#75 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks - (Jason Newland) (17th January 2020)

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name's Jason Newland, and this is Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety, and Panic Attacks. I forgot the title of the podcast. It should be shorter, shouldn't it? Anyway, it should be short, just like me.

So, welcome to this recording. You might hear a little bit of background rustling and stuff from Andre, running around and playing. For some reason, he's become very active right now.

But that doesn't really need to affect the recording at all. By the way, Andre is my son. He's a ferret.

He's my little boy. He's five years old. And... five? Is he five? Yeah, I think he is.

Wow. And he's in proper pain sometimes. Looks like he's going to go to sleep now.

So, this is going to be a kind of a personal recording. And also, an important subject, I believe. So, only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

But this is not going to be a hypnosis session. It's just going to be me talking about a subject, as I often do with these recordings. But if you're used to closing your eyes when you listen to me, then make sure that you only listen when you can close your eyes, when it's safe to do so.

I don't know how long the recording is going to last for. It might be a short recording. The subject I'm going to cover is asking for help.

So, the reason I'm making this recording is because my neighbor had issues, had problems, that I don't really know much about, if I'm honest. I know a little bit, but not a huge amount. But she needed help.

And sometimes I'd knock on her door to see if she was okay, and she wouldn't answer. And she's very insular and stuff. And she died two days ago.

And she was a young woman. And she collapsed, and we all sort of managed to get into the flat and get an ambulance and stuff. But she died a couple of days later, on Monday.

Or Tuesday, something like that. So, it got me thinking about asking for help. How many of us actually ask for help when we need it? Do you like that little silence there? I don't think we do.

I don't think... I sometimes ask for help. But there's been plenty of times when I haven't. And that's kind of all I wanted to say, is if you need help, ask for it.

Because whatever issues you may have with asking for help, whether it's embarrassment, or showing your vulnerability, or maybe you think it's showing weakness by admitting that you're not some superhero, the difference between asking for help and not asking for help could be the difference between being alive and being in the morgue. It really can, could be as serious as that. And without being dramatic, it's quite dramatic, isn't it?

Use the word morgue, it sounds a bit dramatic.

And I'm not saying that's the reason my neighbour is dead, because she didn't ask for help. But there are lots of people in the situation, in my situation, maybe in your situation, that don't ask for help when they need to. And I know people like that, and maybe you do.

And maybe you're one of those people. So if there's one thing you can get out of this recording, is at the end of it, decide that you're going to ask for help. If that means calling up a helpline number, whether it be for, you know, anxiety, for stress, depression, suicide, those, whatever it might be about, whatever's going on in your life.

Ask for help. And if for any reason you are at the end of your tether, you are kind of, you need emergency help, then ask for help straight away. And if you're not needing emergency help, ask for help straight away.

Because there may be a waiting list. You might not get that help immediately, if it's not an emergency. But at least you start the ball rolling.

And there is help out there. There are people out there that will help. Some of those people won't help because they don't know that you need help.

Or they won't help because they don't know how much you need that help. They don't know how serious the situation is. And when I say about asking for help, I'm not necessarily just talking about an extreme situation, like the one that I mentioned.

It could be just asking for help with doing something. Maybe you want to go shopping, but you don't feel that you can face going out. Maybe ask a friend to go with you.

Because I know some people would rather sit at home and practically starve than go to a supermarket or ask for help. And you're not going to get any medals for that. There is no prize.

You won't become a martyr. There's no prizes for suffering when you don't need to. In fact, all you get is punishment, which is the pain that you experience, the mental anguish, the physical suffering when you don't ask for help.

When you do ask for help, maybe it's embarrassment. But what is embarrassment ultimately? It's just a feeling. Just a feeling.

Nowhere near as bad as hunger, I would suggest. So pick up a phone. Let people that care about you know what's going on with you.

And you know what? If you don't want them coming round your home every day because that's not what you want, you can tell them that. But you can still ask them for help. When you need it.

So maybe all you need is to see a close friend or a family member once a week or twice a week. But that could change your life. It could transform your life.

Give you more confidence in doing things. This is just an example. I don't know what everyone's situation is.

The bottom line is I'm going to keep going back to it. If you need help, ask for help. Guaranteed nobody is sitting in a funeral after, you know, with their son or their daughter or their parent or their brother, sister, husband, wife, best friend, you know, uncle, aunt.

No one's going to be sitting in that that church or that funeral with a coffin there thinking to themselves I'm glad they didn't ask me for any help. I'm glad they didn't ask me for any help or any favours. God, imagine if they'd have asked other people as well.

