A Talk I gave to a business women's coffee group

Your mind is now full of what others have said and what’s going on for you today, so lets stop for a moment.

Let your gaze wander the room and alight on 3 different things for 2 seconds on each. No thinking. Then listen – what can you hear that’s a long way away - outside. What can you hear that’s closer. Inside. Then notice what textures you can feel – hands on clothes, feet against? Then notice what can you smell and what can you taste – coffee? You can use your senses to bring yourself into this moment.

A refresh button.

I’m going to speak about how I got to here, a bit about the threads that are through my work and what people get out of working with me and we’ll finish another short exercise.

So, I have always been interested in how we humans function. I’ve done a lot of observing. Degree on psychology and sociology after school, cert in counselling and then social work for a couple of years. Not long. Then children. I had 5 over 11 years, though one only lived for 4 weeks. I learned lots from observing them and at the same time I got involved in Early Childhood Education. Lots of learning about child development. A year lecturing at College of Education and some time tutoring via Massey Uni and Playcentre. and then nearly 30 years as an early intervention teacher. We did regular staff training about the development of the brain, attachment, relationships and human development. Plenty of scope here for my free ebook on how pre birth, birth and those first couple of years affect how we are as adults. It’s available on my website. (I wrote it recently, not back then)

Do you know what took place for you when you were born?

Birth is traumatic and the best way to minimize the birth trauma is for the baby to be reunited with its mother heart beat immediately.

Did this happen for you?

I don’t know whether this happened for me but there were things that happened and didn’t happen for me which have affected me. You can also read about that in the free ebook.

After my children left home my body got tenser and tenser and eventually sick. As well as physically sick I felt homesick – just like I did as a kid. Weird really, because everything in my life was good. (Supportive husband, 2 acre garden to develop and a job I loved) After some time searching, I found The Journey (Brandon Bays), did the training (lots of trips to Australia). Became certified as a Journey Practitioner. Healed my body and the depression by getting to the stored emotions. Came home to myself.

I read lots of self-development books and spiritual books – Eckart Tolle and Depak Chopra and Krisnamurti and others. Reading was nice but not enough.

I started following spiritual teachers Gangaji and Eli Jaxon-Bear. They came to NZ about 7 years ago and after that I enrolled in Eli’s school The Leela School of Awakening. (Leela means the play of life). More trips to Australia. After 2 years, a certificate in Psychotherapy. Two more years and a certificate in advanced clinical hypnotherapy. Lots of courses, sessions with mentors, case studies and inquiry into myself. I learned lots about trauma as well as skills to help people, while experiencing all the work myself.

Gangaji and Eli’s spiritual lineage goes back to Sri Ramana Maharshi, in India. As a teenager he wanted to experience death so he lay down prepared to die and he did – experience the death of his egoic self. (This is the self that forms when we are very young with conditioning and trauma). After that he sat for many years in caves on the sacred mountain Mt Arunachala. Where there is an ashram and temple. Not that he wanted those material things but many many people came. He transmitted silence to people who flocked to ask him questions. I’ve been there, 4 times – climbed the mountain in the Southern Indian heat, sat in the caves. Been blessed with the silence of being inside that sacred mountain. Ramana’s teaching is about the deep silence and stillness that is inside us. About asking the question Who am I? Not to get answers but to keep on pointing ourselves in deeper.

The landscape in that area is interesting in that it’s mostly flat with some cone shaped mountains, some of which just look like a pile of rocks. Mt Arunachala is not quite cone shaped but it is mostly big rocks which got very hot. There was some vegetation but it was difficult to find any shade. There is a road around the mountain and on full moon nights people walk the 14kms round chanting. I did it too. There is also a walking track around the mountain that Ramana walked often as he loved being in nature and I walked this too. Its called The Inner Path.

So there are 2 threads in what I do with clients. My approach incorporates listening, inquiry, NLP, CBT, Psychotherapy and hypnotherapy. And “me” being out of the way.

One thread is getting to the subconscious patterns that we have set up when very young. Patterns of thinking and behaving that we all set up unconsciously, in order to survive. As a baby and young child, we can’t survive on our own. We need to fit in with family in order to survive and this may mean denying who we truly are. There may be behaviours to get attention, approval and love, to avoid emotional pain, to avoid anger and conflict, to be prepared for the worst. These patterns get stuck within our conditioning as we grow into adults but can be unstuck. Some patterns can lead us into addiction to avoid the painful stuff – not just alcohol and drugs but also shopping, eating, scrolling on phone, overthinking, and others, as a self protection strategy. Once we get to the subconscious beginnings of these, things can change effortlessly.

The other thread is that of being reminded of your true self. We all want to be truly happy but so much stuff can get in the way. Who we truly are is inside us all the time. But it gets covered by old patterns of thinking, believing and behaving. I can support you to loosen these patterns and if you are willing, then you can experience the vastness, the silence, of who you truly are.

Thinking comes and goes. Apparently over 90% of what we think is on repeat.

Emotions come and go.

Body sensations come and go.

So thinking and emotions and body sensations are not reliable if you want to be true to yourself. We can investigate these – gently, safely with compassion. You can learn to feel emotions safely, to not believe your thoughts, to be silent inside. To know that your thinking and beliefs are not who you truly are.

In a session with a client, I have a quiet mind – not thinking my own thoughts or planning what to do and say next. I have an open heart – no judgement, just compassion and love. And I have no personal agenda going on. I am not trying to fix anyone, because who am I to know what fixed is for them. I listen deeply. I will ask questions and I will guide. This allows the person to open up and be honest about what is going on for them. To learn to feel emotions. To get to know themselves. To explore what they truly want for themselves in this life. And to go deeper than those surface patterns.

People leave a session feeling heard and deeply relaxed (more deeply relaxed than they have ever felt before, they say) and the effects of the session show up in subtle or not so subtle ways, with more awareness of how they function as a human and the ability to make different choices.

So right now, I invite you to take part in another short exercise. You can close your eyes or you may look softly down at your lap.

First - Bring your awareness to your breathing. Notice the air going in and the air going out. Notice that the out breath is longer each time, as you relax and drop further within. The out breath is pulling you deeper. Being gentle, allow yourself to drop inside as you continue to notice out breaths. If thoughts arrive, that’s ok, just let them be. All of you is welcome.

Now I’m going to ask a question and you can notice what arises.

What do you truly want for your business?

And, what will that give you as a person?

And now what do you truly want for yourself in this life?

And how would that be, to have that? What would it do for you?

And maybe there is another layer that is even deeper – with what you want?

Then resting here for a moment. Allowing and sensing how this is.

And then gently allowing your awareness to come back here to your body sitting where it is and to the room. And opening your eyes.

If you are curious about what others say, there are testimonials on my website and on my Google Business site.

I do not get referrals from any organisation or agencies, so I would love it if you could refer me to anyone you know, who you think could benefit.

Thank you for listening.

Annette