Hello I’m Sue and I’ve been a military wife now for 10 years (there are times when it feels like much longer if you know what I mean).  I’m also a hypnotherapist.  It always makes me laugh when I tell people what I do for a living because the reaction is always the same, they lean back and go ooooohhh, as if I am going to hypnotise them there and then to do something they possible don’t want to.  If you’ve ever seen a stage hypnotist, they always have an obligatory chicken dance somewhere in there.  However when I explain how hypnotherapy can cure so many problems, they soon relax and are fascinated by the whole subject.

I’ve not always been a hypnotherapist, prior to that I was a pastoral Deputy head teacher in a large international school which I loved but the continued stress of that post led me to being quite ill and hospitalised at a time when my husband was in theatre and whilst recuperating at home alone and bored, I surfed the internet and found someone claiming to be able to hypnotise me whilst I was laying in bed.  Sceptical was an understatement until I woke up 20 minutes later feeling much brighter than before. Intrigued, I wanted to learn more and so booked an appointment with a local practitioner who easily identified the underlying cause of me feeling really bent out of shape and proceeded to make me feel so much better.

I left my teaching  post that same year and trained to be the clinical hypnotherapist I am today, because I could see the benefits of such a therapy.

In my day to day practice I treat all kinds of issues but specialise in anxiety and PTSD. I belong to the CATCH network of therapists that are trained specifically for PTSD which is particularly pertinent for military personnel.  But it’s not just serving  personnel that I treat, families are affected directly by PTSD, some of you will recognise the feeling of anxiety as walking on eggshells around the person affected, routines which you’ve carefully crafted to keep things stable are disrupted and there you are trying bravely to hold things together whilst all of this is going on around you. Children can manifest tummy aches, eating disorders or OCD as they too try to control what is happening around them.

Hypnotherapy can release the tension and anxiety that is running in your body to help you cope with day to day life.  Most of my clients tell me that they didn’t want to ‘wake up’ when the session ends because its such a calm and soothing place to be!  I work on-line internationally as well as in my office in Hereford so am open to all.

Because of my leadership experience I help men and women in business to hold their place in the company when times get tough.  I can help them work through old patterns that have been blocking them and identify and how they are affecting their productivity, most of us have an element of imposter syndrome hiding somewhere and guess what, it leads to anxiety!  I’ve just treated someone who was very senior in the Navy for 35 years and had terrible imposter syndrome but is now fit and healthy and a thriving leadership coach.

Some top tips I can give you for managing anxiety are:

Any emotion (good or bad) only lasts 90 seconds, we make it last longer by asking the mind to repeat the sensation.  Next time you feel anxious remember you can sit with that emotion for  90 seconds and then let it go.

Name the emotion you are feeling out loud in the third person.  Sue is feeling anxious, it’s because ….. she can make this go away by…..

Live in the now, raking over old incidents, what people said or did gets you nowhere. It might live in your head but it definitely won’t be living in theirs.

If you are interested in what hypnotherapy can do for you or just want to chat to someone, get in touch via email sue@suesmiththerapy.com or give me a call on 07852224886.