That would have been so embarrassing for them. No. No.

We know that that's not true. Nobody's going to be thinking that. Is anybody going to be thinking I'm glad, I'm glad they didn't bother me the last year of their life living in that flat on their own, drinking themselves to death, not eating any food, not going out, not having any contact with anybody.

I'm so glad she didn't bother me. No. Nobody's going to be thinking that.

Because those people in the church or in the whatever service that's going on are going to be heartbroken that that person they cared about didn't reach out. And they're going to blame themselves even though it's not their fault. And it's really easy to get into the the mentality of well if people cared then they would know that I need their help.

It's not really realistic, is it? That other people are spending all their time thinking about me or you. They're living their lives dealing with their own stuff dealing with perhaps other children they've got or their own parts of their family and other stuff, illnesses and life's stuff. Doesn't mean they don't love you or care about you.

Doesn't mean they wouldn't be there for you if you gave them a phone call. And I know there's kind of an extreme tone to this. Because asking for help doesn't have to be an emergency situation.

But if you don't ask for help when things are not going so well what are you going to do if things get worse? Would you ask for help then? So maybe have a little bit of a rehearsal. Ask for help when you need it. In the same way as you eat when you need to eat.

You go to the toilet when you need to go to the toilet. These are natural processes that we we need to kind of go with. It's biological.

And needing help is also biological. We are brought into this world by humans. So doesn't it make sense that we can rely and ask other humans for help when we need their help.

In the same side if you was walking down the street and you see an old lady or an old man falling over on the pavement you wouldn't just walk past them would you? You'd help them. Everybody I'd say 100% of the people in the world would help that person. Because it's a natural instinct to want to help a fellow human.

Yet we can get so caught up in anger and hatred and frustration and all that crap to do with relationships. But if you see a stranger falling down you're going to want to help them. You're not even going to want to help them you're just going to help them.

There's no thinking involved. Which means other people also have that. They want to help.

Or they need to help. It's a human need to help other people. It's not a choice.

It's a need. It's a requirement. It's as important as going to the toilet or eating or sleeping.

It's just not necessarily acknowledged in that way. We need to help others. Even if it's not in a big way.

Even if it's letting someone off the bus first or letting someone onto the bus first. Or stopping your car and letting someone drive out. Or someone drops their wallet on the floor.

Or drops something out of their pocket. The natural need is to help them. Not because you want to.

Because we have that natural need. It's there. It's inbuilt.

I believe we don't. We're born with it. And why is it there? We don't know.

But if we acknowledge it then it turns it on its head a little bit more as well. Well, if that natural need to help others is already within us then there's that natural need to help ourselves. To do what we can to help ourselves.

That natural need is there. And perhaps by recognising that simple fact gives you that energy that perhaps you didn't feel you had before that energy is now there to push you into action. And that action might be making a phone call to someone that you trust.

Someone you care about. Someone who can help you. And just be honest.

Because sometimes there's a time to just be honest. And not care about niceties. Not care about the person thinking that you're doing really well and everything's wonderful.

Just be honest. Just tell the truth. Because sometimes when you say it out loud to somebody else you start to hear it yourself.

I've seen that in counselling. I've experienced it in counselling myself. Saying something out loud makes it a bit more real.

And you are addressing it because you're talking to somebody. And when you hear it, you hear you say it out loud, you hear yourself say it out loud, you realise wow perhaps I should stop just ignoring this or putting it down. Actually this is important.

And it does need addressing and I do need help with this. And I realise some people might be saying I'm listening to this recording because I've got stress. What are you going on about? Which is fair enough to have that question.

Are you getting the help you need? So that could be, I can ask you that question in response. Are you getting the help and support you need? And the next question have you asked for the help and support that you need? Third question are you going to ask either for the support and help you need or for the further support and help you need that you're not currently getting?

And one more question which is quite a valid question actually. Do you actually know what support and help you need? A professional person may.

You may not. I think with someone that's stressed you want to stop being stressed. Someone's having panic attacks I don't want to have panic attacks anymore.

Someone with high anxiety or social anxiety unable to leave the house wherever it might be or an overactive mind they want it to stop. You want the pain to stop. The emotional suffering to stop or the physical suffering to stop.

But you may not know how to do that on your own. Some people might say yeah but I listen to these recordings and they help. Which is brilliant.

And I've had people, I've had feedback from people telling me that. But also get help as well. Get yourself seen by the mental health team.

