The official WHO definition of stress is as follows …

Stress can be defined as a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation. Stress is a natural human response that prompts us to address challenges and threats in our lives. Everyone experiences stress to some degree. The way we respond to stress, however, makes a big difference to our overall well-being.

I would define stress as tension from containing your feelings. This often feels like things are happening too fast, a sense of foreboding and you don’t have enough time to figure out what to do. This is accompanied by a feeling you can’t switch off, resolve or get away from the situation.

There are 3 ways you manage your feelings; suppression, projection and ejection. Most of us know how to consciously suppress our feelings, and we often project our feelings onto other people or things. The suppression and projection are good short term strategies but they have consequences. Suppression effectively takes feelings that are meant to leave you and keeps them inside you, similarly projection takes feeling you don’t like about you and projects them onto others. Feeling Fitness works on ejection of feelings.

It allows you to release your stress, this makes you more emotionally resilient because you stop trying to contain feelings trapped in your body. For more information take a look at the blog postabout it.

Yes … it is completely compatible with other therapies and I am a big fan of parts work and hypnotherapy in particular. I find it useful to think of feeling fitness as going to the gym emotionally, and therapy as having surgery. Surgery fixes structural problems, exercise makes you stronger. These approaches help each other.

It doesn't change deeply held subconscious beliefs. Something like parts work or hypnotherapy would be needed for that kind of deep work. I do this work alongside Feeling Fitness and the 2 approaches work well together and have accelerated my progress probably another 10x.

I focus on safety, right from the beginning because it is very important to me (ethically I want to offer solutions that help my clients relief). These techniques are powerful and it is possible to slow your progress or get stuck and feel painful emotions. For this reason there is a focus on your safety as well as your progress.

I have had management coaching training but I am not formally trained as a therapist and what I teach are skills not therapy. Of course if you are uncomfortable that I am not formally trained I understand. I have bound myself to the same ethics code and I am a big fan of therapy.

There may be occasions when we feel the most appropriate support is via specialists, especially for clients who experience very complex or highly dissociative difficulties who require a more multi-disciplinary approach. If this becomes clear, we will discuss this with you and support the referral/migration process.

We do not offer crisis support. We recommend that in an emergency, you contact your G.P or attend your nearest Accident and Emergency (A & E) centre. The following UK based organisations may also be of benefit:

UK National Organisations

-Samaritans.org.uk Confidential emotional support for anyone in the UK and Ireland

-Relate.org.uk Relationship counselling service for all ages

-Mind.org.uk Support for anyone with a mental health problem

-Familylives.org.uk A charity providing support for families

-Childline.org.uk Confidential support for children and young people

-Youngminds.org.uk A charity promoting emotional well-being in young people

-Addaction.org.uk A leading specialist drug and alcohol treatment charity

-NSPCC.org.uk Advice and support to adults concerned about a child's welfare

-First Response Service 111

If you feel unable to keep yourself safe then please attend your local Accident and Emergency department.