Retraining to Become a Cognitive Hypnotherapist.

I have worked in my current job for over 11 years. I love working as a Teaching Assistant, but since I completed my Degree in 2013 I have had my eye out for my next step. I knew that it would present itself to me. I just had to be patient. I was looking for something that would stretch my mind, be rewarding and at the same time be about giving back, helping other people. I wanted to find something that would inspire me. The solution came, as these things tend to do, out of the blue. Cognitive Hypnotherapy is my future and it found me by taking away my fear.

I had been more and more fearful of a certain situation and had decided to visit a friend of mine who is in practice as a Hypnotherapist. In one session she changed my life, or at least she enabled me to change my life. My fear was gone, no longer debilitating and I felt inspired to study hypnotherapy myself. How wonderful, to be able to help people live life as they want to live it, without fear.

I started to research courses and discovered that in the UK there is no one governing body for hypnotherapists. It is still seen as outside of the mainstream. However, I was drawn again and again to one place - an institute that is proud of its cutting edge approach to Cognitive Hypnotherapy. When I have completed my course I will share with you more, but for now I am going to keep that titbit of information private! I hope you don't mind! It will give me a reason to write again about my course, because if it continues the way it has started I am going to be raving about it!

I had my first study weekend last week and I don't think I have ever felt so positive,so inspired or excited. The weekend was fantastic from start to finish - the organisation and communication, the support given by our trainers and assistants. I learnt so much in two days. By Saturday night my mind felt like it was about explode. But in a good way. If there is a good way for your head to explode!! I went home excited and full of enthusiasm. The second day was, if anything, even better, and this time my mind felt relaxed and open. We were taught theory and then two techniques which we practised. And I can tell you .... they work like magic. Magic!

So now I have to wait a month before our next study weekend. This month is going to be spent reading and practising the techniques I have learnt. My youngest son has so far avoided my attempts at relaxation therapy or anchoring, but my eldest son has proved a brilliant subject! I have started close to home, but am gradually branching out to friends and neighbours in the quest to hone my hypnotherapy skills!

It is a little bit like being a magician. To watch someone go from being awake, nervous and unsettled to being relaxed totally and then back out the other side, awake and alert yet refreshed and calm, is truly wonderful. I have so much to learn, but the learning is awe inspiring. To be able, at the age of 51, to retrain in something which I can continue for the rest of my life, is just brilliant.

I am so excited I could burst ... thanks Open University x

I am trying to contain my excitement. No, really. I have been waiting 30 years for this Saturday coming and when I think too much about it I get a lump in my throat...

I have even spent money on a new pair of shoes ... money that could probably have paid off the national debt of a small African nation. But, as I said, its been 30 years in coming.

This Saturday I am going to graduate. I am going to become Secret Housewife BA (Hons) 1st Class. When I started my journey 30 years ago, going to Leicester University to study History of Art and Italian I really never expected that it would take so long to achieve my goal. I assumed that it would be three years of enthralling study in lofty garrets, talking about Vasari and Dante and reading poetry by candlelight.

It didn't end up like that. I spent most of my time at Leicester in a room that resembled a cross between a cell and a section of a multi storey car park. I developed a cheese and tomato twinnie habit and for those of you who don't know what this is - its a massive baguette style sandwich that is absolutely delicious, but wicked on the waistline. Most of my friends were medical students who spent all their time studying anatomy, and not in a fun way.

I was left alone in my room chomping on twinnies and the occasional take away curry, avoiding lectures full of History of Art students in twin sets and pearls who delighted in telling me I was not PLU ( People Like Us) This meant that I had not been to private school and my parents did not own half of Hampshire. The loneliness and boredom crowded in on me like two vicious bullies and I wrote reams of miserable poetry. Just thank your lucky stars there was no such thing as the internet back then or you would have been subjected to my volumes of self pitying despair. No doubt my Twitter feed would have been plagued with 140 character long suicidal verses.

Needless to say that although I was academically successful, mentally I was a mess and during the summer holidays before the third year, where I was due to spend 3 months in Rome (oh, the hardship!), I dropped out.

My tutor, whose name I forget, did not even bother to reply to the letter I sent telling the History of Art department that I was desperately unhappy and would not be coming back. Thanks love.

To be honest it was a move I never regretted. My life turned a corner and I started work in casinos, met my husband, traveled the world and generally led a darned happy life.

