I needed to try out a new technique that we had been learning about during our group work. I asked a neighbour if I could do this on her and told her she would be helping me with my study. She agreed.

I began to agree a safe space in her home so that if she felt overwhelmed at any point, we would break the state and she could go to the safe space. D choose a space near the door in her living room.

We began the process doing some guided relaxation and breathing, a reassurance of time, place and a trusted relationship between us was encouraged through this process. After a few minutes of relaxation. I asked D to step forward into her 360 spaces, the centre of her world. I encouraged her to think of all the people in her world, friends, neighbours, family, colleagues.

I then asked D to think of her loved ones. I asked her to point to where in her world they were. She pointed to her shoulders and smiled.

I then asked D to think of a problem person that she would like not to be a problem anymore. I asked her where this person was located. She pointed to in front of her forehead and frowned. (I did not know who this person was at this point of the work) I also kept the language I used very clean and simple as English is not D’s first language.

I did some work around sub modalities. I asked how big is the screen? She indicated to size was big, the colour red. I asked her to make the image black and white and blurred, I asked her to shrink the size of the blurred image to a postage stamp. I then asked her to remove the image to a place in her 360 panoramas. She placed the image to the bottom right of her.

After a minute I asked her to bring herself back into the room and to break the state.

Impact: She asked me – how was that possible? It’s not a problem. For 42 years of my life this has been a problem.

I asked her if she wanted to talk about this.

I explained that the barrier (Her father) had been removed from her path which now enabled her to go forward in life without this now being an issue. The memory of her now dead father is still there but small, insignificant and at her side. We talked about addiction, and I told her that her father was not his behaviour. “You are not your behaviour.

Dear Mel,

Still in shock. How quickly my past with hard childhood experiences which I was carrying on my chest was taking to small window and was allocated to a corner of the TV screen. It's still there but is not so "heavy" anymore.

For so many years I was struggling with the past and now is not there anymore.

Thank you Mel.

May Good God bless you

D

G is a 15 year old girl who wants to feel better about herself. Her parents have asked me to help.

Initial meeting: I set up a zoom to meet G. I established what the problem state was and what her desired state would be. G said that she wanted to change, and that she didn’t want her family to worry about her. When I asked her why? She said that she is constantly comparing herself to others on Tik Tok and other social media platforms. She said that she thinks she isn’t good enough, what’s the point? I asked about hobbies, she shared she likes music, Stone Roses. I told her I’d seen them in concert and when I was her age on a school night the first bands I saw live at GMex were The La’s and Inspiral Carpets. I asked her what her favourite song was by The Stone Roses and (no surprise) she told me “I wanna be adored.”

During the initial discussion with G I picked up on the fact that she had auditory and visual preferences. It was clear that she needed some tools that she could use to help her to feel better about herself.

Technique 1: Circles of excellence. I spent some time establishing a safe space and then some relaxation as G was a bit nervous. Once relaxed I asked G to think of a time where she was sure that she was really good at something. Fully associating into this space and the circle around your feet what colour light do you see? Yellow. Let the light surround you…..fully associate and remember this moment. When your ready and you’ll know when that is step out of the circle and break the state. G stayed there for a while enjoying this moment. When she broke the state she didn’t want to talk about this but was smiling. We repeated the process and her torch beam went to white and peaceful. Again she didn’t want to leave the circle quickly she enjoyed the feeling and was smiling.

Technique 2: Anchoring to a happy place. Again G was smiling and this had a positive impact on her. She can access this very easily. We set up anchors and I taught G how to access and anchor herself whenever she was feeling overwhelmed.

Technique 3: Dynamind Technique. I taught G the tapping process and asked her to test this out when she was feeling overwhelmed when she wanted to feel more positive about herself.. She has emailed me to say she has used this and it helped her.

To summarise the first face to face I explained the Mercedes model to G. She wrote down a good day and bad day for me, again through this process she was none verbal. I told G this would inform what work we did next.

Thanks Mel, I have used these techniques and they work really well and have helped me."