Day 4 & 5 – 21^st & 22nd December 2009

6am – alarm going and bright snow screaming through the curtains. I forgot about the shoulder and just sat and noticed suddenly how much more movement I had I the arm.

No pain still and now to see what will happen getting coffee and the SHOWER!

I knew that from not training I would start to possibly feel weaker which would be completely psychosomatic but I hadn’t expected my ego to override logic. I am used to training 5-6 days a week and hard. Its my respite, time out and the time when nothing else enters my head and all is quiet. Doing a heavy duty leg session for me is like having a 2 hour deep tissue massage for others – it’s a stress reliever.

Looking at myself in the mirror I started to see the softness which of course was water retention and also the swelling in my arm and hand. Thoughts started to run to what would happen if I couldnt train properly for a few weeks and I felt panic.

Luckily – as I work with this on a day to basis with clients and having also had times like this before I managed to recognize it and deal with it in a appropriate manner and almost burst into tears!

I had more movement again today and was able to slightly abduct and also raise the arm forward and rotate the forearm as well. My knickers, socks and even the shoulder brace I could put on, on my own without the need for my poor Mum to have to help.

My savior, one of our neighbors was going to the gym in the local leisure centre. He popped in to see if I wanted to go with him and to screaming from Mum of course I said YES! I know – I couldn’t actually do any upper body but I could certainly train legs to a degree.

At the gym and I had forgotten how hard a general anesthetic hits your body. I kept everything light – I had to as I could support myself by holding onto anything! After minimal reps and minimal weight I got a burn and could feel the tiredness which really pissed me off. Again – logic – I knew this could happen but NOT TO ME! Of course, once again – being an experience therapist, trainer, coach and all round expert in these things I then wondered if I would in fact ever compete again and my reputation as a performance expert would be in tatters as well as my entire competitive future.

Shame on me! However – a swift talking to myself in the changing rooms cured that one reasonably quickly or if you want me to put it in a technical context – a reframe, meta model, meta model 3 – TLT to the first event that I had the limiting decision of “I’ll never make it” and voila – DONE.

I was starting to have twinges and some minor discomfort and had reduced the pain relief medication down to one on the morning and one at night but kept the anti inflammatory the same. The discomfort was only at the operation site and still there was no recurrence of the old pain I had for so long before.

Day 3 – December 20th 2009 Amazement as I woke up. Slowly raising myself up and finding I now had some movement in the arm and could lift it forward slightly and still no pain like I had before. Getting in the shower was a task which involved plastic bags and determination of an Amazon Warrior and trying to work out how to apply soap under my armpit seemed to be something that Mensa had constructed. All the work I had done the night before trying to visualize the movement in the arm and setting up new signaling had worked and the related reactions were all happening. I could feel the networks all making new connections a the arm tried to move and I just went with what my body wanted to do rather than forcing the movement. After having to ask to assistance with knickers, socks and giving up on my hair due to looking like Elvis after an aborted hair dryer episode I then went out. As I walked I tried ot let the arm and shoulder move in the way it naturally would and allow free movement and noticed the predisposition of holding my shoulder using trapezium and rear delt to support it. This was an old habit from having the old problem so I kept trying to interrupt the old pattern and block the communication by constantly allowing the trapezium, to drop and relax. I also noticed how my thought process had changed. Continued euphoria at the loss of the old chronic pain and even though the operation site was painful and stiff it still felt it was in a “healing phase” I decided to goal set for the day as I was still on heavy pain killers. No long term stuff and managed to get a list of loose ends dealt with which started to feel like I was clearing the old path and making a clear way ahead for the new. Again – in doing this I was able to continually push the thought processes forward to what will happen when I can get back into training properly and also see where the courses and business is going properly. I had deliberately held off as there is an option for me to work in South Africa which needs ot be investigated but in reality – until I know how quickly I am healing – I cant schedule another trip out there to set things up. Today – even though I had done a lot mentally felt like a lazy day where I maybe hadn’t done enough. So when is it enough? When will it ever be enough and did I need to deal with that and was it really causing a problem? Sometimes we are all too eager to leap all over a small negative process which in fact balances out the decision making and is in fact not causing any harm being there allowing perspective to be brought. We do have “human” thought processes and are in fact allowed to be human – the therapy/trainer/coach side of things only kicks in when it has become a problem and needs to be dealt with. This is one of the problems I have seen with the NLP community in that I have people who wear the coat of NLP so completely that no trace of humanity is left which is worrying from a therapists point of view as you wonder what they are in denial of?

