I know it has been a while since Glastonbury, but I did want to write a few words on this years event so here goes.

For the third time I was delighted to have been accepted to work in the Healing Fields at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.

Previously I have been located in an area called the Crescent alongside other therapists whose specialism was body work of some form – massage, reflexology, cranial sacral therapy, Indian Head massage etc. Well, being the only hypnotherapist ever to have worked at the festival I guess it is possibly a bit tricky to figure out where to put me!

This year however I was really pleased to be given an area in Soothsayers Avenue. This is the main walkway through the Healing Field and as well as a few massage therapists in the communal tents, I was in the company of Tarot readers, Fortune tellers, Palm readers, Reiki and other healers.

The result was that I was extremely busy virtually the whole time and as in previous years I was continually astonished at the openminded nature of the festival goers as well as their honesty and candour when talking to me about their problems and aspirations.

From the 50+ year old smoker who had had a quadruple bypass and still couldn’t stop, to a recovering anorexic, to people who were trying to lose weight or having problems with alcohol, to someone trying to improve their sexual performance, to people suffering with depression, anxiety and stress, to school and college leavers and the unemployed who were struggling to gain the confidence to cope with whatever the next stage in their lives holds for them, they all “suspended their critical faculties” long enough for me to be able to establish “selective thinking” and hopefully help them achieve whatever they wanted from the session. Of course there were some who just wanted to experience hypnotism.

In the festival scenario it is not possible to spend ages on helping people to achieve the hypnotic state so the famous Dave Elman rapid Hypnosis induction technique came in for lots of use as did Barry Thain’s Wrist Lift. Using these faster inductions means that I have time to have a good talk about what they want to change, ensure the goals are appropriate and that there are no contradictions to hypnotherapy and actually do some healing and therapy work!

One or two were not hypnotisable at all and in those cases I introduced them to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy where relevant and talked about how it could be used to help them.

To all of them I say thank you for making this years event the best so far, for me at least. I even had a queue of people sitting in the sun outside my gazebo waiting to be hypnotised on Sunday.

I managed to meet up with some family members too. My lovely niece Ellie and her friends popped by to say hello, as did my brother Howard (who was working with James Blake) and his two wonderful daughters. It was great to see them, as well as a few friends and naturally the other healers that I last saw in 2011 especially Judy and Shelley, two wonderful massage therapists.

I experienced a TaiChi lesson and then an energy stimulating Chi Gung lesson from Jacob Jones who also organises the Healing Field.  You can find him and information about Chi Gung here LearnChiGung  I definitely plan to explore them both a bit more.

I was even interviewed by Q magazine and they gave me a paragraph or so in their special Festival edition which was a new experience for me!

Musical highlights? Amongst others I saw Bristol band Foreign Affairs, Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, Sinead O’Connor, Portishead, Rolling Stones and Lucinda Williams. And then of course there was Arcadia.

For me though the best performance by a long way was Steve Winwood in the Acoustic Tent on the Saturday evening. I managed to get very close to the front and he played a wonderful set full of hits from Spencer Davis Group, Blind Faith and Traffic days as well as from his solo work. “Dear Mr Fantasy” shredded my emotions and reduced me to tears as always. It is interesting to note that the last time he played Glastonbury was in 1971!

I also loved the music and the atmosphere later on after the main stages had closed at the Lizard and Small World Cafes in the Green Fields where a great variety of bands play on until the very small hours and where the time taken to obtain a cup of Chai or Hot Chocolate can test the patience of virtually anyone. But then this is Glastonbury and time has no meaning here!

A great Festival… and I only needed to wear my wellies for a short time!