Yesterday was my charity day to help people to quit smoking and raise some money for Cancer Research UK.

It was a lovely sunny day in Stratford and as I drove into the car park with the blue skies above my I looked out to see the Royal Shakespeare theatre looming in front of me and I knew that the day would be brilliant for everyone.

It took place at the Arden Hotel in Stratford upon Avon who very kindly donated the room and even provided teas and coffees for our participants. Before the event began we were visited by a photographer and reporter from the Startford Herald and I was able to talk all about the aims of the event and how successful people using hypnotherapy are at quitting smoking. I think that if they had not needed to go off and cover another ten events they may well have stayed as well.

As people started to arrive you could sense that different people were in different states of mind about how the event would be for them. Client confidentiality is always a given in Clinical Hypnotherapy so I can't say anything that would identify anyone but I will say that some were more nervous than others! Once we got underway I was really pleased that everyone wanted to chip and and they were all prepared to talk about their relationship with cigarettes. We had a wide range of people with many different habits. The least amount of cigarettes smoked was about three per week and the most was nearly fifty a day. We went through a process that is the same as I would undertake with clients on a one to one basis but being able to share really helped people see that they were not alone.

I always work out for my clients how much they are spending on cigarettes per year and they are often amazed at how much it adds up. Some people know exactly how much they spend others try to avoid thinking about it. Suffice to say that when we added up how much money would be saved if everyone quit smoking we could have bought a nice car after just a years saving ! It is a very sobering thought. When we talk about the health side of things and especially to people who have children about how those children would feel if the parent was to become ill it really starts to hit home.

After the hypnosis part of the session it was plain to see how much more relaxed everyone had become. They all said that they really enjoyed the experience and I have now sent them all some audio of what we did so they can listen to the MP3 and reinforce all that we did together.

Once the event was over we were able to take a donation up to the Cancer research shop in the town and hand it over. I also had some more money raised from donations that was kindly given to me that afternoon so I was able to log on and topped it up a little too.

There is always a great satisfaction in helping people to give up smoking. Working with a group, helping them and helping charity too was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning.