If you have always believed that success is possible without failure you may feel bad when things do not work out as you intended. To avoid those feelings you may have learnt to hide those things that did not go so well, or to blame someone else or something else, (I recently had words with the blood pressure monitor at my doctors as it was not behaving!)

I much prefer the school of thought that embraces mistakes as part of the learning process, in fact a local primary school that I help out in has 'we endeavour to learn from our mistakes and be open to new ideas' as part of it’s ethos.

Here are some simple tips to help you embrace failure as a natural part of your life:

1. See it as part of your journey, just another step on the road to success.
   
2. Do not fear getting it wrong. Those who fear failure tend to avoid things they fear they will fail at. That is a great technique for limiting your life, but not the best way to feel fulfilled in life.
3. Take a leaf out of Edison’s book. Do not expect the first attempt at anything to result in total competence, it takes many lessons to learn to drive a car and be considered able enough to drive alone.
4. Learn from failures. If you can look at what went well and what didn’t go so well in all of your endeavours then you can learn from the things that didn’t work out and look for ways to improve the things that did go well. A line I like from a song (although I can’t remember which one) ‘success is failure turned inside out’
5. Find alternative ways of looking at things so you start to see them in a more positive light. If you didn’t get a particular job maybe it wasn’t the right one for you and there is something even better around the corner, maybe you even had a lucky escape.

I recently read a report about a drug that is being developed to make you feel full, quicker. The report suggests that the ability to gorge on food was an advantage as it allowed humans to survive in periods of famine. The trouble is food is now plentiful, so the ability is proving harmful. Not everyone is affected, in some people hunger pangs are switched off earlier, so scientists are investigating why this happens with a view to developing new appetite suppressants.

In theory this would be a good idea, however, in my work with people who regularly overeat, they readily admit they are not eating because they are hungry or because they do not feel full.

My experience of working with clients who would like to lose weight, or who have an eating disorder has brought me to believe that overeating is linked more to emotions than it is to physical hunger. People who would like to lose weight or control an eating disorder have reported that physical hunger or fullness do not enter into their thoughts. In fact some have said they do not know they are eating until after they have binged on unhealthy foods, and it is not a feeling of fullness that brings them back to an awareness of what they are doing.

I work with people to remove the emotional triggers for overeating and to teach mindful eating, and more quickly than they may have imagined clients can find themselves at the end of a week when they have not binged, or snacked or had any unconscious urges to eat unhealthily.

Using cognitive hypnotherapy and NLP techniques I am able to guide people to a better relationship with food, one that puts them in the driving seat of whether they eat or not.

Science would do well to recognise the important role that the unconscious mind plays in our day to day behaviours, looking for physical reasons to overcome emotional problems will only result in replacing one set of unhelpful behaviours for another.

If you have a problem with weight or eating issues email or call me today for a confidential chat to find out how Cognitive Hypnotherapy and NLP can help you be free 01954 715406.

I cannot thank you enough for helping him and know that he has decreased his tablets to half a tablet every other day so that is a huge improvement and finds seeing you every now and then a real help.  I can’t say that we don’t have our moments but they are less frequent and less stressful/worrying/anxious than they were.

I have recently finished a course of therapy with Jaqui.

I first went to Jaqui because I knew I needed to get some help with a problem. The problem was affecting not just me but also all of those around me. I was slowly spiralling into a state of deep depression, it was affecting my work and ultimately my home life. I knew I needed to find help. Discovering all the symptoms it seemed I was suffering from social phobia - I had all the traits.

I wanted to speak to someone, but I was unsure who. I discovered Jaqui’s Web site and plucked up enough courage to phone her. A fairly emotional phone call later, I had made an appointment with her. For me the first appointment was quite nerve wracking and emotional, it’s difficult for us Men to express ourselves, especially to a stranger. Jaqui listened and talked me through some therapy which I now use often.

The next session was great I felt like a New Person, I had done my therapy whenever I felt my anxiety creeping up on me, but we still hadn’t got to the root cause of my problem. In our third session Jaqui used more techniques and we discovered that a childhood incident was a trigger point for my emotional state.

I had four very good sessions with Jaqui over a period of two months and I discovered a lot. I took on board all that she said and the therapy that she showed me.

I am now a much happier and contented person, friends and colleagues who know me well have noticed a change. There are, and still will be times of anxiety for me, moments when I will think ‘I cannot cope’ and the worry of meeting new people, but the therapy I was shown really helps me.

