#94 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks - REASSURING LETTER - (Jason Newland) (9th February 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name's Jason Newland. This is Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks. Please only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes.

And please subscribe. I always feel yawny sometimes when I do a recording. So it's very windy outside, so if you're wondering what that background sound is, it's the weather.

So not a lot I can do about that. Now, this is going to be a short recording. I can hear the cheers in the background.

Yay, a short one! And it might not be as short as I am expecting it to be. But it's an exercise to do. It's a really nice exercise that might seem really weird to do it.

It might seem, might seem, might seem, yeah, just strange, a bit, a bit mmm. But it's okay. And of course you don't have to do anything.

You don't have to do these things. But I would suggest give it a try. Because there's nothing to lose.

It's a win-win situation. You know, there's nothing to lose. And I kind of feel that for all of the recordings.

You can't lose anything. Maybe a little bit of time, you know, but other than that. So this exercise is basically writing a letter to yourself.

But specifically writing a letter to yourself. And I'll show you another way to describe this. If you knew somebody that was identical to you.

If you knew somebody, let's pretend you know somebody that's gone through everything that you've gone through in life, that has the same issues, whether physical, whether mental health issues, whether emotional issues, relationship issues, whatever it is. As well as all the good stuff as well, you know, but just imagine someone's an identical, whether they call them dimpledoppers or something, dimple, I don't know. Someone's exactly the same as you.

What you want to do is reassure them. You want to send them a letter. And I say the word letter, it doesn't have to be written.

You can do it in email. You could do a voice recording. You know, you're not actually going to send it to yourself.

No one else is ever going to hear it or read it. It's just a letter. So I'm going to use a term letter.

But as I said, you can, it can be however, in whatever process you choose. I mean, you could do it on a big whiteboard with a marker pen if that's what you wanted to do. And that is it.

That's the entire exercise. It sounds simple. Or it might sound complicated, depends on how well I've described and explained what it is that I'm asking you to do.

Basically, you're writing a letter to yourself. A letter of reassurance to yourself. But from a perspective of being another person.

So that you can get rid of that block that you might have, which perhaps has prevented you from being kind to yourself. You know, verbally, inside, internally, internal voice, saying nice things, reminding you about your good qualities, about your positive attributes, about the fact that you're a human being. And you just need to take a break sometimes.

Need to take, you know, just be a bit more gentle on yourself. And also to remind yourself that things will be okay. Things are going to be okay.

Now it's up to you what you write. The only rule with this letter is it's positive. It's not a letter of, you're not writing down to yourself all the things you don't like about yourself.

That's the opposite. None of that is allowed in this letter. No put downs, not even as a joke.

Even if it's really funny, don't write it down. Because this isn't that time. This is a time for being really, really gentle, writing a really, really kind and gentle letter to you.

And the reason I put it in the framework of writing a letter to someone else that's identical to you is because it might make it a little bit easier. When you start thinking of someone else suffering, or someone else having a hard time with it at times. Maybe someone else that gets a sense of hopelessness now and then.

Or more often than they'd like to. So this gives you an opportunity to write the letter that you would write in that situation. Let's imagine you've just been with that person that told you their life story.

And you write a letter back to them and saying, look, you know, you've been through a lot. You've actually done really well. I don't think you realize how much you've accomplished in your life.

Do you understand where I'm coming from with this? It's about being really gentle. There's a person called Zig Ziglar. He was a motivational speaker.

And he said, if you treat every single person you ever meet like they're suffering inside, then you'll be treating every single person correctly. Because everyone is suffering inside, to various degrees. And I think maybe sometimes we use the word suffering to mean something extreme, which it can.

But it can also mean someone that's got some pain, whether physical, emotional, you know. And everybody's got some of that. Everybody's lost somebody.

Everyone's bereaved. Everyone's lost someone they cared about in their life at some point. It might not even be a family member.

It might be a famous person. I mean, for example, I was watching a documentary about Whitney Houston earlier, and I just felt so sad. I felt almost, and I'm not going to judge myself for it.

