Why did I choose to become a Hypnotherapist?
I often get asked this question and I thought I would take time to tell you about my journey to having the best job possible!
I grew up in North Devon and I have always been known for talking. Even at the age 4 years old and at the beginning of every school year until I was 16, I was split up from my best friend for talking (yes Deb, that’s you!)
I started my career training in Beauty and Complementary therapies which I absolutely loved. I worked in London’s West End as a therapist but missed Devon so made the move back and ended up in Torquay, where I worked at The Imperial Hotel, which was then a five star hotel, as their Head Therapist. It was there in the early 90’s I met a lady called Brenda who came into the Spa as a freelance Hypnotherapist. I was intrigued by what she did and with the power of the brain, knowing from that moment I wanted to know more and become a hypnotherapist.
Back then there was no internet (I know! it seems very strange that we didn’t have Google back then) and there wasn’t anywhere locally to gain a recognised qualification, so I had to go to the local library to search through phone books, but I just couldn’t find what I was looking for, and I continued my career moving to Further Education, gaining a degree in Education and working as a lecturer at South Devon College.
I loved teaching but there was always something nagging at me about hypnotherapy and during my 20 years a lecturer, every now and then I would continue my search now for courses in Hypnotherapy but with the birth of the internet it actually made it harder to find what I was looking for because all the courses claimed to be the best and I just didn’t know who or what to believe, so again I continued with my career. In the last 10 years of teaching I noticed that each year more and more of my students were suffering with stress, anxiety and depression and I was spending more time pastorally with them to help them overcome this and achieve their qualification but I wanted to do more for them. I tried counselling, gaining a qualification, which was fantastic but it just didn’t feel right and it was very much focusing on past events and wasn’t what I was looking for, and so I continued my search.
After 17 years in teaching my life took a dramatic change of path and my thoughts returned to Hypnotherapy, searching for something that felt ‘right’. After a chance conversation with a colleague I heard about the prestige Clifton Practice Hypnotherapy Training School (CPHT) with the qualification of Clinical Solution Focused Hypnotherapist/Psychotherapist. I was super excited and spent ages researching it and I was hooked immediately, setting up an interview and signing up for their next intake. It was absolutely what I had been looking for all these years and felt so right, being solution focused and not problem focused, concentrating on the present and the preferred future and not the past.
This course changed not only my life but also my three daughters’ lives and I have not looked back. I started my business, The Pebble Ridge Practice, which I named after the famous Pebble Ridge in Westward Ho!, North Devon, where I was born.
I threw myself into my work being passionate about helping people move forward in their lives and getting to where they wanted to be. My background in as a lecturer proved really valuable as I was helping to educate my clients with really empowering information to how their brain was working and what they could do to start the process off of moving forward right from that very moment.
I took voluntary redundancy form education in 2018 and I now operate a busy, successful business working with clients online and face to face (once I get the government go ahead with COVID-19) suffering from Anxiety, Depression, Insomnia, PTSD, fears/phobias and weight loss….. and I love it!
We never know what life will throw our way and life is not always easy, but with confidence, determination and motivation and sometimes a little help from someone like me you can make those dreams a reality.