way. And I say no.

No to that. No to that for me. No to that for you.

The hospital, doctors, they're there for all of us. And just because anxiety can't be seen, just because stress and panic can't be seen, it is an illness. Because, you know, there's a lot of people out there that go into hospital, have a medical treatment, and their medical condition has been brought on by stress.

They don't know it's been brought on by stress. The doctors don't know it's been brought on by stress. But they're being treated, and they're not feeling guilty.

Hopefully, they're not feeling guilty. They're not embarrassed because they've got a physical condition that can be seen by the doctors through x-rays or, you know, for whatever, however way it can be seen. So someone working 100 hours a week for 10 years solid might drop down and have major physical problems because of the stress of doing that.

But they may not, you know, connect the two. I might have mentioned before that in 1990, between, I think, October, when was it? October 94 to probably September 95, I was physically ill with stomach problems, bleeding, trouble eating, all kinds of requests, really. Awful.

And I got tested, I got cream to put on me, in me, medication, and in the end I got tested, got my organs all tested, x-rays, blood tests. And I was told at the end by two specialists sitting in a big office in hospital, it's stress. Now, for me, I knew I'd be going through a really big depression in that, you know, in that summer of 95.

But part of the depression was feeling ill, because I felt so physically sick most of the time, that I imagine I lost quite a bit of weight as well. And that's what I attributed to my depression. And I said, what can be done? I've got this stress.

You know, I thought I must have an ulcer or something in there, you know? Nothing. I had an ectopic thing, well, you know, down the throat, and x-rays, camera, all that stuff. Nothing, nothing wrong with me at all.

I think I was annoying them, but other than that, nothing. They put me on antidepressants, symptoms cleared up, and I put weight on as well. So, I'm very acutely aware that stress can cause physical illness.

Not just physical illness that can be diagnosed, but illness that the doctors don't even know what's wrong. So, as far as feeling guilty, get rid of that feeling, please. It's not useful.

It's not helpful. I think guilt just leads to more guilt. Why should anybody, me, you, or anybody ever, ever feel guilty for being ill? We're all allowed to be ill.

That's your human right. We're allowed to sleep, go to the toilet, eat, be ill, feel well, breathe, you know, basic things. Everybody gets ill at some point, at different levels, of course.

But we're allowed to be ill without feeling guilty, or feeling ashamed, or feeling that we're taking the time, you know, the doctor's time away from somebody else more deserving. How is that gonna help your stress? It's gonna be the opposite, I imagine, the opposite reaction. And I'm using my own experiences because, well, it's real.

It's, you know, it's what's happened to me. But even when it comes to working, I had a job in a call center, which is when the real panic attacks in 2002, November, when that really started. So I had panic attacks, panic, stress, anxiety, depression, whatever, since I was a kid.

But this was really, like, the worst thing. I didn't know what was, I thought my head was going to explode. Literally, and it didn't, thankfully.

And I was actually, I was on the phone to a customer at the time. And I just, just had to put the phone down and run out. And I had a couple of weeks off work after I tried to stay for a couple of weeks and it just got worse.

And basically, I went up to my boss, and I said to him, I took him to one side, I said, look, I'm really feeling ill. I don't know what's going on. I hadn't seen a doctor at this point.

I was just hoping it was a one off. Then it happened again. And you know, a couple of days later, and then just got more often.

And I said to him that I don't know what's going on. But I'm having, you know, I couldn't even explain it. I said, I feel really weird.

I don't feel well. And he's just smiled at me. I think he said, well, we'd better get back onto the phones then.

And I said, no, I did go back. And then I said, no, I'm going home. And I went home.

And I didn't go back for two weeks. And my boss, I phoned him, he actually said, and I might have mentioned this. He said, oh, if you if you don't come back to work soon, you're going to have a disciplinary for having so much time off.

Now, some people would take that. And I probably would have done when I was younger. I'll be honest with you.

If I was probably 18, 19, maybe 20, I would have took that on the chin and thought, oh, I better get back to work because I'm in case I get sacked. But because I was 32, I was probably a little bit more been working for a long time at that point. And I thought, no, I'm not going to be pushed around by him.

So I called the human resources and I told them exactly what he said to me. And I said to them, I will no longer deal with him. I will deal with the human resources.

And I think he ended up getting a disciplinary, or at least got told off. So, that was more because somebody else not understanding or not even attempting to understand about anxiety or panic. And I've met a lot of people over the years that have never been ill.

Other than maybe a cold, you know, maybe a broken bone, but that's not an illness. It's just painful. So some people never actually being ill.

So they're unable to empathize. But I find that strange because even as a child, I was around people that were ill. Most children generally get to see grandparents or, you know, great, great grandparents or whatever pass away, and maybe be ill.

We see stuff on telly, you watch soap operas and you think there'd be a bit of a bit of empathy there, a little bit of understanding that people are ill and get ill sometimes. That can be frustrating. But it's not fair for you to put that on yourself.

It's not fair for you to have guilt. To feel guilty for, for what? For being human. Stress, anxiety, panic is an illness.

It is a mental illness. I know the term mental illness is quite a horrible term really, isn't it? It's like packaging everyone together, like someone that's locked up, you know, with extreme, extreme like condition, comparing that condition to someone that's struggling to get on a bus because of the anxiety. I mean, it's, it's a different thing, but it's categorized within the same category.

Now, didn't used to be, I don't think so much, but now, and nowadays people call it mental health. Like they say, oh, he's got mental health. It doesn't even make sense.

