It is interesting that my hypnotherapeutic work and neuroscientific reading are feeding into my art, to an extent becoming my muse and taking the work to exciting new heights. I have always been fascinated with the ‘representation’ rather than the object, and so much of NLP and hypnotherapy is about how we represent the world. Change the representation and you really can change the world experience, so cross-pollenation is very natural.

Suffice to say, at this stage, that timelines are to find their way to a canvas before long and in quite a fascinating and unprecedented way. I do love innovation and this is something very new. Eyes will be surprised!

2 Exclusive Iphone Cases at Zazzle

Several of my works feature upon iphone cases at my Zazzle online store.

Shown left are two favourites, and as the images are utterly exclusive, the cases will make unique and exciting Christmas presents.

So check them out if you want to ‘sex up’ and protect your treasured iphone. You will enjoy them, will you not?

More are coming soon . . . in perfect time for the festive season.

I will continue to post here on consciousness issues if there is overlap with art, but all other posts will be on the new blog, so I hope you enjoy checking it out. It already has some very interesting entries on hypnosis related recent research and news, covering themes such as IBS, time perception, anxiety and a lot more!

I know you will enjoy it and it will be useful, so add it to your bookmarks.

In meditation in-flowing stimuli are disconnected as all becomes one. In hypnosis, one instead narrows to a very specific focus and this results in a disconnect for out-flowing stimuli, such as electrical signals reaching the brain, yet not progressing along their natural pathway to express as pain. The focus is shut down to the very specific yet all senses except vision are often heightened. This is different to meditation, which tends to open focus outwards like a lotus flower’s petals so that the I becomes the All.

We can wonder how my recent Buddha statue painting encapsulated that. Where does a painting of a life-like statue stop depicting the inanimate and begin representing life. In my heart . . . every painted smile has it’s own life story to tell. But how we experience such smiles is a metaphor for that definition of hypnosis versus meditation. Is the statue reduced as it compresses down to two dimensions, or does it gaze at the world with new eyes?

The choice really is a matter of perception. Over to you . . .

I completed a private commission. Probably the first of a painted series capturing statues (nudging life into lifelessness), the subject was a very stylised and elegant Buddha. For reasons that cannot be disclosed here, the finished piece will not be shown to the general public either in exhibition or as a web image or print. suffice to say both buyer and artist were very happy with the end result.

On the therapeutic side, I am in the process of adding another hypnotherapy qualification. Again with the excellent and only university accredited course in the UK: LCCH. I’m really enjoying it. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t and for this it stands in such contrast to nursing, which was full of people wanting to break out of it, often scared that they were being manouvred to work beyond their trained capacities. Give me the more respectfully and safely paced hypnotherapy with LCCH any day!

Completing this trilogy of news, we will be stepping through the doors of our very special new home any day now. I confess that the thought of relaxing with a fruity wine next to it’s stream, picking apples in its orchard and wandering in it’s idyllic acre or so of foothill all leaves me rather incredulous. It is all the more special to be buying from people who have been lovely to deal with and I hope they too will be very happy with their new home. It is only right that we value what they have put so much love into.

Wind the clock back and all of these wonderful developments would have seemed like fantasy. Being true to that inner voice is the key, I believe. That, and responding when the universe gives you the prompts!

It was supposed to be so easy, but yesterday’s train journey was almost a complete write off. If it were not for two very kind strangers, Karen and her husband, I might have been stranded.

So here, I want to say a huge thank you and to apologise for the fact that my promise to text to confirm my finding a safe place on a train was technologically blocked! Sadly, my phone failed to store Karen’s mobile number.

If you read this Karen, apologies. Thanks to your help, I enjoyed a safe return. Your kindness was outstanding.

I cannot help thinking this is the start of a cultural shift in attitudes to movies which just might make them more of a visual art form. Whilst Cinema corporations are gasping at the idea, the best visual movies are such treats that even a 42″ screen does not do them full justice. Avatar is a good example. It will be stunning on big screen TVs, but not as stunning and let’s face it, the crowds love a spectacle.

Personally I think it would be great to have faster access at home to movies when they are fresh in the audience’s mind and I really hope that it would give greater incentive to reach toward true artistry, something which need not require a huge budget. Indeed, some of the most visually aware movies have required a fraction of the budget of big-budget flops which lacked vision or adequate narrative structure.

I say, bring it on – reduce the DVD release window and let the revolution begin . . . but make it one Kubrick would have believed in! Give it vision! Give us genuine reasons to love the huge screen cinema experience too and restore the kind of awe audiences had when cinema was new. Let cinema do what it does best! Then everyone wins . . . Short screening runs for average fodder, longer for the visionary spectacles, low or high budget!