Get yourself to the doctor. Tell them about your situation. Find different ways to relax.

Find people that will help you. Support you. And also find ways that you can help and support yourself.

Because ultimately even if you see a counsellor it's going to be for maybe 50 minutes once a week for however many weeks you're allowed to have. You're with yourself 24 hours a day. Every day of your life.

So it makes sense to spend a bit more time being kind to yourself. Because you can't rely on that 50 minutes a week to be, to necessarily support every other minute of the week. It can help.

But you also need to or perhaps you also need to spend some time looking after yourself as well. But coming back to the topic of this session. Asking for help.

Because you know having my neighbour die has scared the hell out of me. I'll be honest with you. I live on my own.

I don't go out that much. There's times when I don't go out for weeks at a time. I don't have much in the way of family or people that I can necessarily rely on.

And I don't reach out as much as I could. But I have asked for help with the mental health team and with the professional services. And that was a big step.

And I'll tell you what, yeah. I'll tell you, let me tell you this. For me I think it was possibly harder and you might think I'm just exaggerating here but I'll tell you why in a minute.

It was possibly somewhat harder for me to get the help and to ask for the help than it perhaps would be for a general member of the public. And you might think oh that sounds a bit conceited. What are you the king? Well the reason is I had to go to the organisation where I used to work as a counsellor.

Yeah. So I used to work as a counsellor with MIND, the charity. And I was with them and they all knew me.

And the only way for me to get any help but first of all I contacted the doctors and they kept putting me in touch with these charities, all of which knew me. And I just said no I can't go there because they know me. It's embarrassing.

I can't. If I'd been a receptionist or if I'd been working in the office or an accountant or something it would have been hard enough them knowing me. But I was a therapist.

I was the one helping other people with anxiety and stress, depression, suicide and things like that. At this point I had left so I hadn't been working for them for over a year. But still they all still knew me because I used to get on really well with them, the people that worked there.

So it was a hard decision because the doctor gave me those choices. You can be on medication because I'd already been diagnosed with bipolar a few years back before I was ill at this point, six years ago. And he said well I'm not going to send you back to the psychiatrist because you've already been diagnosed with bipolar.

You can just go on a medication. I said what about therapy? What about help? And he said well here's a list of charities. And there was two really.

Health in Mind and Mind. Both of which I knew people that worked in both of those places. And I said what about seeing a psychiatrist? And he said well I can't send you to a psychiatrist.

You've got to go to Mind or Health in Mind and they will refer you to a psychiatrist because you've already been diagnosed. You'd have to go through that process. So there was no help available for me unless I jumped through that horrible hoop of walking into that office with all these people and it was not a lot, maybe six people but still I knew them, saying hello, you alright Jason?

You alright? Yeah.

They all thought I was just giving a visit. Like a social visit just to say hi. Or just passing by.

And to say can I please talk to you? And I couldn't have counselling because I knew all the counsellors. So you can't have counselling in a place where you know all the counsellors. So that was out of the question.

And I sat down and I was so, I was embarrassed. I was. Because I was supposed to be a professional therapist, a professional counsellor with a degree you know, qualified with even extra qualifications helping people with severe depression.

And which was part of the mind they put us on the course and stuff. I was embarrassed. I was shaking.

I was really, really upset with the whole process of having to go through that. Instead of being an anonymous person on the phone being, being able to go for counselling or being able to put through the mental health service and referred I was someone they knew. Not only that, I went to see the social worker.

I knew the social worker because I'd worked with him at another charity. I knew the receptionist at the mental health team. It was just, it was it was hard.

Because it was almost like I'd, I felt like I was a failure. But I did it anyway. I did it anyway.

I sold what's her name who wrote the book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Well I felt the terror and did it anyway. I felt the failure and did it anyway.

And it was the best thing I did. The best thing I ever did. Because it set me on a journey to get help.

To get support which I'm still getting. It set me on a journey to end up with a home. Which was not the reason I did it at all.

But I should have had my own home 25 years ago. You know, I just didn't know that that was available to me. I just wasn't aware of it.

Wasn't aware of what my rights were. Or what I was, you know. But that's it doesn't matter.

Asking for help changed my life. And asking for help could change your life. And that's what this is about.

It's a very simple message. I mean, I literally could have just said the recording at the beginning and then please ask for help. And then see you.

Now it could have been the whole recording. So asking for help is difficult sometimes. And maybe, you know, with family, friends, loved ones, it could be way harder than what it was for me with these people that I knew, that I'd worked with.

