Hi

I'm Wessex. Other people my age would call themselves retired, but I am not retired (from living, that is!). Oh, I don't do the day job anymore, but as I took redundancy from that and I don't call myself "Redundant (from Worthing)", do I? Does anyone?

After the redundancy package, for which I volunteered, let me hasten to say (can't have you thinking I was slung out, useless, unwanted, incompetent, or whatever), my wife and I moved home from Weybridge where I was Senior Lecturer in Health and Safety (a phrase that I worked so hard to get accepted as a necessary evil, in the workplace and is now considered an unnecessary evil - everywhere!) and relocated to a little place called Sompting, two miles east of Worthing.

I had got my Diploma in Hypnotherapy in 1987 and my NLP Practitioner's Certificate in 1996, could listen as well as talk a bit, so when I got too out-of-date in Health and Safety, I moved over into Therapy, using my hypnotherapy and NLP skills, to which I had added Reiki, and five years ago, EFT.

I practised for five years before deciding that it wasn't a viable proposition to spend 50% of my time just working to pay the accountants and the tax man and I "retired" myself. I suppose that, as I have fill in forms with the word "Retired" under the request for "Occupation", I have to admit to being retired. It does make form filling so much easier just to say "Retired". You don't, then, have to complete the name, address and telephone number of your "Employer" (or get references!)

These days, I still get the odd referral, and I do it for friends and family. Teaching people to do EFT is easy and it's a very effective form of treatment for many psychosocial problems. If there is a demand (or a request) I could write an article for this Forum.

I read a lot. I had read all the standard NLP books that were going, at the time (i.e. 12 years ago), though I do not now buy any NLP books. An exception will be Andrew Austins "The Rainbow Machine", but I won't be buying that to learn about NLP - more because it will be a darned good read, and Andrew's experiences should be most interesting. Incidentally, I have read several questions in this Forum about obtaining the book. If you go to Amazon, you will find a link to New and Used copies of the book and, paradoxically, you will find that you can buy a new copy of the book for under £9 and used versions for much more. Wierd, or what?

No, these days, my reading material has gone beyond NLP, although you can read NLP 'between the lines' in many of the books. Cell therapy and Energy are two of the 'in topics' these days. Even qualified medical professionals are joining the act to write about Energy Therapy, using the power of the unconscious mind, meditation, visualisation and other techniques which border on or include NLP.

Well, that's an opener. I feel that I will be able to contribute to this forum, especially in trying to summarise Energy Works and Cell Therapy and getting some discussions going on those topics.