Then it was such a lovely day we went for a walk down the path

Then there was painting

And we made flapjacks (recipe to be posted later)

And then after I had done my workout on the Kinect (with the little one coaching me “keep going mummy, you’re doing really well”) the little one had her turn

The mind is an integral part of the body so talking about a connection implies a separation. As it is all one unit, what happens in the mind affects our physiology and what happens in our physiology affects our mind.

It is, therefore, pretty obvious that you can work on the way we think to address physical issues.

I have read a number of excellent books lately that explain the scientific dimensions of this. One is The Biology of Belief by Bruce H Lipton and the other is The Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert

There are many insights in these books on how we can apply this knowledge and there are also many studies increasingly happening that link purely what we do in our heads with some amazing results.

Some examples:

1. Research into immune suppressant drugs turned up something fascinating. Two groups of people were given drugs and an unusual flavour of milkshake to drink at the same time. Half the people had the working tablets, the other half a placebo as a control group. The immune suppressant tablets were working fine. After a number of days, the working tablets were swapped for a placebo but they continued with the milkshake. And yet the immune suppressant qualities continued to work. The milkshake had almost become a taste anchor

2. A friend knows of a researcher working on Alopecia (the skin condition that prevents hair from growing) they have seen very good results using nothing more than hypnosis recordings. In at least one example, an older lady grew a full head of hair having been totally bald from the condition.

Add to that all we know about the many ways symptoms of stress and trauma manifest themselves in physical ways.

So much of what we do is based on believing it is possible. Once you have discovered the art of the possible, then all you need is to develop a technique to replicate it deliberately.

I mentioned how the last weekend of my Cognitive Hypnotherapy weekend was all about healing techniques. How we work with the mind to heal the body. It was truly mind-blowing. I love the way that through Cognitive Hypnotherapy, Trevor has integrated and adapted so many different techniques to give us a powerful toolkit that we can use to find the best thing to help our clients.

And a whole world opened onto the art of the possible, because through all the practical exercises during the weekend, people were getting healed. Pain, vision, bad skin, even the ability to spell were all impacted through these exercises. In fact, describing it, you would be forgiven for imagining us all in a field with long flowing hair, dancing round a campfire and chanting (we didn’t by the way!)

And these techniques, on the scale of things, are very simple.

One that is really simple and amazingly good fun, that I have already talked about was the pendulum.

So here is the pendulum I went out and bought.

It’s a chain from Accessorize. It cost me £5 in the sale and I believe that’s an Amethyst attached to it. It has enough weight to pick up micro movements in a finger driven by the subconscious (I really want to get a Hematite one when I get the chance)

And that’s all you need. The ability to have a yes/no conversation.

I love being able to have a chat with my subconscious.I love the fact that something like that is even possible. Our subconscious does what it does for a reason. Usually some form of protection. Very often, it seems, misguided.

As I observed people doing this exercise, I have learnt that pretty much anything is possible, as long as you can persuade the subconscious. It doesn’t just have to be healing.

I have an ongoing challenge with peanut M&M’s. I have a packet in my car, and every time I go out I eat a handful. If I go out 3 days in a row, the packet will have gone. At times, I actually plan to go out so I can eat some.

So I figured, what the heck, let’s give the pendulum a go on this habit. Let’s see if I can get rid of it.

So I asked, would it be possible: yes

I asked if it was ok: yes

I asked how long it would take (giving every narrower options): it said 1 day.

Excellent!

In the morning I had picked up the little one from school, and scoffed a handful of Peanut M&M’s.

I did the pendulum thing.

In the evening I went out to see someone.

I glanced at the M&M’s. I didn’t want one. I pushed the matter and took one and ate it. I felt a bit sick.

Since that day about 3 days ago, the packet remains in the same state. I even took a 140 mile round trip to Aberdeen and didn’t want to eat them. An opened, unloved bag of M&M’s remains in my car.

And now, on the principle of “knowing it’s possible means you can deliberately apply it”, I have another technique in my toolkit. Not just for use in healing, but also possibly in habit breaking. And this one can be done in 5 minutes, doesn’t need a bunch of relaxation or eyes closed techniques, and is incredibly amusing for the people taking part!

I pay for my ticket and put it on the windscreen, and begin a slow and steady walk to the hospital. The little one is constantly chattering away “Where’s the hospital?”, “Is it there?”, “Will I see a doctor”.

We get to the steps. 9 steps up, cross a road, 20 steps down. There is no car park that doesn’t involve a series of steps. This has always struck me as crazy for a hospital.

The little one and I count the steps. We walk past the no smoking signs and the smokers as the George Orwell 1984-esque loudspeakers warn that smoking is strictly prohibited in front of the hospital. The smokers take shivering drags of their cigarettes, leaning against the no smoking signs, braving the freezing cold in their dressing gowns.

