Today I saw a gentleman diagnosed by his Doctor as suffering with stress, depression and anxiety. He suffered crippling pain, headaches, stomach aches, and pain all over his body, with no physiological problems, it had been put down as a psychosomatic issue.
Therefore his pain was caused by his mental state and let me tell you he was in a state. I asked him what he wanted and he proceeded to tell me what he didn’t want. I corrected him and asked him what he did want, he said to be happy, I asked him what happiness looked like and he told me what happiness didn’t look like. This told me that part of the problem was his quality of thoughts.
He described a black whole filled with pain and desperation, he had lost all control of his thoughts, it was although a black cloud was following him and everything was dark. He said it’s as though he was in a cold bath and the power had gone out. He spent every minute sat in darkness, he didn’t watch TV or do anything other than stare at the floor.
Depression is usually caused by the fact we aren’t living the life we imagined, his expectation and reality were not aligned. Sometimes life doesn’t go the way we hoped, If we then start to run the pity program of “why me’ or “this kind of stuff always happens to me” or “It’s just my luck” we are on a downward spiral of doom and gloom. Guess what doom and gloom brings, more ‘bad luck’
I see people every day moaning about the world and wondering why all the bad stuff happens to them. I’m familiar with it because that used to be me.
A few things needed to change with this client. He needed a huge kick up the metaphorical bum:
Attitude
His attitude needed a revamp, I said if you leave here and miss your bus I bet you’ll think ‘that’s just my luck’ ‘why me?’ ‘Nothing goes right for me’ he laughed. So we used humour to challenge those thoughts I made him laugh and we hard rewired his attitude (using hypnosis) So now every time he tries to attend the pity party he gets rerouted to the laughter party instead.
Focus
His focus was internal, he was constantly scanning for pain or shortness of breath to signify a panic attack, so I rerouted his focus using hypnosis, he now focusses on the beauty in everything he sees, even the beauty of a leaf. You see depression cannot reside at the same time as joy. So the more joy he sees around him the less he can feel depression.
Goals
We also discussed his future, where he hoped he might be. I had to challenge some negative belief patterns he was running about his academic ability. After he agreed he can learn, (as we all can at a different rate) he decided he wanted to study. So one easy manageable step was for him to research what was needed to start a course. I didn’t send him out there to go take a course, (as that would trigger his anxiety) just to find out what was needed.
With these steps taken my client will start to feel more joy this week, he will start thinking about his future, connect again with his dreams and ambitions, start to see the world as a brighter happier place. This is just week one, imagine what changes we will make in week two!