Comments on the YouTube page are typically varied, ranging from euphoric belief to outright cynicism, but it is worth noting that the pilots later appeared on Mexican news and were interviewed. They were emphatic about the sighting, and that it was not any known phenomenon. With the sightings so officially captured on video, hallucination is ruled out, and in many ways ‘explanations’ can sound even more far-fetched than simply stating that the lights are indeed unidentified flying objects – something we cannot consciously explain with any certainty at this time.

This lack of being able to identify is pivotal  since as a collective people often feel unsafe around what they don’t know and as individuals seeking to be part of a greater shared group experience we often streamline our belief systems to fit the perceived ‘norm’, always fitting specific agendas. This applies to corporate entities, like Fox News, which in this item obviously wants to seem down to earth in order to build credibility as a reliable source of information.

It is worth considering your response to footage like this. Do you know why you react to it in the way you do? Is your response really yours, or one you learned, and if so, who from?

Life offers many unidentified experiences. Something like 10% of our consciousness is at any moment unidentified – existing only in the unconscious mind, so in truth as much as we like to think we are fully aware, we are only partially aware of all that is going on, whilst a greater part of our being is far more oriented. This is where we pull potentials from, and looking back over your life, you will have had moments of wonderment . . . and later these moments will have led to experiences which were integrated at the right time for you, in the right way.

All of this can make you wonder what incredible things happen in this world . . . in everyone, everywhere.

In NLP, communication is not what you say, but instead that which is heard . . . and this is being misused for manipulative purposes in our culture and media.

I came across a David Cameron interview on a BBC2 Politics show. The interview was given on several seemingly bizarre conditions – it had to be filmed outside, they had to be standing and it had to last no more than 5 minutes. So what is this all about?

Well . . . filming outside just happened to be right in front of a sign announcing “It’s time for change.” This is the political equivalent of product placement in movies. You, dear viewer, are meant to glance at the words only long enough to enter a state of agreement rather than analysis. In hypnosis, we call such a sentence a ‘truism‘ – a statement you cannot disagree with, which manouvres you into being more likely to accept whatever else follows. Put simply, we only have power to change in each current moment, so if it isn’t time for change now, then change is meaningless. Notice that instead of combining ‘change‘ and ‘now‘, the somewhat vague word ‘time’ is used . . . in so doing, the politicians try to avoid suggesting the wrong time and loop into endless procrastination and promises.

In political usage, this is downright sinister. The word ‘change‘ is used so often by politicians exactly because it has no precise meaning at all – each person has to attach their own wants and hopes to it in order to feel better, so every time you hear a politician or official talking about change, you can bet nothing of any substance is really being promised at all . . . or that what is going to be delivered is something they don’t want you to know about.

Sinister isn’t it, and sadly this method tends to be used by politicians across the board in an attempt to manipulate, avoid tricky questions which might make them unpopular or reveal a hidden agenda, and to cover tracks. Such NLP use of language could be used for the higher good, but sadly politics appears to have difficulty doing this, whilst therapists manage it all the time. Go figure!

A similar word is ‘Inquiry‘ . . . if you actually focus upon that word for a moment, it implies questioning, but there is no defined outcome of consequent discoveries having practical or meaningful use . . . on that level, it all gets a bit fuzzy and is left to you to hope. I firmly believe that our acceptance of often stalling ‘inquiries’ can be a way of detaching from the very down to earth practical changes that need to be made, and can often be made quickly.

Another such word is ‘policy‘ – often something created or tweaked by an inquiry, but a subliminal association is that policies are the softened version of ‘rules’ which are widely regarded as something ‘made to be broken’ . . . and broken these policies are – so much so that this will be the subject of my next blog.

Whether you look at politics or an institution like the NHS, such words are scattered to reassure and distract, often to avoid or prevent real changes which could be initiated without months or years of wasteful management meetings. Lives could be saved or improved faster if we didn’t settle so easily for such posturing.

So next time you hear there will be an inquiry, don’t just feel reassured. Wonder if actual specific measurable improvement will come of it . . . or will it just be the vague ghostly promise of change, which whilst reassuring will actually deliver nothing of meaningful consequence at all?

A person can use anything for good and I hope you will awaken to this, creating and experiencing meaningful improvements. Imagine how our culture could restructure at every level. If you do not choose to awaken, then people will speak to you without genuine meaning, and everyone knows nothing worthwhile can come of that at all . . .

Also natural were his eye accessing cues at the time he said, “Nobody is going to take my kids away, and I will fight to the death for that.”

His eyes went to the bottom right, suggesting that even as the sentence was spoken, he was immediately being critical of it, probably aware that it could have repercussions, be misconstrued or immediately hit the cover of the tabloids in a way he disapproved of.

Everyone’s eyes track differently, but in most people there are very specific patterns. For what it is worth, Peter seems to be very genuine in this instance. Not totally surprising, but nonetheless such examples of eye accessing cues continue to fascinate.