You know, there's a part of me that wants to mock myself and like, that's ridiculous. You never met her. You know, why would you care? But actually, I do care.

And I had love for Whitney Houston, a different kind of love. You know, it wasn't romantic love. But I was a big, big fan of hers.

And as a young man, I really, she was my crush, my celebrity crush, if that makes sense. So when she passed away, it was awful. And then just seeing that documentary, so there was some suffering there.

It's not enough to, you know, it's not major. It's not going to affect my life, the level of suffering that I was experiencing earlier today. But it's still suffering.

And that's what life is about. You know, life, it's not what it's about, but it's part of life. As the Buddha said, life is suffering.

But it's also pleasure. It's also love. It's also kindness.

It's also laughter. They all go together. You know, the door needs to be open for all of those things.

Otherwise, the door's closed to pretty much all of those things. We don't have a different door for different emotions. It seems they all need to be come and go through the same door.

But if you leave that door open, they will all come, but they will all go as well. They don't stick around, because misery has its own home. Because if you're there, you know, if it doesn't get what it needs from you, it will go elsewhere.

It won't stick around. In the same way, I suppose, happiness presents itself to you. But if you're not noticing it, you don't perhaps want that feeling, which might seem strange, but I've plenty of times in the past had a feeling of like lightness and happiness and pushed it away because I didn't want that.

I wanted to feel miserable. However ridiculous that might sound to some people. But that's how I felt at that time.

And other times I embrace it. And it's a choice. What can, doesn't always feel, doesn't feel like a choice a lot of the time, but it is a choice.

So, you know, some people, I try and get across the idea that we choose what we do. For example, if I need to go to the toilet, which I think I might do soon, which again has got nothing to do with the recording. I don't know why I seem to like talking about going to the toilet, but I could say I've got no choice but to press the pause button and go to the toilet.

But that's not true. I don't have to pause. I don't have to do anything.

I could hold it in. Not indefinitely, but I could hold it in and I could cause a lot of pain and eventually it's going to come out, you know, it's just life, isn't it? Or I could walk into the toilet and take the recorder with me and continue talking, which means you'd have a very echoey, and you'd have the wind in the background would continue, but just a different type.

And, or I could just go to the toilet in my pants.

Again, it's ridiculous, but it's true. I have that choice. That's when I talk about choices, because we limit ourselves, say, oh, I've got no choice.

I have to do this. No, you don't. It's a good idea to do something, because the alternative might be horrible.

You know, it's like not turning up for work and not phoning in. I mean, that could be the end of that job, but it's still a choice. And I made that decision many times in the past.

I've lost loads of jobs from just not turning up in my youth, my twenties and stuff, or my teens as well. But it is a choice. So it's about, I guess, making decent choices for you.

Just like writing this letter is a choice. You don't have to do it. But what's there to lose? The worst-case scenario is you read the letter, and you read nice things about yourself.

That's the worst-case scenario. And that doesn't sound too bad to me. It doesn't sound like a nightmare.

It sounds almost could almost be enjoyable. That's why I think that funerals should be held before we die. Not one will, but just we should have that ceremony.

Call it something different, but have that ceremony where all the people, family, friends, loved ones, colleagues, whatever, get together and say nice stuff about us. Imagine how beautiful that would be to actually realise that that person really does care about you and how many people care about you. I mean, my nan used to say, one of her sayings was, if you don't visit me during, if you don't visit me while I'm alive, don't visit me at my funeral.

That's what was her, don't visit me, don't come to my funeral if you don't visit me when I'm alive. And I said, okay, I'll come and visit you then. But she was very, like, quite to the point with that stuff.

It's like, I suppose this is kind of the flip side to that. Why wait to say the things that are important to say until it's too late to say it? Why not say it now? And although we're not focusing on other people, you're focusing on yourself. So why not tell yourself this stuff? I'm guessing you may never have done it.

I've never done it. I'm going to do it. I've kind of done sort of similar things, but not quite as specific as this.