DAY 2 – December 19^th

So, I hadnt woken up screaming at 5am after all the local anesthetic and morphine wore off, I hadn’t accidentally rolled over and shot out of bed in pained panic resembling a wooley mammoth in a shoulder brace and it was in fact 8am.

The first thing I thought was how I was going to get up. I noticed how afraid I was to move the shoulder or arm and the complete loss of confidence in using it so quickly down to just putting my hand down to take a little bit of weight.

Big signal to me I was to have to rebuild the confidence in the complete joint and I wasn’t sure at that moment how long that was going to take. As all sports people, at that moment I questioned if I would ever regain the confidence or indeed the strength if I was worrying about even putting my hand down, let alone benching 180kgs.

So – fast reframe – take it back 2 weeks. I was in Cape Town and had not slept the entire night due to the pain I was in and had benched 172.5kgs the week before. So, if I no longer had the pain I had then, then why would I not be able to bench more than that this year. Job done – reframe – put my hand down, no pain, just stiff sore from the op and got up.

To my horror, my hand was swollen, my arm was swollen as well but then due to the fact we have gravity, that was a damn good reason to have swelling in my arm and hand.

I had no movement from the shoulder but the pain was gone – the old pain completely gone.

I pictured myself in one week moving the arm and felt the sensation throughout the tissues. Envisioned the movement of the arm, ran the feeling through the shoulder and and through to my neck and tensed the muscles in the way they would work if they were moving and tracked the sensation.

From the length of time I had the problem- my actual delts had stopped working and the entire movement of the shoulder and load bearing had been coming from the other muscle groups like the trapezius and rhomboids etc. so the actual mechanical structure of the should had not been working for some time. Mr Eames had showed me during my first consultation with him and frankly I just had not noticed up to that point – or maybe I didn’t want to. So – my job now was to create all the relevant neurological connections – exactly the same I do with my clients and also myself, to produced the desired physical movement and result during competition.

Mental to physical rehearsal.

Even though all this sounds awful and pretty dramatic – the fact of the matter was that even though I was sore and had no real movement at that time – it was still nothing short of a miracle for me as the pain had gone. I mean……………………it had gone completely and I knew this was going to be the beginning of a new competing chapter for me.

Ok – the boring stuff. I was given 75mg voltarol and also cocodemol as well which were just great and I need the full dosage this day. I was on a major high the entire day though, no, not from the drugs – generally from the relief of the old pain.

That night I went to bed visualizing the movement in the shoulder through to the arm and feeling the signaling through the entire mechanism. I also visualized the swelling draining in the shoulder and had the shoulder brace on. I was still afraid to move really, still had a loss of confidence in what I could and couldn’t do which did occasionally make me question future ability but not for long and I half suspected my old negative motivation was sneaking back to make me FIGHT when I actually didn’t need to.

well, here I am, on a ferry to Dublin taking my shoulder with me to Belfast to all ow uncertsin fate to happen to it.
From the heights of winning the world powerifting championships and taking a new world bench press record, to the stark reality that Emma James and her NLP Sport performance cannot cure all, is making me a miserable passenger!
The one and only time the LNP mental coaching techniques I teach could not deal with the pain was from about 6 months prior to the World champions when an incidentof trying to not stand on the cat meant a sudden impact to an already buggered shoulder.
I am an NLP Trainer, I am a known leading therapist in weight, esting related disorders and sport and related problems, however, right now I am being human and having “what if” moments.
What if I cant compete again to the level after this operation, what if the lay off time after the op is longer than expected and it takes months before I can effectvely train, what if I end up being out of competition next year completely and so on.
However, whilst thinking about for what urpose I was running the “what if” it suddenly hit me this is a normal behviour. Was it causing me a long term issue?? No because I know I will deal with the outcome when it happens. So why change it if it is a natural reaction and I know I can change it if I become unresourceful. you could argue by having that thought process at all I was being unresourceful but I argue that if we take away every natural reaction that doesnt fit into a “happy place” we are not dealing the issues that are there and in fact never recognise them and long term cannot deal with them.
So – for now I will sit here on this creaky ship, await the outcome of my operation tomorrow and then adjust accordingly.
Hurrah for being human – woooohoooooo for having a down side to help us recognise when we have the ups and RaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaR for being able to have the choice to change it!

