“Hakuna Matata”  

Hypnotherapy for parents: What Hip & Healthy contributor, Claire Howe, did to get back her ‘no worries’ attitude after becoming a Mother.

Unfortunately, “Hakuna Matata” didn’t involve a trip to Africa…but it did involve the help of top Hypnotherapist Malminder Gill. Malminder Gill is an award-winning Reinvention Hypnotherapist, accomplished author, and speaker. With an impressive clientele including royalty, celebrities and CEOS, Malminder has been helping individuals with a range of life-consuming problems for over 10 years.

For me becoming a mother has been one of the most magical, happy and beautiful experiences, but also one that has bought with it challenges and days where you just don’t know if you’re doing it right or if you’ll even make it to bath time; where even the smallest, most trivial things irritate and agitate you – my fuse has definitely shortened.

Trying to get past small annoyances and implementing the mantra ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ is actually quite a hard task. It’s also one that can’t happen with the click of two fingers. It takes time and dedication. As Malminder explains I have a blueprint on how I react to things and we need to change this blueprint.

Getting to this stage of irritability and slight anxiety is a process I’m sure a lot of parents go through and to be honest I’m not even sure exactly how I got here at all.  Life is full of ups and downs and these are even more apparent now. However low days also include worry about your child, have they eaten enough, been stimulated enough, slept enough or too much etc. With these added pressures building up I inevitably fell into a pit of agitation and irritability, easily set off by the smallest comment or action.

When I came across Malminder, I saw that she had helped people with various issues and I decided to contact her asking for help. The process started with a consultation call, where I offloaded everything that was going on in my head.  Based on this she came back with a couple of suggestions to get me started. Initially, she asked me to start a 30-day meditation programme. Malminder sent me a couple of guided meditation recordings to follow and I quickly settled with an option that I preferred. As much as I wanted to do the meditation every day, I did miss a few days. Finding 15 mins between a job, running my own fitness wear business (FIGURE FIT), exercising and chasing after a toddler, my days tend to run away with me. However, I did stick with it and I found the meditation very refreshing and it certainly alleviated any stress build up.  

After our telephone consultation, Malminder devised a hypnotherapy session and just before Christmas, I visited her at her Harley Street clinic.  Malminder has a warm and vivacious character and instantly makes you feel so welcome with her friendly nature. The sessions start with Malminder talking through your worries, how she can help and what you can do for you, before explaining the hypnotherapy that will follow. For me, she helped me identifying the irritation, agitation and worry and provided me with different ways to deal with those emotions and how it has developed over time. To start with it is about identifying your initial base emotion of irritability, and how to move up from it, one emotion to another, gradually moving the baseline higher. She explains that it is fine to experience all these emotions as we are only human; however, learning to deal with them is imperative.  People tend to deal with them by aversion or diving into the depths of what they’re feeling. Instead, she suggests working through the negative emotions and learning how to deal with the triggers instead. We all have conditioned responses stemming from the first time we encountered the trigger. For me, this conditioned response is what I need to work on in order to react in a different way. Malminder explains each time I react in a different way it will gradually get easier and I will create a different blueprint response and perspective.

During the hypnotherapy session whilst Malminder talked and laid crystals along my body, she explained that while she is talking I will most likely drift in and out of concentration and that is fine – this is exactly what happened. After the session, I ask whether, if it’s worked, will it be an instant change, and the answer was ‘yes’.  But not in the way we might think hypnotherapy to work, it doesn’t work with the click of fingers. It is still a process that needs thought and attention. As I left the clinic I felt relaxed, lighter with a spring in my step.

The hypnotherapy with Malminder has certainly given me a different perspective on life and has helped me move forward from the worry, irritation and agitation and most importantly helped my relationship with my husband. Life is full of challenges and changes and sometimes we lose our way and purpose. Malminder has helped me find a way to manage my feelings and ultimately get back my ‘no worries’ personability (maybe not my 20-year-old carefree self but close enough!).

words by Claire Howe

For more information on Malminder Gill, head to www.hypnosis-in-london.com

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