I've done letters to other people that I've never sent. There's actually a Buddhist ceremony thing, it's a tradition thing, I don't know if it's for all Buddhist schools, but it was for the one I went to, where people would actually talk out loud and say something nice about somebody that's in the room with them. So let's say there might be 100 people in that room.

Not everybody's going to know the person closely. So it might be a Mithra ceremony, which basically is when you become a Buddhist, and Mithra kind of means friend. You become part of the Sangha, which is the collective of Buddhists.

I'm not going to bore you with Buddhism, but I'm just going to say that when you've got a room full of people, and maybe 10, 15 people stand up, or they don't always stand up, but just say, oh, I want to just say, you know, you're really kind, and whatever it could be. You're very considerate. And you helped a lot when my kid was going through those problems, and you know, whatever it could be.

And then you have another person stand up and say this sort of a different thing. And it's really powerful, because I've seen this done. I suppose this is kind of where I'm coming, because I've seen the responses, and I've felt the responses for myself.

When other people have done it, because I've been through that ceremony. And there's one particular one where there was this young lady, she's probably about 22. Some of the things that were said about her, and her dad was there.

And hearing her dad say all these lovely things about her, I started crying. I kind of had, I held it, I didn't have to hold it in, but I held it in. But I really choked up.

And I just wanted it to be my dad. You know, I wanted to be her, and him to be my dad saying those things. And it's kind of then when I really realised how powerful that is, not just for her, but for other people as well, that were witnessing it.

So I thought I'd kind of, I don't know if this has ever been done. And I know writing letters to yourself has been helpful. And there's other ways of doing it, like planning and making goals.

I've never, I don't recall ever seeing the idea of writing a letter to yourself, a letter of reassurance. But it might have done so, I'm not going to, I'm not going to claim anything's mine, or I'm just going to say I don't recall it. But it might, I've done a little bit of research, I haven't seen anything, but it doesn't matter.

And there's other ways of doing letters, but I'm not going to focus on the others, just this one specific thing. And maybe I'll talk about other letter writing exercises that perhaps you can do in the future. But I will say one thing, I did, I had quite a bit of a meltdown in 1997.

Like a really, really bad meltdown, it was in an evening. Luckily, my friend wasn't there, because I lived with a friend, he was out. And I just lost it, completely lost it.

Didn't know what I was going to do, I really didn't know kind of where I was going, mentally, in that time. Everything, I'd lost my job, my girlfriend, and everything was just all going, and it all seemed to crumble on that evening. So what I did, is I wrote letters to three different people.

And they weren't nice letters. Not all of them were nice letters. And I was quite hostile, I think, in, I think, the first one.

And I was less hostile in the second letter. And I started to be quite nice in the third letter that I wrote. And one thing I noticed, is when I started writing, because I was thinking all these horrible things, and I was feeling aggressive.

Once I started writing out on paper, on one level, it felt nice. In a sense of an expression. You know, from an expressive perspective, it was a release, it definitely was a release.

On the other side, it didn't feel so nice, because I was imagining the person I was writing a letter to actually reading it. And I had no intention of sending the letters out. At least, I don't think I did.

I didn't send them out, but I don't think I had any intention of sending them. And I had this, I think it was a realisation, but the idea of them reading it, how upsetting it would be for them to read that. Which would kind of be the opposite to what we're doing here, where you're writing yourself a letter of reassurance.

It's an emotional thing, but it's a different kinds of emotions. So you're not writing to yourself being horrible, or unkind, or cruel. It's the opposite, you're being kind, you're being gentle, you're being reassuring.

And none of it is false. It's all real. You speak from your heart.

And another part of me kicked in where I kind of thought, this isn't really me. Because I wouldn't say this. First of all, I wouldn't send a letter.

I wouldn't send such a horrible letter. I never have, never will. I can write it, I wouldn't send it.

The idea of her reading it, or him reading it, was, it actually, I felt upset with the idea of it. But again, it was kind of a cathartic, there was almost, I felt upset, then at the same time, that relief that she won't be reading it. But also realizing that that's not who I am.

Maybe part of who I am, but it's not really who I am. It's the anger, the frustration, the depression, or whatever I was going through at the time. And realizing that actually, after writing it down, I didn't feel that way anymore.