Emma James powerlifter

At the WPC World Powerliftng Championships, Emma James, the leading authority in NLP sport optimisation and coaching, took her 3rd world title and also a new world record.
Against the odds and proving her mental coaching techniques, she achieved a 172.5kg world record bench press to lift the 12th biggest bench press of all by by a woman.
She is currently about to have major surgery to her should which has caused huge difficulty to her competing over the last year and was scheduled for surgery immediately after the competition – against surgeons advice.
She will shortly embarking on the new year ahead with her acclaimed NLP Sport Practitioner and Optimisation coruses in the UK and also in a ground breaking move to South Africa with super power in sport now emerging as a mojor force.
To see her world record lft you can go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNBrqjEhqwk

For further information about her courses and training go to www.emmajamesnlp.co.uk

Well now – I competed at the WPC World Powerlifting Championships on the 19th November and managed to bench 172.5kg which not only took the world title but also the world record.
Additionally, it is also the 12th biggest benchpress of all time by a woman and has been recorded as such.
If you want to see more then you can read further details and see the video footage of it at:http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/node/13462

Emma James has taken her NLP Sport performance optimisation to South Africa in an overwhelming interest from the sports community.

Emma James has taken her NLP Sport performance optimisation to South Africa in an overwhelming interest from the sports community.
From her own international competing experience and being a highly qualified NLP Trainer and UK media commentator, she has taken her expertise to a number of countries and is now working with athletes from Cape Town and the surrounding areas.
From her recent World Championship win and record breaking performance, Emma James flew to Cape Town to complete the talks with governing bodies and will be running NLP sport performance courses and also working with athletes on a one to one basis to deal with problems and enhance potential to bring South Africa even further into the limelight.
From extensive research and experience from her own international competing career, Emma has worked successfully with a number of teams and individuals dealing with optimisation through to individual problems such as confidence, low motivation, addiction and eating related disorders.
The potential in South Africa is astounding and her move from the UK also accentuates her belief that the UK’s athletes are less driven than those in other countries and the work ethic on our sports community has dropped compared to other emerging countries and their passion and commitment to succeed.
For further details on courses and individual coaching go to www.emmajamesnlp.co.uk and we look forward to seeing you in Cape Town!

Ecademy Marketplace: Time Line Therapy Practitioner Training in Bath, Somerset

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NLP Practitioner Certification in Bath £900 : Ecademy Marketplace

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Its a strange thing awareness.
Awareness of self, awareness of self in relation to others, awareness of ones place in the universe and so on.
However, at the moment of awareness, the question is – what are you aware of and what fraction of “reality” are you thinking you see?
As the Q and Jean Luc Picard mused over the “what if you were sentenced to death” in a parallel universe and the Star Ship Enterprise teetered on possible imminent death or a quantum paradox – the question might be – what effect we are having on our every decision of every waking moment we have.
If you didnt makwe the cup of tea – what endless possibilities could you be opening up, like the phone ringing and it being THE ultimate contract offer.
If you sit down and look at your goal in life, looking back at it from successful completion and notice the infinite possibilities of each and every decision leading up to that point, then, could you in fact notice a goal which you may not have considered and had not seen due to social implication, difficulty of change, discounting of possibility based on your alleged awareness of your limitations and the list is endless.
If you in fact believe that all your percieved boundaries are just there to hold your world together like a crispy filo pastry, then at any moment the soggy bottom of the pastry could in fact give way to allow the contents to enter into the infinite possibility of the path of descent.
So – when you think about your goals – peel away the confines of everything you thought you knew so far and see what the real possibilities are – you might be amazed at the paths you realise you can have and pursue at this very moment.