Especially if you live in a life where they think you're fine. Then ask for help anyway. Because if you tell someone exactly what's going on, how you are, and you ask, not necessarily for money or even their time or any practical help, it might just be someone to listen to you, someone that you thought was in your life, someone that you would help, or maybe someone you have helped.

Just give them a call. Or go visit. Phone up a charity that may be able to help you with your situation.

There may be underlying issues surrounding the anxiety. Things that, if you change those situations, your anxiety and stress, depression, whatever is going on, may actually reduce and improve. For example, housing issues, financial issues like debt.

You can get help with that stuff. There are charities that will help you if you ask for help. Medication.

See a doctor. Taking a pill, two pills a day, could just change your life. And I'm not saying take medication.

I'm not a doctor. I'm not an expert on drugs or anything like that. That's what the doctors are there for.

So ask for help from the people that can help you. And if someone says no, move on to the next person. Because whatever is happening now is it will pass.

It just doesn't feel that way at times. But it will. We just need help.

We all, all of us need help at some point. All of us. Every single person needs help at some point in their life.

Maybe lots of times everybody needs help. So if you need help, just repeating the same sentence, if you need help, ask for it. In fact, some cases you may need to demand it.

But it's also worth remembering you're dealing with humans. So even people in the care profession, you have to be nice to them. Otherwise they won't want to help.

I've actually seen people in an alcohol charity I used to work in a long time ago, in 2006, 2007. And she came in and she was horrible. Rude.

Demanding to be seen straight away. Demanding to not be on a waiting list and all this stuff. And even though she was ill, and she acknowledged that she was ill and she was trying to help herself and she was asking for help.

She was doing it in a way that was annoying the people that were helping her, that were trying to help her. And they weren't going to put anything more than minimal effort into helping her because of the way she was treating them. And that's human nature.

That's just standard human nature. So when I say demand, I don't mean like shouting and stuff. Even though it might feel better afterwards for about 10 minutes till the police turn up.

So just give it a think. Give it a think. And also from the other point, on Christmas Day, I've got two neighbours both in their flats and I knock on both of their doors.

One is the person that passed away. The other one is this chap that I see every now and then. Neither of them answer their doors.

And I was knocking for a while and it's hard to help someone that won't accept it. So that's why if you're the one that needs to help, you're the one that needs to take the action. Because someone else might not be able to do anything.

Basically, if you're locked in an apartment or a flat or a house, you've locked it from the inside. The other person can't come in and help you. If you unlock the door, we can use this as an analogy as well as a physical thing as well.

A literal thing. Unlock that door and let them in. Let them into your life.

Let them in to your life but on your terms maybe. That's what I was saying earlier. It's not like you phone up your mum or your dad or your brother or your sister or best friend or your son, daughter, whatever.

You don't say, I need your help. Some people will just decide they want to spend every day, all day, every day with you to make sure that you're okay. Which isn't going to always be pleasant for the recipient of that kindness.

You know, best will in the world, if I needed help from my dad, I would not want him sitting in this room all day, every day. Neither would he to be fair. But maybe once a week he could take me to the shops to get some food.

I don't need him to do that but if I asked him to do that I like to think that he would. And I've never tested the theory but I would find someone to do it if I needed it. I learnt something during my sales my sales career and how to talk people into doing things just a little bit but I wouldn't want it in debt all the time.

But it's nice to know that you can you've got someone you can phone when you need them. I know that I can phone my dad at 3 o'clock in the morning and he'll answer the phone. He won't be happy but who would be happy to be woken up at 3 in the morning if they're asleep.

You're not phoning to cheer them up are you? If you need help in an emergency first of all I would say call for an ambulance if it's a medical situation or if you feel that there's a possible harm situation call for an ambulance.