We keep walking. No she doesn’t want a magazine. No she doesn’t want the loo. We pass the cafe where we went after Adams scan when he wasn’t moving enough to get a proper look. And where I waited with a coffee while the hubby was in Cardiac Intensive care. We never went there while Adam was in NICU. We didn’t hang about the hospital.

We walk through to the far side to a long corridor with great views of the river Tay. I remember the times, at 6am where we walked back along that corridor. Watching the sunrise. Sometimes hopeful, sometimes hopeless. Often in tears.

The signs point to NICU, and Children’s Outpatient Department. It’s the same route. We get in the same lift as I’ve stood in many times. Not knowing what  would find. And one day, where the world was a blur of despair, at 2am when we headed home with a box of Adam’s things knowing we wouldn’t be visiting him again.

Number 4 for the floor we want.

Number 5 for NICU

I press 4.

We walk outside to the department. We’re early and the little one is thrilled to play in the playroom. She is briefly inconvenienced by having to be weighed and measured but she gets a sticker and returns to the play area

A boy turns up with his mother and grandmother. He’s called Adam. The little one plays with him.

We get called through and talk to the Dietician  about the little one’s typical diet and how, yes, we have had occasion to test that she is still wheat intolerant and she is. No we don’t want to do the 4-6 week test where she eats wheat.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” the consultant asks the little one.

“No” I answer for her.

“I have a friend called S” the little one answers, oblivious to it all.

We discuss food and I explain I bake and cook so we get by fine. She says she’ll write to my GP and we should be able to get 3 items a month on prescription. More than we do now so all good.

We make an appointment to return in a year.

The little one wants to stay and play. I want to go to Starbucks. After all, Thursday is late night shopping so it’s what we do. “I’d love a coffee from Starbucks” says the consultant “I’m sure your mummy needs one too”

Little does she know how much.

So here I am over 8 months into my journey with Thinking Slimmer.

I’ve stopped counting time because this is just the way my life is now. It’s almost not worth talking about because the old me has gone.

The first picture above was me 2 years ago. The second is last week.

I took great pleasure in putting on a pair of jeans and a jacket and being able to look smart.

Because no-one wants to lose weight so they can look down at the scales and see a different number.

You want to lose weight so you can go into a shop and buy the clothes because you like them and not because they will fit you or hide your fat. There are no more clothes left in my wardrobe that don’t fit. I’m not going to tell you anything about my weight because I no longer weigh myself. When the clothes are fitting better – then I know I am reducing in size. It doesn’t matter what the scales say.

You want to lose weight so you can walk up stairs with out being embarrassed by breathlessness and a emerging sweat. As the miracle of listening to the Slimpod includes not just weight loss, but also the motivation to do more, I find myself training for the London marathon in under 3 months time. Nestle Pure Life offered to sponsor me and I just couldn’t say no so now I’m running in the Nestle Pure Life team. Me! Running! As part of a team! 8 months ago I would have laughed and probably ignored the request!

There are days when I look down and all I see is fat. When I feel the cloth of my t-shirt pressing against my stomach. There are days when I feel like I am getting nowhere. On those days, I look at photo’s like this and I realise how far I have come.

I have set myself a goal now. I know, it’s taken me a while! I’ve never been good with goals. I have never handled failure well. But now I’m ok. So my goal is to be in size 12 jeans by the time I run the London Marathon on the 22nd April. That should be possible right?

My training is going really well. I am enjoying the variation in my training programme and I’m sticking to it really well. I’m actually quite proud of myself.

This is a summary of what I have done since I started my training on the 19th December.

Increasingly I am becoming a slimmer fitter Dawn and I’m very happy about that.

I have read and learnt a number of things over the last few months that have really changed the way I interact with the little one.

In my life I have learnt to cope with anything, because I have had to. Whilst I want the little one to have a good level of resilience, I certainly don’t want her to go through what I have to develop it!

Firstly I read in The Decisive Moment how important it is to praise our kids for the effort they make and not for being ‘clever’ or any innate ability. This encourages them to strive to improve. The hubby and I now praise the little one for persistence, and learning, rather than being bright and clever.

The we had an incident where the headmaster at school shouted at her when he was covering for her sick teacher. It made her scared of him and school.

We worked hard, using my new Cognitive Hypnotherapy skills, to reframe this event so that eventually she was absolutely fine with school.

Then, yesterday I went to pick her up from school because the hubby’s back was really sore. I was surprised when I heard the headmaster telling the children a story ( a really brutal bible based story too! but that’s another blog…)

I knew that the teacher had been there in the morning. So it was with a little dread that I sat there and listened and waited. The little one came running up to me with a big smile on her face. She loves it when I pick her up!

