Category: Uncategorized

Whilst sitting in one of the many Waiting Rooms of the X-ray and Imaging Department of the Penang Adventist Hospital, watching the various patients coming and going having different procedures done, a woman has brought out of the MRI scan room in a very phobic state.

Sitting in a wheelchair, her legs were shaking, her hands were shaking and un-coordinated as she tried to stay calm. Her eyes were wide open, flitting from one place to another, one person to another looking for support. She was hyperventilating, her speech was broken and at times unintelligible.

The other patients sitting waiting their turn for their procedures looked on, frozen, perhaps thinking “will that be me?“.

The staff offered the woman water, bless their hearts, as they tried to calm her. She was told to take deep breaths and relax, but she still was agitated and shaking.

I decided to go up to her and smiled, getting into her full visual picture, and asked her if she wanted to get rid of that feeling.

She nodded and started to explain she was frightened, phobic of being inside the machine, and telling me what was happening to her. As I listened, knowing already what I was going do, what I was to work on, just getting her into a state of rapport with me, trust in me, to a state of compliance to my instructions, to follow me, I did my work.

Within seconds her breathing slowed down, she stopped shaking, her eyes stopped flitting about, she visibly relaxed, her fears had disappeared and she smiled at me.

I asked her where the phobic fear feelings were, and she could not find them.

I asked her to imagine going into the machine, and she just smiled back at me.

My work was done in a matter of a few minutes the woman was changed.

She looked around at the nurses and smiled in a calm way, and just kept saying it is a miracle.

As she was wheeled away, she turned and with a big smile, thanked me.

I will never see that woman again, but I hope I have given her a new hope a new way in life.

I have helped in one small way to change the world.

I love my work.

Contact Phillip Holt in Malaysia :- 006174491309
Read more on Phobias – CLICK

A HAPPY NEW YEAR
To all my regular readers, to you who have been part of my life, to those who have been in my courses,my training around the world, to you I have yet to meet, a very Happy New Year, and may all your wishes come to fruitions, and may 2010 may be as a great person who has seen my future told me, be a Golden Year for us all.

Apart from the great build-up to the festive season for me, the actual Christmas Day and New Year Day held no real celebrations, as I was flying all Christmas Day from England to Malaysia, and I fell asleep at 11pm New Years Eve, missing the change from the “Noughties” to the “Tennies“, (2009 – 2010).

Celebrations were held on New Year’s Day here in Bukit Mertajam, not to celebrate the coming of the new year, as in the Chinese culture, the Chinese New Year (14th February 2010), marks a bigger time, the most significant part or festive time of their calendar.

It was the 70th birthday of my sister-in-law, still undergoing treatment for cancer, still requiring attention and constant support.

Perhaps, you like me had time to reflect on the past year, being able to review like my blog here, some of the past year’s events that had some significants to us.

During the year, I had lost relatives, friends, acquaintances, maybe through death, maybe because we had different views, maybe because we had found new directions for our lives, our businesses, our work, our downtime, our playtime, maybe because we had found new friends, formed new relationships which conflict with existing relationships, found new things to take our attention and time.

During the year, I had been used, my eagerness to help, to give, had been abused by others many times for their own short time gain.

During the year, I had seen many changes in the world, with new issues facing us including the big Global Warming issue. I had seen town centers changing, with major retail outlets closing down, and new business’s with new names and products taking over.

During the year, I had seen many relationships change, new partners, divorces.

During the year, I had been upset by the losses the changes that had taken place.

During the year, I have met many new people, kind, open people, formed new relationships, as I visited many countries around the world.

During the year, I have witnessed people form new relationships with success where others had failed.

During the year, I have seen and helped people make changes to their lives for the better.

During the year, I have seen children bloom and blossom, where once there was failure now is success.

During the year, I have seen new lives been born into our world, human, animal and plants, and watched them grow.

During the year, I have made new relationships in my personal, business and family life.

During the year, I have made old and existing relationships stronger.

During the year, I have given my time and effort willingly and freely, to put back into the world, the community, what it has given me. I joined Rotary Club.

During the year, I have learned many new ideas, subjects and things, and realised that I do not know everything, and that each and every one of us has a different cat on the mat, different belief systems, be those for culture, politics, religion or nationalistic reasons, and no-one is right, no-one is correct, no-one has the whole answer.

During the year, I have realised that I should dwell on the good things that have happened, the good intention each of us have, and the good which will come.

Now in 2010 I hope I have learned from my mistakes that have gone and been finished with, and to look to the future in a POSITIVE way, to give more than I take, to be more tolerant, and not hold a grudge against others who do me wrong or take a different route in business or life to the journey I am on.

There is a Susan Boyle in us all, all we have to do is Dream the Dream of Dreams..

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL 

Yes it is true, my “local” favorite bookshop will be closing.

Braving the rather rare English inclement weather today, I again faced the cold darkness of the heavy clouds, and walked down to the town center of Kingston upon Thames to get my exercise. Even though it was just after lunch, the cars had their lights on, as the skies darkened, and I had to dance around the puddles of water from the previous downpour.