But always, in the back of my mind was my failure. I had always been the bright one, the one who might have gone to Cambridge or Oxford ( and not just for the delightful shopping and punting facilities). But I had ended up with only A Levels and a non-professional career. As I hit 40 regret did start to raise its ugly head. There was a sense of "What could I have been...?"

But now I know. My beautiful, kind and clever sister in law told me about the Open University. She told me I could transfer the points I had gained all those years ago and finish my degree. So I did. I have.

On the tab at the top of this post there is a page which links to everything I wrote during the 3 years it took me to complete my degree. It takes you from when I was just considering it, through the hard times, the self doubt and the times when I nearly burst with pride. Like Saturday. Saturday I may well burst with pride and I will definitely be wearing my waterproof mascara. I will write about my day and post photos of me and my lovely family. As I write this I feel a bit tearful, which is frankly ridiculous and could be linked to a distinct lack of chocolate in the house, but I just wanted to let you know. And show you my shoes.

Year 10 Revision and trying to help my teenage son.

Having been quite frustrated with my 15 year old son for a while I have taken the bull by the horns.

To give you some background I have to tell you that my son is absolutely wonderful! He is good and kind. He is loving and a real home body who would rather be with us than out and about with his mates in town. He reminds me of myself in so many ways ... we are very similar ... content with our own company, but happy with our friends too.

Recently he has shown signs of teenagerdom and can answer back with the best of them. But he always thinks about his behaviour and although we might have a row he will always apologise  without prompting. All in all we are very lucky to have him!!

However ... his school work has started to be of a concern recently.He has started to show cracks in his otherwise A Grade school career. We have tried to get him to revise for upcoming exams, but he has not done nearly as much as he should have done. He seemed really rather lost and without focus.

I was beginning to really worry. After all, whatever his potential I want him to achieve it, to the the best he can.

Yesterday I had a moment of clarity, of realisation. I realised that he is afraid. He is afraid to fail, awed by the vastness of what lies before him and this fear has made him think 2 things :

a) I just don't know where to start, how to begin, because there is so much to do.

b) If I try hard and fail I will be a real failure, but if I don't try ... and fail, people will say " Oh well, he didn't try. If he had tried he would have been brilliant"

I know because that's how I have thought in the past.

So today I got up early and took his planner so I could see what lessons he had when. Then I worked out a revision timetable, a study timetable with a file for notes on what he does each day and an exercise book that I can guide him as to what to do .... things like

• What did you cover in your lesson today ... summarise briefly.
• Any problems?
• Key words, formulae?
• Go to school website and follow instructions for past paper, game, article etc

Each task had a box to tick and there were not too many tasks. At the end of each subject he could look and see that he had ticked all the boxes and actually achieved a block of work.

I also bought chocolate as an incentive and wrote at the start of his book ...

 Every journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step ...

To my joy and amazement he sat at the kitchen table and studied. He took breaks between subjects, but seemed genuinely pleased and relieved that I had done this for him. It will take up some of my time, but I hope that he will start to understand how to do it for himself and gain a real sense of achievement.

I hope I have done the right thing. I just want to support him and help him to do the best he can. He is such a lovely boy.

Normal service resumed ... no politics!

I am getting closer and closer to the end of my B.A course with the O.U. I have 3 more essays to write and then that's it ... job done. At the moment its a struggle. Not because of the course itself, but because of other factors. Work is very stressful at the moment and I seem to have lots of things on my mind.

For the first time this year studying EA300 Children's Literature I have had to ask for an extension. I just couldn't face writing it this week as I have been just too on edge. Luckily my tutor is fantastic and very understanding so I have an extra few days.

I am so looking forward to having nothing on my plate other than running my house and allotment. My thoughts of training to be a teacher are disappearing fast as I head towards the age of 50. Do I really want to be working full time, under masses of stress? I am in the fortunate position where I don't have to work full time. I think I would rather spend my afternoons digging my vegetables, going for runs, meeting friends.

I think I would be a good teacher, but I'm not sure I want to be one. Part of me thinks that maybe its my pride that is suggesting being a teacher. The pride in being able to say "Oh yes ... I'm a teacher" instead of doing a job where people look down on you, consider you just a gluer and sticker.

