I am excited to be presenting and running a workshop at this event!
📍 STEAM Museum
📆 8th & 9th February 2025
20 min talk: 'Who are you really?'
45 min workshop: 'Gaite way to relaxation' How the way you walk can tell you about yourself.
The whole event programme is included with your day ticket. This includes an exciting range of workshops, mini-treatment sessions and talks, all designed to help you to improve your overall wellbeing.
When I started my Remedial Massage practice, in 1993, a ‘business
mentor’ said that it wouldn’t work in Swindon; I should go to Totnes or
Glastonbury!
My thought was: relocating is not an option and people deserved pain
relief in other towns too!
As Sean Stevenson put it: “don’t believe a
prediction that doesn’t serve you!”
So despite the prediction and the difficulties life threw at me along
the way, I followed my passion. Now I can celebrate 30 years in business for the whole of 2023!
I want to
celebrate with you as I truly enjoy what I do. Helping people get better never feels like
work and it now includes a lot more than massage. So I have devised 30 special mini retreats, available till 30th Dec 2023.
Maybe you are
ready for a reset or a reboot like with old computers to get them functioning
better.
Just like I was
told my business wouldn’t work, have you been told that:
If you work hard
you will succeed, Computers will
make your life easier, Doctors will make
you better!
This is what I
heard as a child from parents, teachers, the media... However these didn't fit
my experience of life. Trying harder just made me exhausted and frustrated at
not making progress.
Computers haven’t
really made my life easier.
My experience as a
nurse helped me realise conventional medicine was ill equipped to deal with
chronic problems.
I believed these, until
I realised they were just stories.
We have been
conditioned to believe that someone else’s way is the right way and often only
way.
How about in your life, are you lead by false beliefs?
We have been
taught that in order to be liked we have to be good and behave. That generally
means to listen and please others, rather than honour ourselves, our needs and
values.
How often have you
had a gut feeling and not followed through, then regretted it? This is because
you were listening to someone else's path, not your own and staying true to
yourself.
Ignoring such
feelings and persistently sacrificing yourself can lead to frustration,
anger, and overwhelm. Effectively what most people accept as normal stress.
It arises because everyone else's wants and needs are getting on top of you. It
might be the norm but that doesn’t make it normal!
Have a spa and relax!
Do you deal with it
by ignoring it hoping it will magically vanish one day? Or maybe you go away for a spa
day, or have a massage now and again. You might even think that going on
holiday will make it better.
However, have you
noticed that you relax there, but when you get home the same things still wind
you up? Nothing has changed!
To me these are
temporary avoidance. It's OK, they help recharge your battery but doesn't
resolve anything.
You see, most spas
and massages are designed as a generic product. They are not there to help you
address specific issues and a holiday is a distraction and can be sometimes be
just as draining.
Have the things
you are doing to improve your situation stopped working or not working as well?
Doing more of the same and expecting a
different outcome, is insanity,
according to Einstein.
Do you really want
things to change?
Maybe you are
ready for a completely different kind of retreat. One that can help you feel
better for more than a few hours. One that can make a difference to your life. You
might not need to do more but feel comfortable doing less.
YES, you can stop
people-pleasing without your world falling apart!
Are you ready to
put yourself first? (Yes you’ll probably feel guilty but this retreat can
tackle that too.)
Remember, you
can't take care of others if you don't look after yourself first. This is why
you must put your own oxygen mask on, before helping anyone else (including
your children!)
Do you want the
courage and confidence to live YOUR life, rather than the one you have been
told or believe you should live?
Because as the
quote often wrongly attributed to Oscar Wild says
“Be yourself, everyone else
is already taken”.
Changing your relationship with yourself, will affect the one you have with food, money,
work and ultimately your relationship with others. You can't change
others but you can change yourself!
It is easier than
you imagine because you already have all the tools you need. How do I
know?You are still alive! So whatever
life has thrown at you so far, you have survived it!
Now you can choose
to do more than survive and it starts with being able to love yourself. You can
then love your life and others more, if you wish. The lack of alignment with
our deepest self is the greatest cause of stress.
Ready to celebrate
who you really are? Want to trust yourself, so you can have more of the life you
want?
The Body~Mind relax and
regenerate mini-retreat is for you.
You will have a
completely unique blend of physical treatments, as well practical approaches
that will help you ease tension, find peace of mind and deeply relax. Like a
complete physical, mental and emotional makeover!
At the end, you
will be able to think more clearly. Rather than simply patching symptoms that
resurface over and over again, you will understand and be able to tackle the
causes of your discomfort. Because only in a truly relaxed state are we most
creative and best able to make good choices.
