“Can you help me to juggle with hypnosis?”, has to be one of the more unusual requests that I have heard! Being a clinical hypnotherapist means that I help people with so many different issues. You probably think that I spend most of my time helping people to stop smoking with hypnosis, lose weight and overcome their fears and phobias. I also spend a great deal of time working with people on managing the stress and anxiety of life and even teaching people to control and turn down pain.

But, I also get involved in things that you may not even have thought about before. I help people to learn how to control blushing so that they do not have to live in fear of what happens to their face when they feel a little anxious or embarrassed. This works wonders in stopping blushing brides from actually blushing.

One of the most unusual things that I have done recently was to help someone to become a better Juggler!

Jane Deane is an actress who has appeared on Kids TV, in the series Justin’s House where she played the unicycling Dee Livery. You may think that unicycling is tough but Jane was working with me on her juggling skills! She performs for children and adults live on a regular basis, and has been juggling for more years than she cares to remember. As a three or four ball juggler Jane is very accomplished and has no problems. She also uses clubs and can juggle away to her heart’s content.

 However, when it comes to five balls she admits that she struggles to keep up that swirling pattern of balls before gravity takes over.

Juggling is actually an excellent way to take yourself off to another place, and believe it or not to reduce stress! This may seem counter intuitive but in actual fact, even though it may seem hard to juggle once you learn, you never forget and the interesting thing is that when you are juggling you can only concentrate on one thing because you are using both sides of the brain at the same time. This is why it works so well as a stress reliever.

I worked with Jane on helping her to visualise exactly what her juggling would be like when she used all five balls and also relaxing herself so that she does not put too much pressure on herself to get it right. As she works in a fun and comical environment it is fine for her to drop the balls sometimes.

Now all she needs to do is go away with an MP3 that I made her so that she can listen and reinforce what she is learning and before long she will be juggling all five balls...with a bit of practice too of course !