Something that’s really struck me about the work I do with people is their bravery. There are very few universals in the clients that I see- and everyone is very unique and different- but there’s something deeply touching about people’s wants, needs and desires to change. Often when people have come to see me, they’ve given up in the past and that’s how they’ve let their problem(s)/issue(s) get to a level where they really desire to make a change or they’re so keen to improve their lives from the state they feel they’re already in- that they go at it with full force.

I was reflecting on this when I read a passage last night from Irvin Yalom’s “The Gift Of Therapy” and there was a short passage which really struck a chord;

“Heddeger spoke of two modes of existence; the everyday mode and the ontological mode. In the everyday mode we are consumed with and distracted by material surroundings- we are filled with wonderment about how things are in the world. In the ontological mode we are focused on being per se- that is , we are filled with wonderment that things are in the world. When we exist in the ontological mode- the realm beyond everyday concerns- we are in a state of particular readiness for personal change.”

The key phrase I believe is the latter. Clients don’t usually get through my door until they’re already ready to begin to make that personal change- and being ready to make a difference in any aspect of your life often requires bravery.

The Catch 22 is that i’m not wholly sure if it’s the bravery that creates readiness or vice versa or if actually they’re both just fueling along. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter- the important part is the decision. Are you ready, and indeed brave enough, to make changes in your life?

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist at 1 Harley Street, London. W1G 9QD

The Lewis Clinic is a clinic of hypnotherapists working from the centre of London at Harley St, but also includes many clients from North, South, East and West.

The most startling example is that of Relationships. I’m sure most people know someone, or have been there themselves, where they are in a partnership that doesn’t feel entirely equal. There’s the dangerous ground of playing a symetrical game of assuming that A does something for B, and then B has to reciprocate before A does something else.

This seems so cold and cynical, and rarely does the relationship operate like that in terms of what’s actually said – but frequently, much more telling is the deeper lying structure of how the dynamic organises itself.

I was struck by a small story printed in the Boston Globe on March 20th 1987. It’s about a lady called Susan Butcher. (With thanks to Mary Catherine Bateson for the story came to my attention in her marvellous book, Composing A Life.)

The Iditarod, the 1,157 mile dogsled race across Alaska has been won repeatedly by Susan. This gruelling course was originally set up to be run to save lives at a time when serum was desperately needed in Nome to combat an epidemic.  Now, as a  race, this mode of caring and service has been converted into a straight out compeitition. Yet it is clear that even in this competitive framework, Butcher excells at taking care of her dogs.

At every rest stop in the 1987 race, her rival Rick Swenson left early, while Butcher gave her dogs the full four-hour rest time; she was so busy caring for them that she had only fifteen minutes of rest for herself. By the end of each lap, her dogs were forging ahead of his. They seemed to gain in power the further along they got.

At the last rest stop, the rules of the race determined that you had to give your animals the full rest time. Butcher’s lead became unbeatable. Where he was willing to overtax his dogs, she was willing to overtax herself, organizing her efforts around caring for her dogs. After the race, care for herself: a glass of wine, a hot bath and a sleep. It has been observed that in womens’ athletics, the women will stop playing when a team mate is injured, until she has been attended to, while male athletes will more quickly resume their competitive combat. Slowing down for caretaking is obviously a losing strategy in the short run, but a winning strategy in the long run, whether in a two week race across Alask or the life and survival of the human species on a planet that must be cherished for it can never be replaced.

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist working from 1 Harley Street, London. He also has a clinic available in both North and East London depending on your individual requirements. He works with confidence, self-esteem, depression, anxiety and stress. Alongside this work, he also has experience as  a business coach and a skills trainer.

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a
pole which she carried across her shoulders. One of the pots had a crack in it
while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived
only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only
one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its
accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own
imperfection and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been
made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it
spoke to the woman one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself,
because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”
The old woman smiled and said, “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path,
but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your supposed flaw,
so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.

“For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate
the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this
beauty to grace the house.”

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist working at 1 Harley Street, Central London. He deals mainly with issues relating to stress, confidence, anxiety, phobia and life coaching. A unique mix of hypnosis, cognitive therapy and NLP – for more information, just call 07738088632 or e-mail info@zackpolanski.com

It had some really interesting ideas; I don’t want to simply reguritate them on this blog as i’d be depriving people of having the experience of themselves.

What it did do though, was spark some similar thoughts within me to related topics.

I left really considering how cool is hard to define. It’s this idea that it’s unknowable, unattainable and unanalysable – but none of that is necessarily true. As soon as you put those blocks in the way, then of course it is all of those things.

I’m much more interested though in the intention of someone being cool. What are we working to achieve? What are we wanting? What are we hoping for?

How does being cool in that circumstance help us rather than being flustered? Or being energetic? Or dare i say it…being uncool?

Of course in terms of behaviour or state, then cool is suprassed by a New Code NLP Intervention. In working towards a high performance state, the state of ‘cool’ isn’t even recognised. It could be contained within the greater state – and it’s just not given a label.