You will begin to
feel yourself again, ready to own your life, in the knowledge that you are
comfortable being who you are. A human being, not a human doing.
Not only are these
30 sessions unique to my birthday celebration, I am also giving the first 9
people who book a discount on the £300 price.
If
this is not for you, but you would like to find out about other offers
and events, I will be running over my celebration year, subscribe to
my UPdates.
You can also find some self help videos on my Youtube channel.
In order to get
the most benefit you will need to commit to a 2 day, one to one, experience.
Day 1:
Morning: You will be
focussing on a reflective practice setting your intention and planning what you
want from the retreat.
Prepare your lunch
and evening meals. Ensure your home will be a nice place to relax in the evening
and next day.
Afternoon: At 1.30pm you will
join me, at my practice, for a 4hours treatment tailored to your needs.
It will include:
-Clarifying your morning preparation about you
intention for the session. Explain what you would like to achieve at the end of
day 2.
- A physical
assessment (Eg. gait, posture, mobility, blood pressure)
- An optional foot
spa, a 90 min full body massage and/or other body work to release physical
tension.
-Address, release
and give you tools and techniques to deal with your most pressing cause of
stress.
Evening: You will return home and continue to relax, eat the food you prepared that morning and sleep
in the comfort of your own bed.
Day 2:
Morning you
will have time to reflect on what is really holding you back and what you are ready to change.
Afternoon: a zoom call will answer any question that may have arisen and addressed the issues you have uncovered.
This process will:
Help you see the
wood for the trees, by getting some clarity on the things that are truly
getting in your way. Often not the things you think are the problem.
You will be able
to put into practice easy techniques to help you get a better night’s sleep and
improve your life.
Help you feel
contented and more yourself. Feel more confident that you can own your life in
the knowledge you are comfortable being who you are: a human being rather than
a human doing!
Commitment:
You will need to
have cleared your diary of commitments for the day of the treatment and the
following day so you have time to process all the changes.
As I mentioned, there
are only 30 retreat sessions available between now and 30 Dec 2023.
The first 3 to
book will get over 30 % discount at £210
The next 3 will pay
£230
And 3 more get £30
off at £270.
To book or for any further information, get in touch.
“Whether
you think you can or you think you can't you're right”.
Henry
Ford
What we believe becomes!
You might even recognise some of your
limiting beliefs.
But if you listen to the language you
use every day, in general conversation, with others or your internal monologues
(Yes! We all have a chatterbox in our head), you will discover a lot more about
how language is affecting you and what you believe.
When, as a teenager, I picked up Scott
Peck's book; ‘The road less travelled’, and read the first line of part one:
“life is difficult”; I thought “You're not kidding”.
Although I agreed with the statement,
as that was the way I felt at the time, I decided I did not want the rest of my
life to be like that.
I saw no reason why it should be that
way. Foolish of me may be, I made it my mission to find ways of making life
easier for myself and others.
Along the way, I discovered two things
about the impact language has on us.
-Firstly, the words we use give us an
insight into the way we think, believe and respond to the world.
-Secondly, when change the vocabulary we
use, how we perceive what is happening and what we create in our lives changes
almost without effort.
So, if like me, you would like an
easier and better life, here are five words, you probably use on a regular basis,
which you can erase from your vocabulary.
Find out what you can replace them with
and begin to transform your life.
The first thought you might have is: OK
I'll try and see what happens.
1) Try
Actually if you do say that, nothing
will happen! Next you might think OK then ‘if at first I don't succeed
try, try and try again!
That won’t help you either, because “TRY”
is the first word to delete from your vocabulary.
What the expression fails to convey is,
if you don't succeed, consider what you might need to change and see if it
works any better.
Otherwise you will be modelling
Einstein’s definition of insanity: “Insanity is
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome”.
Try implies failure.
As you realise if I said: ‘I tried to
learn to drive’, you know full well I didn’t pass my test and probably had more
than one go!
Try also implies effort. Effort is hard
work and causes tension in the body, thus making your life more difficult.
Neither failure nor effort are helpful
if you want an easier or better life. So you can use words such as explore,
investigate, play, taste, see if... instead.
2) Don’t
Secondly, have you ever told yourself:
“DON'T FORGET XYZ” and then realized
you did forget it?
This is normal.
The brain can’t recognize a negative
statement.
If I say to you, “don't think of a pink
elephant”, you had to think of the pink elephant to recognise what it was you were
not meant to be thinking about. At that point it’s too late, you have thought
of it.
