Happy Brain, Herbs & Spirituality

The Dilston Physic Garden
The Dilston Physic Garden

Beyond building dynamic and powerful mental maps with Happy Brain, new thought forms often emerge through the clients’ expanding consciousness and patterns of transformation. Somehow the mind’s deeper structures facilitate connection to something higher than self and sometimes unexplainable. Children explain it as magic; adults tend to search for academic answers or connect to their spiritually developing selves.

In a continued search for more ways to answer questions about this phenomenon, Kay Cooke formed a friendship and working relationship with Professor Emiritus Elaine Perry (neuroscience and pharmacognosy), who owns and runs an educational charity in the form of the Dilston physic garden.

Steeped in herbal medicine and clinical research, this botanical haven immerses its visitors in historical contexts that depict the origins of western (and some global) medicines, expressed through the ages as magical tales, folklore, and art. It is a perfect environment in which to experience the juxtaposition of many (often opposing) traditions, and be clear that magic is only what science has not yet been able to explain.

For centuries, folklore was the conduit of magical healing practices, and today, finally, science is catching up with and can prove valid, what our ancestors have known for centuries.

Kay regularly utilises this environment where the healing essence of nature can be overtly or covertly utilised. Transformation can be explained through magic or through science. The models are uniquely accessible to fit whichever level of consciousness it lands upon; perhaps communicating with plant spirits of say, a plant like foxglove, or understanding the pharmacology – the drug digoxin originates in the plant. And so we will explore some 21st century science that had its roots in the magical knowledge of an old crone.

Take for example the plant St John’s Wort; the ancients believed it would exorcise the devil, or their demons – which today we may consider a metaphor that explained the feelings of depression. Within the garden stands a magnificent sculpture of a giant serpent rising from the plant; representing such a demon being exorcised by Saint John’s Wort. What a marvellous place to have
clients focus their attention, and contemplate many things …

Today, Saint John’s Wort is widely accepted as an antidepressant herbal medicine with many clinical trials indicating it as effective as antidepressant drugs like prozac for mild to moderate depression, but without the side-effects.

This workshop will connect Happy Brain principles to historical folkore, magical practices, and facts present through leading edge neuroscience.

Upcoming Mini NLP Conferences where there this session will star are:

– Amsterdam, the Netherlands:

Happy Brain

Licensed NLP Trainer Kay Cooke
Licensed NLP Trainer Kay Cooke

Happy Brain is a system of engaging children and young people in their mind matters. The project started life in 2010 as a UK Arts Council project that brought creative workers into schools to inspire teachers and help young people learn. Kay Cooke developed this system to meet a funding bid in which she promised: creative education of the next generation about mind matters to help them to become responsible for their general wellbeing through better management of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

Not only was the project formally judged hugely successful, the practical activities had unknowingly generated a wealth of ‘live’ insights to surprising issues and unexpected problems that children were experiencing. Material generated during the project have become key to further developments, although sadly, government funding of this type of project has since ceased. Kay has subsequently formed a commercial model for Happy Brain, which includes teacher training, kiddie coaching, whole class/school delivery, plus the evolution of some saleable products. The reputation of Happy Brain successes now means that around 80% of Kay’s private clinic clients are children and young adults, who come along with their parents, or teachers.

Happy Brain draws from many models of education, psychology, philosophy, therapy, and science. Foundational inspirations came from the work of Dr. Richard Bandler and his human excellence technologies:

NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming)
NHR (Neuro Hypnotic Repatterning)
DHE (Design Human Engineering)

Three principles of Happy Brain
1) Simplicity
2) Resilience
3) Clarity
Simplicity
This is the principle that our reptilian brain is either switched to ‘thrive’ or ‘survive’.  Happy Brain teaches how to deliberately influence the autonomic nervous system, and affect specific brain chemistry through simple and fun exercises.

Resilience
This is the principle of our limbic system influencing the formation and maintenance of our mind’s operating manual. We can nurture a flourishing and flexible mindscape and enhance the quality of living, or contribute to a vulnerable or impoverished mental landscape, which reduces the quality of living.  Happy Brain play, creativity, and imagineering are vehicles to design and install bespoke software for a rich and buoyant platform through which to navigate the world.

Clarity
This is the principle of our thinking mind needing precise guidance for motivation and navigation into the future, on purpose.  Happy Brain games (often involving family and friends) deliberately stimulate the most useful brain chemistry for the desired outcome, and direct clarity to any perceived obstacles, essential resources, key drivers and time-lined targets.

Although Happy Brain was created specifically for work with children, young people, parents, and teachers (next generation movers and shakers), the principles of this project now extend into all aspects of Kay’s work. She frequently utilises child-like models with corporate leaders, because as Einstein is quoted as saying: ‘make everything in life as simple as possible’. Happy Brain does this.

Upcoming Mini NLP Conferences where there will be a Happy Brain session:

In Amsterdam, the Netherlands:

NLP and Motivational Interviewing

Licensed NLP Trainer Frankie Sikes
Licensed NLP Trainer Frankie Sikes

Motivational Interviewing is a way to super-charge someone’s motivation. This means asking the kind of questions that motivate the person. Motivational Interviewing is a widely accepted system for working with people seeking positive behaviour change. It has been shown to be particularly useful for addressing entrenched compulsions and addictions and is an approach that contains many useful strategies and insights that can enhance the knowledge and skills of NLP coaches.