If it's emotional support you need in England we've got I say Britain I don't know if it covers the whole of Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland I don't know but it's called the Samaritans and I know there are equivalent all over the world where you can phone and you can speak to someone or sometimes you can text so you don't have to have that personal communication with your voice sometimes especially maybe people that have been brought up with mobile phones and they're used to texting a lot they'd feel more

comfortable texting and that's a service that the Samaritans offer and it's a service that I guess a lot of charities and helplines would offer as well if you need help ask for help I guess that's the only hypnotic part of this session is embedding that into your mind if you need help ask for help that's now stuck in your head that's a little hypnotic suggestion I'm going to give you I'm not usually quite as obvious as that but that's now stuck in your head I'm going to leave that in your

mind to remember if you need help ask for help and I don't care if it's annoying you hearing me repeat it I'll keep repeating it we're near the end of the recording anyway but I'm probably going to repeat it in future recordings as well just to annoy people if you need help ask for help because I don't care if I annoy you if it helps if it sinks in to remember that actually you deserve to have help don't you?

don't you deserve that?

the answer is yes go on say it after me, yes I deserve to be helped say after me I can ask for help if I need it and say I will ask for help if I need it and if you do need help whatever the situation is to help with stress, to help with anxiety panic attacks, to help with your housing situation financial situation depression whatever it might be or health there might be a physical health situation that may be you ignoring for whatever reason and to be fair it's ignoring physical ailments is I think it's a human pastime it's natural to want to do that because facing up to it is not pleasant but then just being ill isn't pleasant anyway is it?

it's not supposed to be going to the doctor is not pleasant unless you go to the doctor and I don't know I'm trying to think of a pleasant situation I don't know I suppose if you've got you're going with your husband and you don't like him and he's going to where his ingrown toenail removed so you go with him and watch him squirm which might be pleasurable for someone to watch but I've had that done it's not nice but it's not the end of the world either it's just a nail

so although I'm talking more about emotional stuff which this podcast is about these recordings are about that it also can be expanded to any aspect of your life as simple as lifting something very very heavy and you're unable to physically do it and you know that perhaps you can't but you do it anyway and you end up hurting yourself ask for help yeah there's a people that will climb up onto the roof themselves to readjust or put a new aerial on the roof or to remove a slate or chain you

know stick a new slate on because the slate's fallen off the roof they'll go and climb on the roof themselves instead of asking for help someone that knows what they're doing or at least someone that can hold the ladder for them you know there's no harm in asking for help in fact I'm going to give you a little analogy it's an old one from years ago from school it was so this isn't mine and you might have heard it before it's very old but I've not heard anyone really talk about

it for a long time but it was what was it someone they pass away they go to the pearly gates or whatever and they get taken to different places and there's one place is they've got all the food in the world all the food in the world every single bit of food you could eat and they've got spoons, knives and forks that are just too big they can't do anything with them too big so they can't eat the food they're not allowed to touch it with their hands for some reason

so they have to they can't use the cutlery because it's too big and they're taken to another place and it's exactly the same they've got this big cutlery exactly the same and he says and the person in charge saying that place before is hell and they were all looking miserable but this place they all look happy he said this place is heaven and the person that was being given the tour he said well what's the difference he said watch and he watched and the people were helping each other to eat

you know four people per spoon holding it and tipping it so the person could eat off of it so they were helping each other to share the food with each other helping each other hold the big cutlery so by helping each other they turned that place into heaven because they had everything they had everything I don't really need to explain it do I they had everything they could want all the most beautiful food that they could eat but in hell they still had all the beautiful food because they wouldn't help

each other they didn't get to eat so asking for help is really important I'll leave you on that I think I can't believe I've bobbled on for 53 minutes thank you for listening and I'll say it one more time if you need help or if you feel you need help or you feel you're going to need help please ask for help and you know what if you don't know where to go to get help ask someone to help you to find someone to help you so ask someone where you could

find some help look on the internet find a local counsellor a private counsellor phone them up and say can you give me an idea of a charity that can help me go into the library lots of places you could go to you could even go to an AA meeting just go in there before the meeting starts or at the end of the meeting and just ask the leader of the meeting do you know I wonder if you could help me it's not alcohol related but it's this is what's going on

I was wondering if you know anyone that could help anyone you could put me in touch with that I could go and contact those meetings those kind of places are like tentacles they've got because the people that go there have got they've got feelers in other departments in other places they know the doctor surgeries they know the health clinics, the charities the mental health places the counsellors they're going to know people that will be able to help so I'll end on that one I hope that I've in some way helped

you to take action and ask for help if you need it and remember we don't always know if we need it so that could be a question worth asking so I will be back again probably tomorrow doing something another recording so thank you for listening I hope this has been useful and I'm speaking from my heart when I do this so I know I've repeated myself quite a bit but this is really important I think so remember to be kind to yourself remember to help yourself not in the old cliche

of well if you you've got to help yourself before anyone else can help you because that's almost the way that's represented by people is almost a put down you're not helping yourself so you don't deserve to be helped no help yourself because you do deserve to be helped but you can help yourself by asking for help and be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy lots of love bye