“I DON’T REALLY NEED YOU, DO I?”

It was my last client before the start of a well earned summer holiday.

Britt and I had, in recent months been starting to feel the pressure of constantly working on our businesses and had resolved that from now on we would treat ourselves to regular beach breaks. We weren’t really bothered where we went, just as long as there was sun, sea and all inclusive cocktails!

The Greek island of Zante beckoned and Britt was packed and ready. By contrast, my toothbrush was still in the bathroom, my passport was still in the bureau and my pants remained safely housed in their usual top drawer, blissfully unaware they were going anywhere.

I still had that one client left.

It was a follow up session which usually means quite a simple chat about how well everything has gone, how amazed they are by the radical change in their thinking and a quick check in with their subconscious to make sure all is good.

However, on this occasion it wasn’t quite that simple.

“How have you been?” I asked the smiling lady, expecting a healthy degree of superlatives about the no doubt astonishing transformation in her thinking.

“Well”, she began, “It was all ok when I left here last week…”

I sensed a ‘but’ was about to arrive.
“…but…” I was right! “…it was a couple of days later when I realised things weren’t quite as I wanted.”

“Ok”, I said as if that made perfect sense to me.

“So what I did”, she continued, “I tried that thing you did to talk to my subconscious, and got it to put it right. Everything is fine now.”

‘That thing’ that she was referring to was called Ideo-Motor Response (IMR) where we talk directly to the client’s subconscious mind using non-conscious finger or hand movements. This technique is perhaps the main reason why people use the word ‘weird’ in our sessions. I hear ‘weird’ a lot!

She paused. She had clearly had another thought and was contemplating whether or not to voice that thought.

“I don’t really need you, do I?”
Damn! She voiced it!

The lady was right. She didn’t need me. It was something I had known for a while but still I felt less than pleased that SHE had realised it.

The thing is, as hypnotherapists we work very hard to empower the client and make sure they realise that it is them and not us that make the changes. I’m not a brain surgeon or a magician. I have no idea how to rewire the synapses in your brain to think differently. The thing is your mind does. All I can do is try to guide you through discovering how YOU are going to do it. So why was it so surprising (and challenging) to hear someone perfectly understand the desired message?

I pondered that question as I hurriedly packed my bag for holiday. I pondered it further in the car on the way to the airport. I pondered it further still during nearly the entire flight to Greece.

That’s the great (and awful) thing about a holiday. You have nothing to do or think about. The everyday minutia of life is put on hold and as such you end up with a heck of a lot of thinking space.

Having promised Britt I would switch off and enjoy our week without distractions I found myself unable to stop thinking about what she had said. If I truly have no magic wand and people can do this for themselves, then why do we do it for them? If I put you to sleep, ‘fix you’ and wake you up when all is done, then how can I possibly suggest you can do this without me?
It seemed apparent that my message was one of incongruence. I don’t like incongruence. This had to be resolved.

By the time we were halfway to Greece the question had morphed slightly.

If they can do it themselves then why can’t they do it themselves?

It was on our descent to Zante airport that I finally achieved some clarity. I needed to reverse engineer what I do for clients and create a system for them to truly make changes for themselves. It must be simple. Clients don’t want to spend months learning how to do this. They just want simple tools to achieve the change they want for themselves and ultimately to get control of the way they think, feel and behave.

That was it! This was my mission! I will use what I know about the mind to design a simple system of change that anyone can do and everyone can benefit from.

As the wheels of the plane hit the tarmac I had a feeling my mind might be busier than anticipated over the next seven days.

Look out for Part 2 of my journey towards creating the CONTROL system.

If you can’t wait and want to find out more about the system I developed on that holiday then click here: About Control