I am delighted to be able to announce two events that I will be involved with.

Firstly, a new venture that finds me, along with my original (I was going to say old – but he might get upset) tutor Ray Jenkinson teaching hypnotherapy. We have formed the Northern College of Creative Hypnotherapy Ltd and we will be delivering an advanced diploma at Tameside General Hospital from this March. The course, which offers an exciting new perspective on Hypnotherapy Training, takes place over ten weekends over a period of six months. Graduates will be fully qualified Hypnotherapists on completion of the course and we will be helping with on-going support, including training, supervision and marketing. The information evening is being held on Wednesday 27th January at 7 pm at The Werneth Building, Tameside General Hospital. See www.ncoch.co.uk for more information.

The following day, the 28th January 2010, I am "on stage" at the CUC in Liverpool. Inexcess TV are hosting a Day of Recovery to an audience of 430 drug and alcohol workers. The special guest is Byron Katie, the well known author and creator of "The Work". I am looking forward to meeting with Katie and discussing her work and also the challenge of encouraging so many people into a peaceful state (or trance). I hope to learn more about how counselling and hypnotherapy can help, particularly with addictions. For more information, please visit www.inexcess.tv or www.byronkatie.com. I understand that the day is fully booked; DVDs are available if you contact Inexcess.

Steve, one of my counselling tutors had a saying that has stuck with me; "who wrote the shoulds?".

The truth is we all write our own shoulds and shouldn'ts. We all learn that it's not ok to do this, and we ought to be doing that. Usually these instructions come from our parents – "children should be seen and not heard", "you shouldn't be so upset about that", "you should finish all the food on your plate, think of all those starving children!" or from teachers "behave, be quiet, stand to attention" etc...

Of course the blame game doesn't usually work as our parents were usually doing their best and using what they were taught.

Shoulds are all around us, they come, I believe, in three categories. Firstly, there is the law that should be obeyed, although many have campaigned against unjust laws (slavery, women's votes and the poll tax come to mind.) Then there are our moral laws, sometimes with a religious element. However, these are flexible and open to debate (the current debate over homosexuality in the Anglican Church) and change over time.

Then we come to the shoulds that we impose upon ourselves and those around us. Often they are used as a moral stick to hit ourselves with, a way to be unkind to ourselves and prove that we are 'bad' (which satisfies what we have been told at sometime in our lives and unfortunately we believe at a deep level.)

Using counselling you can review your 'shoulds' and see which ones are useful to you and help you live a happy contented life, and which ones riddle you with inappropriate guilt and lead to sleepless nights. This type of should usually create a high level of expectation on yourself and is then projected onto others, so you are constantly left feeling let down, anxious and stressed.

If you would like to know more about 'shoulds' and how counselling and therapy in general can work and you live in Stockport, Cheshire or Greater Manchester please call us at Calm Minds in Bramhall – 0161 439 7773.

Well the New Year has arrived along with the drifts of snow in Cheshire and Greater Manchester – in most of the UK in fact. The anticipated start of work has been delayed for many of us. Nice for the ‘inner child’ in us all that wants to sledge and throw snow balls – but not for the ‘parent’ in us that needs to work, earn and provide. Quite frustrating when you can’t get your car off the drive after such a long absence.

I question if the New Year Resolution has been postponed too. Is it too slippery to go for that run, I can’t quite make it to the gym in this weather, or perhaps I need that chocolate bar because it’s so cold outside?

New Year Resolutions are a strange phenomenon, perhaps a natural knee-jerk reaction to the festivities that precede the start of the year. It seem like a good time to lose weight, stop smoking or try to change some behaviour, and if you are motivated to do something positive, then that is absolutely fine.

However, have you ever wondered why they don’t seem to last? Why do gymnasiums sign us up for a year and then most of us stop going in February? The answer is quite simple, it is about habits. We are creatures of habit, we wake up at the same time and then our subconscious is on auto-pilot. Breakfast, smoke, shower, drive to work (usually the same route), coffee (maybe a biscuit – chocolate perhaps), work, lunch (same time each day), home (probably the same way as you went in), tea, TV, and then to bed after brushing your teeth. I happen to like a glass of Lefe on a Friday night, in the kitchen, never in the lounge.

That is my habit, and habits are so hard to break, because they are engrained into the sub conscious (the most powerful part of the mind.) Trying to consciously break a habit is like swimming against the tide. That is why generally diets don’t work for weight loss and stopping smoking on your own is notoriously difficult. In my experience the best way to break a habit is by using hypnotherapy.

Hypnotherapists relay a suggestion directly to the subconscious, and therefore if you want to stop smoking or want to eat more healthily this can be done relatively easily using hypnosis.

If you would like to talk to someone about breaking a habit that is going to make a permanent change and not a New Year fad, call us at Calm Minds on 0161 439 7773.