The Therapy is not a ‘Cure ALL’ you have to want to change, you will need to work at it – but it really works.

Medical professional

Hi Jacqui

As you are aware I spent a number of years studying NLP & how it can help people overcome the barriers that stop us achieving our dreams & goals. I personally feel that it is such a powerful and simple technique that more people should experience what could be in their lives rather than accepting second best.  

Working with you confirmed  to me that you have a solid understanding of how to use these techniques & I believe there are many people in both the business community & in other areas that could benefit by removing some of the limiting beliefs that stop good people becoming outstanding.

Local business owner

I will be helping you manage your stress levels on the radio on Friday 8 July, from 8 to 9pm. I will be discussing stress and sharing techniques to reduce stress with Antonia Brickell on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, on 95.7 to 96 fm.

If you are struggling with stress do tune in for some top tips to help you move on, as it's a phone in show you might even like to call in with a question, and I will see if I can help onair.  If you would like a relaxation recording, just email me after the show and I will send you a free relaxation download to listen to whenever you like.

You can listen online or catch up with listen again until 14 July on the BBC Radio website http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p001d7sb

At the weekend I did a tandem skydive for Magpas, and people keep asking me what it’s like, and the best answer I have is the one above, it really is like nothing else I have ever done before.

I love fairground rides, but it is nothing like that, fairground rides can be quite violent in the way they throw you around, this is just like floating in air, very fast. In free fall you move at 120mph, but it really doesn’t feel like that, jumping from 12,000 feet gives you no sense of height or distance.

I spent the journey up to 12,000 feet looking out of the door and talking to my instructor about the position I had to be in, and I requested a bit of a fairground ride that lasted (I had heard if you do tricks it goes very quickly). I had a photographer accompany me, so she went out backwards and hung onto the plane while I got into position with my instructor, head back, hands on my shoulders, feet out under the plane with ankles crossed, and then we flew – oh my word did we fly! It was breath taking (literally), we kind of rolled out of the plane, head first looking at the ground, which was amazing, then we turned around a few times and found the camera woman who kept giving me the thumbs up, we kept turning and every now and then waving at the camera and then the chute opened and up we went.

The next bit was great, looking at the fields below and gently falling before doing some spins and hard turns that were just amazing, then we would gently ‘chill’ as the instructor put it, just floating down, he let me steer for a while but as I didn’t know where I was going he soon had to take over again for a few more spins which I found totally liberating and amazing.

Everything took on a different quality as if I was seeing things for the first time (it’s a bit like taking up painting and suddenly seeing in terms of colour and light and shade), the wheat fields looked like carpets, people on the ground looked so close to my feet even though they were nowhere near, the whole experience gave me such a buzz. I did think we were going to land on people’s heads which was weird, and although we were the first out of the plane we were third to land so I know I really got the best of the experience.

It is over in less than five minutes, but to anyone who is looking for the experience of a lifetime I would highly recommend a tandem skydive.

My reason for doing it was to raise funds for Magpas, there were 22 jumping at the weekend including Magpas’ Chief Executive Daryl Brown. It is estimated about £10,000 will be raised, as soon as figures are available I will update my blog.

It costs Magpas £1,500 per day and night shift to keep the charity going, all doctors and paramedics give their time free of charge, so the funds raised pay for vital equipment and drugs. The Helimedix team were dispatched 64 times in May 2011. I hope I never need them, but if I do I would like to think they could get to me in an emergency and not be grounded by lack of funds.

To continue supporting this worthwhile cause please visit my just giving page http://www.justgiving.com/Jacqui-Kemp

National Blood Week

Here in the UK, it's National Blood Week from 13th - 19th June. Currently, only 4% of the population are blood donors, so during the week NHS Blood & Transplant are hosting lots of exciting events to encourage more people to donate so that they can continue to help save thousands of lives.

I was in a pretty bad car accident when I was ten and spent some time in surgery and I probably received blood at the time, I also have the universal blood group O negative, so anyone can receive my blood safely. I used to have a fear of giving blood, more to do with thinking it would be painful and deeply unpleasant than a fear of needles, but I never liked them either! Once I gave blood for the first time I found it's actually not so bad.

You never know when you might need some back, so if you want to do your bit log onto http://www.blood.co.uk/ to find your nearest donor session. And if the thing that’s stopping you is fear, then give me a call on 01954 715406 and I can guide you through it.