Andy Griffiths - DHP Acc.hyp
Coming from a home with a broken marriage really had its effects on my personality.
My childhood exposed me to situations that I practically wasn’t ready for at the time: I grew up watching my mother deal with so many things on her own. My father wanted a divorce and the family was not really doing too well.
These occurrences practically influenced how I processed my emotions, I began to fail at interactions and I also carried so many emotional baggage as time went by.
I would love to tell to tell you a little bit about how far I have come. I have experienced the good, the bad and the ugly. I have travelled, made friends, run businesses (some were successful while others where spectacular failures).
My point is, I have been there, and now I am a better person than I used to be.
This is the part where I tell you how I worked with a coach and how they helped me to discover that there was much more to my life and that my past does not define who I am. A full life transformation as I strolled off into the sunset, trained as a therapist and started my own thriving practice helping others. And yes this is true…but there is more.
My Journey
Various experiences in life made me an emotional absorber, a people pleaser, the guy that always liked to say ‘YES’.
At the time, my coping mechanism was to make sure I felt popular and liked. Little did I know that my behaviour created a great deal of anxiety and worry for me.
It also created so many problems in other areas of my life.
My behavioural patterns contributed to the collapse of a marriage, a spectacular business failure and serious financial issues.
My negative thoughts led me to let down and disappoint the people I loved most and at the time I thought there was nothing I could do about it.
This behaviour trait had unknowingly followed me through my school years, my teenage years and into my adult life.
A few key moments in my life sparked off a lot of unwanted behaviours.
Illness, Anxiety & Fear
25 years ago, I started to feel really ill and after days and days of ignoring numerous symptoms I ended up in hospital.
It turned out that I had thrombosis – a rather serious condition. I can remember the moment the doctor told me that if the blood clot had made its way to my heart I could have died.
I was shocked and confused.
It’s weird because I remember thinking at that moment, “OK, I could have died but I didn’t”. I was rather nonchalant about it and I didn’t get overly emotional or disturbed.
The hospital assured me that I was now totally okay. I felt I was together and dealing with it, and that I would be totally fine.
Thing is, I wasn’t fine! I did not realise it but I had battled anxiety and worry issues for a large chunk of my life, and things were about to go to a whole new level.
I remember one day, boarding a long haul flight, I stood in the queue waiting to board the plane and my world started falling apart.
I thought to myself, “You are going to die on this flight and all these people are going to see it happen.”
I was experiencing the most intense anxiety and panic and I felt very much alone at that moment. My heart was racing and my inner voice was screaming to me, “You are completely alone in this! You’ve got to get on this flight because it’s going to be hell”.
Walking onto that plane felt like a death sentence.
The next eight hours were possibly the worst of my life as I watched that little map in the headrest, fixating on how the little plane icon slowly moved plotting our progress. I was completely freaking out and was looking for anything to reassure me.
Back at home, I became the master pretender. I was always appearing to be having fun and happy. Yet on the inside, it was a total contrast: ugly and dark.
I was really struggling, the only way I could cope with it was to numb it out. To not allow myself to feel anything.
The anxiety and stress had been locked in my head for so long that it finally exploded, and it manifested itself in horrific anxiety, worry, over-thinking, panic attacks and really weird thoughts that freaked me out.
I spent many more years pretending to be okay, putting on an act and ‘getting through things’. To the world, everything looked alright on the surface. I started several businesses and managed to pay the bills. I went on holidays, but I still felt empty and my anxiety was out of control.
And this is the point in my story where I started to look for the answers.
Finding My Own Answers
I knew I had no control over my thoughts, they had absolute control over me. My thoughts defined how I felt about my life.
Having overcome many personal issues in my life, I am a living example of the capacity for change we all hold within us. My achievements in overcoming anxiety and low self-esteem amongst other problems led me to discover my passion for helping others to do the same.
In 2006 I started to train with Anthony Robbins which fuelled my motivation to find out the secret of a better life.
I discovered a great deal about myself and, for a while, felt okay.
But it was only ever temporary.
I became a self-help book junkie. I thought the answer must be out there. I often said to myself, “If I could just read one more book, I will surely find the answer.”
Through a friend, I was introduced to a very effective form of hypnosis that changed everything. At the time, I remember feeling a little robbed – robbed of my time, my happiness and my life.
The answers I had been searching for all along were within me.
I was so taken aback by the powerful transformation, I felt I needed to learn more about hypnotherapy. I decided to train as a clinical hypnotherapist, and with some straight-to-the-point, nurturing, understanding and guidance, I made huge changes in my life.
I continued my training with a Harley Street practitioner in London and Manchester. I also went ahead to train in Toronto, Canada… ultimately qualifying as a Clinical Hypnotherapist.
I learnt to quieten the thoughts that wildly rampaged through my head all day long and got in the way of me doing the things that I wanted to do.
And most importantly, I learned how to not let my past failings and behaviours, which had dogged me for so many years define my life.
We are all victims of problems, shortcomings or disappointment that have happened at some point in our lives. We torture ourselves with things that were said or not said, things that happened or things that haven’t even happened yet.
It’s the reason you put up with things you are unhappy with every day. At some point in life, you decided that this is the way it will always be and that you just weren’t good enough or that you’d just settle for the way you are.
We attach so much meaning to everything, don’t we?
We spend so much time in our heads and react to thoughts as if they were real. When really, a thought is just a thought.
We allow life to bend us out of shape and we allow our past to define our future.
I now use my Hypnotherapy, NLP and Coaching skills to help others. I have worked with thousands of people helping them to move quickly beyond issues life may have handed them.
I now want to do the same for you.
Accreditations
What My Clients Say About Me
Through my years helping people I’ve become proud of the feedback my clients give me. Their experiences are individual, but they consistently tell me (and their friends) three things – “You gotta’ see Andy– he’s honest, he gets results and you’ll like him.”