If you’ve found your way here, you could be feeling like a guest star in your own movie—saying lines that aren’t quite your own, living a version of yourself that feels somehow diminished. Whether you’re an actor facing audition anxiety, a creative battling imposter thoughts, or simply someone navigating the maze of self-doubt, cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy might offer the compass you’ve been seeking to navigate the maze of shame and self-doubt. I’m so glad you’ve arrived.
This space is for anyone who feels out of step, who’s learnt to make do rather than reach for more. Someone who wonders if there’s a different version of their life story waiting to be discovered. If that resonates with you, then we already have something in common.
Life rarely unfolds in straight lines. Mine has been a collection of stops and starts, detours, and sometimes what felt like dead-end streets—each apparent misstep guiding me towards this moment, this work, this conversation with you.
The Story Behind Thought Compass
Twenty years ago, while working in the corporate world of graphic design, I was living with a quiet malaise—social anxiety threaded through with shame, though, at the time, I lacked the language to name what I was experiencing. I felt out of step with being a gay man—as much an outsider in the gay community as in the straight one. When a relationship ended, this conflict between who I was and who I wanted to be brought with it the realisation that I wanted things to be different, that there might be another way to move through the world.
When a friend suggested hypnotherapy, I was sceptical but curious what might happen. What I discovered changed everything—not overnight, but slowly, like light seeping under a door.
Hypnotherapy gave me something I hadn’t realised I was missing: stillness within my body. The release that came with hypnotic relaxation made me feel a foot taller, more present in my flesh, more comfortable expressing what I needed to say. Unlike other approaches that dwelt endlessly on what had gone before, this work was focused on what I wanted to change. It helped bring me back into alignment with myself.
But life has its own rhythm. I continued to work in the corporate world for several more years—not living a lie, exactly, but a diminished version of myself. It felt like the compromise of financial security had removed the possibility of passion and curiosity from my work life. I was making do rather than reaching for more.
When I returned to acting and voice work after all those years, it felt like coming home to who I was. In becoming more honest with myself, I was drawing on some of the centring work I’d found in hypnotherapy, though at the time it didn’t occur to me to bring the two aspects together.
When Everything Changed
Change doesn’t always happen because we choose it. When my mother had a stroke it felt like a brake slamming my life into a full stop. Day by day in the hospital, I was blessed to witness her work so hard to regain autonomy and independence, something the doctors doubted was possible. I watched her piece her mind back together, rediscovering the ability to walk, which was key to being able to return home, working around the devastating damage the stroke had wrought.
As her carer, my career has had to take a secondary place. But what I gained was invaluable: witnessing the profound truth that anything is possible if you decide to go for it. There may be limitations you can’t change, but the ones that can be shifted—if you persist and decide to make it happen—you will have some measure of success. The question becomes: am I at my limit yet, or is there still somewhere to go?
During the post-Covid period, struggling with sleep like many people, I began using hypnotherapy recordings from the internet. Once I saw how effective they were, I started exploring hypnosis for other issues. I’d also worked with a cognitive behavioural therapist who gave me the vocabulary to describe the inner landscape of thoughts and beliefs that were limiting me. However, I noticed that insight alone didn’t promote the lasting change I needed. I wondered if hypnosis was the hidden glue I needed to make things stick together.
I was delighted to discover it was possible to train in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH)—which has brought me to this new and exciting stage of my unfolding journey.
Why Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy Works for Actors and Creatives
As a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist who understands that challenges of a performer’s journey, I’ve seen how traditional therapy can sometimes fall short for creatives. This approach offers something different—it combines the structured insight of cognitive behavioural therapy with the transformative power of hypnosis to create lasting change that works both on stage and off. It is goal oriented, focused on identifying what is holding us back and then finding innovative ways to chart a new path.
For actors dealing with audition anxiety or stage fright, cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy addresses both the thoughts that fuel performance anxiety and the nervous system responses that keep you trapped in old patterns. Whether you’re struggling with imposter thoughts in the rehearsal room or carrying shame that affects your creative expression, CBT hypnotherapy helps you rewrite those inherited scripts that were never truly yours.
The Weight We Were Never Meant to Carry
Here’s what I’ve learnt about the burdens we carry: We learn so young that the world holds criticism and judgement against us—sometimes deserved, sometimes not. Our danger-aware brain, trying to keep us safe from the damage of other people’s judgement, internalises the voice of criticism. It doesn’t mean to cause us damage, but in trying to limit what may be done to us, we perpetuate as much damage on ourselves as others ever could.
So often these criticisms take the place of stories, predictions of the future. When we’re burdened by other people’s expectations and stories, we don’t have the freedom of mind to ask if those stories matter or have relevance for us.
A Different Story to tell
Like most people, my journey has been one of stops and starts, apparent wrong turns that were actually exactly right. It’s easy to sit in judgment and say “if only I had done this or that.” But that would have been a different story—or maybe it’s just a different edit of the life I have lived.
This is what I want to offer you: a space to ask what burdens you feel you’re carrying that force one interpretation of your life. Is there an alternative viewpoint that says it’s just a story that can be changed or reinterpreted?
Through cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy, I help people identify the scripts they’ve inherited, the lines they never auditioned for, and gently rewrite them. We use the structured insight of CBT to understand the patterns, rewrite the script and then use hypnosis to integrate new possibilities at a level that sticks.
This approach is particularly powerful for performers and creatives who need tools that work under pressure—whether that’s walking into an audition room, stepping onto a stage, or simply showing up authentically in their daily lives. Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy helps transform stage fright into creative energy and audition anxiety into focused presence.
Finding a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist Who Understands actors
If you’re reading this, there’s a part of you that’s ready to begin asking different questions. Maybe you’re ready to feel more present in your own flesh, more aligned with who you actually are beneath the protective masks.
You’re not broken, you don’t need to be fixed, you need to be found. The version of yourself you’re longing to become has been here all along, just waiting for permission to breathe. How would it be if you could locate your inner compass and bring your life into alignment with your goals?
Sometimes the first step feels uncertain—it might even feel like a leap of faith. But together, we can make it manageable. Your story isn’t finished. It’s just waiting for a different edit.
Ready to explore how cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy can help you navigate from self-doubt to presence? I offer a free 20-minute conversation to see if we might be a good fit for working together. Whether you’re dealing with performance anxiety, creative blocks, or simply feeling stuck in old patterns, let’s have a chat about what’s possible.