Anyway, as we walked to the car she told me about how Mr had taken over the class because the teacher was sick. She told me how she had cried but how this time he didn’t shout at her to be quiet and how she had stopped crying.

I told her how proud I was of her for dealing with it so well and being such a good girl. And her face lit up. She continued to tell me how well she’d behaved and I gave her lots of praise, reinforcing how proud I was with her for the way she handled it.

When we got home we told the hubby and he praised her too.

The trick is, I believe, to make sure they have the skills to overcome these situations using their own resources. She will have to deal with many things in life, and I don’t want her to have to go through horrible experiences to learn resilience. I want her to learn from these little events that will occur as she grows up.

I’m not saying I have all the answers, but I am happy with the way this particular scenario worked out.

This is my attempt to use Narnia to explain where I am on my personal journey. Bear with me on this one, and if you have never read The Chronicles of Narnia I suggest you skip this post!

One day you step into a room that has always been there but you were never aware of. A set of circumstances came together such that one day, you find yourself walking into that room. For me, those circumstances were talking to Sandra at Thinking Slimmer about why I felt it wouldn’t work for me.

In that room you spot a wardrobe. It is big and intimidating, but you look behind you and where you have come from is far worse. You take a deep breath and walk into the wardrobe. At first it is dark and weird, but you discover you can keep walking through the wardrobe. You push through even though it is scary but where you have come from is worse. Eventually you discover that the wardrobe leads to a new, unfamiliar world that is both different and exciting. Stepping through wardrobe was making the decision to go and see Trevor, the founder of Cognitive Hypnotherapy

This new world shows you that the place you have come from is not the only way the world has to be. There are other worlds and other ways of living. You meet new and different people who don’t know anything about where you have come from and treat you as the person you present, and judge you by the behaviours you exhibit instead of the “why” behind the way you are. You find it liberating to see that you can be who you choose to be.

You keep glancing back to the where the wardrobe is, and wondering if you should go back. Sometimes you even try it but it’s as if, now you have seen that there is a different world out there, that this old place is twice as scary. You realise you like being whoever you choose to be.

Then one day you meet Aslan. He teaches you how to tap in to your resources. He guides you through the challenges you face day-by-day, to draw on those resources instead of assuming you were defined by where you came from. He teaches you that nothing needs to be now the way it used to be before. This is Trevor

There are days where you struggle. You find you need to constantly draw on Aslan’s guidance over what to do as you are faced with new and unfamiliar situations. Even when not with him, his words echo in your head as you explore what your resources are.

Increasingly you are faced with situations where your new friends come to you for your help. You give it willingly, happy to share in a way you have never been able to before. Thrilled that you can help. There are battles and challenges in this new world, and soon you realise that the lessons you have learnt have given you the strength to lead others through those battles.

You find, over time, you think about the wardrobe less and less.

You find, over time, that you are far more defined by your new behaviours than anything you brought with you from the other world.

And you find, over time, that you no longer seek out Aslan for guidance constantly. You look forward to seeing him but treat his company more as that of a friend than a guide. Appreciating him for his own qualities rather than the lessons you need to learn from him.

One day, as you are out riding, you come across an area of your new world that is familiar. You vaguely recollect that it has meaning but you also remember that it was not a good place to go back to.

Smiling to yourself, you turn away from that place and carry on living your life, surrounded by people you love and living your life the way you choose to live it.

I RAN 10 MILES TODAY!

I have never ever run that far in my life before (I’m 39 now)

I wanted to run that far back in October/November when Becca, Darin and Trevor were running the Great South Run which is 10 miles. Unfortunately an old ankle injury kicked off and I had a horrible chesty cold so I got to 8.3 miles and never made it any further.

Now, this was 10 minutes more than the 1 hour 45 minute session I was supposed to do. And it was really, really hard to keep going. The last 10 minutes were a combination of walking and very slow jogging. But I did it. In under 2 hours.

I used a gel for the first time this time too. Not sure how much it helped. Maybe a little. I also made sure I drank plenty using the new water bottle that my hubby bought me.

It’s been a good week of training overall. I can’t believe I’ve now done 5 weeks of training for the marathon and totally stuck to it!

I also did managed to get the Nike Plus website working. This tracks my runs on my iPod which is good because the Garmin watch is GPS so only works for outside runs and treadmills are notoriously inaccurate (that’s even if I could remember the details)

Intervals were interesting on Thursday. I ran back and forward in front of the house. It was, of course, really tough but it is workable.

So here are is my summary for the week

Here we go for week 6!