In this workshop Frankie Sikes, a trainer in Motivational Interviewing and Licensed NLP Trainer™, teaches you how to integrated the Motivational Interviewing approach with NLP.

“As someone who has spent 17 years working in mainstream drug & alcohol services and has trained in hypnosis and NLP, I have long been using NLP to super-charge the work that I do. At the same time, as an appreciator of “what works”, I have found that there are also many useful understandings and skills in Motivational Interviewing that can be brought to NLP coaches who usually only do NLP. I find the two approaches complement each other very well”

Licensed NLP Trainer™ Frankie Sikes

Motivational Interviewing is about “preparing people for change and largely concerns itself with the work that goes into preparing the ground for interventions. This makes it an invaluable way of doing thorough set ups, the difference that makes the difference when it comes to making an effective intervention using NLP. For effective change to happen a person has to be prepared for change.Futhermore a NLP coaching session works better when it has the right set-up.

Enrolling a person’s motivation to change requires the practitioner to:

  1. Dialogue effectively with their sovereignty and personal power.
  2. Having a firm understanding about what motivation is.
  3. Be able to elicit motivation in the direction of positive change.

In this workshop you learn:

  • advanced rapport building;
  • nailing dilemmas;
  • understanding ambivalence and polarity responses;
  • what to do with polarity responses;
  • working with propulsion systems;
  • setting up states;
  • creating time lines of propulsion between these states.

Working with addictions and compulsions is challenging. This workshop combines NLP and Motivational Interviewing gets you the best of both worlds. As a result you are more effective and are better able to help the people you work with.

Super Precise Language Patterning for NLP Trainers, the metamodel

Improvement of the quality of life through the use of super precise NLP
Improvement of the quality of life through the use of super precise NLP

Using NLP & hypnotic language patterns is easy enough. Thoroughly understanding these NLP & hypnotic language patterns is a whole different ball game. For that reason we organize a two day seminar on Advanced Language Patterning for NLP Trainers. Because for NLP Trainers it is important that they are not only good in using these patterns, but also have a thorough understanding of them. Of course, if you are a NLP Practitioner or NLP Master Practitioner and want to better understand the underlying structure of these language patterns you are more than welcome. If you have no certification in NLP although we love to teach you, of course, this seminar is not for you as we don’t have the time to teach you how to use these patterns. And when learning NLP & hypnotic language patterns, learning how to use them comes first and is most important.

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NLP & Shamanic Journeys

NLP & Shamanic Journeys
NLP & Shamanic Journeys

Throughout history and across the world humankind has sought ways of exploring their inner worlds. Through meditation, ritual, music, energy and trance people have found different ways of experiencing different realities and altered states of consciousness. Frankie Sikes has studied for many years with Shamans and spiritual leaders from many cultures. Combine this experience with his unique understanding of the neurology and chemistry of the human brain and body and we have a remarkable opportunity to explore.

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Branding, Marketing & Sales

A thriving business needs three things: branding, marketing  sales. The easiest way to explain these three is as follows:

  1. branding is about giving people the reason why they ought to buy with you;
  2. marketing is about finding enough information about your potential clients so that you are able to contact them;
  3. sales is asking for money or if you don’t like that definition you could euphemistically say that sales is about helping people to make great choices.

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Become a Hypnotist in only Three Hours

Become a hypnotist
Become a hypnotist

Because Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is the most advanced version of hypnotherapy, if you want to learn hypnosis the best plan is to follow up with this course after the regular NLP Practitioner and NLP Master Practitioner. Yet, as is often the case, it is even better to first have some first hand experience on the subject before you commit to the full NLP Practitioner and NLP Master Practitioner programs. That’s why in this session you learn and demonstrate to yourself how simple hypnosis really is. Now, not everyone is hypnotisable, but the vast majority of people are. Hypnosis is so simple that you learn enough basic techniques with ease in a few hours to hypnotise someone and go into a deep trance yourself.

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NLP & Energy Work

Seeing and Sensing Subtle energies

A different form of energy
A different form of energy

Many people who have a little NLP experience become curious about the outer reaches of our consciousness and how NLP can enable us to explore more of the subtle world around us.  This session will explore the representations and submodalities of subtle energies.  Learning to see and sense the subtle energies of crystals, plants, devas and through short meditation practices we can begin to explore together a world that many feel are just on the edge of their consciousness.

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NLP Magick

NLP Magick
NLP Magick

When it comes to spirituality, often much attention is given to Eastern spirituality.  At the same time we have in the West a spiritual tradition that is millennia old.  At the core, NLP is a method to chart human behaviour. Usually NLP is used to identify (a) how to get people out of trouble, (b) become better communicators and (c) sales. What Licensed NLP Master Trainer™ Joost van der Leij has done is to translate all kinds of different development programs of many magickal societies into smart NLP.  In particular, this concerns the Tao, the Kabbalah and Yoga. That whole has become NLP Magick.

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