Aspire Therapy

Confidence Building for Women

I have just finished teaching a six-week confidence-building course at Chorley Women’s Centre, Lancashire, on Saturday mornings. The course is designed to empower the women by giving them a range of confidence building strategies, which they can then apply to their own situations.

Some of the women who attend my groups have been severely affected by low self esteem for years, often due to appalling treatment at the hands of others – and yet these women survive, and not only survive, but prosper. It always amazes me how resilient these women are and how responsive they are to positive change – once they know how to get it.

Who Moved My Cheese?

Am I the only person who hadn’t heard of Dr Spencer Johnson’s amazing parable on change, Who Moved My Cheese?

One of the women on my confidence building course recommended it to the other students – she had picked it up at a local charity shop and was raving about it!

Basically, it’s a metaphor for dealing with change – a simple parable that uses four central characters to illustrate the different ways we relate to change.

Get Calm! Treat Yourself To A Day Of Relaxation

We are running a Relaxation Workshop from our home in Ribchester, Lancashire, on Saturday, November 17. The aim of the workshop is not just to give you a single day of relaxation, but to provide you with tools and techniques which you can take away with you. These will enable you to integrate calm into your everyday life.

The workshop will help you to:

• Bring calm into your life and manage stress
• Identify your personal relaxation style
• Identify your inner sources of calm
• Learn simple techniques to help you unwind
• Create a relaxation plan to fit your lifestyle.

The Feel-Good Factor: No.4

People who suffer from low self-esteem find it difficult to overcome deeply held negative beliefs that they have about themselves. They may be persuaded to acknowledge at a rational level that their self-critical thoughts are unfair, but they can’t quite bring themselves to accept it ‘deep-down’.

Other people tell them they are successful, confident and attractive. But part of them refuses to believe this – even when all the evidence is to the contrary.

The Teacher who Beat Stress and Sleeplessness to Gain ‘a totally different view of who I am’

Sylvia came to us for hypnotherapy because she was suffering from severe stress as a result of her job as a teacher and manager in a Lancashire college. She had also suffered a blow to her confidence when she had to give up her management responsibility.

Following six sessions of hypnotherapy she found herself able to ‘look ahead with a totally different view of who I am’.

The Feel-Good Factor: No.3

Our sense of confidence can often be undermined by a troublesome inner voice. Just to become aware of that voice is a good first step towards learning to control it. Where does it come from? Who does it sound like? Does it need to be taken so seriously?