Its crazy isn't it? I am a bright girl, heading at last towards a B.A with Honours, either a 2:1 or possibly a 1st and yet I will probably do nothing with it. Part of me wonders why I threw away my degree all those years ago. Part of me is so proud that I am finally finishing it after a gap of 25 years.

Not long now and I will have my graduation ceremony, get my certificate and then lie by a pool in Turkey with a beer, a smile and no essays in sight!

And I am studying AA316 ... why??? Time for a wobbly moan.

I started essay number 4 of my course today. For those of you who don't know I am studying a level 3 Open University course - The Nineteenth Century Novel. Last year I managed to get a Grade 2 pass in Approaching Literature in my goal to gain an Honours Degree in Humanities with Literature.

This afternoon saw me reach an all time low in my confidence levels. Although the title of the essay is quite a promising one - looking at how the critical essays in the course book can help us understand the relationships between men and women in Germinal and Far from the Madding Crowd - I am finding it very difficult to get into.

I think that my main problem is a lack of motivation/interest/enthusiasm, closely followed by a lack of belief in myself. I have been ill for a week and in spite of this I have tried to keep up with the work. I have read the books, read the essays and written notes on them. When it comes to getting this thing done by next Friday though I am stuck.

The stuff I have written so far is dross. I just don't have the knowledge levels to be able to write to this standard. Last year I did well. This year I am struggling. Working with the OU means an awful lot of studying alone. There is no discussion, little feedback. The tutorials are frustrating this year. The last one I went to I ended up making myself be quiet because I felt few of the other students were contributing. I ended up thinking 'Why should I give them all my ideas?' I was about the only one who appeared to have actually read the novels we were talking about.

I suppose I should think that in that case those students will be struggling more than I am... but it doesn't work that way.I am beginning to see this course as a 'get througher'. I just need to get through it and do the best I can. But at the moment that is a thankless task.

I am trying to hold down a job that is practically full time at the moment, organise a family, blah, blah,blah. I know - worse things happen at sea. There are people out there who would cut off their right arm to swap places with me. It doesn't really matter if I don't get a great degree. I don't 'need' it. But I want it. I want to be able to teach and right now everything is being thrown in my way to stop that goal.

I tell you what - I will make bloody sure my children don't give up a year off their degrees when they are at Uni. When I look back and think how close I was all those years ago, and yet I threw it all away... What a fool.

Thanks for listening to me moan. Let's hope my tutor replies to my email and I feel better after a good night's sleep.

A question for you...what would you love to study if you could choose anything?

This may be seen as an act of procrastination.... and it probably is... but I recently asked a few people what they would choose to study if they could learn something new. It was interesting to hear the responses.Many people understood me to mean an academic subject or something that would help them earn more money. I want to ask the same question to you out there.What would you choose to study if you could learn something new?

Think outside the box... be honest. If you could learn anything new, without the worry of cost or time, anything in the world... what would it be?

I have been watching Michel Roux' programme about service and I think that I would love to really know about wines. Not in a pretentious way to impress people, but in the comfortable, ancient way, possessed, for example, by an old French vineyard worker. Someone who has been around wines all their life, who knows the subtle flavours, the origins of the different vintages...

Or maybe I could take a year out and learn to ski really well. Or learn sign language... Maybe I could learn to sculpt... or make jewellery...

I don't know. I would love to hear your thoughts.

A brain like an old balloon...

I have started my studying.I have been reading my text books on the Realist Novel, whilst trying to finish Fathers and Sons and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.The last 2 nights while my sons played football I sat in the car reading and making notes.My brain feels.... well, you know when you have an old balloon that has deflated and all the rubber is stuck together, and you wonder, if you pulled the rubber apart, if you could reinflate the balloon? Well, that is how my brain feels.It has flopped down to the bottom of my skull and I am trying hard to get it to fill up again with knowledge and thoughtful opinion.


My text books are filled with language that has me shaking my head... not in disbelief, but in an attempt to shake my thought processes awake.I find myself looking forward to the moments I have put aside for study and, although I am nervous of having to write my first assignment, I am also excited.

Yesterday I found on my student home page at the Open University website, the list of tutorial dates and the name of my tutor.The thought of walking into a room full of other students and a tutor based at Cambridge University is mind boggling.Boggling.... now there's a word.... I wonder if I could squeeze it into an assignment?