Hi, here’s a bit about me and my journey here

I’m Katie and I’m a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist and can hand on heart tell you that training in this (which I am currently doing and graduate in December 2022) is one of the best decisions I have ever made and I say that in complete confidence and trust in myself.

But it hasn’t always been this way. For too many years I lived on a rollercoaster of anxiety, looking fine from the outside but on the inside there was constant overthinking, doubting my ability, people pleasing, perfectionism, lack of self worth, social anxiety the list goes on. So many limiting beliefs, I thought this was just my personality and didn’t think that anything would ever change.

I first found hypnotherapy in my late twenties when I was having a particularly bad time of things. I was trying to run a business but had developed a chronic blushing problem. Blushing had always been a thing for me but during this period of high anxiety I couldn’t stop. So I frantically searched online for help and I found a local hypnotherapist who I saw for some sessions. I was pretty amazed how well it worked!

Then life was good for a while; life went down a new path, I married Patrick and began a new chapter training and being employed as a Secondary Teacher and during this time we also had out two beautiful daughters Violet and Nellie.

Teaching is a bittersweet career. In so many ways it is one of the best jobs ever but there are many elements to it that completely suck the life out of you. Let’s just say it is not for the faint hearted and was often a source of anxiety for me. This came to a head around the pandemic, a perfect storm of living through this challenging and uncertain time combined with the fact that I am immunosuppressed led to major anxiety. I also turned 40 and perimenopause symptoms crept in, which at the time I didn’t really understand. I’m still learning but what I know now is that when estrogen drops in our bodies during this time it influences neurotransmitters in the brain that can cause insomnia and anxiety (amongst many other symptoms). Fast forward to the start of the academic year in 2021, when suddenly everything was ‘back to normal’ in schools and I was in for a very rough ride when faced with some of the most challenging behaviour from students that I had experienced in my whole 11 year career. My anxiety reached an all time high. I didn’t sleep properly for months and I was having panic attacks at work, I certainly wasn’t equipped to deal with the challenging class or the fallout from that (which I won’t go into details here). For that first term I just about kept my head above water but I knew I had to do something because this was not the path for me anymore.

I managed to calm my nervous system down enough to start sleeping again and once I was at that point I was in a position to take action. I did this through a combination of self care but the thing that was most effective was a sleep hypnosis audio that I used every night to get to sleep. I had no idea at the time how crucial this first step was as I didn’t realise the importance of sleep as much as I do now having learned all about this in my training. By the time it was the Christmas holidays I was getting a plan together. I always knew that I wanted to help people, this was a natural and instinctive need and I had always loved seeing the journey of students and helping them on their path. During a soul searching process my intuition just kept bringing me back to hypnotherapy and I just knew I couldn’t ignore that calling anymore and that is when I really turned my life around.

Since training and having Solution Focused Hypnotherapy I now have control of my anxiety. I don’t have that fear anymore, I live a happy and joyful life and I am present and calm with my family. I have a deep sense of gratitude for my life now. I know that I can handle difficult things because I have the strength inside to face them in a solution focused way.

I feel like I have been let into the worlds biggest secret but I don’t want to keep it to myself, I am ready to share it with you.