It released those feelings. And I was really surprised because I didn't expect it to. I didn't go into it, didn't do it thinking, well, I've read loads of books and I know about this, this would be good.

Because I hadn't. And I just had the idea of doing it. And I'm sure I probably read it somewhere.

You know, it wasn't my ideas. People have been doing this probably for a long, long time. But I just had the idea came into my head and I thought, I'll give that a go.

And I did it. And it worked. And I have written letters or lists of what I like about myself.

I've written lists of gratitude, things I'm grateful for. And again, these are all things we can do. And I'll perhaps talk about some of those in the future.

But for this letter of reassurance, this letter of kindness, this letter of love that you can send to yourself, and do what you need to do to get into the perspective where you can actually see yourself, who you are. It's not how you want to be. It's not who you think you are, just how you are.

How another person will see you, experience you, the things you know to be true. The kindness you know to be there. It's about getting in touch with that positive reality.

And even though I said it's going to be a short, short recording, it's still an inch to go for half an hour. But you know, it's me, full of stamina I am. It's easy to say that when I'm sitting down in a chair, isn't it? So give it a go.

And I'm going to do it as well. I mean, I've done it in different formats. And in the past, I used to write poems, used to write songs, used to try and find different ways to express myself.

I used to do vlogs as well, online on YouTube. And so I find expressing myself verbally is something that I am attracted to as a process. I find that my ideal way to do it, for me.

It used to be writing. So I used to keep journals for about over 20 years. I used to keep journals.

I had hundreds of books, pads full of writing and stuff, from the age of 18 to 40, I think, 41. So yeah, it's quite a lot of that stuff. But I don't really do that anymore.

It's more verbal. It's more, yeah. So I guess it just changes.

It doesn't matter how it is. It doesn't matter if you do it through painting, if you do it through walking and just thinking, or talking with somebody, or talking into a microphone and never, ever letting anybody listen to it. Or looking in the mirror and just saying those kind things to yourself, reminding you of reality, the truth, that you are a kind person, and you've got many, many wonderful qualities.

Many, many wonderful qualities. Qualities. And just get in touch with that feeling.

You don't have to do it all at once. It could be a gradual process of getting in touch with the reality that you're an amazing person. It doesn't have to happen all at once.

It can happen all at once. But it's like anything, we're always changing. We're always growing.

We're always gaining more knowledge about the world, about other people, about ourselves. Always learning more. Always learning new ways to cope and to deal with life.

New ways to accomplish our goals. New ways to feel relaxed and calm. New ways to realize that you're a unique person, a one-off.

No one else in the world like you. You're the only person in the whole world of your kind. And you're an amazing person.

And you need to start getting in touch with that a bit, you know. I don't expect people to listen to this and suddenly start doing handstands and cartwheels and, you know, walking around with a cape and a superhero costume, you know. Selling everyone, I'm wonderful, I'm wonderful.

It's not about that. It's about how you feel. It's about how your feelings change towards yourself.

It's about feeling more positive towards yourself. It's about having more kindness aimed at you, from you. And welcoming it.

Embracing that kindness. Like it was the sun. Like sunbathing in the sun but instead you're bathing in that kindness and that love that's within you all the time.

It's almost like it's reflecting off of you. You realise you haven't got this sun of kindness and love shining on you. It's actually just a big mirror up there.

And it's just reflecting it back to you, from you. Constantly. So I'm going to bring this recording to an end.

So it's a case, I'll just quickly go, I don't quickly do anything do I? I'll just go over it again. Just write a letter to yourself. It can be an email.

It can be something you do on your tablet, on your phone. And you can send an email to yourself anyway, can't you? So I do it to myself sometimes. Just, it's the process.

It is the process. So a reassuring letter to yourself, with the main two goals, reminding yourself of those good qualities that you have, those positive qualities that you have, and also reminding yourself that things are going to be okay. Reminding yourself that things will be okay.

So that's the end of this recording. Thank you very much for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself.

Because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love. From me and the wind outside.

Bye.