Dear All,
After the excellent goal setting and public speaking workshops throughout January & February, Brain Train Academy is gearing up for our unique main training programs of the NLP Practitioner, NLP Master Practitioner and Practitioner of Ericksonian Hypnosis - all 3 together giving a Hypnosis Diploma.
This year, our courses will be run for the continuous 7, 9, and 7 days respectively to provide the full immersion experience. Rich in technique and the use of altered states of consciousness, we provide the very best in live demonstrations. Some of the demonstrations that we have showcased on previous courses have included:
- The mass curing of phobia (recognised as the ‘world’s first mass hypnosis’ by the national media).
- The removal of colour blindness (a condition that scientists believe to be incurable).
- The dramatic improvement of vision to the extent that the demonstration subjects could read without their spectacles immediately afterward.
And these are simply the stories that have been covered or are about to be covered by the National Press. We feel that while there are many providers of NLP and Hypnotherapy trainings, that we are doing something quite different in our approach. We take this opportunity to invite you to attend our Taster Night & Practice Evening on Thursday the 26th of February (or the last Thursday of each month). And, look forward to meeting all there.
Warm Regards
Dawn and Thom
What’s new at Brain Train Academy
Overcome Panic Attacks & Anxiety: 22nd Feb, 10am-5pm, 61 Melville Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7HL.
NLP Intro Course-1 Day: 21st Feb, 9.30am-6pm, 61 Melville Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7HL.
NLP Taster Night & Practice Group: 26th Feb 09, 7pm-9pm, 61 Melville Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7HL.
7 day Fully Licensed NLP Practitioner Certification: 21st-27th March, 9.30am - 6pm, Edinburgh, EH3 7HL.
Article of the month
Changing Negative Memories
By Thom Shillaw
NLP can be defined as the study of the structure of subjective experience and what can be predicted from it. That sentence presupposes a number of things, such as our experience is subjective. If you were to consider the phrase “Mary hurt me,” then notice what comes to mind. Is Mary hitting someone, or is she saying bad words? What colour is her hair? How tall is she? Of course, if you ask a sample of people the same question then each comes back with different answers. Think about people watching a football game, or any sporting event. If so many people witness the same thing then how come there are so many different opinions? The place a person is sat in location to the game, there past personal history and so on all affect the way they code and then represent this information.
This subjectiveness of human experience also has structure. If you were to re-consider the phrase “Mary hurt me,” I wonder how big the overall image is? Is it more colour or black and white? Does it seem to be near of far? Are there any sounds? If you were to focus on how that representation is structured within your mind, you would notice certain structural elements. The way the brain positions an image, location of sound, direction of feeling and so on, allow it to know the difference between, for example, a good or bad experience.
This structure is so predictable that for around 30 years, NLP has been at the forefront of developing useful patterns of change. Here is a pattern that can be used to diminish your feelings about a particular experience. It can be used to get over bad memories, or reduce your feelings about things that you like and want to stop. Give this a go for yourself.
Step 1 - Think of an negative experience that you want to change.
Step 2 - Shrink the image of that entire experience down until it is postcard size in your minds eye.
Step 3 - Drain the colour of that image to black and white.
Step 4 - Start right at the end of that memory and rewind it to the beginning like watching the rewinding of an old video tape.
Step 5 - Imagine having a brightness knob and as soon as you play the film from the beginning turn the brightness up very quickly until the postcard sized screen whites out. (Do this step 3 times)
Step 4 - Imagine pushing the picture off into the distance until it resembles a tiny spec of dust.
For that particular memory repeat this process (all steps) quickly five times. If you have a cluster of memories then work through each one methodically and notice if the memory bothers you as much afterward.
Success Stories
Here are some of the testimonials from our recent hypnotherapy training…
“Thoroughly enjoyed the course, it was presented in a clear and easy to understand way. It has really helped me link my NLP with hypnotherapy. Thanks for all your help I am achieving things I never thought would be possible.”
(Amanda Leith, Clinical Hypnotherapist and Life Coach, Edinburgh)
“If hypnosis fascinates you, then I can recommend no better solution to discovering more of the structures, skills and languages surrounding it than this Ericksonian Hypnosis course.