So any phrases that begin with don't
followed by an action tend not to get the desired reaction.
Don't forget...can be changed to remember.
For something like “don't run” etc,
describe what you to see happen, in this case walk. Don't scream could become:
speak more quietly, and so on.
3) Should
“SHOULD”
is the next word that creates difficulty in our life. It prevents us from
experiencing the world as it truly is.
Whether you think something should or
shouldn't have happened, the reality is, it did!
Only when we accept the reality as it
is, can we begin to move forward and get on, otherwise as I recall in Red Dwarf,
Kryten said to Rimmer; “you're living in an unreality bubble Sir!”
We use should (or shouldn’t) when
people, (or things) don’t behave in the way we want them to - including
ourselves.
Even if we don't realise it, they have
their reasons for behaving the way they do.
It's generally unconscious on the part
of the human - always deliberate on the part of an object or animal of course
;-).
Expecting the world to behave other
than the way it does, is as Byron Katie puts it like expecting a cat to bark!
If you think you SHOULD do something, whose
‘voice’ is that?
Yes! It might be the one in your head,
but who is it that initially gave you the idea of what was correct or
not?
Is it the media, a parent, a teacher,
or a boss may be?
Should, means there's an internal
desire to conform to an external pressure or request. If we believe the
statement to be true we end up feeling guilty.
Who said that request is actually right
for you in that environment?
For example in the UK it is not
considered polite to eat with our fingers, yet in India it is, (as long as it’s
not the left one!). So who is right?
Consider using the word ‘choose’
to do or not do something instead.
This puts the onus on you to take
responsibility for your actions, rather than feeling you don't have much of a
choice or that you only do it for fear of punishment if you don't.
4) The fourth word is: Why.
You may be familiar with Simon Sinek’s
‘Find your why’ and how powerful that can be.
However, asking someone WHY they have done something tends
to switches their brain off.
When kids ask their parents “why this,
why that...” often the answer is simply ‘because I say so’ with no further
explanation.
It is difficult to find an answer at
such times, because it is usually more than one thing that determines the
reason why something is
the way it is, or why
someone does something.
A certain set of circumstances might
need to come together at exactly the right time to make it happen, just like
rainbows.
Instead ask various questions starting
with what,
where, when and how.
These are more likely to give you
an insight into what was going on in the person's brain, at the time they took
the action, and find a way to get a more satisfactory outcome for both parties.
My husband kept asking “Why do you keep
leaving drawers open?Why don’t you just
shut them?”
Had I merely responded to the ‘why’, my
answer would have been ‘because I did, why? ’ His answer to ‘why’ would have
been because he wants to know!
Neither particularly helpful to being
able to understand each other.
Being asked why also made me feel like I was wrong, when I didn’t think
I was doing anything wrong. It implies a ‘should’
as mentioned above.
What I was thinking was, “It would save
me time having to shut it and open it again, now he wants me to waste my time.”
That made me less willing to want to
shut the drawer.
So, instead of just asking why, I asked him what his issue
was with it being open.
He shared his concern that he might not
realise it was open and hurt himself. An
amicable short discussion followed sharing our thought on the matter.
I am not entirely sure what changed,
whether he has not seen me leave drawers open but he hasn’t asked me to shut a
drawer since and I am not sure I always shut them!
5 Hard/
difficult
Take a moment to close your eyes and
think about things that you find hard or difficult.
Notice what that does to your energy
levels, your enthusiasm, your confidence, and desire to do them.
When you feel this way, rather than
focus on how something is hard or difficult ask yourself:
What could be easier?
What could be softer?
How can I make this more fun?
Listen for the answers and ideas you
come up with. Implement them and see what happens.
As you become more aware of the
language you’re using, you’ll begin to hear phrases such as:
somebody or something is a pain in the
neck,
put your back in it,
you had a gut feeling,
it broke my hearted
...
All of these types of phrases are the
ones I listen out for with clients.
They give me clues as to the deeper
reasons they experience pain in a particular area of their body or feel the way
they do.
Helping me understand how they are
experiencing the world. Reflecting that back to them and exploring how they
learned to perceive the world that way helps them heal and make their life
easier.
Enjoy listening to yourself and others
and don't forget why you shouldn't try hard!
Oops! I really mean: Remember when you can choose to explore an
easier life!
Our brain believes everything we say and so this becomes our reality. Make sure it is one you actually want!
Until next time, BE WELL
Julie Nicholls Body~Mind Coach LCSP(Phys), IEMT, former RGNTel: 01793 495551