Mental health, what? Mental health issues, mental health problems, mental health disabilities, mental health illness, you know? So the term mental illness is, sounds horrible. Saying that someone's mentally ill doesn't sound right when you put it together with anxiety, but it is a mental health issue. It's to do with the brain.

It's that word mental, isn't it? It's, it's just that word mental. It's got such a negative connotation. It's so, it's, it's almost a swear word, isn't it? Really? You know, you call someone or your mentor, you are.

That's in some cases, that's the worst thing you can say to somebody. Say to, to use that as an insult, or you're mentally ill. That's a pretty awful insult, isn't it? Yeah, there's nothing wrong with being mentally ill.

Well, it's, it's, it's horrible for the person and for the family. But technically, I'm mentally ill. I've got bipolar, emotionally unstable personality traits, whatever.

So that's a mental illness. But I'm not locked up. I can function.

Some of the time, all the time, probably most of the time, I don't know, a degree of the time, I'm functioning perfectly. Sometimes I can't function at all. But, and that's when I don't make recordings.

So I'm never going to be making a recording when I'm not in the right space, because it doesn't really fit. But you know what? Stress, anxiety, panic, it's nothing to feel guilty about. And I do wonder whether or not those that have felt guilty in the past, whether that's held back, whether it's held them back from recovery, or maybe it's made their condition worse.

Having that feeling of guilt. It's almost like, this might sound like a weird statement, but it's almost like you don't deserve to be ill. And you can say, well, no one deserves to be ill.

But on the other side, we all deserve the same things as everyone else. Everyone gets ill at times, everybody, and everyone gets well at times. Pretty much everyone gets angry, everyone falls in love, everyone feels hungry, everyone needs to go to the toilet, everyone needs to go to sleep.

It's just part of being alive, part of this great tapestry of life. But it doesn't last, not forever. And even long term conditions, you know, apparently bipolar is a lifelong condition.

But the feeling, you know, say the feeling of hopelessness that I get sometimes, it doesn't last. And as long as I can hold on to that, remembering that it's not going to last, I'll be okay. And to not take action in those low moments, or high moments even.

To not sort of, to kind of be able to step back. To step back from that, to step back. Take a breath, have some distance.

It's like it's much easier to talk to someone that's got a really bad breath, if you're a little bit away from them. They might be the most lovely person in the world, you love them to bits, but you don't want to be too close, you need to have a little bit of distance, and the conversation can flow nicely. I might seem a bit flippant, a bit of a flippant comment, but I do like flippant, flippant flippant-ness.

So get rid of that guilt. Well, you could feel guilty for feeling guilty, which would be a weird one, wouldn't it? Get rid of the guilt. There is nothing to feel guilty for when it comes to being, having an illness, a temporary illness.

Stress, anxiety, panic is temporary. It's temporary. Not just temporary long term, but temporary short term.

All panic attacks end, always. They always do. Every feeling ends.

Everything. It doesn't matter if it's the most beautiful feeling in the world, or the worst feeling. Every feeling ends.

Admittedly, it doesn't seem that way at the time, but every feeling does end. So try and get rid of that guilt. Let it go.

If anything, what would be the opposite to guilt? Wouldn't it be, I suppose pride would be the opposite, wouldn't it? So I'm not a big fan of pride as such, but the idea of feeling good about something you've done, and that appeals to me, appreciating yourself, that seems like a good idea. So what's stopping you from, or what's stopping me, or any of us, from after the event, whether it's panic, whether it's depression, anxiety, whatever the issue is, after the event, congratulating ourself for getting through it, for coming out the other end, maybe feeling good because the panic didn't last as long as the previous one, the previous time.

So it's kind of flipping it on its head a little bit from guilt to gratitude, I suppose.

And it seems weird, like the idea, what do you mean gratitude, I don't want to feel grateful for stress and anxiety and panic. It's not about feeling grateful for that. It's about feeling grateful that you overcame that, that you got through to the other side.

Because if you've done it once, you can do it every time. And the fact is, if you're listening to this, you have done it every time. Every single stress occasion, or panic, any part, any anxiety you've had, you've come out the other end.

Because you're listening to this, you must have come out the other end. So maybe having some gratitude, but the gratitude is towards yourself, towards you, personally. You're patting yourself on the back, why not? Unlikely anyone else is going to pat you on the back for getting through an anxiety episode.

So why not do it yourself? Get in touch with some nice feelings. I mean, what's the point in experiencing crappy feelings, if you're not going to experience some nice feelings as well? That's only fair. Because we have the ability to feel pretty much any feeling that's available.

It's all there for us to feel. So why give favour to the crappy feelings? You need to let the nice feelings as well, let them in, experience those. And as you know, the more nice feelings you have, the more relaxing feelings you have, it dilutes future stresses and anxiety.

It dilutes it. It gives your brain the message, gives your body the message to actually, this is what you want. Feeling grateful towards yourself, feeling relaxed, feeling calm.

That's what you want. That's what you want more of, because that's what you're experiencing and that's what you're thinking about. You're giving that message to yourself, that you want more of that, because that's what you're thinking about.

And the more time you spend thinking about feeling relaxed, feeling calm, the more time you think about feeling relaxed in the future, feeling relaxed and calm in situations that maybe in the past you didn't. Gives your mind and your body that suggestion of what you want, not what you don't want. That's what you want more of, which allows you to almost prepare for feeling comfortable and relaxed.

Prepare to feel happier and to recover, because this is all just temporary. So it's up to you, but I think it's time to let the guilt go. Drop it on the floor, kick it in the sea, whatever you want to do with it.

I'll let it go. So I'm going to go now. So I wish you well and remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy.

Lots of love. Bye.