So we started the day by going out on her new bike

Bit blurry cos she was going fast!

Next she went on her new roller skates which she loves in fact so much so that she wanted to leave the similar to come home and go on them.

Next we went to the cinema to see the Lion King. There is a kids club on a Saturday morning at 10. It cost £2 for both of us so I’ll defo do that again

She happily scoffed her way through a bag of sweets. I like the cinema because the pick and mix has the ingredients clearly labelled so I can make sure we get Gluten Free (excuse the zombie look on her face clearly I caught a weird moment lol)

She enjoyed the film, but by the end just wanted to get home to go on her skates again. We did that for a while but, after much fun, I managed to drag her out to head over to Arbroath to meet with someone that I have connected to via Thinking Slimmer. She has a little boy the same age as the little one and is happy to let me apply some of my Cog Hyp skills to help her out. I wanted to meet up with her first so we arranged to head over there this afternoon

As usual I forgot to take pictures when we were at Jenni’s house but this is the seafront at Arbroath today. It was a lovely day. After being shy initially, the little one settled down and had a great time. Jenni’s little boy looked after her so well and shared all his toys and stuff. She even just went to the loo on her own half way through the afternoon which I was really impressed with (although trying to explain why Josh went to the toilet standing up and it wasn’t actually naughty was a challenge!). She didn’t really want to leave, but as we did she gave Josh a big cuddle and a kiss! That girl is going to be such trouble!

On the way back I noticed the mobile chippy van was parked up in the village so I picked up a bag of chips and did some sweetcorn and a fishfinger to go with it when we got home.

She was a happy little girl.

And tonight, for the 3rd night in a row she has settled to sleep on her own with no problems.

I never fail to be amazed and impressed by my brilliant little girl!

The little one is getting so grown up these days. We just have the most fun ever hanging out, with less and less time where I am “being a mother” and more and more time just doing stuff together.

As she grows up, there are things we need to change in some of her routines.

About a year ago, after reading something either on Twitter or a blog, I decided it would be nice at bedtime to lie with the little one until she went to sleep.

This initially worked out fine. The routine is

• PJ’s on downstairs
• Go upstairs and brush teeth
• Go to the toilet
• Little one picks a book to read.
• I fill her juice for by the bed, put the Groclock into night mode, and press play on the lullaby mix on the iPod
• I climb into bed with her, we read the book
• When we’ve finished, we switch off the light and wait for song 4 on the lullaby mix (Hush little baby) . I sing it.
• She goes to sleep

On a good day this routine takes about 15 minutes.

On a bad day she doesn’t do the last step. She doesn’t go to sleep. She messes around with her bedtime family. She sings and chats.

If I try and leave she cries and runs out of the room after me.

No matter how many times I put her back to bed, the only way to get her to sleep has been to stay with her for however long that takes.

Apart from the challenges this poses from a time perspective (losing over an hour after 7pm while you wait for her to settle) it also leaves both of us very stressed. In the future, as I start to become a practicing Cognitive Hypnotherapist, I will need to be able to do work in the evening during the early months as I build up. I can’t be stuck with the little one in bed while a client waits for me!

So last night it was time to break the habit.

The first thing I did was explain the ‘rules’ to her.

We will follow the routine. I will stay until I have sung the song and then I will leave. If she is asleep great, if not I will still leave.

I then explained the same rules to her doll, Goldilocks, once we were in bed.

While I sang, she sang a different song loudly. Defiantly!

As promised, when the song ended up I gave her a kiss and a hug and wished her good night and walked out and downstairs.

She followed me out of the room. Calling for me but not crying. Within a couple of minutes I heard her door shut. She had gone back in her room!

I then heard her cry for a couple of minutes but she stayed in her room.

She had gone quite.

And that was it. She went to sleep! Amazing!

This morning, she waited until the sun came up on her GroClock to come through. Double amazing!

So tonight, when I finish work I will take her to ToysRus to buy a toy for being so good. And I will keep my fingers crossed that this is the start of a change of routine that we can have in place very soon.

So here it is (bit of a swizz as it’s just a variation on the chill recipe!)

Ingredients

• Minced beef (1 normal sized packet!)
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 large onion
• Tomato ketchup
• Italian herb mix
• Balsamic vinegar
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. I always brown off the mince first so I can drain off the fat
2. Add the browned mince to the slow cooker
3. Pour on the tin of tomatoes
4. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of the herbs on
5. Add a good squirt of ketchup
6. Add a splash of balsamic
7. Season with salt and pepper to suit your taste
8. Add chopped onions.

Mix it all together.

I always do dishes on high for about an hour and then on low for the remaining time. I tend to put things on and leave them all day but would say you should give it at least 6 hours for tastiness.