Yesterday evening I returned from a fleeting visit to Iceland where I was teaching hypnosis, self-hypnosis along with rapid inductions and hypnotic phenomena in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Last May I taught a couple of one day seminars before running the Edinburgh marathon. One of the people in my class that day was a very lovely man named Ingibergur Thorkelsson. It turned out that a few years ago, he set up Dáleiðsluskóli Íslands, a hypnotherapy training school in Reykjavik, Iceland. Some impressive and well known figures in the field of hypnotherapy had taught there and Inky (Ingibergur’s nickname) invited me to come along and do the same.

Due to such a busy schedule this year, I was not able to spend any additional time in Iceland to travel and see some more of the sights, but what I did see was lovely. Icelandic tap water is amazing…. The cold water comes via glaciers and volcanoes and is like fresh, bottled mineral water. The hot water comes straight up from the ground and is already hot so boilers are not used to heat the water. I got pretty impressed by the water situation while I was there!

We had a busy classroom and the students were very keen to learn and were very open to what I had to say. Here is the official group photo:

Whenever you teach overseas, there is the worry that my own very animated and energetic style of teaching is going to be received differently by people of different countries; mainly because I have a very particular sense of humour that works it’s way through and into my teaching.

The subject of hypnotherapy being taught, especially when you have such a strong academic and evidence based leaning as I have, which is then punctuated with lots of hypnosis practical sessions, can be tiring. So I put a lot of consideration and care into creating a stimulating learning environment to keep students engaged and interested. This often means the addition of appropriate humour, and when you travel overseas you can never be sure how your humour is likely to be received.

It became apparent to me within 5 minutes of being in class that this was not going to be a problem in Iceland. The people of Iceland have a wonderful sense of humour and we had a lot of fun in class. They even let me take a class selfie at one point, I always think it is incredibly important to take a selfie stick with you when you are teaching overseas, right?

We also got down to some serious learning.

Very often when I teach, especially when I am teaching hypnotherapists with existing training under their belts. My own academic stance and adherence to evidence base often conflicts with some of what is taught by other training organisations who teach hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Most training schools and colleges teaching front-line hypnotherapy do not tend to teach much that has any academic or evidence based material, so again I was a little unsure how my own teaching would be received.

Even though I did rein things in a bit while there, the class were incredibly open and receptive to what was being taught. We had a class filled with people experiencing a wide variety of hypnotic phenomena and when things are like that, you know they are engaging with the field and what is being taught.

Whilst there, I was incredibly well looked after and had babysitters every night, my thanks to everyone who took the time to have dinner and share the laughs with me when we were out. I got to visit a Viking restaurant and ate a lot of traditional food and enjoyed local drinks, as well as other local traditional restaurants where I got to eat the celebratory meal that is eaten at Christmas.

On one of the evenings, I even got to stop and have my picture alongside an Elf hill. If you want to learn more about the Elves in Iceland, which over half of the population believe in, then visit my friend Regina’s website where she shares many tales about them and shares pictures of many of the most beautiful places in Iceland.

I also got to have a small run around Reykjavik with some local trail runners on Sunday morning before class and the scenery is breathtaking. I am assured that as you travel further away from the city, it gets even more beautiful and so I plan to return with more time in the future, maybe even go and run Reykjavik marathon and see the sights in more detail then.

Icelandair airline were brilliant too, I would recommend flying with them and not Easyjet if you ever travel to Iceland, Icelandair were a different class and their planes are so comfortable.

I bought my kids back a couple of Icelandic knitted jumpers, look how cute they are….

Just a brief note about my travels today then, I am trying desperately to get caught up. I am lecturing here in Bournemouth again tomorrow night too, on the subject of hypnosis and the brain, the neuroscientific perspective. Then back to my hypnotherapy diploma course this coming weekend, so there is no let up here.

Will be back on the blog here very soon too though….