How does this work out in practice? Well, if i’m working with an actor or an athlete – rather then working on being ‘cool’ or being ‘focussed’ – we work on a higher intention. We essentially hand responsibility over to the unconscious and ask it to use all the resources inside to choose the best possible response within the contextual situation.

This is different to what many people refer to as NLP or Classic Code NLP in which we consciously choose a behaviour and decide we always want to be ‘confident’ or ‘relaxed.’ This is taking things a step further.

And that’s cool.

For more information, I invite you to give me a call on 07738088632 or just drop me an e-mail at info@zackpolanski.com

I work with people for performance coaching, depression, stress, phobias and anxiety. I also work a lot with issues around confidence and self-esteem.

Whether it be a confidence issue, anxiety, a phobia, an addiction or something that you imagine i’ve never been asked before; i’m more then happy to have a chat to you on the phone or by e-mail and give you a realistic assessment of what I can do about it and how I can help.

Using hypnosis, NLP and cutting edge techniques from different therapies across the world, we can make huge difference and change in your life in a relatively brief amount of time.

Something that’s really struck me about the work I do with people is their bravery. There are very few universals in the clients that I see- and everyone is very unique and different- but there’s something deeply touching about people’s wants, needs and desires to change. Often when people have come to see me, they’ve given up in the past and that’s how they’ve let their problem(s)/issue(s) get to a level where they really desire to make a change or they’re so keen to improve their lives from the state they feel they’re already in- that they go at it with full force.

I was reflecting on this when I read a passage last night from Irvin Yalom’s “The Gift Of Therapy” and there was a short passage which really struck a chord;

“Heddeger spoke of two modes of existence; the everyday mode and the ontological mode. In the everyday mode we are consumed with and distracted by material surroundings- we are filled with wonderment about how things are in the world. In the ontological mode we are focused on being per se- that is , we are filled with wonderment that things are in the world. When we exist in the ontological mode- the realm beyond everyday concerns- we are in a state of particular readiness for personal change.”

The key phrase I believe is the latter. Clients don’t usually get through my door until they’re already ready to begin to make that personal change- and being ready to make a difference in any aspect of your life often requires bravery.

The Catch 22 is that i’m not wholly sure if it’s the bravery that creates readiness or vice versa or if actually they’re both just fueling along. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter- the important part is the decision. Are you ready, and indeed brave enough, to make changes in your life?

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist at 1 Harley Street, London. W1G 9QD

The Lewis Clinic is a clinic of hypnotherapists working from the centre of London at Harley St, but also includes many clients from North, South, East and West.

Particularly struck me as I have an interesting mix of different clients who come to see me.

A lot come because they are trying to get away from something- like a phobia for example, or anxiety. They don’t like something in their life which they’d much rather be rid of.

On the other hand though, I see a lot of people who just want to be ‘better at something.’ Whether it be performance enhancement of their confidence levels, a sports performance or an actor- they just want an improvement.

Isn’t it interesting how we often find human beings who have certain skills already and didn’t realise it was a skill until someone went out of their way to write an article about it?

Following is the article; If you’d like to see Zack Polanski, please contact The Lewis Clinic, 1 Harley Street, London.

Other clinics also available in the Camden area,  Westminster and Bayswater.

Many of us struggle sometimes to put a name to a face, but what if you could recognise someone many years after seeing them for a moment?

You know the woman crossing the street. But where from?

Ah, she was one of the volunteers staffing the polling station where you voted several years before. You probably saw her for a couple of minutes. Several years ago.

Sound like the kind of face you would place immediately?

It is for Jennifer. She is a “super recogniser”, someone with a significantly above average ability to place a face.

In fact, she can almost never forget a face. She first noticed something might be unusual on holiday with her family when she spotted a very minor actor on a plane. Her family were disbelieving but she was proved right.

But it really hit home at college that she was different from those around her.

“I’d meet so many people in the first few weeks and I’d remember everyone no matter how brief the encounter. I’d then meet them at a party and they wouldn’t remember me. I’d think: ‘That person is SO fake, I can’t believe they’re pretending they don’t remember me when we met for 30 seconds in the cafeteria three weeks ago.’”

Chance meeting

It doesn’t matter if years have lapsed since seeing them.

She describes seeing someone she saw a few times as child, on the subway, now over 20 years older with greying hair and dreadlocks and knowing exactly who she was.

“People can get older but their faces look the same to me,” says Jennifer. “They don’t look different to me whether they’re children or adults. I don’t know why my mind is able to make the leap.”

It sounds like a neat party trick, or perhaps something useful in business, but it may mean more than that to scientists.

Jennifer’s ability may help scientists who are investigating people in the opposite position, those who suffer from the condition prosopagnosia, popularly known as face blindness.

Claire, a 49-year-old mother of four, has the condition.

She contracted viral encephalitis in May 2004 and as well as severe memory loss she has struggled to recognise faces.

