The Relaxation Room with Kathryn Dunn
Time that's yours, twice a month
It's half past nine. The house has gone quiet. You've got twenty minutes to yourself, and it's the first time all day.
You could put a relaxation recording on. You listened every night for about a fortnight back in March, and it helped. But you're going to scroll instead, and you knew that when you sat down.
That isn't you being lazy. You've got plenty of discipline. You've been managing this on your own for years, with not much help, around a job and a house and everybody else's plans.
What those twenty minutes have never had is a time, a place, and someone expecting you to turn up.
So that's all this is. Twice a month, in the diary, with me.
Nobody has to speak. Everything gets typed in the chat and I read it out loud. Your camera can stay off from start to finish.
Or £95 for the whole year, if you join before the first Sit Down on 3 November. That price stays the same for as long as you're a member.
What you're joining
An hour on the first Tuesday, twenty-five minutes on the third
The Sit Down
First Tuesday of the month, half past eight, on Zoom. It's an hour, and it's the main event.
The first twenty minutes are group contributions, and they all happen in the chat. Nobody speaks. I ask everyone the same question, how did you get on with it this month, and you type your answer. I read them and talk about what's in them.
I mean the relaxation, not your body. This is a relaxation session and not a clinic, so we keep it to whether you got to it and when. I say that out loud at the start of every session, so nobody's ever caught out by it.
Then ten minutes where I teach you one small thing.
Then thirty minutes of relaxation, and the hour ends there. There's nothing left to do but get ready for bed, taking that relaxed feeling with you.
The Lie Down Live
Third Tuesday, half past eight. Twenty-five minutes of pure relaxation, and there's nothing else in it. No group, no teaching, and nothing recorded.
You lie down if you can, and sit if you can't. I do the rest of it. It sits halfway through the month as a top-up or a restart, depending on how your month is going.
First Tuesday, 8.30pm. The Sit Down, an hour.
Third Tuesday, 8.30pm. The Lie Down Live, twenty-five minutes.
Last Tuesday, 8.30pm. The Drop-In, half an hour, free, for anyone.
The first Drop-In is Tuesday 27 October. The first Sit Down is Tuesday 3 November, and the first Lie Down Live is Tuesday 17 November.
Both are included in the £25. Come to both if you want to, or just one, or neither in a month when there's no room for it. Nobody's keeping a register.
The Drop-In is free and it's open to anybody, member or not.
Afterwards
This month's, and it comes to you
You get two things as a follow up to The Sit Down. An audio recording of the relaxation, and a video of the ten-minute tip.
Most people use the audio. You can have it on in the dark without looking at anything.
Both arrive by email, during the week of the session, so you've got them from the start of the month rather than the end of it.
There's no library, and that's on purpose rather than me being mean. If I gave you forty recordings you'd open four, feel bad about the rest, and stop using any of them by the end of the month. You get this month's, and I'd like you to wear it out because you listened so much.
Keep them if you want to. My aim is to work on one thing properly rather than collect a folder of recordings you never listen to.
The ten minutes
What we'll cover over the year
I'm not making this up on the Monday before. It's all written down, so you can see what's coming and pick out the months you'd rather not miss. Each relaxation will be recorded, along with the ten minute tip section.
We start with two that suit the time of year.
- November. The clocks have gone back, and why everything feels harder when they do
- December. Getting to January without arriving on your knees
Then the year proper, starting in January.
- January. What's happening in your body when you relax
- February. Why you can't relax on demand, and what to do instead
- March. Breathing, and the part nearly everybody gets wrong
- April. The tension you're holding that you stopped noticing years ago
- May. Rest and distraction aren't the same thing
- June. Winding down takes a while, it isn't a switch
- July. What to do when your mind won't stop talking
- August. What it costs you to brace for something that hasn't happened yet
- September. Where your attention goes when you're not watching it
- October. How to build a habit you'll keep
- November. Why it feels hardest on the days you need it most
- December. What to do with the twenty minutes after
If you only come to one all year, make it September.
Being straight with you
What I'm not saying
Stress and anxiety are a big part of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). That's a description of the condition. It's why wanting somewhere to relax isn't a strange thing for a woman with IBS to want.
It isn't a promise about what an hour on a Tuesday evening will do to your gut, and I'm not going to make you one.
These are general relaxation sessions, the same sort of thing as Twelve Minutes of Calm. They're not treatment, and they're not a cheaper way of getting the gut-directed work.
