10/12 - Desperate For Real Inner Peace

Having been saved by grace on that 23rd-storey balcony in Vancouver, Canada, life continued.

Business growth continued.
Speaking opportunities continued.
Credibility and respect continued to increase.

I was invited to become a post-graduate lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The picture-perfect life continued.

Outwardly, everything was wonderful.
Inwardly, nothing had changed.

My inner world remained shrouded in a darkness that no amount of therapy seemed able to reach. No matter how much I opened up about childhood, teenage years, or adult experiences, I was not free.

The destructive voice was still there.
The distorted thought patterns remained.
The fear of marital collapse.
The fear of business collapse.

And I was still expertly wearing the mask.

Easter Sunday, 2018

At the beginning of 2018, my wife and I made a joint decision to christen our three daughters.

My wife had been christened as a baby but had not been raised within active Christian faith. My sisters and I had not been christened.

It made sense that if our daughters were to be christened, I would be too.

We contacted the village Reverend. She welcomed us warmly and confirmed I could be christened alongside our girls.

The date was set.

Easter Sunday.
1st April 2018.

A significant date in history - and, as I would later understand, significant in my own.

The service was beautiful. Family and friends gathered. At the end, the Reverend gifted each of us a Bible.

I received a brown NLT Bible.
Our daughters received age-appropriate versions.

That evening, I decided to begin reading.
After all, this marked a new chapter.

I opened the Bible and began reading.

The words meant nothing to me.

I tried again the following night.
And the night after that.
Old Testament. New Testament.

Nothing landed. Nothing resonated. It felt confusing. Overwhelming.

After several evenings, I turned to the contents page and looked at the structure.

Did I need to start at Genesis 1 and read all the way through before it would make sense?

The thought alone overwhelmed me.

I had purchased many entrepreneurial books over the years. I would dip into chapters of interest. I had read only one book cover to cover at that point - REWORK by the founders of 37signals.

But this book - the Bible - felt impenetrable.

After about a week of trying, I stopped.

I placed it in my bedside drawer.
It began gathering dust.

Christianity, in practical terms within our home, lasted about seven days.

No prayer.
No grace at meals.
No Scripture.
No church attendance.
Nothing changed.

The Summer of 2018

Life continued.

Family holidays. Laughter. Shared moments.

Externally, abundance.
Internally, chains.

By October 2018, I was once again driving to see Mike for another therapy session. It had been around five years since I first Googled “psychologists in Cheshire.”

I had opened up about childhood trauma. Teenage years. Adult guilt and shame.

Yet I was still not free.

During that session, I told Mike I believed something deeper remained - but that I felt we were going in circles.

He agreed.

We were discussing the same themes we had discussed five years earlier.

So I suggested hypnotherapy.

Perhaps something had been suppressed so deeply that only hypnosis could surface it.

Mike recommended a hypnotherapist named Andrew.

I contacted him.

On our first call, I explained:

“I’ve done five years of therapy. I’ve opened up about childhood. About pain. But I’m still not free. I’m still hurting my wife. I’m still battling.”

Andrew was calm. Unphased. He explained that often within three to five sessions, people experience real freedom.

On that call, I remember thinking:

“THIS IS IT. This is what I’ve needed. Hypnotherapy holds the key.”

The Five Core Themes

In my first session with Andrew, he asked me to describe what I wanted freedom from.

As I spoke, tears came.

Memories between the ages of 10 and 15.
Experiences I had disclosed years earlier.
Still shaping how I treated my wife.
Still shaping my inner world.

After listening for around half an hour, Andrew summarised five core themes:

• Mistrust and paranoia within my marriage

• Fear and insecurity in business - despite record growth

• Inability to feel sustained gratitude for the life I was living

• Deep condemnation and a belief that this was permanent - that I would never be free.

And finally, he said:

“It sounds like what you really want is inner peace?”

I responded immediately.

“Yes. More than anything. I want continuous inner peace. Not temporary relief after a session. Real inner peace.”