“I was discharged home to a family I couldn’t recognise, I had to believe they were my family. I had to believe Ed was my husband and tell myself he was the man I loved and that the children were my children.”

Claire continues to have problems with faces. She still can’t pick out which are her children if they’re with their friends. But she describes a recent triumph – picking out her husband Ed in a crowd. Yet she still has to use different strategies to recognise friends and family by.

Even her own reflection can catch her out if it takes her by surprise.

Challenging condition

Learning to live with the condition and work around it takes effort, and life remains difficult for Claire.

“It’s not easy trying to re-find myself in what feels like someone else’s life and the more sociable I’m becoming, the more challenging the prosopagnosia is. We take all the knowledge and information you get from someone’s face for granted.

“You don’t think about it how you’d feel if all that information was whipped off you. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody’

It may not be the case that there are only three groups of face recognisers, those with prosopagnosia, those who are “normal” and then the super recognisers.

Instead, there may be a spectrum of face recognition, says Brad Duchaine, of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience and University College London’s prosopagnosia research centre.

People like Claire have acquired prosopagnosia from damage to the brain. But there is another kind often less severe is called “developmental” prosopagnosia where someone has had the condition all their life.

And the condition is surprisingly common. As many as one in 50 people will be prosopagnosic but often they won’t know.

And at the other end of the spectrum scientists are beginning to study super recognisers, often establishing contact because of publicity about prosopagnosia.

They are just starting to understand the brains of the super recognisers by scanning their neural networks and working out what might be structurally or functionally different about their grey matter.

On standard tests of facial recognition, the super recognisers usually get full marks, but even if the faces are severely blurred they still get near to full marks, says recognition expert Prof Richard Russell, of Gettysburg College.

“One of the most exciting implications of this work is that while we assume we all see the same things, this work suggests that at least in terms of looking at faces we don’t see the same things.

“Super recognisers are looking at the world in a different way than other people and it could be that this isn’t limited to looking at faces but other aspects of seeing the world. And we think it’s going to be a very helpful tool in helping understanding of how the mind and the brain work.”

While not suffering difficulties, like those with prosopagnosia, the super recognisers sometimes still choose to modify their behaviour.

Jennifer admits lying when asked whether she has met people before. Some would find it unsettling that someone remembers their face and name after a momentary encounter many years before.

Just walking around in the city can produce a tissue of recognition.

“It’s not necessarily every single person who’s walking by me in a rush of people on the street but if I notice someone then I will remember them

“I really don’t have to have an important interaction with people.”

Significantly, even if the faces have changed considerably they are still recognisable

“People can get older – for some reason their faces still look the same to me. My mind is able to make the leap.”

And certain sectors of society should try to avoid the super recognisers.

“I do always tell people that I think I would be the perfect witness for a crime,” Jennifer says.

A really common theme in everything that i’ve heard both with clients and the public around me is the idea of resolutions.

Some of them have been the obvious stuff like ‘i want to lose weight,’ or ‘i don’t want to smoke anymore’ and some have been more unusual. I saw a father for his final (5th) session who’s final aim was to be more understanding with his children. And then interestingly, there was one lady who’d experienced a form of trauma and wanted to start 2010 by leaving it behind.

As always in my blogs, I checked that she didn’t mind me talking about it as long as I left her anonymous.

The abuse aside, looking forward to the future was a real moment for her. She’d never taken that time to really think about what she wanted. And the actual content of it, in the end, turned out not to matter- much more important and profound for her was the process of how she was going to get it and how she was going to divert around not getting what she’s not wanting.

We spoke on the phone, just an hour ago which prompted the blog entry- and she just said that she felt the hour together had really made an impact on her life.

The idea of “What makes us tick?”

Tony Robbins would suggest that there are several factors;

1) Certainty – Do you like surprises? Ha. Only the ones that you wanted. Everything else we label as a problem.

2) Uncertainty- What happens if you only had certainty in your life? You’d be bored, right?

3) Significance- We’re all striving for this in some way. Some do it through financial means, others by striving for intellectual precidence and others by meaning something to their partner. We often see it in youth through violence; if there’s no other way out, they can strive to cause damage to others.

4) Love/Connection- Everyone wants the first, but sometimes when we get scared; maybe we can just settle for the second. This is what Robbins suggests in his most recent book.

Whilst I think these are useful models, I think it’s important to take them for what they are- models. Ultimately, it has to be about what does the individual want?

So here’s the question?

What do you want for 2010? Do you want to be free of that phobia? Not feel anxiety any more? Not to suffer from lack of confidence or insecurity?

And if any of those, what is it that you actually want?

Do you need to feel ok? Or how about maybe, just maybe, you want to feel great?

Whatever it is, intentionally setting a conscious target can only point you in the right direction.

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist and NLP New Code Practitioner. For information prior to booking an appointment, call on 07738088632 or alternatively e-mail at info@zackpolanski.com