If the IBS work is what you're after, that's the one-to-one or the group, and the call to talk about it is free.
Questions people ask
Before you join
Why so late in the evening?
Because half past seven is still teatime, and phone calls, and other people wanting things. By half past eight most houses have gone quiet. It also means the relaxation is the last thing you do before bed, rather than something you come out of with two hours of evening still to get through. Everything in the room is at half past eight for that reason.
Do I have to lie down?
No. Sit if that's easier. A chair you can rest your head back on is plenty. The only thing that matters is that you're not holding yourself up.
What if I fall asleep?
That's fine, and it happens to nearly everyone at some point. You've still had the relaxation. If you're using the recording at bedtime then falling asleep is rather the idea.
Can I listen while I'm driving?
No. Not while you're driving, and not while you're doing anything else that needs you. These recordings are meant to make you drowsy. Wait until you're somewhere you can stop.
How often should I use the recording?
Every day, if you can manage it. That's how it works best, because it's a practice rather than a one-off.
If every day isn't realistic, a few times a week is fine. Do what you can to keep up.
What if my mind wanders the whole way through?
It will, and that isn't you doing it wrong. Noticing you've drifted off and coming back to my voice is the practice. You don't need a quiet mind to get something out of it.
What if I need the loo in the middle of a live session?
Go. Nobody will notice and nobody will mind. Come back when you're ready and pick it up where we are. You won't have to explain yourself.
Is the chat recorded?
No. The recording starts when I start teaching, so nothing from the first twenty minutes is kept, the chat included. What you get afterwards is me teaching and me doing the relaxation, and nobody else.
Do I have to say anything?
No. Nobody speaks in The Sit Down. The whole of the first twenty minutes goes in the chat, and you type as much or as little as you want. Reading and saying nothing is a perfectly good way to spend it.
How many people will be there?
As many as want to come. The number doesn't change what it's like, because nobody's speaking and nobody's waiting for a turn to come round to them. A busy month and a quiet month feel much the same.
Do I have to put my camera on?
Only if you want to. Plenty of people keep theirs off the whole time, and nobody will ask you why.
What if I can't make either session this month?
The relaxation audio and the tip video are both available until the next session, so you can do it in your own time. And a month where you get to nothing isn't a failure. It's a month.
Is this hypnosis?
These are general relaxation sessions. They use the same kind of settling and focusing you'd meet in the first part of a hypnotherapy session, but they're not treatment and they're not aimed at anything in particular.
Who's running it
Me, in case we haven't met
I'm Kathryn. I'm a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist in York. I qualified through the UK College of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy and I'm a member of the Federation of Holistic Therapists.
Most of my work is with women who've had IBS for years. That's where I learned how much of a day can go on being braced for something.
I run these because relaxation is the part everybody agrees helps and almost nobody keeps up. Not because they don't want to. Because there's never a reason to do it on a Tuesday rather than tomorrow.
So I made one.
The price
£25 a month, for both sessions
The Sit Down and The Lie Down Live, the relaxation audio and the tip video emailed to you at the start of the month, and a new subject taught every month.
You can cancel from inside your own account whenever you like. You don't have to write to me and explain.
Founding rate, until 3 November
£95 for the year
If you'd rather pay once and forget about it. It's less than a third of what the monthly works out at, and it stays at £95 every year for as long as you're a member. Not just the first one.
It closes when the first Sit Down starts, on Tuesday 3 November. So you can come to the free Drop-In on 27 October, see what it's like, and still decide afterwards. Then it's gone, and I won't be doing it again.
Not sure yet
Come to a Drop-In first. It costs nothing.
Happens on the last Tuesday of every month, half past eight, half an hour on Zoom. Anybody can come, and you don't have to be a member or intending to be one.
It's a smaller version of The Sit Down. A few minutes for questions, then twelve minutes or so of relaxation, then I tell you what the membership is in case you want it. That's the whole of the sales part, and it's at the end, so you can leave before it if you'd rather.
You'll know in the first five minutes whether mine's a voice you can listen to. That's really what you're there to find out.
The first one is Tuesday 27 October, which is before the founding rate closes.
Or start with nothing at all
There's a free version
Twelve Minutes of Calm is a free general relaxation recording, and it comes with Gut Feelings, one short email a week. Plenty of people stay there for months before they want anything else, and that's a perfectly sensible way to go about it.
And on the last Tuesday of every month at half past eight there's The Drop-In: half an hour live, free, for anyone who turns up. The first one is Tuesday 27 October.