A cold wet walk into Kingston upon Thames along Old London Road
I still cannot believe my “local” favorite bookshop, Borders,will be closing, but it is. The shop windows are empty of any merchandise, just signs declaring the closure. I will miss you.

Borders bookshop closing Kingston upon Thames

Too many times I am aware that I am to wrapped up in my own problems, and not seeing the wider picture, of what is happening to other people, to listen what they saying to me, what information they are giving me, in fact, what information is available to me in the outside world.

As I watch other people, I also observe the same attitude, people just wandering around in their own world, missing vital clues, missing opportunities, missing messages of change, missing signals, even missing money just waiting to be picked up on the street. (see Playing with Phillip’s Sausage).

These clues, these messages are picked up. Not perhaps consciously, but certainly subconsciously, and we fail to recognise the signals the subconscious gives us, we let the opportunities pass us by.

We are too centered in our vision, which is called foveal vision, we are too aware of our own internal dialog to hear and notice external sounds, we are too attentive on our own state to notice the feelings, smells and tastes that are all around us.

Perhaps it is George Millers’ 7 +/- 2, where we delete, distort and generalise, resulting in our own Map of the Territory, or cat on the mat.

By becoming aware of the peripheral signals, messages from the outside world, signals both internally and externally, perhaps by using La Salsiccia di Phillip, Phillip’s Sausage, by having an active dialog between our conscious and unconscious, being aware what the subconscious is telling us, we can enhance our world, as Freud said making “a decisive step towards a new orientation in the world and in science“, or Gregory Bateson said to be in “uptime” or having the use of “loose thinking“.

Our subconscious, unconscious mind does notice these signals or messages, and we have to start to notice them. Our eyes will look at an object, but we fail to see consciously what we looked at. We make movements, perhaps a change in step, perhaps by a hand signal, perhaps a change in our breathing, our heart rate.

Why are we making these signals?

What to they mean?

Bateson stated that we should :-

        a) use peripheral vision as opposed to foveal vision
        b) focus on external sounds instead of our own internal dialog
        c) have no excess emotional thoughts and to be in a physically relaxed state.

Walk around the streets, and start to notice the signals you have missed before given by the unconscious mind.

For example, when you notice you take a deep breath in, STOP in your tracks STOP what you are doing, and go back just before you took the deep breath in and ask, “why did I take that deep breath in?”

When you notice your eyes flicked to an object, even for an instant, a fraction of a second, STOP, and ask, “why did I look at that item, what did I notice?”

When that involuntary movement happens, STOP, and ask,”why did I make that movement, what did I notice, what do I notice now?”

By stopping and noticing what happened to you, what did you notice that you were unaware of, you will begin to see more, hear more, feel more, to start to have an active dialog between our conscious and unconscious, to have what Robert Dilts calls in his book From Coach to Awakener, an awakening, or Dr Win Wenger of Project Renaissance called Side Bands.

In a previous article, Sometimes I feel like a petrol pump, I wrote Two’s company, three’s a crowd, and I have had questions as to what this English saying, or idiom, means from friends in none English speaking countries.

Two’s company, three’s a crowd, can refer to when a couple will go out for a romantic meal and the woman takes her mother with her. Thus the romantic meal will be uncomfortable, in fact, unromantic.

Two’s company, three’s a crowd, can also be used when referring to too many people being present at an event when the event was designed to be for a small number of people (two), but is usually only used when referring to two people, as above.

It has been a quick trip to Italy, to deliver as part of the training team of NLPItaly’s for the NLP Master Practitioner course in Milan, two weekends, with twenty-four fantastic participants having fun together, whilst learning great NLP techniques such as Time Lines, Future Pacing, Perceptual Positions, with yes Antonio and Phillip’s Sausage.

The temperature may have been warm inside the training room, but outside, although pleasant, for me that is, it is obvious summer is behind us. People are wearing coats, scarves and woolly hats, but me, I only had my suit and no coat, resulting in Elena my friend and translator telling me off.

I was happy in the evenings to have something to eat in a restaurant, having good conversations, relaxing with good food, knowing that we would walk to my favourite ice cream parlour or gelateria in Milano, Jack Frost.

Friday night Elena and myself went for a pizza very near to Jack Frost, so that we could have an ice cream after the meal, but when we went to Jack Frost’s shop, it was closed, its’ shutters down, and no signs as to why. Perhaps we had arrived late? We had eaten at 10pm.

Saturday night we dined with a friend his wife and new son, and travelled some distance to Jack Frost, but this time it was early evening, but still it was closed.

Our life was at an end. What would we do without our gelato, our ice cream? We made our way back to our hotel trying to think where there may be a gelateria.

We asked a hotel doorman, who said to go back to where Jack Frost was. We asked three youths dressed-up for Halloween, and they sent us back towards Jack Frost. Oh well, “Try it, you might like it“, came to mind, and we went back, just a bit more effort for us.