Allowing more time to break down the structure, understand the principles, integrate this in to your own style, and then most importantly, put this in to practice, is the core to this course. With stunning examples and plenty of demonstrations, prepare to re-think what you thought was possible. Thom has a very rare talent for hypnosis, training, and coaching. Get ready to welcome Thom’s “anything is possible” approach, which is entirely refreshing.
This course allows you to experience all of this learning and then take the training out with you into the world where you can put it to use.”
Andrew Gordon (Sales Manager, Advanced MP3 Players)
“I would recommend this course to anyone who is interested in learning about hypnotherapy or becoming a hypnotherapist. As an NLP Practitioner I found this course extremely complementary to that practice. The course content was a good mix of methodology, structure, specific patterns & techniques and supervised practice. We learnt how to structure hypnotic language patterns ourselves and I was surprised how easily this was flowing by the end of the 5 days. Before doing this course, I was avoiding using hypnotherapy within my NLP practice but am now employing hypnotherapy confidently with my NLP clients. Thom is an excellent trainer, and being a great hypnotherapist himself, we were able to observe and model his behaviour throughout the course. During the 5 days, Thom ensured we got a lot of work covered, that it was delivered in a way we really learnt it, and allowed for time for us to practice everything, whilst he supervised and gave feedback. The end result was a course where I learnt loads and had a lot of fun doing it.”
Claire Dickinson (NLP Practitioner, Edinburgh)
“A fantastic course! Thom has a huge amount of skill, passion and enthusiasm for hypnosis and just as importantly excels in teaching these skills to others. We were quite a mixed bunch ranging from people with no experience of hypnosis right through to practicing hypnotists looking to add different techniques and new skills to their repertoire. However, whatever level we were at didn’t matter as Thom always pitched things at the right level through a well balanced mixture of theory, demonstrations and practice. Everyone left the course buzzing with what they had learned and confident in their ability to not only practice hypnosis but to do so without relying on scripts prepared by others. No matter what experience you currently have, whether you want to learn hypnosis from scratch or add to what you already know, I would highly recommend this course.”
Elaine Henderson (NLP Master Practitioner, Borders)
Metaphor of the month
The flaw with words is that they always make us feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment. For this reason, a warrior seeks to act rather than to talk, and to this effect, he gets a new descripton of the world - a new description where talking is not that important, and where new acts have new reflections.
Carlos Castenada
This month’s practice group: Thursday 26th Feb 2009
Please note new venue.
Edinburgh Venue: 61 Melville Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7HL
- Location Map: click here
- Nearest Car Parks: click here (Parking also available infront of venue)
Format for the evening:
7.00pm - 7.55pm: Intro to NLP & Taster Session for newcomers
7.55pm - 8.05pm: Coffee break & 1-to-1 Question time.
8.05pm - 9.00pm: NLP Practice for NLP Practitioners/Master Practitioners & NLP Beginners and those interested in watching or participating.
Q&As
Please send us your questions.
Book of the month
Therapeutic Trances by Stephen Gilligan
DVD of the month
The Marshall University tapes with Richard Bandler
Funny of the month
A man goes skydiving for the first time. After listening to the instructor for what seems like days, he is ready to go. Excited, he jumps out of the airplane. After a bit, he pulls the ripcord. Nothing happens. He tries again. Still nothing. He starts to panic, but remembers his back-up chute. He pulls that cord. Nothing happens. He frantically begins pulling both cords, but to no avail. Suddenly, he looks down and he can’t believe his eyes. Another man is in the air with him, but this guy is going up! Just as the other guy passes by, the skydiver — by this time scared out of his wits–yells, “Hey, do you know anything about skydiving?” The other guy yells back, “No! Do you know anything about gas stoves?”
For more info visit our website www.braintrainacademy.co.uk
Or to contact our trainers directly:
Thom Shillaw is a trainer at Brain Train Academy. He can be contacted for private consultation by emailing thom@braintrainacademy.co.uk
Dawn Flockhart is a trainer at
Brain
Train
Academy. She can be contacted for Executive & Personal Coaching or private therapy by emailing dawn@braintrainacademy.co.uk