Two shops down was a new gelateria I had never seen before, “il tuo gelato“.

The new Jack Frost, il tuo GELATO
Elena and myself looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and decided to try it.

My first words to the shop assistant as we entered “il tuo GELATO” was what happened to Jack Frost? Her reply was that this was it.

Sorry “il tuo GELATO” will never be the same as Jack Frost, but I suppose I might get used to it.

So I must visit the new shop “il tuo GELATO” at least three times to get my brain to learn and accept the new shop.

That is my excuse for eating more ice cream.

il tuo GELATO

I have achieved many great things, helped many people over problems, including to stop smoking, overcoming fears and phobias, gaining confidence, stopping over use of drugs and alcohol and loosing weight.

The one great thing about NLP is the it is quick, with me one session, and it is long lasting, forever should the client want it to be.

For the first time in all the years I have been training around the world, I became ill in a course. Well, I did not become ill in the course, but it hit its’ height, its’ worse in the course.

I am very careful what I eat usually, because I know about travellers diarrhea.

The fact is, that different parts of the world, different parts of countries and towns, have different germs, different bacterial, and these reside in water and on food. Our stomachs build up resistance to bacterias, or the ability to kill these bacterias, and if our own bacteria come across one that they have never come across before, Oh Poo Poo, we get sick, we get food poisoning, diarrhea and vomiting as the body strives to rid itself of the harmful bacterias.

Cooking usually kills off unwanted bacteria, but we do not cook grass or salads, and I had some salad. Also I eat some yogurt, which I suspect could have been old.

Oh boy was I ill. Even the participants realised I was bad, and they gave me a break. But, the show had to go on, and with my attention on Fred, Antonio, Mustapha, – you will have to do my courses to understand these names, we got through the day, and i lost weight.

Now I am off to Milano, so no doubt with all the ice cream I will put back on all the weight I lost.
  

In reply to a message regarding my 50 Euro fine by Trenitalia for not validating an 11 Euro train ticket from Rome’s Airport, Leonardo da Vinci Airport or Fiumicino, I replied it was “Water under the Bridge“.

In an overseas telephone conversation to a non British person, I was asked what did I mean by this English saying.

It means that something has happened, but it has finished and is no longer important.

So I was fined 50 Euro by Trenitalia, but it happened, there is nothing I can do about it now, so I can let any bad thoughts go, it is no longer worth thinking about.

Usage examples:-

I was once very close with a person, we argued and refused to talk to each other for a long time, but that is water under the bridge, and we became friends again and talk all the time.

I was married once, but the marriage failed and we divorced, so that time of my life is water under the bridge.

It is mid September here in the UK, and Summer is coming to an end.

As I walked to a lunch meeting, I was surprised to see the streets and footpaths covered with fallen leaves, a sure sign the Autumn is on its’ way.

The nights will draw in, the late sinking of the summer sun or sunset can be after 9:30pm and rising or sunrise at 4:30am giving over 17 hours of sunshine, we will soon be switching the lights on at 4pm in the afternoon.

The temperature will drop, and we will have to wear jumpers so not to get cold shoulders.

Each change in the climate as we move from summer to winter and back again brings beauty and happiness if we only look for it.

 
Autumn leaves

Today I find myself in the UK, but not for long as I will travel this evening to Milan, Italy, to give co-present on a Society of NLP Practitioner course.

The flight back from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was much the same as another flight, well a little more uncomfortable.

I like a window seat, and the nearer the front the better, as I can usually get off quicker, thus get through immigration at the front of the other passengers, plus the ride of the flight is smoother, there is less aircraft movement than in the tail section. By having a window seat, I can usually rest my head on the bulkhead of the plane, and thus sleep.

The problem of a window seat is that if a pee pee is required, the passengers sitting in the aisle and or mid seats have to move so that I can get in and out. This can become difficult if the flight is long haul, and the fellow passengers are asleep, or as yesterday, the passengers are old, overweight and are invalids or disabled, and find moving difficult and painful.

The MAS Boeing 747 flights to and from the UK and Malaysia do not offer much leg room or seat area, and the fights are always full, with passengers taking advantage of the cheap flights from South East Asia, and Australia and New Zealand. The service is second to none, and the stewards always ready with a smile with any request.

The aging Asian sitting next to me, needed help in getting in and out of the seats, walking to the toilets, opening the food packaging. The lady was so overweight, the drop down table could not fully fold down because of her tummy being in the way, so I offered my already crowded table for her drinks, holding her meal tray as she tried to get comfortable, helping to adjust the pillows, fasten her extended seat belts, not easy when she was sitting on it.

I was last off the aircraft, as I was locked into my seat as they waited for wheelchairs, always the last people to be unloaded.

I was not concerned, my situation was far better than the aging couple sitting next to me now faced in their life, and the situation I had felt in Malaysia, and guess what, as I use the eye recognition system, IRIS, in passport control, by-passing the long queues, and my suitcase was one of the first to be delivered on the conveyor, so I was one of the first out of Heathrow.